Clexical

Ep. 18: Interview with Osnat Netzer

Osnat Netzer /osˈnat ˈnɛtsɛʁ/ is a composer, performer and educator. Osnat creates her compositions collaboratively, tailoring her work to the performer’s sensibilities, physicality and improvisational inclinations. She takes inspiration from cognitive linguistics, and in dialogue with the embodied experience of physical forces, such as potential and kinetic energy, resulting in compositions that are rich in musical languages and connected to the fulsome pursuit for tension and relaxation.
Born in Haifa, Israel, Netzer studied composition and piano at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where her primary composition teacher was Menachem Zur. She came to the United States in 2003 for graduate studies in composition with Robert Cuckson at Mannes school of Music and continued her studies with Lee Hyla at New England Conservatory, where she earned her doctorate in 2011. In 2019, she joined the faculty of DePaul University, where she is now Associate Professor of Composition and Musicianship.
Netzer’s works have been commissioned and performed by Ensemble Dal Niente, ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), Patchwork, mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae, bass David Salsbery Fry, saxophonists Kenneth Radnofsky, Doug O’Connor and Geoffrey Landman, Spektral Quartet, and Winsor Music, among many others, published by Edition Peters and earthsongs, and recorded on Bridge Records and New Focus Recordings.
Her opera, The Wondrous Woman Within, was described as “riotously funny” in The New York Times when its first scene was performed at New York City Opera’s VOX festival in 2012 and “challenging and fascinating” by critic Amir Kidron when it received its World Premiere in a sold out run at Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theatre in 2015.
As a pianist and performer, she regularly plays and conducts new music by fellow composers, as well as her own songs and compositions. Also a committed and passionate educator, Netzer teaches at The Walden School and has served on the faculties of New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music of Bard College and Harvard University.

Ep. 17: Interview with Christopher Cerrone

Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, New York) is internationally acclaimed for compositions characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. Balancing lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details, dramatic impact, and interiority, Cerrone’s multi-GRAMMY-nominated music is utterly compelling and uniquely his own.
Cerrone’s opera, In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), jointly produced by LA Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, was called “stunning” (Opera News) and “outstanding” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) in its sold-out premiere run directed by Mary Birnbaum in March 2022. Other recent projects include The Year of Silence, based on the story of the same name by Kevin Brockmeier, for the Louisville Symphony and baritone Dashon Burton; A Body, Moving, a brass concerto for the Cincinnati Symphony; Breaks and Breaks, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; The Insects Became Magnetic, an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; The Air Suspended, a piano concerto for Shai Wosner; and Meander, Spiral, Explode, a percussion quartet concerto co-commissioned by Third Coast Percussion, the Chicago Civic Orchestra of the Chicago Symphony and the Britt Festival.
Upcoming projects include Beaufort Scales, an oratorio for voices, electronics, and video commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble to premiere at Mass MoCA; a new percussion quartet co-commissioned by Sandbox Percussion, Blow Up Percussion, and the Park Avenue Armory, and new large works for the LA Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth.
Cerrone’s first opera, Invisible Cities, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist, was praised by the Los Angeles Times as “A delicate and beautiful opera…[which] could be, and should be, done anywhere.” Invisible Cities received its fully-staged world premiere in a wildly popular production by The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon, in Los Angeles’ Union Station. Both the film and opera are available as CDs, DVDs, and digital downloads. In July 2019, New Amsterdam Records released his GRAMMY-nominated sophomore effort, The Pieces that Fall to Earth, collaborating with the LA-based chamber orchestra, Wild Up, to widespread acclaim. The Arching Path, from 2021 (In a Circle Records), features performances by Timo Andres, Ian Rosenbaum, Lindsay Kesselman, and Mingzhe Wang and was nominated for a 2022 GRAMMY.
His most recent release, a studio version of In a Grove, was named one of the best recordings of 2023 by The New York Times: “A vividly immersive thriller... not a word or note is without purpose, and both are captured, if not enhanced, in this richly produced recording.” Cerrone won the 2015–2016 Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition and was a resident at the Laurenz Haus Foundation in Basel, Switzerland from 2022–2023.
 

