TABLE of CONTENTS
Letter from the Director | A-2
Third Coast Percussion and Jessie Montgomery | A-4
Complexions Contemporary Ballet | A-13
Jonathan Biss | A-23
Hamid Rahmanian’s
Song of the North | A-28
Your Guide to Meany Center | A-34
Thanks to Our Donors | A-35
The new season has been announced.
See page A-12 for a complete list of artists and dates.
We acknowledge that Meany Center is on unceded and traditional land of the Coast Salish, including the Duwamish People, the first pe ople of Seattle. We honor with gratitude the land itself and those who have cared for it, past and present. Meany Center is committed to better understanding our relationship with this land and to building authentic relationships with the first people of this region.
As spring blossoms around us, I am delighted to welcome you to another extraordinary month of performances. May is a time of renewal and our artists reflect the vibrant energy and creative spirit that define this season.
We are thrilled to welcome back Third Coast Percussion, joined by composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery, in a boundaryexpanding program of new music. It is extra special to have Jessie in residence performing and coaching students in her own music.
Dance audiences will be captivated by Complexions Contemporary Ballet, whose rich Alvin Ailey lineage and cadre of stunning dancers redefine contemporary ballet with breathtaking artistry, featuring a tribute to U2.
We also welcome back the superb pianist Jonathan Biss, performing Schubert’s
John Robinson, President
Kyra Hokanson Gray, Vice President
Sashi Raghupathy, Vice President
Robert Babs, Treasurer
Manisha Advani
Melinda Bitners
Sara Bowen
Darlene Cheatham
Margie Chen
Luis Fernando Esteban
Dr. M. Elizabeth Halloran
Hsiao-Wuen Hon
Cathy Hughes
Yumi Iwasaki
Susan Joslyn
Megan Kennedy
Sally Kincaid
Olivia Lee
final piano sonatas alongside a new work by Tyshawn Sorey. Biss’s profound musical curiosity connects this timeless repertoire with an important new voice in contemporary music.
We are honored to host Hamid Rahmanian’s Song of the North, a cinematic theater masterpiece blending shadow puppetry and animation to tell an epic Persian love story adapted from the Book of Kings.
Thank you for being part of the Meany family and celebrating these remarkable artists. Enjoy the performances!
With gratitude,
Michelle Witt Executive & Artistic Director
Jeff Lehman
Kambiz Parcham-Azad
Cecilia Paul
Jack Percival
Tina Ragen
Donald Rupchock
Marcie Stone
Scott VanGerpen
Gregory Wallace
EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS
Ana Mari Cauce
UW President
Dianne Harris
Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
Gabriel Solis
Divisional Dean of the Arts
EMERITUS BOARD
Matt Krashan
Emeritus Artistic Director
Linda Linford Allen
Cynthia Bayley
Thomas Bayley
Cathryn Booth-LaForce
JC Cannon
Elizabeth Cooper
Gail Erickson
Brian Grant
Randy Kerr
Susan Knox
Kurt Kolb
Sheila Edwards Lange
Frank Lau
Craig Miller
Dick Roth
Eric Rothchild
Jeff Seely
K. Freya Skarin
Rich Stillman
Dave Stone
Donald Swisher
Lee Talner
Thomas Taylor
David Vaskevitch
Ellen Wallach
Kathleen Wright
IN MEMORIAM
Ellsworth C. “Buster” Alvord
Linda Armstrong
Betty Balcom
Ross Boozikee
Ruth Gerberding
Ernest Henley
Mina Person
Lois Rathvon
Jerry Sanford, Sr.
Sunday, May 25, 2025 | 2:00 PM
Nordstrom Recital Hall
Named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, the two-time GRAMMY-nominated Dover Quartet is one of the world’s most in-demand chamber ensembles. Making their SCMS debut, the Dover Quartet is an aural experience of the highest caliber.
CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
generously underwritten by
Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert and Eric & Margaret Rothchild
SEASON SUPPORT COMES FROM
SIGNATURE SUPPORT
Thomas McQuaid Jr.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT COMES FROM
Warren & Anne Anderson
Stephen & Sylvia Burges
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich
Daniela & Torsten Grabs
Lynn & Brian Grant Family
Matthew & Christina Krashan
Gary L. Menges
John C. Robinson & Maya Sonenberg
Donald & Toni Rupchock
Craig Sheppard & Gregory Wallace
David & Marcie Stone
Donald & Gloria Swisher
Anonymous
May 3 | 7:30 p.m.
Sean Connors, percussion
Robert Dillon, percussion
Peter Martin, percussion
David Skidmore, percussion featuring Jessie Montgomery, violin
JLIN Please Be Still (b. 1987)
JESSIE MONTGOMERY Lady Justice/Black Justice, The Song (b. 1981)
TIGRAN HAMASYAN Sonata for Percussion (b. 1987)
1. Memories from Childhood
2. Hymn
3. 23 for TCP
INTERMISSION
JESSIE MONTGOMERY Suite from In Color ARR. SEAN CONNORS Red The Poet Purple
LOU HARRISON Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra (1917–2023)
1. Allegro Maestoso – Allegro Vivace
2. Largo, Cantabile
3. Allegro, Vigoroso, Poco Presto
Third Coast Percussion (TCP) is a Grammy-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet and Grammynominated composer collective that made history as the first percussion ensemble to win the revered music award in the classical genre. To date they have gathered seven total nominations. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, TCP is renowned worldwide for its exciting and unexpected performances that constantly redefine the classical music experience and “push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR), with a brilliantly varied sonic palette and “dazzling rhythmic workouts” (Pitchfork).
The ensemble has been praised for the “rare power” (Washington Post) of its more than 30 recordings, and “an inspirational sense of fun and curiosity” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). Third Coast Percussion maintains a busy tour schedule, with past performances in 42 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., plus international tour dates across four continents and 14 countries, amassing
more than 300,000 audience members over two decades.
During its momentous 20th anniversary season in 2024–2025, the ensemble embarks on the most ambitious collaborative projects in its history with leading musicians, choreographers and composers from around the world. The season includes two collaborative national tours: in a program with tabla player Salar Nader, featuring dates at Carnegie Hall and four other sites, the artists premiere a new work commissioned by TCP from the late Zakir Hussain (Nader’s mentor) before the artist’s passing in December 2024. The ensemble also tours with Twyla Tharp Dance in a newly created piece by the famed choreographer set to Philip Glass’s iconic score Aguas da Amazonia. Other highlights include TCP performances of Pulitzer Prizefinalist and Grammy-nominated works in their Metamorphosis program, choreographed by Lil Buck and Jon Boogz; and a national tour with composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery featuring a brand new work for percussion quartet commissioned by TCP paired with
Percussion Orchestra, with Montgomery performing the violin solo. In addition, TCP has commissioned new works this season from composers Tigran Hamasyan and Jlin.
A direct connection with the audience is at the core of all of Third Coast Percussion’s work, whether the musicians are speaking from the stage about a new piece of music, inviting the audience to play along in a concert or educational performance, or uniting fans around the world via one of their free mobile apps. The four members of Third Coast are also accomplished teachers and make active participation by all students the cornerstone of all their educational offerings, including thoughtfully curated K–12 workshops and family programming.
The quartet’s curiosity and eclectic taste have led to a series of unlikely collaborations that have produced exciting new art. Their omnivorous musical appetite, paired with approachable and flexible working methods, remove collaborative boundaries across cultures and
disciplines. The ensemble has worked with engineers at the University of Notre Dame, architects at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, dancers at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and musicians from traditions ranging from the mbira music of Zimbabwe’s Shona people, to indie rockers and footwork producers, to some of the world’s leading concert musicians. Third Coast Percussion served as ensemble-inresidence at the University of Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center from 2013–2018, and currently serves as ensemble-in-residence at Denison University.
A commission for a new work from composer Augusta Read Thomas in 2012 led to the realization that commissioning new musical works can be — and should be — as collaborative as any other artistic partnership. Through extensive workshopping and close contact with composers, Third Coast Percussion has commissioned and premiered 110 new works by Zakir Hussain, Jessie Montgomery, Philip Glass, Clarice Assad, Danny Elfman, Jlin, Tigran Hamasyan, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Missy Mazzoli, Ivan Trevino, Tyondai Braxton and leading early career composers through their annual Currents Creative Partnership. TCP’s commissioned works have become part of the ensemble’s core repertoire and seen hundreds of performances around the world. In 2023, Jlin’s Perspective, commissioned by TCP, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Third Coast Percussion’s recordings include 19 feature albums and appearances on 14 additional collaborative releases. Besides putting its stamp on iconic percussion works by John Cage and Steve Reich, the quartet has created first recordings of commissioned works by Zakir Hussain, Jessie Montgomery, Philip Glass, Clarice Assad, Danny Elfman, Jlin, Tigran Hamasyan, Augusta Read Thomas, Devonté Hynes, Missy Mazzoli, and more — in addition to
recordings of original Third Coast compositions. In 2017, the ensemble won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for their recording of Steve Reich’s works for percussion. TCP has received five additional Grammy nominations as performers, and in 2021 they received their first Grammy nomination as composers. In their latest Grammy nomination, TCP’s 2023 album Between Breaths was nominated for Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance in the 2024 Grammy Awards. In just the last 10 years, TCP has amassed over 5 million listeners and more than 10 million streams on Spotify.
