Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts Celebrates 25 Years of Composer Portraits

Miller Theatre's Composer Portraits have given audiences full-evening immersions into a single composer's work, along with onstage conversations that demystify the creative process.

This year's series is devoted to five brilliant, stylistically diverse composers, and opens with COURTNEY BRYAN on Thursday, September 12, 7:30PM. The International Contemporary Ensemble and Quince Ensemble perform a program of recent works by the 2023 MacArthur Fellow, along with an onstage discussion with Courtney Bryan and Melissa Smey.

On the same night, a special year-long exhibition opens in the lobby: Photo Call: "Celebrating 25 Years of Composer Portraits" on view September 12, 2024 through May 30, 2025. Curated by Akhira Montague. A collection of portrait photography commissions from
Miller Theatre's iconic Composer Portraits series
Melissa Smey, Executive Director Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre said of the announcement, “There is no better way to launch the new season than with the music of Courtney Bryan, which is imbued with warmth, generosity, deep intelligence, and great talent. Over the past decade, we have commissioned photo portraits of the composers featured in Composer Portraits, including Courtney. While only a small number of the many composers included over the past 25 years are represented in this exhibition, these stunning photos show the range of people who are composers, reflecting the ambition, grace, humor, joy, and skill embodied by their music. I hope visitors to the exhibit will enjoy their experience as much as we have enjoyed our collaborations with these remarkable composers.”

More details here:

Thursday, September 12, 7:30PM
Courtney Bryan (b. 1982)

A 2023 MacArthur Fellow, Courtney Bryan is a brilliant pianist and groundbreaking composer who received her doctorate in composition at Columbia University in 2014. Her music is layered with musical genres including jazz, gospel, and experimental music. Two stellar groups—International Contemporary Ensemble and Quince Ensemble—come together to perform a program of recent works, including Requiem, a powerful five-movement work bridging end-of-life rituals from a spectrum of traditions.

For twenty-five years, Miller Theatre's flagship series Composer Portraits has fostered the creation of myriad new works, served as an incubator for emerging artists and a champion of those not yet well known, and created a community of adventurous listeners. These deep-dive immersions into a single living composer's work have been repeatedly hailed as “utterly indispensable,” “essential,” “endlessly important,” and “invaluable” by The New York Times and The New Yorker, among others. The popularity of the series proves that people like a challenge and trust Miller to deliver concerts that are both satisfying and thought-provoking. 

Critics have long noted that Miller Theatre is the rare place in music in which all composers get truly equal attention, regardless of gender. The New York Times observed: "Under the watch of Melissa Smey, the theater's executive director since 2009, Miller has devoted considerable resources to presenting music by female composers, both established and emerging — and has done so with a lack of fanfare that characterizes the initiative as no anomaly, but simply business as usual.” 
 
Program:
DREAMING (Freedom Sounds) for large ensemble and two voices (2023)
Blessed for voice and piano  (2021)
*film by Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Requiem for four sopranos and chamber ensemble (2019)

Artists:
Damian Norfleet, voice
Alice Teyssier, voice
Courtney Bryan, piano
International Contemporary Ensemble
Quince Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, conductor

Photo Call: Celebrating 25 Years of Composer Portraits

Curated by Akhira Montague
On View September 12, 2024 through May 30, 2025

Miller Theatre's commitment to new work, living artists, and a thriving music community takes center stage in a photo exhibition that pays tribute to its iconic series, Composer Portraits. Featuring portrait commissions of composers included in the series in recent years, the vibrant images were captured by 10 different photographers working in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Norway.

The exhibit will be on display throughout the season. Located on Broadway at 116th Street, the Miller Theatre lobby is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 10am to 6pm, and beginning two hours before each scheduled performance.

In recent years, Miller Theatre has commissioned original photo portraits of the composers in its Composer Portraits series with the goal of making the artists and their work seem approachable and essentially human, rather than rarified or of a different realm. Miller signals the uniqueness and accessibility of its programming by using these photos in all of its promotional and marketing materials.

This was noted in a New York Times review by Joshua Barone of Caroline Shaw's Composer Portrait: “But, for me, what summed up these varied interests and activities was a revealing photograph of Ms. Shaw used by the Miller Theater at Columbia University to promote its Composer Portraits program of her music. In the photo, she appears casually dressed against a millennial-pink backdrop; her smile is not only one of happiness, but also of carefree ease and approachability. The image connects all Ms. Shaw's projects and performances: an audaciously uninhibited approach to music-making based on joy, omnivorous curiosity and congeniality — even as her work challenges your expectations and takes you by surprise.”

