Through some ninety works composed for a wide range of performance genres, Orlando Jacinto Garcia has established himself as an important figure in the new music world. The distinctive character of his music has been described as "time suspended- haunting sonic explorations" with "a certain tightness and rigor infrequently found in music of this type" - qualities he developed from his studies with Morton Feldman among others. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1954, Garcia emigrated to the United States in 1961. In demand as a guest composer and lecturer at national and international festivals, he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from a variety of organizations and cultural institutions, most recently including the Rockefeller, Fulbright, Dutka, and Cintas Foundations. With performances in most of the major capitols of the world by numerous distinguished soloists, ensembles, and orchestras, his works are recorded on O.O. Discs, CRI, Albany, North/South, CRS, Rugginenti, Capstone and Opus One Records and are available from Kallisti Music Press, BHE and North/South Editions. The founder and director of several international festivals including the New Music Miami Festival and the Music of the Americas Festival, he is Professor of Music and director of the Composition Program as well as Graduate Studies for the School of Music at Florida International University.
Nego Gato, a native of Salvador, Bahia in Brazil grew up immersed in the sounds of the Condomble religion, street music and Carnival. His compositions are the blend of traditional rhythms of the drum cults, chants to the ORIXA & current styles of popular music.
Born in New York in 1946, Giteck teaches music and women's studies at Cornish College of the Arts (1979-present); was composer-in-residence with Relache Ensemble/Music in Motion (1993-94); was lead-artist for Arts Regional Transit Project - Municipality of Seattle (1992-93); and Music Specialist - Seattle Mental Health Institute - (1986-91). She is described as "among those who recognize the nurturing and restorative powers of music...transpacific works that are spacious, reflective...always ripe with intense emotional energy...gorgeously absorbing..." San Francisco Bay Guardian. "All are infused with spirituality and a keen sense of ritual...shows an intense insight as well as a vigorous sense of wonder and homor." Option Magazine. "Much of her music just hangs in the air...it is touched by light...it glows transparently." Seattle Weekly. Giteck's music has been performed and broadcast throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, India, Japan and Australia, and has been featured in two PBS films for "American Experience". Awards and commissions have come from the National Endowment(s) for the Arts and Humanities, the French Government, Meet the Composer/Readers Digest, the San Francisco Symphony, the California Arts Council, Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, Music America - San Francisco and Seattle, and Gaudeamus in Holland. She attended Mills college (B.A .and M.A., Music), Paris Conservatory and Antioch University (M.A., Psychology). She has also studied with Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen and Rebecca Weinstock.
Heloise Gold lives in Austin Texas. She is a performing artist, choreographer, dancer , t’ai chi/chi gong instructor and co-founder of Art from the Streets (a project for homeless artists). She has been co-leading deep listening retreats with Pauline Oliveros and Ione since their inception in 1991.
Originally from NYC, she trained in ballet since the age of 4 and as a young teen performed with the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets during their early visits to the US. In her early 20’s her interests shifted to experimental forms. She studied and performed with Robert Wilson, Simone Forti and was a member of Quena Company (an experimental open theatre ensemble). Gold moved to Austin in 1978 and performed and toured with the Deborah Hay Dance Company for 5 years. In 1980 she started creating her own full length works. Her love of ritual, improvisation, collaboration, social issues, comedy and the absurd always play a big part in her pieces.
Heloise is the recipient of many grants from the City of Austin, the Texas Commission for the Arts and a new forms initiative from the NEA.
As composer and violinist, Goldstein has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s. He was co-founder/director of the Tone Roads Ensemble and a participant in the Judson Dance Theater, the New York Festival of the Avant Garde and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. He has toured extensively throughout north America and Europe, presenting solo violin concerts and appearing as soloist with new music and dance ensembles.
The Good Sound Band was formed by the Good Sound Foundation to enhance the art of live performance by actively researching and demonstrating developments in new performance technologies. An ensemble of technologically experienced composer/performers, the Good Sound Band uses systems developed by Good Sound Foundation to realize intermedia works that exemplify good sound and extend its capabilities. The members are: Sussan Deihim (vocals), Stuart Dempster (trombone, garden hose, didjeridu), Jon A. English (bass, percussion), John Michael Grey (keyborads, percussion), Mel Graves (bass), Daniel Kobialka (violin), George Marsh (drum set, percussion), Janis Mattox and Loren Rush (enhanced pianos), Candace Natvig (violin, voice, waterphone), Alfred Owens (tuning, voice), Timothy White (enhanced sitar, flutes, saxophones) and Jennifer Wilsey (percussion). The Good Sound Band tunes in just intonation.
Andrea Goodman is a pioneer in vocal expression. Since 1974 she has been performing at the forefront of theatre and music. As an original member of the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble for 17 years, she performed in numerous music concerts, multi-media theatre productions, films and recordings, touring worldwide, singing mostly without words in a universal language of sound. Composing music since 1985, Andrea has created Song-Stories, stories told as much through sound as through words. She composes for, and performs with, Figures of Speech Theatre in "Nightingale," an award-winning puppet piece, playing on Broadway during the 1996 International Puppetry Festival, in which the song of the nightingale awakens, heals and transforms an emperor. Working with the language of symbols and metaphors as an astrologer, she composed "Planet Songs" expressing the essence of each planet. Her work since 1985 with the Voyager Tarot and using intuitive, channeled singing for healing have brought her to the concept and creation of "Divine Doorways." She lives on the Maine coast with her husband and daughter.
A composer of marked clarity and wit, Gordon also writes music of expressive beauty and sentiment. He first gained attention in the late 1970s with his Love of Life Orchestra which played venues ranging from clubs such as CBGSs and The Knitting Factory to performance spaces like Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall and BAM. In addition to concert music, Gordon has written for film, dance and theater in collaboration with artists like Richard Foreman, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane, Alvin Ailey, Laurie Anderson and Steven Spielberg. His opera, The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, with libretto by Constance Congdon and direction by Lawrence Sacharow, premiered at La Mama in April, 1994. Collaborations with video artist Kit Fitzgerald include the video operal Return of the Native and the award-winning television feature Painted Melodies, Spider's Garden. Gordon has received numerous grants and awards.
Steve has performed Indian Classical music and new American music on the bansuri bamboo flute and soprano saxophone in concerts and festivals throughout the world. A disciple of the late bansuri master, Sri Gour Goswami of Calcutta, Gorn has been praised and recognized by critics and leading Indian musicians as one of the few western musicians to have captured the subtlety and beauty of Indian music. He performs and records with percussionist Glen Velez. In 1995, he toured Europe and Africa with Jack DeJonnette. As a theater composer, he has employed world music orchestration in scores for Jean-Claude van Itallie's adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead and for numerous storytellig productions with Laura Simms. His most recent scores are for an ABC special on the New York Jewish Museum and for the PBS series, The Quiet Revolution.
A keyboardist, composer and improviser currently living in New York, Gosfield has received grants from the NEA, Meet the Composer and the Independent Composer's Association (California). Recent projects include an NEA-funded installation entitled "City Library" at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits. She has performed with David Moss, Davey Williams, LaDonna Smith, Zeena Parkins, Anna Homler and longtime partner, Roger Kleier. She has collaborated with visual artists such as Georganne Deen, Manual Ocampo and Joshua Gosfield, providing music for installations and objects exhibited in galleries from New York to Los Angeles.