Third Coast Percussion has always maintained strong ties to the vibrant artistic community in their hometown of Chicago. They have collaborated with Chicago institutions including Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Uniting Voices Chicago choir, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chicago Humanities Festival and the Adler Planetarium. TCP performed at the grand opening of Maggie Daley Children’s Park; conducted residencies at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago; created multi-year collaborative projects with Chicago-based composers Jessie Montgomery, Clarice and Sérgio Assad, Augusta Read Thomas, Glenn Kotche and chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird; and taught tensof-thousands of students through partnerships with Uniting Voices Chicago, The People’s Music School, the Chicago Park District, Rush Hour Concerts, Urban Gateways, Changing Worlds and others.
The four members of Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore) met while studying percussion music at Northwestern University with Michael Burritt and James Ross, and formed the ensemble in 2005. Settling in Chicago,
the four friends have carefully and thoughtfully built a thriving nonprofit organization — including full-time staff, office/studio space, and a board of directors – to support their vision and facilitate their efforts to bring new works to life. Members of Third Coast also hold degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Rutgers University, the New England Conservatory and the Yale School of Music.
Jessie Montgomery is a Grammywinning composer, violinist and educator whose work interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry and social consciousness. Montgomery is an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her profound works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful, and exploding with life,” (The Washington Post) and are performed regularly by leading orchestras and ensembles around the world. In June 2024, she concluded a three-year appointment as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence.
Montgomery’s music contains a breadth of musical depictions of the human experience — from statements on social justice themes, to the Black diasporic experience and its foundation in American music, to wistful adorations and playful spontaneity — reflective of her deeply rooted experience as a classical violinist and child of the radical New York City cultural scene of the 1980s and 90s. In response to Montgomery’s Grammy-winning work, Rounds (2021), San Francisco’s NPR station KQED stated: “this is what classical music needs in 2024.”
A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery is a frequent and highly engaged collaborator with performing musicians, composers, choreographers, playwrights, poets and visual artists alike.
At the heart of Montgomery’s work is a deep sense of community enrichment and a desire to create opportunities for young artists. During her tenure at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she launched the Young Composers Initiative, which supports high school aged youth in creating and presenting their works, including regular tutorials, reading sessions and public performances. Her curatorial work engages a diverse community of concertgoers and aims to highlight the works of underrepresented composers in an effort to broaden audience experiences in classical music spaces.
Montgomery has been recognized with many prestigious awards and fellowships, including the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year. Since 1999, she has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization in a variety of roles, including Composer-in-Residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, its professional touring ensemble. Montgomery holds degrees from The Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Princeton University. She serves on the Composition and Music Technology faculty at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) has quickly become one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most influential women in electronic music. Jlin’s thrilling, emotional and multidimensional compositions have earned her praise as “one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre” (Pitchfork). She is a recipient of a 2023 U.S. Artist award and a 2023 Pulitzer Prize nomination. Her mini-album Perspective was released to critical acclaim on Planet Mu 2023. Her much-lauded albums Dark Energy (2015) and Black Origami (2017) have appeared on “Best of” lists in The New York Times, The Wire, Los Angeles
Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian and Vogue. Jlin has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, the Pathos Quartet, choreographers Wayne McGregor and Kyle Abraham, fashion designer Rick Owens and the visual artists Nick Cave and Kevin Beasley. Her latest release Akoma (Planet Mu March 2024) features collaborations with Philip Glass, Björk and Kronos Quartet.
Third Coast Percussion has worked with Jlin on a number of projects since 2019, including the seven-movement suite Perspective, which was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music. True to the title of that work, the collaborative process that Jlin and TCP have developed involves Jlin composing an entire work electronically, sometimes using samples of TCP’s instruments, which is then passed to TCP to reimagine through their own lens for live performance on percussion instruments.
Armenian-born, Los Angeles-raised pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan is one of the 21st century’s true slipstream musicians. His work crosses boundaries between jazz, crossover classical, electronic, Baroque dance, vocal and Armenian folk music atop electronic backdrops and hip-hop beats. Hamasyan was born in 1987 in Gyumri, Armenia. He began playing the family’s piano at age 3 and was enrolled in music school at 6. His jazz tastes early on were informed by Miles Davis’s fusion period, and around the age of 10 his family moved to Yerevan where he came to discover the classic jazz songbook under the aegis of his teacher Vahag Hayrapetyan. Tigran found himself part of the festivities at the Yerevan Second International Jazz Festival in 2000 and, when he was 16, his family immigrated to Los Angeles. Tigran stayed in high school for two months before gaining entrance to the University of Southern California, which he attended for two years. As a teen, he would go on to win a number of contests including the 2003 Montreux
Jazz Festival and the grand prize at the prestigious 2006 Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition.
While he has built a career as a performer of his own music — known to his fans as a sort of prog rock version of the modern jazz musician — Hamasyan’s work has started to be available to other performers in recent years, first as sheet music of his solo piano works transcribed from his recordings, and now in the form of new compositions written for other performers. In particular, he seems a natural choice for composing for a contemporary percussion ensemble, as his creative voice plays with extremely complex rhythmic cycles. Within this rhythmic landscape exists a compelling counterpoint, with different voices supporting or pushing against one another. Hamasyan’s great power as a composer is that the individual musical lines are always melodies in their own right, transcending the mathematics of their complex rhythmic skeletons.
Lou Harrison holds a particularly special place in the heart of percussionists. Along with his friend and collaborator John Cage, Harrison was one of the first generation of classical composers to begin writing percussion ensemble music, with works dating back to the 1930s. While Cage developed his own vocabulary for percussion music that eschewed any attempts at melody or harmony in favor of timbral variety and rhythmic tension, Harrison’s style creates surprisingly lyrical lines even from “non-pitched” percussion instruments. Flower pots, brake drums and cowbells truly sing in Harrison’s work, allowing him to create and develop recognizable motives, and blend percussion seamlessly with other instruments.
Please Be Still (2024) JLIN
For Third Coast Percussion’s 20th anniversary, the quartet asked Jlin to add another layer to the musical chain, by creating a new work that would be a remix or reimagining of a work by another composer that inspires her.
Jlin states, “I’m always so delighted when I get to collaborate with Third Coast Percussion. When they asked me to compose a piece that was Bachbased, I of course, jumped right to it. The Bach piece I chose to derive from is ‘Kyrie Eleison,’ the movement from Bach’s Mass In B Minor. That piece has so many rhythmic sections with endless possibilities. I’ve been a lover of Bach’s music since I was kid, and always found his work complicated. The percussionist in me hears Bach’s keystrokes as if they were individual
acoustic drums. I’m always trying to play against the rhythm, and this piece was no different.”
Please Be Still was commissioned by Third Coast Percussion for its 20th Anniversary, with support from Carnegie Hall, the Zell Family Foundation, the Robert and Isabelle Bass Foundation, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, the Julian Family Foundation, and Steph and Daniel Heffner.
Jlin’s Please Be Still is featured on Third Coast Percussion’s album Standard Stoppages, released on Cedille Records in April 2025, along with Tigran Hamasyan’s Sonata for Percussion, Jessie Montgomery’s Suite from In Color, and other works by Montgomery, Zakir Hussain and Musekiwa Chingodza.
Lady Justice/Black Justice, The Song (2024)
Lady Justice/Black Justice, The Song is inspired by the artwork of Ori G. Carino — a reflection on his painting Black Justice (2020–2022), which is a commentary on the injustices Black people continue to face at the heart of U.S. social order and politics. The subject is a Romanesque statue of Lady Justice, depicted as a Black woman, and she is painted using airbrush techniques upon several layers of silk, which are then stretched in staggered alignment across a lifesized canvas. The painting is placed in the center of the room with a light cast through it so that one can view the image on a 360-degree plane and observe the holographic effect that results from the silk layering, revealing her timelessness and multiple hues.
2025 SUMMER FESTIVAL
JUNE 20 — AUGUST 1, 2025
The party is back. Join SCMS this summer for 12 mainstage concerts featuring our world-class musicians, free concerts and events in Seattle area parks, open rehearsals, Tasting Notes, and so much more.