Click the following link to see a gallery of this season's commissioned photos:
 https://www.millertheatre.com/season-highlights/#gallery

Akhira Montague (b. 1997) was born and raised in New Jersey. After attending boarding school in Putney, Vermont, she moved to Brooklyn, NY to study at Pratt Institute. Montague's practice revolves around dissecting the moving image as both an object and an idea. She layers printed material, video, ink, paper, and wall space to demonstrate that life extends beyond our current experiences. She uses still and moving images as tools to relive the past and shape the future. Guided and inspired by researching her predecessors such as Deana Lawson, Martin Parr, and Gordon Parks, while examining social trends, Montague seeks to convey and expound on ideas centered around the relationships humans have with each other, themselves, and their environment. Montague is a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Scholarship Award (2018). Her work has been featured in group shows at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, PA; La MaMa Gallery, NYC; and Alexander Gray Associates Gallery, NY.

About the Artists

Courtney Bryan
courtneybryan.com

Courtney Bryan, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and currently serves as composer-in-residence with Opera Philadelphia.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of Dreaming (Freedom Sounds) for the Jacksonville Symphony, the piano concerto House of Pianos, and Gathering Song, with libretto by Tazewell Thompson, which debuted with the New York Philharmonic. Other new works are Blessed, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and produced as a film that weaves together musical recordings and footage from New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia; Syzygy for violin and orchestra, premiered by Jennifer Koh and the Chicago Sinfonietta; and Yet Unheard for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, commissioned by The Dream Unfinished and premiered with Helga Davis.

Bryan's compositions have been performed by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (Creative Partner, 2020-2023), Jacksonville Symphony (Mary Carr Patton Composer-In-Residence, 2018–2020), London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Chicago Sinfonietta, Quince Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, New York Jazzharmonic, Spektral String Quartet, and Talea Ensemble. Her work has been presented at numerous venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Miller Theatre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art.

Bryan has collaborated with visual artists Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Steffani Jemison, Abigail DeVille, Kara Lynch, Lake Simons, Amy Bryan, and Alma Bryan Powell; director Patricia McGregor; writers Sharan Strange, Matthew D. Morrison, and Ashon Crawley; and musicians Branford Marsalis, Jennifer Koh, Ryan Speedo Green, Helga Davis, Brandee Younger, and Damian Norfleet.

She holds a doctorate in composition from Columbia University, where she studied with George Lewis, a B.M. from Oberlin Conservatory, and an M.M. from Rutgers University. Currently, she is the Albert and Linda Mintz Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University. Her accolades include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2018), Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition (2019–2020), United States Artists Fellowship (2020), and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship (2020–2021).

Bryan has released two recordings, Quest for Freedom (2007) and This Little Light of Mine (2010), with  a third recording, Sounds of Freedom, in progress.

Rebekah Heller, conductor
rebekahheller.com

Rebekah Heller is a multi-talented artist: a bassoonist of both highly notated and improvised music, a conductor, composer, educator, curator, and arts leader, committed to expanding the modern repertoire for the bassoon. She is Artistic Director Emeritus and a current member of the Board of Directors of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and the bassoonist of the Ensemble since 2008. Before joining ICE, Heller served as principal bassoonist of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra in the 2008-2009 season, and was a member of The New World Symphony and the Chicago Civic Orchestra. She has been a soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the Nagoya Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony, among others, and currently serves on the advisory board of Sound American.

Heller joined the faculty of the College of Performing Arts (CoPA) and the Mannes School of Music at The New School in the fall of 2019. She is passionate about speaking with young artists and organizations about how to create a robust and fulfilling career and has partnered with many organizations around the country, including The New World Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Ensemble Connect, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Manhattan School of Music. She studied at the University of Texas at Austin and the Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music.

International Contemporary Ensemble
iceorg.org

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. Under the leadership of composer and Artistic Director George Lewis, the Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America's foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists in “a mission worth following” (I Care If You Listen).

