Six New York City-based composers have been chosen as winners of the 2010 Con Edison Musicians’ Residency: Composition Program.  The winners will each receive use of suitable composition and rehearsal space in one of three cultural facilities for a three-month period, as well as a stipend.

Host facilities for 2010 are Flushing Town Hall, Flushing, Queens; Florence E. Smith Community Center, Corona, Queens; and Turtle Bay Music School, Manhattan.

The 2010 winners of the Con Edison Musicians’ Residency: Composition Program are:

Joseph Di Ponio divides his work between acoustic and electronic composition, and has composed music for theatre, art installations and silent films. During his residency, Mr. Di Ponio plans to work on two projects: a commission for Queens-based Lost Dog New Music Ensemble employing non-traditional ways of playing the flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano; and a piece for piano and live electronics that will process and experiment with the residual sounds made in the act of playing a piano.

Composer-performer Evan Mazunik is composer/director of ZAHA, an experimental chamber ensemble, and plays accordion throughout the New York City area.  Mr. Mazunik plans to use his time in residence to compose Trigger’s Broom, an emergent suite for chamber ensemble.  This concert work will incorporate Soundpainting -- a sign language for live composition -- graphic scores, structured improvisation and traditional notation to produce an open-form, multi-movement suite.  He also plans to lead a hands-on masterclass/workshop demonstrating the multidisciplinary uses of Soundpainting.

A Yamaha Piano Artist whose work is grounded in classical composition, Steven Rosenhaus also plays mandolin and guitar and is influenced by folk music, blues, country and rock.  He has written works for the U.S. Navy Band, Carson City Symphony, and Meridian String Quartet, among others, as well as music and lyrics for several shows, including Free-the-Music.Com (2001).  During his time in residence, Mr. Rosenhaus will be working on three commissions: a piece for the New York Repertory Orchestra, a chamber work for the New York Chapter of Music Teachers National Association, and a work for the U.S. Navy CNE Band stationed in Naples, Italy.

Judith Sainte Croix performs global folk and contemporary music with the Sonora Trio, and plays a wide array of instruments, including piano, synthesizer, and flutes and drums indigenous to the Americas.  Her sound palette often explores contrasts -- driving rhythms and lyrical passages, ancient and futuristic sounds -- and her compositions frequently express themes of social and environmental awareness.  During her time in residence, Ms. Sainte Croix plans to complete a suite of pieces for the Sonora Trio based on her experiences in Costa Rica, as well as rehearse and develop her opera, The Vine of the Soul. 

A jazz pianist and composer with three albums to her credit, Helen Sung synthesizes facets of her experience into her music.  An Asian-American raised in the South, trained in classical piano and violin, and later drawn to jazz, her compositions embrace unusual structures, various grooves and rhythms, and unconventional sources of inspiration.  Ms. Sung will use her residency to develop a new project entitled Sung With Words.  It features a vocalist and jazz piano trio performing original compositions as “settings” for poems by Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and former NEA Chairman Dan Gioia.

Octavio Vazquez strives to approach classical composition in a way that is at once experimental, eclectic and sober.  He has been commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts, Galicia Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Guernica Project, Fulbright Foundation, Barrie Foundation, and Meet the Composer, among others.  Mr. Vazquez will use his residency to work on a multi-movement piece for cello and piano that incorporates themes by 16th-century Spanish composer-organist Antonio de Cabezòn and traditional Sephardic melodies, providing an in-depth exploration of the expressive possibilities of the cello-piano pairing.

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A public program component of each Con Edison Musicians’ Residency -- such as a free public workshop, master class, public performance or other community-based activity -- will be presented by each host facility. 

Applicants were judged on their composer’s statement, project proposal, and two samples of their music.  Winners were selected based on the artistic merit and quality of their proposed project or work in progress.  Participating as panel judges were Vivian Fung, Steven Hitt, Min Xiao-Fen, Gayle Morgan, and Samita Sinha.

The Con Edison Musicians’ Residency had its genesis in NYC Performing Arts Spaces’ 2008 study “Where Can We Work?”.  The program debuted in 2009 with three musicians in residence at Flushing Town Hall, Queens.  Funding comes from Con Edison, The Amphion Foundation, the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, the Reed Foundation, and individuals. 

NYC Performing Arts Spaces, which developed and administers the Musicians' Residencies, is a program of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit organization serving the basic resource needs of a national community of performing and visual artists and arts organizations.  For more information, contact David Johnston at davidj@nycPASpaces.org.