Tickets available at seattlechambermusic.org.
20 — JULY 3, 2025
The Concert Truck is rolling back into Seattle! Celebrating its fourth SCMS residency, the truck will bring 3 different chamber music programs to 18 locations across the city from June 20 to July 3, 2025. This concert hall on wheels brings the joy of chamber music right to you—perfect for families, first-time listeners, and chamber music lovers looking for a fun, relaxed way to experience live music.
Locations include:
• Alki Beach
• Bellevue Botanical Garden
• Washington Park Arboretum
• Magnuson Park
• Albert Davis Park at Lake City Farmers Market ...and more!
The image is staggering, aspirational, and technically virtuosic.
My approach was to try and interpret the painting from several angles, working in concert with Ori’s natural sense of beauty and grit, drawing musical correlations with the textures, techniques employed, and emotional qualities that spoke to me in the artwork. The main melody that appears throughout (which harkens to a Brahms-inspired theme that I wrote years ago, inspired by a line in Langston Hughes’ epic poem “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz” *) serves as a thread, reflecting the changing modalities in each section. I use special effects, such as dipping tuned crotales (weighted metal discs) into bowls of water to sonically reference the tipping of scales; the drum set part holds down an omnipresent breakbeat that bends and shapes the grungier middle section; and I interpret the holographic elements using various analogue musical delay effects. As the title suggests, this piece can be considered a companion to the painting and vice versa.
This piece represents a deep collaboration and artistic symbiosis between myself, Third Coast Percussion, and Ori. I am privileged to call them friends in music and in life. — Jessie Montgomery
*Passage from “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz,” by Langston Hughes (Pages 1,2)
“…A whirl of whistles blowing No trains or steamboats going— Yet Lyontene’s unpacking.
In the quarter of the Negros Where the doorknob lets in lieder More than German ever bore…”
Lady Justice/Black Justice, The Song was commissioned by Third Coast Percussion for its 20th Anniversary, with support from the Zell Family Foundation, Carnegie Hall, Hancher
Auditorium at the University of Iowa, Stanford Live, Stanford University, The Robert and Isabelle Bass Foundation, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, the Julian Family Foundation, Steph and Daniel Heffner, and Third Coast Percussion’s New Works Fund.
(Scan this QR code to view an image of the painting, and Ori’s biography).
Tigran Hamasyan’s Sonata for Percussion is very classical in some ways — it has three distinct movements (fast-slow-fast), and it is abstract music, evoking moods but not telling a specific story. Lilting dance feels, arpeggiated harmonies and ornamented melodies give an additional wink to the classical, but the vocabulary is pure Hamasyan, with the moments of hard-grooving energy or ghostly lyricism winding their way through an asymmetrical rhythmic landscape. The outer movements both explore different subdivisions of 23-beat rhythmic cycles, while the middle movement is in a (relatively) tame seven.
Working through this material — both in workshops with the composer during the creative process and in rehearsals for the premiere — was an exhilarating but humbling experience for the members of TCP, who had to work to develop the unique skill set that Tigran has built with his band, in order to fit together the rhythmic jigsaw puzzle in a way that grooves and allows the character of the musical lines to shine through.
Tigran Hamasyan’s Sonata for Percussion was commissioned by Third Coast Percussion for its 20th Anniversary, with support from
Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, the Zell Family Foundation, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, the Julian Family Foundation, and Steph and Daniel Heffner.
JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Jessie Montgomery’s In Color is a five-movement suite written for tuba and string quartet, commissioned by renowned jazz tuba player Bob Stewart for his record Connections: MIND-THE-GAP (Sunnyside Records). The piece is driven by the tuba technique and array of effects and colors that have become part of Stewart’s unique palette, and the pursuit of interesting composite sound colors that this uncommon combination of instruments would make possible.
In workshops with Third Coast Percussion for her first percussion ensemble piece, Study No. 1, Montgomery brought excerpts from a number of pre-existing works, including In Color, as material to experiment with on percussion instruments as a way to explore timbral possibilities and the blending of sonic colors. TCP member Sean Connors was drawn in by In Color in particular, and when Montgomery’s Study No. 1 evolved in a very different direction, Connors asked for the composer’s blessing to arrange three movements of In Color for percussion quartet.
Concerto for Violin and Percussion (1940/1959)
LOU
Harrison was fascinated with the aesthetics of non-Western musical traditions and was particularly passionate about Javanese Gamelan. In addition to the works he wrote for Gamelan ensembles and for his “American Gamelan,” its influence can be heard in the evocative instrumental colors and personality of many of his
other works. The pipes, bell plates and Thai gongs in the Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra create moments of Gamelan-like fanfare amongst the fluid asymmetrical dances that mark the concerto’s outer movements. The more plaintive middle movement is a violin soliloquy accompanied with sparse percussive punctuations that shows Harrison’s connection to the classical world; one could easily think it was music by Bartok or Shostakovich. TCP celebrated Lou Harrison’s Centenary in 2017 with performances and an HD video recording of the Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra with violinist Todd Reynolds, which can be found online.
Third Coast Percussion is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.
Ensemble
Sean Connors, Ensemble Member, Technical Director, and Education Director
Robert Dillon, Ensemble Member and Development Director
Peter Martin, Ensemble Member and Finance Director
David Skidmore, Ensemble Member and Executive Director
Staff
Reba Cafarelli, General Manager
Colin Campbell, Production Manager
Amanda Cantlin, Marketing Consultant
Nolan Ehlers, Operations Assistant
Rebecca McDaniel, Development Manager
Board of Directors
Ethelbert Williams, President
Beth I. Davis, Vice-President
Mary K. Woolever, Secretary
Daniel Knaus, Treasurer
Jim Barasa
Sara Coffou
Robert Dillon
Nimish Dixit
André Dowell
Jamie Jung
Samir Mayekar
Anna Musci
Sarah Forbes Orwig
Louise K. Smith
Catharine Fox Walby
Stay up-to-date and go behind-thescenes by following Third Coast on:
Instagram (@ThirdCoastPercussion)
YouTube (@thirdcoastpercussion)
TikTok (@thirdcoastpercussion)
Facebook (@Third Coast Percussion)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/thirdcoast-percussion)
CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES
Jerusalem Quartet | OCT 21, 2025
Karim Sulayman, tenor & Sean Shibe, guitar | JAN 17, 2026
yMusic | FEB 21, 2026
Augustin Hadelich, violin & Francesco Piemontesi, piano | MARCH 19, 2026
East Coast Chamber Orchestra with Shai Wosner, piano | MAY 14, 2026
CROSSROADS SERIES
Mariachi Herencia de México | OCT 17, 2025
Amadou & Mariam | NOV 8, 2025
The Baylor Project | FEB 14, 2026
Ted Poor & Friends | MARCH 14, 2026
Pablo Sáinz–Villegas | APRIL 18, 2026
DANCE SERIES
Sutra | NOV 13–15, 2025
Ephrat Asherie Dance with Arturo O’Farrill | JAN 29–31, 2026
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company | FEB 26–28, 2026
Circa: Duck Pond | APRIL 2–4, 2026
Mark Morris Dance Group | MAY 7–9, 2026
PIANO SERIES
Mahani Teave | OCT 3, 2025
Jon Kimura Parker | NOV 6, 2025
Leif Ove Andsnes | JAN 23, 2026
Joyce Yang | APRIL 14, 2026
Min Kwon | MAY 12, 2026
SPECIAL EVENTS
Music for New Bodies | NOV 1, 2025
Dianne Reeves: Christmas Time is Here | DEC 11, 2025
MOMIX: ALICE | APRIL 24–25, 2026
SPECIAL ENGAGEMENT
An Evening With Yo–Yo Ma | APRIL 22, 2026
DANCE SERIES generously underwritten by Ira & Courtney Gerlich
May 8–10 | 8 p.m.
