Sunday, June 21, 2020 at 6pm *CT
Omaha Under The Radar
6:00 - Kristin Jonina Taylor
6:30 - Anna Elder
6:50 - Adam Marks
7:20 - Cubby Philips
7:50 - Aaron Allen Jr
8:10 - Stacy Busch
8:40 - Mesonjixx
Dr. Kristín Jónína Taylor is an Icelandic-American pianist who has been enthusiastically received for her performances of Nordic piano works. She has performed widely in the U.S. as well as in Iceland, France, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Belgium, Sweden, Luthuania, and Austria.Dr. Taylor was the Grand Prize Winner of the Naftzger Young Artist Competition and a national finalist in the MTNA Collegiate Competition. She was a soloist with several orchestras and also was featured in the internationally prestigious Reykjavík Arts Festival.Kristín was the recipient of two Fulbright grants to Iceland, the first for research on Jón Nordal ’s Piano Concerto, and the second to research the music of Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson. Her debut CD recording The Well-Tempered Pianist: The solo piano works of Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson was released by the Iceland Music Information Centre. Her second album, which is self-titled, was released by Pólarfónía Records. Her third album, Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson: Short Stories for Flute and Piano, was released by Smekkleysa Records in 2014. Her most recent recording was with Marc Reed, trumpet, for “Gone, but Not Forgotten,” on MarkMasters.Kristín is Assistant Professor of Piano and Keyboard Area Coordinator at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.
Kristín Jónína Taylor is a Steinway Artist.
http://kristinjoninataylor.com/
Soprano Anna Elder’s voice has been described as being, “ethereal” or “a voice that has blues, reds and purples in it” by The New York Times or “a voice that could match, pitch for pitch, the grumble of a truck’s engine or squeak of a scooter’s horn.”- Wilmington Star News. She is a native of Pittsburgh, PA and currently performs with the new music ensembles Kamratōn and wolfTrap. Most recently, Anna was a featured artist at The Tanglewood Music Center, where she sang Andrew Hamilton’s “Music for People Who Like Art” with The New Fromm Players for Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary music. She appeared in the Corningworks’ production of “with a shadow of...” as a stand in vocalist for an ill cast member. “While an unanticipated addition, Elder’s superb voice and inclusion on stage was seamless and enriching. Her sequence with Brenner, in which they perfectly mirrored each other while performing a particularly tasking and complex choreography, is so unspeakably scintillating that one could scarcely imagine it hadn’t been planned from inception.” -Pittsburgh in the Round. Other engagements have included performing Music for 18 Musicians with New Music Detroit, soloing with Alia Musica Pittsburgh, Nat28, and appearing as a guest vocalist with Quince Ensemble. She has appeared on Music on the Edge’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, The Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, Detroit’s Strange and Beautiful Music, and The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound festival. Anna can be heard on the album Squonk Opera’s “Go Roadshow” and can be seen anywhere from a basement to a concert hall.
https://www.bleepbloopvoice.com
Praised as an “excellent pianist” with “titanic force” (New York Times), Adam Marks is an active soloist, collaborator, music director, curator, and educator based in NYC. He has appeared as soloist with the Mission Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Symphony Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, and at notable venues including Salle Cortot, Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Logan Center for the Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Millennium Park, Ravinia, and Davies Symphony Hall. Recent premieres include playing/conducting Rachel J. Peters’ Companionship at Fort Worth Opera, Jon Irabagon’s After Talk at National Sawdust, and performing/co-creating Black Queen with Juraj Kojš and Jennifer Beattie in Miami and Copenhagen. He is a laureate of the Orleans Competition for contemporary music in Orleans, France, and his premiere of Holly Harrison’s “Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup” with Eighth Blackbird won the Australian Art Music Awards Performance of the Year in 2018. He made is off-Broadway debut in Fiasco Theatre’s acclaimed revival of Into The Woods at Roundabout Theatre. This season includes appearances at Jacaranda, Omaha Under the Radar, NUNC! 4, Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Mission Chamber Orchestra, and many more. Other recent international performances include recitals in Australia, Brazil, Singapore, France, and Croatia. In addition to performing, Marks is the co-founder and co-director of Artists at Albatross Reach, an innovative laboratory for collaborative arts in northern California.
Cubby Philips and John Evans are improvisers motivated by the power of spontaneous, unmediated creation. Cubby and his collaborators engage the urgency of improvised performance. They create music that invites susceptibility and flexibility, from the players and the listeners. The possibility for generative connections is constant, but often untapped. This group is a catalyst for the space it occupies, allowing the minds and bodies of those present to participate in energized communion. Writhing groove is their primal medium, but the collective perpetually and graciously yields to the directives of time and place.
https://www.facebook.com/people/Jacob-Cubby-Phillips/100008708462880
Aaron Allen Jr is a Contemporary Dance artist from Chattanooga, Tennessee whose research and choreographic practices are driven by queer artist and personal experiences centered around identity and safety. Aaron holds a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Dance Performance from Middle Tennessee State University, as well as a Masters of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Colorado Boulder. Creating safe spaces for movers to be themselves has been a constant guide in his technique classes and choreographic works. Aaron has performed in numerous cities; Shanghai, China, Chicago, Illinois, Washington, D.C., Oberlin, Ohio, and Tallahassee, Florida. Through athleticism and weight Aaron hopes to challenge his dancers and audience's perceptions of contemporary concert dance. As a teacher, Aaron teaches Contemporary Jazz, Contemporary Modern, and House.
http://aaronallenjr.weebly.com/
Stacy Busch is a composer and performer. Her performances are designed to be provocative yet accessible in order to cultivate broader artistic interest and, in particular, reach under-served and/or misrepresented communities. Stacy is the founder and president of No Divide KC, an arts and social justice non-profit that creates artistic events for social causes. Stacy is the 2020 Charlotte Street Foundation Generative Performing Artist Award recipient. She has received grants from ArtsKC, ArtSounds and the UMKC Women's Council. Stacy received her MM in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and her BM in composition from Western Michigan University.Stacy Busch: http://www.stacybusch.com/
Mesonjixx is Mary Elizabeth jo Dixon Pelenaise Kapiolani Lawson. Her mother is from the South Pacific Islands and her father is from the South (Alabama). In essence her music style pulls from and is inspired by her hybrid-heritage. The south pacific people are known for their non-instrumental vocal harmonization. It is one of their many legacies as people and inherently a part of Jixx’ approach in her vocal work/sharing. Black music is and has been the center influence for the musical canon here in the states and worldwide. Period. Again, this inherent fact along with how/what she chooses to identify with culturally/ethnically -- shows up in her melody, theme, and delivery. Mesonjixx first started writing songs while living in Chicago and working with an eclectic jazz collective over the course of four years. She now lives in Omaha, Nebraska and often performs her songs live with quartet, trio, or duet.Currently their set features new songs written over the last two years and has taken on a refreshing new direction. Live performances this year will be focusing on her trio: Nate Asad on keys (band director), and John Evans on drums. Their performances are sure to liberate you through the ever changing subjective radical, revolutionary, and familiar!