A few days ago, we announced our Con Edison Musicians’ Residency grantees, and we’re very pleased and excited at the caliber of artists for this program. But we’d be remiss without mention of our fantastic panelists for this year. With recommendations from Queens Council on the Arts, we assembled a panel of professional musicians, composers, presenters – even one grantmaker. Our panelists met at space generously donated by our friends at the American Music Center. Over two days, panelists evaluated 140 work samples from 70 applicants and came up with our six residents. Since we’ve now announced our winners, we can announce the panelists - and thank them for their time, effort and expertise. ********************************* Vivian Fung embraces non-Classical influences, including jazz and non-Western sources such as Indonesian gamelan music and folksongs from the minority regions of China. Her compositions have been commissioned and performed by such ensembles as the Seattle Symphony, Shanghai String Quartet, and Ying Quartet. Ms. Fung is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School and is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre.
Steven Hitt is the Managing Director for the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center and Assistant Professor of Dance at LaGuardia Community College. Mr. Hitt has appeared on Broadway and in the International Company of A Chorus Line, danced at the Metropolitan Opera House with American Ballet Theatre in Sleeping Beauty, sang at Carnegie Hall, and performed at the Apollo.
For more than 20 years, Gayle Morgan administered the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust’s grant program for music performance and education institutions, creating grant programs that financed nearly 600 composer commissions and new music recordings. In preparation for the Trust’s termination in 2009, Ms. Morgan was responsible for the distribution of nearly $23 million in assets to 50 New York City music institutions and programs.
Pipa player and composer Min Xiao-Fen is a world-recognized virtuoso in both orchestral and underground projects. Ms. Min was a pipa soloist with the Nanjing Traditional Music Orchestra in China, the winner of the Jiangsu national pipa competition, and is the founder of Blue Pipa, Inc. She was recently a featured soloist at the Macao Arts Festival, the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and the Great Mountains International Music Festival (Korea).
Trained in classical Hindustani vocal music, composer/performer Samita Sinha uses the range of her voice together with electronics and multilingual text in solo performance and multichannel vocal pieces. She has been awarded grants from the Urban Artist Initiative and Queens Council on the Arts, a Fulbright Scholarship to study music in India, and has been a composer-in-residence and two-time juror at Millay Colony on the Arts.
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