Founding Co-Artistic Directors: Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson
Principal Choreographer: Dwight Rhoden
Executive Director: Muadi B. Dibinga
Senior Artistic Associates: Jillian Davis and Joe González
Artistic Advisors: Carmen de Lavallade and Sarita Allen
The Company
Bilgude Ariunbold, Aeron Buchanan, Christian Burse*, Michael Cherry, Kobe Atwood Courtney, Jillian Davis, Angelo De Serra, Chloe Duryea, Joe González, Marissa Mattingly, Laura Perich, Miguel Solano, Lucy Stewart, Diego Tápanes, Manuel Vaccaro, April Watson
Apprentice: Aristotle Luna
*Leave of Absence
Resident Choreographer: Jae Man Joo
Resident Poetjournalist: Aaron Dworkin
Artist in Residence: Vincenzo Di Primo
Rehearsal Directors: Natalia Alonso, Christina Dooling, Natiya Kezevadze
Assistant Rehearsal Directors: Miguel Solano
Resident Lighting Designer: Michael Korsch
Resident Costume Designer: Christine Darch
Director of Education: Monica Montaño
Company Manager: Bex Silberfein
Production Supervisor: Harrison Hoffert
Stage Manager: Jenna Hanlon
Lighting Supervisor: Jenni Propst
SEASON SUPPORT COMES FROM
YOUTH MATINEE & K-12 IN-SCHOOL ARTS RESIDENCY
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Colonel Ron & Mrs. Darlene Cheatham
Hans & Kristin Mandt
SIGNATURE SUPPORT
Terrel Dean & Robert Lefferts
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT COMES FROM Manisha Advani & Rajib Chakrabarti
Linda & Thomas Allen
Stephen & Sylvia Burges
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich
Lynn & Brian Grant Family
Hsiao-Wuen & Tiffany Hon
Tuck Hoo & Tom Lyons
Yumi Iwasaki & Anoop Gupta
Matthew & Christina Krashan
Jeffrey Lehman & Katrina Russell
Gary L. Menges
Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert
Tina Ragen and son, Ian
Richard Szeliski & Lyn McCoy
Donna & Joshua Taylor
Scott VanGerpen & Britt East
Ellen Wallach & Thomas Darden
George S. Wilson & Claire L. McClenny
Anonymous
2024
Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Music: David Rozenblatt (original score) — Divertimento
Lighting Design: Michael Korsch
Costume Design: Christine Darch
Performed by: April Watson and Bilgude Ariunbold, Lucy Stewart and Michael Cherry, Chloe Duryea and Miguel Solano, Laura Perich and Angelo De Serra, Marissa Mattingly and Aeron Buchanan, Manuel Vaccaro
Deeply (excerpt)
2024
Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Music: Arvo Pärt — Spiegel im Spiegel
Lighting Design: Michael Korsch
Costume Design: Christine Darch
Performed by: Jillian Davis, Joe González, Diego Tápanes
Gone
2000
Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Music: Odetta
Lighting Design: Michael Korsch
Costume Design: Christine Darch
Performed by: Michael Cherry, Aeron Buchanan, Angelo De Serra
Ave Maria
1995
Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Music: Giulio Caccini — Ave Maria
Lighting Design: Michael Korsch
Costume Design: Christine Darch
Performed by: April Watson, Joe González
Costume Reconstruction made possible by Tyrone D. Davidson
Mercy (excerpt)
2009
Music: Hans Zimmer — Mercy: 160 bpm
Performed by: The Company
For Crying Out Loud (excerpt)
2023
Choreography: Dwight Rhoden
Music: U2*
Lighting Design: Michael Korsch
Costume Design: Christine Darch
Performed by: The Company
1. Where the Streets Have No Name
2. I Will Follow
3. Every Breaking Wave
4. Vertigo
5. With or Without You
6. Pride
*Where the Streets Have No Name, Every Breaking Wave, Vertigo, I Will Follow, With or Without You, Pride (In the Name of Love). Performed by U2. Written by Adam Clayton, Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr. Published by Universal Music Publishing Ltd.
Hailed as a “matchless American dance company” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Complexions Contemporary Ballet transcends dance tradition through a groundbreaking approach to the art. Founded in 1994 by master choreographer Dwight Rhoden and the legendary Desmond Richardson, Complexions’ foremost innovation is to remove boundaries, not reinforce them. The company blends methods, styles, and cultures from across the globe, and the result is a continually evolving form of dance that reflects the movement of our world — and all its cultures — as an interrelated whole.
Complexions’s artistic directors and company members teach master classes around the world to dancers of all levels, bringing the company’s inventive vision of human movement to five continents, over 20 countries,
and over 20 million television viewers. The company has also performed at major dance festivals throughout Europe. These include Italy’s Festival of Dance; France’s Isle De Dance Festival and Maison De La Dance Festival; the Holland Dance Festival; Switzerland’s Steps International Dance Festival; Poland’s kódźBiennale, Warsaw Ballet Festival and Kraków Spring Ballet Festival; and Spain’s Dance Festival of Canary Islands. Complexions has toured extensively throughout the Baltic Regions, Korea, Brazil, Japan, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Israel, Russia, New Zealand, Bermuda, Serbia, Jamaica and Australia.
Complexions Contemporary Ballet has received The New York Times Critics’ Choice Award, among numerous other awards. It has appeared in theaters across the U.S., including The Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn
Academy of Music, New Victory Theater (New York City), the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts (New Orleans), Paramount Theatre (Seattle), The Music Center (Los Angeles), Winspear Opera House (Dallas), Cutler Majestic Theatre (Boston), the Music Hall (Detroit) and the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.) as part of the 2017 Ballet Across America. Prominent theaters abroad that have hosted Complexions include the Bolshoi Theatre, the Kremlin Theatre (Moscow), The Mikhailovsky Theater (St. Petersburg), and the Melbourne Arts Center. Over the past three decades, the company has witnessed a world becoming more fluid, more changeable and more culturally interconnected than ever before. Today, Complexions Contemporary Ballet represents one of the most recognized and respected performing arts brands worldwide.
Dwight Rhoden (Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director, Principal Choreographer) has established a remarkably wide-ranging career, earning distinction from The New York Times as “one of the most sought out choreographers of the day.” Rhoden began dancing at age 17, and performed with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Les Ballet Jazz De Montreal and as a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
In 1994, alongside Desmond Richardson, he founded Complexions Contemporary Ballet, bringing their unique brand of contemporary ballet to the world, forging a center for innovation and cutting-edge programming. Rhoden’s choreography has been the lynchpin of the company’s repertory development. In three decades, he has created over 100 ballets for Complexions, as well as for numerous other companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Arizona Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, BalletMet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Joffrey Ballet, Miami City Ballet, New York City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, PHILADANCO!, Mariinsky Ballet, Zenon Dance Company, The Washington Ballet, The Houston Ballet and The San Francisco Ballet, among many others.
Rhoden has also choreographed for So You Think You Can Dance, E! Entertainment’s Tribute to Style, AMICI, Cirque Du Soleil’s Zumanity, Mozart Her Story, and collaborated with artists including Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Paul Simon, Nina Simone, and many more. He is a recipient of The New York Foundation for the Arts Award, The Choo San Goh Award for Choreography, and The Ailey School’s Apex Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Boston Conservatory in recognition of his extensive contributions to the field of dance. Currently he is Adjunct Professor at Howard University and Artistic Professor of Dance at Chapman University.
Desmond Richardson (Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director) is an iconic American Dance professional, Broadway Tony Award Nominee, TedTalk Guest artist and speaker, and So You Think You Can Dance and AMICI (Italy) Guest Choreographer. Richardson is a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and has graced the covers of various publications; he was the first African American principal dancer of American Ballet Theater, a principal dancer with The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Frankfurt Ballet and a featured guest performer nationally and internationally. He has received the Capezio, Rosey Roosevelt Thompson, Bessie and Dance Magazine awards. He is an honorary Doctorate Recipient from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Currently, Richardson and his collaborator Dwight Rhoden are working on the Broadway bound Mozart Her Story with producers Tegan Summer, Patricia Klausner and Christopher Sepulveda. Richardson’s character “Ted” appeared on the HBO Max series “The Other Two” in Season 3.
Jae Man Joo (Resident Choreographer) is an internationally acclaimed choreographer and the recipient of the prestigious 2009 Princess Grace Choreographer Award. Hailing from Korea, he brought his unique artistic vision to the U.S., where he served as the Associate Artistic Director of Complexions. A former dancer at Ballet Hispanico and Complexions, Joo has worked and performed with a diverse range of choreographers, including Dwight Rhoden, William Forsythe, Shen Wei, Igal Perry, and Jessica Lang. Joo was invited to create works for Jacob’s Pillow in 2017 and 2019. He received the Artist Award from the Bagnolet International Dance Festival in Paris, France, The Korea Dance Critics Choice Awards in 2021 and 2023, and his full-length ballet VITA Received the Historical Korea E-daily Cultural Grand Prize in 2022. In 2023, His Ballet DIVINE for Gwangju City Ballet received The Best Korea Dance Art
Work of the Year. These accolades are a testament to his profound influence on the dance world. He has created many ballets for Complexions, all premiered at the Joyce Theater. He is currently a full-time ballet professor at Point Park University. In 2024, Joo premiered his ballet When Time Stands Still for The Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and the New Full Evening Ballet for the Korea Metropolitan Ballet Company for his rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Aaron Dworkin (Resident Poetjournalist) was named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, President Obama’s first appointment to the National Council on the Arts and member of President Biden’s Arts Policy Committee. Aaron is a bestselling author, Emmy award-winning filmmaker and poetjournalist. As a social entrepreneur, Aaron founded the Sphinx Organization (dedicated to promoting diversity in the arts) and the Institute for Poetjournalism. He is the former dean and current Professor of Arts Leadership and Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan and hosts the nationally-broadcast show “Arts Engines,” reaching 100,000 viewers weekly. Aaron is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of numerous honors including the National Governors Association Distinguished Service, BET’s History Makers in the Making and Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Lifetime Achievement Awards and named the National Black MBA’s Entrepreneur of the Year. As a poetjournalist, Aaron’s performances include Carnegie Hall, Harvard University, Chautauqua, NJPAC, Orchestra Hall in Detroit and the Winfield House in London among others. He has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, and named one of Newsweek’s “15 People Who Make America Great.” Aaron welcomes everyone to join his community at Patreon.com/Poetjournalist to shape the narrative of tomorrow, one verse at a time.