Ep. 16: Interview with Javier Farias

Chilean American composer Javier Farias has been awarded First Prize in the Andrés Segovia Composition Competition, International Composing Competition «2 Agosto,» and Michele Pittaluga Composition Competition. In 2014 he was honored with the Fromm Music Foundation Prize at Harvard University for a concerto for two guitars composed for Sérgio and Odair Assad and the YOA Orchestra of the Americas. His catalog consists of works ranging from solo guitar to full guitar ensemble to others featuring or incorporating the guitar into compositions for chamber ensembles, choral music, and orchestral settings, including five guitar concertos, having outstanding musicians such as the guitarist of the band The Police, Andy Summers; bandoneonist of Astor Piazzolla’s sextet, Daniel Binelli; jazz guitarist Mike Stern or classical guitarist Eliot Fisk premiering and recording his music.
His compositions have premiered in lauded venues such as Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Instituto Cervantes in New York City, the Kennedy Center, Tsuda Hall in Japan, Meistersaal in Berlin, Troy Music Hall, and by the Organization of American States among others.  His music written for guitar has also been included in guitar program repertoire for conservatories including the Conservatoire de Paris, Yale University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen.

Ep. 15: Interview with Andres Soto

Andrés Soto is a Costa Rican composer based in Los Angeles with an active career in both film and concert music. He has written music for several feature films, documentaries, shorts, trailers and video games, as well as numerous concert works that have been performed by orchestras around the world, (including the Nashville Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Florida Orchestra), and in 2024 the New York Philharmonic and the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony will jointly premiere an upcoming work as part of a grant from the Sphinx Foundation.
 Recent albums include “Doce Musas”, recorded by 12 emerging pianists from his native Costa Rica, and three albums for Universal, including  “Champion Beats”, co-written with Grammy-winning producer Alex Hitchens and recorded at Capitol Studios, with tracks that have appeared on ABC, ESPN, Univision, Golf Channel, NBA, Tennis Channel, Fox, and other channels. In 2022 he collaborated with producer/ composer Daniel Rojas by writing  incidental music for the celebrated 90th Pageant of the Masters at the Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach.
Recent feature films include the sports documentary King Otto (available on Peacock), the sci-fi Órbita Prima; Nowhere (nominated for Best Film Score in Colombia’s national film awards), the comedy He Matado a mi Marido; and a coming-of-age family film, Buscando a Marcos Ramírez. 
He has twice received rare Honorable Mentions in the National Prize in Composition (Costa Rica) for his works Amalgama (2018) and Pas de Deux (2022). He made his Carnegie Hall compositional debut in 2015 and has led workshops and masterclasses on film scoring and composition at USC, University of Costa Rica, Spain, New Jersey and the University of South Dakota.  Andrés’s music is published by Symphonica Productions.

Ep. 14: Interview with Nicolas Bell Benavides

Nicolás Lell Benavides’ (Ben-ah-VEE-des) music has been praised for finding “…a way to sketch complete characters in swift sure lines…” (Anne Midgette, Washington Post) and cooking up a “jaunty score [with] touches of cabaret, musical theater and Latin dance.” (Tim Smith, OPERA NEWS). He has received commissions from groups like The New York Philharmonic/The Juilliard School, Eighth Blackbird, New Century Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Hope, SFCM Orchestra with Edwin Outwater, West Edge Opera, Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Music of Remembrance, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Fry Street Quartet, Friction Quartet, and Khemia Ensemble. His music has received support from organizations such as the American Composers Forum, The Barlow Endowment, New Music USA, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ep. 13: Interview with Chen Yi