The Ensemble is the recipient of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming and Musical America's Ensemble of the Year Award. Notable presenting partners have included Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, TIME:SPANS Festival, Roulette, and Miller Theatre at Columbia University. The Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works and has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Park Avenue Armory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival. Other performance venues have included the Dutch National Opera, Carnegie Hall, and Walt Disney Concert Hall Stage.

Through trailblazing initiatives such as the “Call for ____” Commission Program and Ensemble Evolution (in partnership with The New School's College of Performing Arts), the Ensemble has had a major impact on the contemporary performance ecosystem in New York City, nationally, and internationally, by supporting the creativity of their composer-collaborators and presenting workshops and performances for hundreds of student composers. Works by emerging composers have anchored the Ensemble's programming since its founding in 2001, and the group's recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music's present.

Damian Norfleet, voice
damiannorfleet.com

"Damian Norfleet is a gifted improvisational singer, performer-composer, actor, and social justice activist who has occupied a rare multi-dimensional space in the performing arts" (I Care If You Listen). A Barrymore Award-winning and IRNE Award-nominated artist, Norfleet is a 2024 Gabriela Ortiz Composing Fellow. He has worked with record producer Judith Sherman; composers George Lewis, Courtney Bryan, Nkeiru Okoye, Carman Moore, Yosvany Terry, and Trevor Weston; visual artists Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Peter Schumann, and Katya Popova; costume designer Miodrag Guberinic; sound designer Rob Kaplowitz; conductors Vimbayi Kaziboni, David Bloom, and David Charles Abell; and stage directors Diane Paulus and Lars Jan. He collaborates regularly with the socially conscious orchestras The Dream Unfinished and Ensemble Pi. Norfleet has also performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Anonymous Ensemble, and University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, among others; and performed principal roles with Glimmerglass Opera, Portland Opera, American Opera Project, and Opera Philadelphia (Opera On Film). Additional credits include leading roles in the nationally touring production of In the Mood: A 1940s Musical Revue, the 2012 Drama Desk Award-nominated The Threepenny Opera, the Co-Operation comedy series, and the feature film Emily & Tim. He is currently cast as Pharaoh Akhenaten in the afro-futuristic feature film trilogy Protector of the Gods (in pre-production).

Quince Ensemble
quince-ensemble.com

Quince Ensemble is a treble voice quartet dedicated to changing the paradigm for contemporary vocal chamber music. Comprised of vocalists Liz Pearse (soprano), Kayleigh Butcher (mezzo-soprano), Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano), and Carrie Henneman Shaw (soprano), Quince thrives on unique musical challenges and genre-bending contemporary repertoire. Quince regularly commissions new works for voices, providing wider exposure for the music of living composers. In 2019, they launched the Quince New Music Commissioning Fund, a fund to grow the repertoire for women and treble voices. Through educational activities, Quince works to bring this music to a larger community of singers and listeners, offering new and empowering pathways to vocal excellence. Quince has been featured on many festivals and series, including the KODY Festival in Lublin, Poland in collaboration with David Lang and Beth Morrison Projects, the Outpost in the Burbs concert series, the “Philip Glass: Music with Friends” concert at the Issue Project Room, and the SONiC Festival in New York, among others. Quince has released four studio albums, Realign the Time, Hushers, Motherland, and David Lang's love fail, all available on iTunes, CD Baby, Spotify, Bandcamp, and Amazon.

Alice Teyssier, voice
aliceteyssier.com

Brooklyn-based flutist and vocalist Alice Teyssier has appeared as a soloist with the San Diego Symphony, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Bach Collegium San Diego, Talea Ensemble, La Jolla Symphony, Ensemble Echappé, Cantata Profana, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and is regularly featured on Los Angeles' renowned Monday Evening Concerts series. Teyssier has given residencies for composers and performers of new music at such universities as Harvard, Brown, Stanford, Huddersfield, Oberlin, and the University of Michigan. She has premiered dozens of works and appeared at the Ojai, Mostly Mozart, June in Buffalo, Resonant Bodies, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music festivals. She is co-founder of the chamber ensemble La Perla Bizzarra, a core member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, and a founding member of the interdisciplinary troupe The Atelier. She holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (B.M., M.M.), the Conservatoire de Strasbourg (Specialization Diploma), and the University of California-San Diego (D.M.A.). Teyssier serves as Assistant Professor of Performance in the Music Department at New York University.