Natiya Kezevadze (Rehearsal Director) started her training in Classical Ballet at V. Chabukiani State Ballet School in Tbilisi, Georgia. At age 13, she was accepted to the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet on full scholarship in St-Petersburg, Russia. While at the Academy, Natiya studied with professor T. Udalenkova, performed extensively on the celebrated Mariinsky Stage, and received her BFA. She joined Boris Eifman Dance Company, and then was a soloist with Ballet Classic. Natiya moved to NYC in 2004 to further pursue her performing career, and a year later joined Forces of Nature Dance Theater Company, under the direction of Abdel Salaam. In 2007 she joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet, touring worldwide performing works by Dwight Rhoden, Desmond Richardson, Igal Perry and Jae Man Joo. In 2012, Ms. Kezevadze left touring life to focus on motherhood and to embrace her love for teaching. She has taught at the Joffrey Experience in NYC, Broadway Dance Center, was assistant
choreographer with the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute and for Dwight Rhoden’s original international production of the Great Gatsby Ballet. Today, Natiya continues performing with Complexions as Rehearsal Director, teaching as master faculty at the Complexions Academy, and collaborates in various dance projects.
Natalia Alonso (Rehearsal Director) began her career in dance when joining Ballet Hispanico in 2001, for which she received accolades in Dance Magazine’s cover story for her work with the company. Shortly thereafter, she joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet where she danced for five seasons. Natalia then performed the role of Maria Tallchief in the Lincoln Center Theater play, Nikkolai and the Others. She can also be seen in commercial publications such as Discount Dance and Baltogs, as well as several TV shows including “Law and Order: SVU.” Ms. Alonso is currently performing with the Metropolitan Opera and has appeared in productions of Die
Rosenkavalier, Carmen, La Nozze de Figaro, Die Fleidermaus, Rigoletto and Turandot. Before beginning her career as a professional dancer, Ms. Alonso, received a B.A. in Economics from Wesleyan University, where she also performed and co-directed a student run dance company. Ms. Alonso has taught master classes at institutions such as The Juilliard School, The Joffrey Ballet School, Barnard, Broadway Dance Center, Perry Mansfield and is also a certified GYROTONIC® instructor.
Christina Dooling (Rehearsal Director) began her career performing with Complexions Contemporary Ballet after working with Dwight Rhoden at NYU Tisch. After several exhilarating years with the company, Christina parted ways to pursue additional opportunities. Credits include The Phantom of the Opera, Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Flesh & Bone, and performances with Artists Pharrell and Camilla Cabello to name a few. Christina is honored to support Complexions in its 30th Season.
Michael Korsch (Resident Lighting Designer) is a lighting, projection and scenic designer based in Philadelphia, where he earned his B.A. in theatre from Temple University. He has worked with numerous directors and choreographers, creating hundreds of visual designs for dance, theatre and other live performances throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Michael has been the resident lighting designer for Complexions Contemporary Ballet since 1998, and Ballet Arizona since 2001. In addition, Michael has created designs for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Backhausdance, BalletMet, Ballet Nice Méditerranée, Ballet West, BalletX, Carolina Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Cleveland Play House, Czech National Ballet, DanceBrazil, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dayton Contemporary
Dance Company, Disney Creative Entertainment, English National Ballet, FELA! The Concert, Houston Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, MOMIX, Oakland Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Staatsballett Berlin, and Washington Ballet among others.
Christine Darch (Resident Costume Designer) has designed for Complexions since 2006. She designs and builds costumes for many choreographers including Julia Adam, Natasha Adorlee, Jennifer Archibald, Val Caniparoli, Rena Butler, Jorma Elo, Nicolo Fonte, Jen Freeman, Adam Hougland, Jae Man Joo, James Kudelka, Gabrielle Lamb, Edward Liang, Matthew Neenan, David Parsons, Caili Quan, Amy Seiwert, Merián Soto, Septime Webre, and Yin Yue. Ms. Darch has been commissioned by Alvin Ailey, Astana Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet Arizona, Ballet Hawaii, Ballet Memphis, Ballet Met, Charlotte Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Dayton Ballet, Gibney Dance, Gwangju City Ballet, Houston Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Madco, Marin Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Le Ballet Nice Méditerranée, Oklahoma City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Parsons Dance, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Post: ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Seoul Metropolitan Ballet, Singapore Ballet,Tulsa Ballet, Washington Ballet, and BalletX. Her full length works include four Nutcrackers, Sleeping Beauty, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Dwight Rhoden’s Othello She builds costumes from her studio in East Northport, New York.
Vincenzo Di Primo (Artist in Residence) grew up in Adrano, Sicily, Italy and graduated from the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy. Vincenzo performed with some of the world’s most reputable dance companies including The Royal Ballet of London and danced works from
choreographers including Kenneth MacMillan, Crystal Pite, Marius Petipa, Peter Wright, Frederick Ashton, Morgann Runacre-Temple, Nacho Duato, Natalia Horecna, Dwight Rhoden, Justin Peck, Jae Man Joo, Ricardo Amarante, and Jenn Freeman. Vincenzo received several awards including Prize winner and Contemporary Prize at The Prix de Lausanne, Gold Medal and Nureyev prize at Grand Prix de Paris, Outstanding Artistry Prize at Youth America Grand Prix New York, and Bronze Medal at the Beijing International Ballet Competition. In 2019, he was a contestant and finalist on the Italian TV show Amici after which he joined Complexions. In 2021 Vincenzo was included in Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” Vincenzo has been a company artist since 2019.
Bilgude Ariunbold, originally from Mongolia, trained as a ballet dancer at the Mongolian Conservatory from 2005 to 2012. In 2009, while still a student, he was chosen to join the State Academic Theater of Opera and Dance, where he performed as a soloist until 2015. He then joined Wise Ballet Theatre in South Korea as a principal dancer (2015-21). Bilgude studied choreography for three years at Mongolian National University of Arts and Culture, where he created and performed his own choreography called (Energy). He joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet in January 2024.
Aeron Buchanan began his formal training began at age 10 at Maryland Youth Ballet. Having a mother who was a former dancer and studio owner, Buchanan’s love of movement came naturally. He trained at The Washington Ballet and then at Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) graduating in 2017. He spent summers attending programs such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The School of American Ballet, Boston Ballet, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater
MAY 15
Craig Sheppard, piano Chair of the UW piano studies program presents an all-French program, performing works by Fauré, Franck, Ravel and Joël-François Durand.
7:30 pm Meany Hall—Gerlich Theater
Guest Artist Concert: Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble
MAY 22
The renowned ensemble dedicated to the performance of new works and gems of the historical avant garde presents an evening of world premieres by UW faculty composers.
7:30 pm Meany Hall—Gerlich Theater
JUN 5
Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band: Finale UW Bands presents a retirement send-off for long-time director Timothy Salzman in this program also featuring an appearance by the UW Alumni Band.
7:30 pm Meany Hall—Gerlich Theater
and Dance Theatre of Harlem. After graduating from BSA he attended the year round programs at Boston Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet before joining Cincinnati Ballet’s second company, followed by Nashville Ballet as an Apprentice in 2020 and promoted to Company Artist in 2022. During his four seasons with the company he was featured in works by Jermaine Spivey, Jennifer Archibald, Justin Peck, Jiří Kylián and Matthew Neenan. Aeron joined Complexions in 2024.
Christian Burse was born in Austin, Texas where she began her dance journey at the age of 2. She completed her early dance training at RISE Dance Company where she received a diverse dance education. She continued her dance training at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas, and Dance Industry Performing Arts Center. She attended multiple summer intensives at the Complexions Academy and The Juilliard School. She has received awards from The National YoungArts Foundation and was named a 2020/21 Texas Young Master. Christian joined Complexions in 2021.
