Lynn Vartan is an American percussionist. [1] She began performing as a child in Fresno, California. Her principal instrument is the marimba.
Vartan has worked with Michael Colgrass, Vinny Golia, Arthur Jarvinen, [2] Ursula Oppens, Joan Tower, [3] Glen Velez, [4] Xtet, James Newton, [5] Chinary Ung, [6] the Hilliard Ensemble, [7] the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble [8] and Grammy award-winning Southwest Chamber Music. [9] She has commissioned and/or performed countless new works for percussion by composers such as Donald Crockett, William Kraft, [10] Steve Hoey, Veronika Krausas, Erica Muhl, [11] Sean Heim, Jeff Holmes, Keith Bradshaw [12] and Shaun Naidoo.
As a recital soloist, Vartan has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, [13] the Different Trains Series, at universities in residence all over the United States and on the Music at the Court series in Pasadena, California, where she produced her own solo percussion concerts. As a concerto soloist, Vartan has performed with various orchestras including the Hubei Opera and Dance Company [14] of Wuhan, China, the Sierra Wind Symphony, the Helena Symphony Orchestra, [15] the Orchestra of Southern Utah, Southwest Chamber Music, [16] as well as premiering new concertos by both American and Chinese composers.
Vartan has participated in cultural exchange projects such as the “Ascending Dragon” Project in Vietnam, [17] "The Dream of Helen" project [18] in China and the “East Meets West” project designed around her as a soloist in Wuhan, China in 2014. In June 2020, Vartan was featured in the Visual Collaborative electronic catalog, under the Eta Carinae series, where she was interviewed alongside other artists from around the world. [19]
As a recording artist, Vartan has appeared on the ECM New Series, Albany Records, Cuneiform Records, [20] Bridge Records, New World Records, Lian Records, [21] Yarlung Records [22] and Cambria. [23]
Lynn was nominated three times for a Grammy with the Southwest Chamber Music for “Best Classical Album of the Year” and "Best Small Ensemble with or without a conductor" for Chávez: Complete Chamber Music, Vol. 3. [24] and for the “Latin Classical Album of the Year” [25] for William Kraft’s Complete Encounters Series. Lynn is endorsed by the Paiste Corporation, Remo Inc. and Marimba One.
Vartan is the percussionist for Southwest Chamber Music, the violin/percussion Duo 61/4 which she founded with Shalini Vijayan, and a duo percussion group Exacta that she formed with Tambuco’s Miguel Gonzalez. As of 2015, she is currently the Director of Percussion at Southern Utah University. [26]
William Kraft was an American composer, conductor, teacher, timpanist, and percussionist.
Tania León is a Cuban-born American composer of both large scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations.
A percussion ensemble is a musical ensemble consisting of only percussion instruments. Although the term can be used to describe any such group, it commonly refers to groups of classically trained percussionists performing primarily classical music. In America, percussion ensembles are most commonly found at conservatories, though some professional groups, such as Nexus and So Percussion exist. Drumlines and groups who regularly meet for drum circles are two other forms of the percussion ensemble.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway". Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. He was voted Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat magazine international critics' polls in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018. In 2014, he received a lifetime appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, where he was jointly appointed in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.
Dan Welcher is an American composer, conductor, and music educator.
Southwest Chamber Music is a chamber music ensemble based in Los Angeles County, California. The organization was founded in 1987 by the artistic director Jeff von der Schmidt and the executive director Jan Karlin. One of the most active chamber music ensembles in the United States, the ensemble performs year round, provides educational programs, tours internationally, and has recorded 30 compact discs.
Gabriela Lena Frank is an American pianist and composer of contemporary classical music.
David Alan Miller is a multi-Grammy Award-winning American symphony orchestra conductor, and since 1992, music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Miller served as assistant and associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1987–92 and music director of the New York Youth Symphony from 1982-88. He is currently also Artistic Advisor to The Little Orchestra Society in New York City.
Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger, singer, and educator from Rio de Janeiro. She is influenced by popular Brazilian culture, Romanticism, world music, and jazz. She comes from a musical family, which includes her father, guitarist Sergio Assad, her uncle, guitarist Odair Assad, and her aunt, singer-songwriter Badi Assad.
Third Coast Percussion is a Grammy Award-winning American percussion ensemble, based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Tambuco is a Mexican contemporary classical percussion group which has been nominated three times for awards including Best Classical Album. It was founded in 1993. The group consists of four percussionists: Ricardo Gallardo, Alfredo Bringas, Raúl Tudón and Miguel González. Their name comes from Carlos Chávez's work Tambuco for percussion ensemble.
Colin David Currie is a multi award-winning Scottish virtuoso percussionist. He is the founder and leader of the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble specializing in performing and recording the music of Steve Reich.
Eric Guinivan is a composer, percussionist, founding member of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, and was principal timpanist of the YMF Debut Orchestra. He has received commissions from Chamber Music America, the Fromm Foundation, New York Youth Symphony, the International Horn Society, Lake Union Civic Orchestra, the Firebird Ensemble, Staunton Music Festival, the Lotte Lehmann Foundation, and the Society of Composers, Inc., among others. His output includes works for orchestra, wind ensemble, percussion, brass band, chamber orchestra, film, and a wide variety of chamber ensembles and solo instruments. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Composition at James Madison University, and was previously a graduate teaching fellow at the University of Southern California.
Sono Luminus is a classical music record label founded by Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack, who also founded Cisco Systems. The label specializes in high-resolution recordings of acoustic music.
Jeff von der Schmidt is a Grammy Award-winning American conductor. He is the founding Artistic Director of Southwest Chamber Music and the Los Angeles International New Music Festival.
Jan Karlin is an American violist, author, arts administrator and record producer, who has won two Grammy Awards. She is the Founding Executive Director of Southwest Chamber Music and has administered many national and international tours, festivals, cultural exchanges and educational programs. Karlin is the author of What's Next? Creativity in the Age of Entertainment, which received a 2020 Book Excellence Award and 2019 Readers’ Favorite International Book Award.
Christopher Cerrone is an American composer based in New York City. He was a 2014 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a 2014 Fromm Foundation commission recipient, a 2015 Rome Prize winner in Music Composition, and has received numerous awards from ASCAP.
Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts. His string trio The Companion Guide to Rome (2010), was a runner-up for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music. While composer-in-residence for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, he first gained international attention for the orchestral work Play (2013), which was nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He received another Grammy nomination for the orchestral work Sustain (2018), a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Other noted works include the fantasy for piano and orchestra Split (2015) and the opera A Trip to the Moon (2017). Since 2020, Norman has been on the composition faculty of the Juilliard School.
Yanga is a composition for choir, percussion quartet, and orchestra written in 2019 by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz with a text by Santiago Martin Bermúdez. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the ensemble's centennial celebrations. Its world premiere was given by the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on October 27, 2019.