As a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries, Dr. Chen Yi is a recipient of the Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. She has been Lorena Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of Music and Dance in the University of Missouri-Kansas City since 1998. She was elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005, and the American Academy of Arts & Letters in 2019.
Fellowships and commissioning awards were received from Guggenheim Foundation (1996), American Academy of Arts and Letters (1996), Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (1994), Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress (1997), and National Endowment for the Arts (1994). Honors include the first prizes from the Chinese National Composition Competition (1985, 2012), the Lili Boulanger Award (1993), the NYU Sorel Medal Award (1996), the CalArts/Alpert Award (1997), the UT Eddie Medora King Composition Prize (1999), the ASCAP Concert Music Award (2001), the Elise Stoeger Award (2002) from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Ep. 12: Interview with Thomas Gueglio

Tomás Gueglio is an Argentine composer currently based in Chicago. In his creative work, he devises surreal sound worlds through the blending of a variety of musical lineages and styles. Elements central to his recent work are private languages, the logic of dreams, and, as of late, melodramas and radio soap operas.
“Tomás Gueglio creates musical environments that facilitate subtle examinations of timbre, phrase, and gesture. He eschews bombastic surface activity in favor of substantial multi-layered textures. The results are beguiling and moving, music that lives in a space that is balanced between the visceral and tactile on one side and the curated and meticulous on the other. ”
— Dan Lippel. Liner notes for Duermevela

Ep. 11: Interview with Anna Weesner

The music of Anna Weesner (winner of 2018 American Academy of Arts and Letters Virgil Thomson Award and 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship) has been performed by widely (including: Abramovic; ACO; Arnold; Bandwidth; Beck; Bowers; Cassatt; Chamber Music at Lincoln Center; Counter)induction; Cuckson; Curtis 20/21; Cygnus ; Cypress; Daedalus ; de Guise-Langlois ; Eighth Blackbird; Fader; Goode; Kang; Kraines; Lark; Look and Listen; Morales; Network; NY Virtuoso Singers; Open End; Pearson; Prism; Riverside Symphony; Sequitur; Shao; Stillman; Stinson; Tanglewood; Upshaw; Waggoner; Watras; WCM). Violin at age five and flute as a teenager in youth orchestra were formative experiences. Radio presets in her car are heavy on pop. Her recent output includes My Mother in Love, ten songs for which she wrote text, and The Eight Lost Songs of Orlando Underground for clarinet quintet. She studied at Yale (B.A.) and Cornell (D.M.A.) and is Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Ep. 10: Interview with Shuying Li

Praised as “a real talent” (The Seattle Times) with “vivid, dramatic” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “enjoyable” (Gramophone Magazine) scores, and “an incredible span of compositional tool box” (American Record Guide), Shuying Li is an award-winning composer who began her musical education in her native China. In her sophomore year at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she won a scholarship to continue her undergraduate studies at The Hartt School in Connecticut. She holds doctoral and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan and is a research faculty member at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. A passionate educator, Shuying has taught and directed the Composition/Music Theory Program at Gonzaga University. She joined the faculty at California State University, Sacramento in Fall 2022.

Ep. 9: Interview with Brad Balliett

Brad Balliett enjoys being a musical omnivore, focusing equal parts of his career on composing, playing bassoon, and teaching artistry. Brad is principal bassoon of the Princeton Symphony, a member of Signal and Metropolis Ensemble, a founding member and former Artistic Director for Decoda, a member of the composer-collective band Oracle Hysterical, and on faculty at The Peabody Institute, The Juilliard School, and Musicambia.
 
As a teaching artist, Brad regularly leads composition and song-writing workshops in prisons, schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters. His work with Musicambia has given him the opportunity to guide aspiring composers and performers at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Allendale Correctional Facility, Brooklyn Detention Center, and San Quentin State Prison. With Project: Music Heals Us, Brad has led music history and composition workshops at Radgowski-Corrigan and Bain Correctional Center. With Decoda, Brad has participated in workshops for over six years at Lee Correctional Institute.
​