Michael Cherry was born and raised in Springfield, Virginia. He is a graduate of George Mason University and received a B.F.A. in Dance as well as a minor in Arts Management. Michael has had the opportunity to dance in works created/set by Camille Brown, Alejandro Cerrudo, Doug Varone, Manuel Vignoulle, Rafael Bonachela, Rena Butler, Fiona Jopp, Susan Shields, Shaun Boyle-Darcy and Christopher d’Amboise. He has had the opportunity to attend the Juilliard summer dance intensive twice, Complexions Summer and Winter intensives, as well as LINES Summer dance intensive.
Kobe Atwood Courtney began their professional career with Orlando Ballet. In 2021 they continued their career with Festival Ballet Providence, where they were able to dance leading roles in pieces choreographed by
artists like Yury Yanowsky, Ja’ Malik and Lia Cirio. Here they have begun a mission to educate the dance community on the value of gender equality and the role the LGBTQ+ community has and continues to play in this field. Starting their pointe work and being able to travel and speak in many theaters and colleges to the next generation of artists, all while continuing to choreograph on larger platforms, creating more roles for nonbinary artists to be able to share their stories. They remain strong on their mission to open more opportunities for marginalized communities in the ballet and dance world. Kobe Joined Complexions in 2023.
Jillian Davis is from Pennsylvania and began her ballet training at the age of 3. She studied extensively with Risa Kaplowitz and Susan Jaffe at Princeton Dance and Theater Studio in Princeton, NJ. She has been a Company Artist with Complexions since 2014 and has been a part of several Dwight Rhoden world premieres. Additionally, she is a co-assistant rehearsal director and a production associate with the Company. Jillian is also a choreographer assistant with Jae Man Joo and Dwight Rhoden. Jillian is a Master Faculty member for Complexions Academy, teaching at the Winter and Summer Intensives, as well as Master Classes around the U.S.
Angelo De Serra grew up in Sassari, Sardinia, Italy. He began his professional training at the age of 14 with Sharon Podesva, his private ABT ballet teacher. He attended summer intensives at The Royal Ballet School, American Ballet Theatre and Academie Princesse Grace. At 17 he was awarded Senior Male Classical Top Six at Youth America Grand Prix Italy, and a year later won first place in Classical Soloist the Expression International Dance Competition in Florence where he received a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey School. He then moved to Cannes, France, graduated from PNSD-Rosella Hightower and joined Cannes Jeune
Ballet. After moving to NYC to attend The Ailey School, he attended intensives at the Complexions Academy and joined the Company as an apprentice in 2022. Angelo was promoted to company member in 2024.
Chloe Duryea received her early dance training near her hometown of Haslett, Michigan. While in high school she attended American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive as a National Training Scholar on full scholarship. Chloe graduated from Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music with Highest Distinction, earning a Bachelor of Science in Ballet and Kinesiology. At Indiana University she was featured in works by Twyla Tharp, Dwight Rhoden and as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty. Chloe has guested with the Ruth Page Civic Ballet and the Indianapolis School of Ballet, performing George Balanchine’s Nutcracker Pas de Deux. Chloe has previously danced professionally with Elements Contemporary Ballet, James Sewell Ballet and has performed at the Cannes Dance Festival. Since joining Complexions in 2023, Chloe has had the opportunity to dance works by Dwight Rhoden, Justin Peck and Ricardo Amarante, as well as perform at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
Joe González is from Boston Massachusetts, where he trained at Roxbury Center Performing Arts and the Boston Arts Academy. Joe has participated in Boston Conservatory’s summer intensive, American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival and twice at Springboard Danse Montreal. He received his B.F.A. from Boston Conservatory. Gonzalez has commissioned works for a few universities, educational institutions and dance companies. Joe toured nationally and internationally as performing artist with Philadanco, Anna Myer & Dancers, Prometheus Dance, #DBdanceProject, WaheedWorks and was the 2020-21 DanceVisions Artist in Resident at Performance Garage. He is currently
founder and artistic director of Jo-Mé Dance and was on faculty at Temple University, Georgian Court University and Boston Arts Academy. He joined Complexions in 2022.
Marissa Mattingly grew up in Tampa, Florida where she was trained in several different styles of dance. She started to take ballet and contemporary more seriously at the age of 13 when she began training at All American Dance Factory and Classical Ballet School under the direction of Terri Howell and Julio Montano. With this training she took part in many ballet competitions. She is a four-time YAGP finalist, and performed in the UBC 2022 finals gala as a Legacy Award winner. She attended her first Complexions Summer Intensive in 2021 and was invited to take part in their two week Trainee Program in the spring of 2022. She then joined the company in August of 2022 at the age of 17. Since then, she has performed in numerous ballets by Dwight Rhoden, including
two world premieres: Endgame and For Crying Out Loud at the Joyce Theater.
Laura Perich was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela where she began training at the age of 3. She then moved to Houston where she continued her training with Catriona Steel and completed The Royal Academy of Dance Ballet exams under Steel’s direction. After graduating, Laura joined Texas Ballet Theater’s Studio Training Company completing two full years in the program. In 2021, Laura moved to NYC and joined Ballet Hispanico’s Professional Studies Program as part of the inaugural cohort where she had the opportunity to tour and be a guest artist for the main company. Laura joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet in 2023.
Miguel Solano, originally from Medellín, Colombia, began his dance journey at the age of 17. He initially trained in Colombia before moving to NYC to complete his studies at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical
Ballet on a full scholarship, performing with Kirkland’s studio company. Miguel has performed with Awaken Dance Theater, Thomas/Ortiz Dance, RudduR Dance and Connecticut Ballet. He has had the privilege of collaborating with esteemed choreographers such as Earl Mosley, Christopher Rudd, Francesca Harper, Ricardo Amarante, Jenn Freeman, Darrell Moultrie, Larry Keigwin, Nadege Hottier, Larissa Calero, Eve Chan and Ted Thomas. In addition to his performance career, Miguel is a faculty member at Complexions Academy, where he teaches intensives and leads master classes globally. Miguel joined Complexions in 2018 and became Assistant Rehearsal Director in 2023.
Lucy Stewart grew up outside of Denver, dancing at Colorado Ballet and Kinetic Arts Dance Studio. She spent her summers training with American Ballet Theatre, The Joffrey Ballet, Complexions and Colorado Ballet. Lucy attended numerous Complexions summer intensives from 2017 to 2021,
in addition to the pre-professional program in New York in 2019 and 2020. She studied at The Juilliard School in the dance division from 2020-22, before joining Complexions for their summer tour that year. She has had the opportunity to study with various leading artists in the dance world, including Ohad Naharin, Francesca Harper, Tiler Peck, Rena Butler, James Whiteside, Karole Armitage, Matthew Neenan, Jae Man Joo, Jenn Freeman and Ricardo Amarante, as well as the opportunity to perform Set and Reset by Trisha Brown.
Diego Tápanes is a graduate of the Fernando Alonso National School of Cuba. He has earned multiple accolades, including a Bronze medal in 2014, Gold medals in 2016 and 2018, and a Technical Mastery Award. Tápanes has performed as a Principal Dancer with the National Ballet of Cuba and the contemporary Malpaso Dance Company, as well as a soloist with Texas Ballet Theater. He has brought to life works by renowned choreographers such as Ben Stevenson, Gemma Bond, Alexei Ratmansky, Ohad Naharin, Robyn Mineko Williams and Aszure Barton, among others. Diego joined the Complexions in 2025.
Manuel Vaccaro was born in Modica, a small Sicilian city in Italy. His passion for dance has lived since he learned how to walk. He began his dance studies at the age 6 at a private school in Sicily. When he turned 10, Manuel was admitted to the Rome Opera House dance school where he studied for four years. In September 2018, he started studying at the Rosella Hightower dance school in France. After sending a video audition to the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, Russia in 2019, he was admitted and studied for three years. In June 2022, Manuel received his diploma in professional dance and ballet teaching from the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Manuel joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet Academy in 2023.
April Watson began her dance training at age 8 at University North Carolina School of the Arts Preparatory Program. In 2016, April graduated from University North Carolina School of the Arts High School Program. She spent her summers with School of American Ballet, Houston Ballet, Debbie Allen Dance Academy, Charlotte Ballet, Indiana Ballet Conservatory, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Joffrey of Chicago, all on scholarship. After graduating from UNCSA, she spent two years in Los Angeles studying under the direction of Debbie Allen as an Artist in Residence on scholarship. April joined Complexions in 2019. April is also part of the Complexions Academy faculty.
