Composition

Jemina Brechoire is a Franco Algerian composer, pianist, vocalist, and producer. Having originally trained as a jazz pianist, Jemina entered Berklee College of Music with the prestigious Presidential Scholarship where she studied under the tutelage of Alain Mallet. There, she deepened her love for cross cultural music and interdisciplinary art.

She has an interest in folklore from all other the world that stems from her Franco-Algerian background and her exposure to many traditional folk genres from a young age (North African folklore, French chanson, Jazz).

It is an interest that has grown significantly when she moved to the United States having been exposed to ever more local traditions and people.

As an artist, she strives to be innovative and eclectic in all her creations. Jemina has arranged for Best Jazz Album Grammy Awards Nominee Tia Fuller, was the musical director of the Berklee Esperanza Spalding Ensemble, co-wrote with Tokyo Metropolitan Theater artistic director and avant-garde composer Dai Fujikura, and recorded for Cop21 premiered documentary “Terra Libra” amongst many other projects.

In her work she has been striving to connect seemingly unrelated themes, people, and places both through the medium of music and throughout her collaborations: her first album “22” was entirely produced and written by her and featured musicians from more than eight different countries. The album was recorded remotely due to the pandemic and pays tribute to North African Folklore, taking a global approach to music making and, hoping to serve as a medium to help composers and performers through uncertain times as it did for the composer herself.

Jemina sees her interests lying in creating a music in movement, centered around our multitudes. Although her first instrument is piano, she also started developing an interest for the voice early on. Listening to jazz records she discovered scat through Ella Fitzgerald and is, to this day, fascinated by the power and emotional intensity that vocalists can deliver even with a wordless approach to music. A lot of Jemina’s music pays tribute to that vocal jazz legacy and to the artists that have been reclaiming the voice as an instrument.

This coming month Jemina will be performing for the arrival of Little Amal in New York, an eleven-foot giant refugee puppet from Syria and symbol of international human rights.

Her compositions have premiered in places such as the University of Toronto Massey College and Berklee Performance Center among others.

www.jeminamusic.com

Isaac Ismael Cortijo is a Brooklyn born and raised pianist, composer and conducting student. Born in 2005, Isaac began playing piano at 3 years old, and picked up several more instruments throughout high school, including the cello, euphonium, French horn, and tuba. Isaac graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy where he had several pieces performed, the most significant one being his wind symphony piece Rebirth which was premiered by the Interlochen Wind Symphony. Additionally, Isaac began conducting his senior year of high school. That following summer, he participated in a program held by the Conducting Institute where he was able to conduct several pieces and learn under Miguel Harth Bedyoa, who he now studies privately with. Isaac aims to connect and communicate with his audience through his music to invoke an emotionally rich listening experience. He hypothesized that music, sound and frequency are what connect us all fundamentally as living beings and plans to explore that hypothesis in his future studies and explorations. As a student of Valerie Coleman, Isaac looks forward to learning more about what it means to be a composer, creator, and contributor to the arts.

Kenedea Lee is a composer and pianist. She studied Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Classical Composition at the Manhattan School of Music. At the Manhattan School of Music, she studies with Professor Susan Botti. Growing up in South Los Angeles, Kenedea has been inspired to write music that reflects her upbringing. She aims to compose music in the Contemporary Classical style while taking heed of the black vernacular, vocabulary, and the African American Experience.

https://www.kenedealee.com

Arthur Siyun Li (b.1998) is a Canadian composer and pianist currently based in New York City. He is pursuing dual master’s degrees in composition and piano at the Manhattan School of Music. He is a recipient of the MSM President’s Award Scholarship as well as the Silver Medal for piano in the Canadian Music Competition (2009).

As a composer, Arthur’s recent work aims to explore the poetic fragment as an analog for motivic construction in music. In addition, Arthur is interested in writing music for film and games. He composed the score for the animated short film Front of the House (dir. Ashley Ma), which was selected as part of the LA Shorts International Film Festival in 2019. At MSM, Arthur is under the tutelage of Susan Botti (composition) and Alexandre Moutouzkine (piano).

Reinier Potgieter is a composer based in New York City. His music is informed by an almost overwhelming tendency for deep introspection. He believes that his art, as an extension of his life, should be an avenue to contemplation. Through this, he attempts to (with varying degrees of success) create opportunities for listeners to engage with the material as essential mechanisms in slowly unfolding events, even as passive observers. When not absorbed by his graduate studies at Manhattan School of Music, he can often be found half-finishing crossword puzzles before starting new ones

Varun Raja (b. 2000) is a master’s student at the Manhattan School of Music where he studies Composition under the tutelage of Professor Susan Botti. He enjoys writing for all manner of instrumentations from solo to symphony orchestra. As a composer, he would describe his stylistic aesthetic as a fusion between romantic influences and contemporary techniques. From a recent dance collaboration with a Texas Women’s University choreographer, Varun and his collaborator’s multimedia video Paradox was selected for the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Screen Dance Festival.

varunrajamusic.com

Jianing Song graduated from China Conservatory of China. She graduated with high distinction from her undergraduate studies, having received various scholarships.

Her art song My Thoughts Fly to You won the Gold Award in the 6th International Asia-Pacific composition competition and the first prize of the 10th China new generation composition competition. Her micro-opera The Story of a Mental Hospital is “the creation and research improvement project” of China Conservatory of Music and “The Academy Level Project” of Sichuan Conservatory of Music.

While majoring in composition, her second major is conducting. She conducted an orchestra academy affiliated to China Conservatory of Music to perform Mozart’s piano concerto K.482 and numerous other works.

Yeabon Jenny Yi is a Korean American composer-performer currently residing in New York. She is classically trained in double bass and likes to experiment with improvisation and timbre on the instrument. She is also a self-taught producer and continues to explore the technicalities of music production and sound engineering.

Jenny has a bachelor’s in composition from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee which where most of her pieces and performances were debuted. She was able to work on collaborative projects with professional musicians such as Arx Duo and yarn/wire. One of her larger ensemble works was recently performed by The Boston Conservatory’s String Orchestra. Jenny has also worked on many other projects with her friends, peers, and colleagues. During her undergrad years, she has performed (double bass) in numerous concerts with the Boston Conservatory Orchestra. She is now at Manhattan School of Music to pursue her master’s in composition. Jenny works on not developing her musical language but rather the variety of musical language there is. Her most recent works seek to express her own concept of complexity within simplicity.