Aristotle Luna (Apprentice) began as a trainee with Complexions Contemporary Ballet in the Spring of 2022 while in college. He grew up on Salt Spring and Orcas Islands in the Salish Sea and began dancing fulltime at age 10 under the direction of Anthony the Dancer. He was a member of The Island Inspiration All Stars, studied ballet, contemporary, tap, hiphop, salsa, jazz and aerial acrobatics, and performed in many shows, including Billy in Billy Elliot. He also trained with Ariel Serrano at the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School, Homer Bryant of the Chicago MultiCultural Dance Center and did an apprenticeresidency with Dance Now! Miami. Summer intensives include Jacob’s Pillow, Orsolina28, Hubbard Street, Houston Ballet and Interlochen. Aristotle completed his B.F.A. in dance and graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in May 2024. In his spare time, Aristotle is an avid capoerista and Mingus devotee.
Everick Brown, Dwight Rhoden, Desmond Richardson, Carl Nelson, Sarah Picot, Felicia Swoope
National Advisory Board
Debbie Allen, Angela Bassett, Wren T. Brown, Susan Jaffe, Carmen de Lavallade, Lisa Niemi Swayze, Courtney B. Vance, Pauletta Washington
Collaborators
Publicist: Lisa Labrado
Photographers: Rachel Neville, Steve Vaccariello Company, Taylor Craft, PhotosbyDrizzy, The Gingerb3ardman
Photography
Accompanists: Ai Isshiki, Dan Meinhardt, Alice Hargrove
Videographer: Jacob Hiss
Representation
Margaret Selby Selby/Artists Mgmt
262 West 38th Street, Suite 1701
New York, NY 10018
Office: 212-382-3260 | mselby@selbyartistsmgmt.com
Complexions Contemporary Ballet Foundation, Inc.
244 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2875
New York, NY 10001
Complexionscontemporaryballet.org @Complexions_Ballet
Complexions academy.com @Complexions_Academy
May 13 | 7:30 p.m.
FRANZ SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in C Minor, D. 958 (1797–1828)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Menuetto: Allegro
IV. Allegro
TYSHAWN SOREY For Anthony Braxton (b. 1980)
INTERMISSION
FRANZ SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960
I. Molto moderato
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezza
IV. Allegro ma non troppo — Presto
PIANO SERIES generously underwritten by Sven & Melinda Bitners and Sally Schaake Kincaid
SEASON SUPPORT COMES FROM
SIGNATURE SUPPORT
The Hokanson Family
Thomas McQuaid Jr.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT COMES FROM
Stephen & Sylvia Burges
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich
Lynn & Brian Grant Family
Hsiao-Wuen & Tiffany Hon
Tuck Hoo & Tom Lyons
Matthew & Christina Krashan
Jeffrey Lehman & Katrina Russell
Hans & Kristin Mandt
John C. Robinson & Maya Sonenberg
Eric & Margaret Rothchild
Donald & Toni Rupchock
David & Marcie Stone
Donald & Gloria Swisher
Jeff & Carol Waymack
Praised as “a superb pianist and also an eloquent and insightful music writer” (The Boston Globe) with “impeccable taste and a formidable technique” (The New Yorker), Jonathan Biss is a world-renowned educator and critically-acclaimed author, and has appeared internationally as a soloist with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Boston, Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras as well as the London Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonia and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, among many other ensembles. Biss is also Co-Artistic Director alongside Mitsuko Uchida at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he has spent 15 summers.
In the 2023-24 season, Biss performed with the Saint Louis Symphony and Stéphane Dénève, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Ramón Tebar, and the Philadelphia Orchestra
and Yannick Nézet-Seguin at Carnegie Hall. Throughout the season, Biss presents a new project that pairs solo piano works by Schubert with new compositions by Alvin Singleton, Tyson Gholston Davis and Tyshawn Sorey at San Francisco Performances, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, among many others. Biss continues his collaboration with Mitsuko Uchida featuring Schubert’s music for piano 4-hands at Carnegie Hall and more. He also appears with the Brentano Quartet at Chamber Music Detroit, Club the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, and more.
European engagements include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Karina Canellakis and the BBC National Orchestra and Ryan Bancroft. Biss reunites with the Elias String Quartet at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Cockermouth Music Society, and Wigmore Hall. In the new year, Biss
will perform works by György Kurtág and Schubert at the Sala Verdi in Milan. He concludes his European season with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris and conductor Pekka Kuusisto and Timo Andres’s The Blind Banister, part of his ongoing Beethoven/5 commissioning project.
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Minor, D. 958 (1828) FRANZ SCHUBERT
When Mozart was still a teenager, he wrote a series of violin concertos which are among the first of his works to have entered the repertoire and remained there. They are age appropriate, assuming one is a genius: impeccably wrought, full of imagination and charm, largely unconcerned with the great questions of life, and wholly untroubled by the specter of death.
When Schubert was eighteen years old, he wrote his first great song, the Erlkönig: a man rides through the night on horseback, holding his child but failing to protect him. Death beckons, in the form of the Erl-king; he is seductive and terrifying. Throughout the song, the pianist is asked to play lightning-fast octaves — the situation is nightmarish, the music close to unplayable. Moments from the end, the relentless motion in the piano part finally stops. Has the danger passed? No. The child has died.
This is Schubert. We forget, because the beauty of his music is so overwhelming, that his nature is morbid. Long before he had reason to suspect that his life would be short, he wrote music that fixates on death, with fascination and terror. When, at the age of just twenty-five, he began to show symptoms of the syphilis that likely killed him, this fixation grew stronger, and found increasingly personal and increasingly devastating expression in his music. This is the Schubert of the Unfinished Symphony, of Die Schöne Müllerin, works that, in their different ways, confront the horror of death, and offer consolation without offering hope.
And when, only a few years later, death was indeed imminent, Schubert reckoned with it in a way no other composer has, before or since. The astonishing final three piano sonatas, dated simply “September 1828” — he died in November — represent three different approaches to facing the inevitable. Perhaps because it was published as the last of the trilogy, the B-flat major, with its extreme surface serenity, has most informed our perception of Schubert at the end of his life. He is at peace.
Listen to the Sonata in C Minor, D. 958, and you will come to the opposite conclusion. Schubert is in rage, and he is in terror. The work is frightening to play and frightening to listen to; Schubert surely intended it that way.
Schubert is staring death in the face and insisting that you do so as well.
Much of the C Minor Sonata’s power comes from how tightly argued it is. There is a relentless focus to this music which is atypical. Schubert’s instrumental works tend to wander, sublimely; by and large, the C Minor’s grim forward march leaves no room for wandering. Perhaps that is why listeners have often found this to be the most Beethovenian of Schubert’s great works. The voice is unmistakably Schubert’s, but the sense of being led, inevitably and even inexorably, down a path, is highly reminiscent of the man who had died just a year earlier, and at whose funeral Schubert had been a pallbearer.
This sense of a remorseless architecture begins immediately: the opening theme rises and rises, reaching upward with ferocious insistence, punctuated by silences which only increase the tension. This is a motive but not a melody — a striking and significant choice on the part of a man who wrote hundreds of songs, and whose lyrical gift is rightly venerated. There is plenty of beauty in this sonata, but it is not the starting point, and it will not be the ending point; it is not the point. This opening rise is extreme, as befits the piece: just twelve measures in, we are three octaves higher than where we began, and already at a fever pitch. The terms of the work have been set; the path has been laid.
This path is not one of start-to-finish fury; Schubert is far too sophisticated for that, and it is anyway not how sonata form works. But while the sonata’s second theme is deeply lyrical, it offers no consolation. It is surpassingly beautiful but also ambiguous, never quite settling into its E-flat major, always feeling vaguely haunted by the music that came before it. The development represents a different sort of attempt to escape the terribleness promised by the opening, and a different sort of failure to do so.
Midway through it, we are suddenly unmoored, for the first and only time in the work. The start of the sonata was solidly diatonic, reaching ever upward, moving with total forthrightness; this music is unnervingly chromatic, moving up and then down with slithering uncertainty. It is a ghoulish detour from the movement’s central argument but joined to it through the terror it evokes.
This pervasive sense of terror makes what follows all the more deeply moving. The sonata’s second movement, an Adagio, puts a side of Schubert that had been sidelined in the first movement front and center: the tenderness in this Adagio’s main theme is almost more than one can bear. This theme, inexpressibly beautiful and already perfect in and of itself, becomes so much more powerful in context. It appears three times, interrupted twice by music with the sense of foreboding that permeates the rest of the sonata: dark, and with the harmonic ground shifting perilously underneath it. Each time the main theme returns, it grows more affecting; each time we grow more aware that the respite it provides will prove temporary.
And so it is. The third and, particularly, the fourth movements return us to the road we started out on: by the end, it will feel very much like the road to hell. The finale, a dance with death, is among the grimmest, most unremitting pieces of music ever written. Its primary material’s rhythmic drive is nonstop, its motion relentless; its secondary material, launched by a terrifying sudden shift — a modulation it isn’t — from C minor up to C-sharp minor, is, if possible, even more maniacal and driven. The central episode, the movement’s only music in the major mode, while beautiful in an unearthly way, is not ultimately less frightening — this is the Erl-King, consoling us to our death.
And death does come. The sonata began with a furious rise to the top of
the keyboard; it ends with a plunge all the way to the bottom. It is the culmination of an altogether harrowing work, one which gives magnificent expression to the darkest corners of Schubert’s psyche.
© Jonathan Biss, 2023
For Anthony Braxton TYSHAWN SOREY
Notes given from the stage.
Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960 (1828) FRANZ
SCHUBERT
It was the beginning of September 1828, and Schubert was seriously unwell. Thirty-one years old and in the throes of the tertiary stage of syphilis, he left the discomfort of urban Vienna for the discomfort of a tiny, damp and poorly heated room in his brother’s house.
He died in that miserable room just two months later. But first, he had one of the most stunning bursts of creative activity in human history. Before his health deteriorated to the point that composition became impossible, he completed a string of the greatest works he or anyone ever produced. This list likely includes the String Quintet in C Major, Schwanengesang, and the final three piano sonatas. The qualifier of “likely” is necessary because of the paucity of reliable information about Schubert’s working life in 1828. He worked feverishly, in all senses; he lived in poverty and obscurity. None of these works were published until long after he died; many of them were entirely unknown for years.
The gulf between these wretched circumstances and the power of the music that emerged from them is impossible to overstate. More than five years removed from his first bout with syphilis, Schubert had to have known — or, at the very least, strongly suspected — that he had little time
left to live. But as his life contracted, his music expanded, in length and, more so, in vision. The proportions of these last works are immense; their harmonic language is daring, sometimes even frightening. He is constantly grappling with fate; he is deeply, eternally lonely.
Each of these works is miraculous and endlessly interesting. But even in this staggering company, the Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960 stands out. It cannot be compared to the other music Schubert wrote in the last months of his life or, indeed, to any other music. The difference is not a question of quality: It is perfectly possible to prefer the String Quintet, or one of the other piano sonatas, or the Winterreise of 1827, or one of Bach’s, or Beethoven’s, or Mozart’s assorted miracles. That is a matter of taste. But Schubert’s B-flat Sonata is unique because it is the ultimate musical farewell. There are moments of terror in this work, and moments of play. But its subject is leaving the world behind: the profound sadness of knowing you will never again see those you love.
To listen to Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major is to be transported: it occupies the liminal space between life and death, and as you listen, you feel that you do as well. From the first notes, all the artifacts of the everyday are left behind; all that exists is this music. The sonata does not begin so much as emerge out of the silence that precedes it. A melody of absolute simplicity — it rises and then falls so gently, rhyming like a child’s poem — is underpinned by constant eighth notes, no fewer than 40 of them, moving with total regularity, evoking the eternal.
This is Schubert, though; for him, things are rarely as simple or as unencumbered as they first seem to be. The eighth-note motion does eventually stop, and when it does, it is not at a cadence — a point of rest — but on a dominant chord. This chord is a question mark; the silence the eighth
notes leave in their wake is a void, full of mystery and uncertainty.
Whatever it is that one expects to follow this heavy, destabilizing silence, it is not the thing that actually happens: a trill in the lowest reaches of the piano, played pianissimo and suggesting the minor mode. Only a few seconds long, and no louder than a murmur, this trill changes everything — not just what is to come, but the meaning of what we have already heard. The trill comes out of silence, and it leads to silence. But these silences are not mirror images: the second, in the wake of the trill, with its suggestion of menace, is ever so much fraught than the first. This second silence is followed by the resumption of the opening theme, and it has been irrevocably altered by the trill. More precisely, it has been fully revealed: we have felt the fragility and glimpsed the horror that its serenity is obscuring, barely.
For 20 minutes, the first movement proceeds along this path. The beauty of the music is extreme and inexplicable, but it is also haunted; the specter of a terrible void is never far away. The trill returns often enough that it should grow less unsettling, but it does not. Schubert wants to leave the world at peace, but he remains petrified.
If the first movement is poised between acceptance and terror, the second movement has a different preoccupation: the impossible task of saying goodbye. In a distant, desolate C-sharp minor, its main theme is somehow stoic and anguished all at once. The rhythm of the accompanying left hand is implacable, moving deliberately, inexorably towards death. The melody itself unfolds as a series of sighs; the ache of it is overwhelming. Nothing else Schubert wrote — none of the hundreds of songs — so thoroughly communicates the sehnsucht (“longing” is as close as English comes) that was the core of his character.
A central episode in A major attempts to bring the piece back to earth: its lyricism,
glorious as it is, seems to come from normal circumstances, so unlike the music that surrounds it. But its respite cannot be permanent, and inevitably, it leads back to the music of the opening, its sorrow more devastating than ever. For the first few measures, its shape is fundamentally unchanged from its first appearance. Then comes a modulation into C major so sudden and so unexpected, to listen to it is to have the blood drain from your face.
Many a music-loving agnostic has remarked that living with Schubert has made them believe in a higher power. This C major is Schubert’s transfiguration. The music does find its way back to its home tonality, but the man has crossed a threshold. If Schubert ever truly belonged to this earth, as of this moment, he has left it.
A third movement is not a necessity in a piano sonata. Beethoven’s final work in the genre, Opus 111, has only two movements, ending in a different sort of sublime void. Schubert himself wrote a two-movement piano sonata, either by design or on account of a loss of inspiration: the magnificent Relique in C Major. If Schubert had left the B-flat Major a two-movement work, no one would think it incomplete. These two movements guide us through life’s end: what more could there be?
In fact, the Sonata in - flat Major has not one but two more movements, and they are magic. Following the unfollowable, they manage to feel both inevitable and necessary. The third movement is not precisely high-spirited — it is a dance of the spirits, Schubert using the highest register of the piano as an angelic counterpoint to the trills that so destabilized the first movement.
The last movement achieves the impossible, giving true closure to a work whose subject is life’s most mysterious experience. Each time this rondo’s main theme appears, it is heralded by an extended, accented, G. This note is not an invitation, but a
challenge, nearly a threat: it is a minor third and a whole world away from the B-flat that ought to launch the movement. The confrontational nature of this introductory note keeps the theme from being jovial, which it might have seemed in its absence. Much in the same way that the foreboding trill complicated the emotional world of the first movement, this note ensures that the finale remains evenly poised between light and dark.
As the rondo theme makes its final return, one last wondrous thing happens. That G, stubbornly persistent throughout the movement, loses its footing, slipping down a step to a G-flat. In doing so, it transforms from a declamation to an entreaty. Up until this point, whether the music was optimistic or sinister, this movement projected confidence. With nothing more than a shift of a halfstep, Schubert has re-introduced the vulnerability that makes not just this
work, but the whole of his oeuvre so extremely moving.
With the next half-step shift, this time down to the dominant F, resolution feels imminent. And so it is: we are launched into the briefest of codas, back on the firm ground of B-flat major, presto, and at least on the surface, not just happy but recklessly happy. Is this Schubert storming the gates of heaven? That is for each listener to decide. All I can say with certainty is that playing this sonata has changed me. The piano literature is a treasure trove — there is more music of the highest quality than one person could ever get through in a lifetime. But Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major is unique in its impact. Its beauty is itself awe-inducing, but its unflinching honesty and total vulnerability take it to a different realm. It is almost too much to bear; playing it has been the privilege of my life.
© Jonathan Biss, 2024
SIGNATURE SUPPORT
Hugues Hoppe & Sashi Raghupathy
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT COMES FROM
Manisha Advani & Rajib Chakrabarti
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich
Hsiao-Wuen & Tiffany Hon
Yumi Iwasaki & Anoop Gupta
Matthew & Christina Krashan
Eric & Margaret Rothchild
Dennis Lund & Martha Taylor
John C. Robinson & Maya Sonenberg
Richard Szeliski & Lyn McCoy
Scott VanGerpen & Britt East
May 17 | 8 p.m.
A production of Fictionville Studio
Created, designed and directed by Hamid Rahmanian
Produced by Melissa Hibbard
Script written by Hamid Rahmanian and Melissa Hibbard
Based on the book, Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings
An adaptation of the story of Bijan and Manijeh from Shahnameh
Original score written and orchestrated by Loga Ramin Torkian
Featured Vocalist: Azam Ali
Ensemble
Emily Batsford, Kirk Bixby, Ray Dondero, Harrison Greene, J Hann, Esme Roszel, Sam Rotengold, Christopher Williams
Voice Actors
Mark Thompson, Christina Calph, Richard Epcar, Rose Nisker
Musicians
Loga Ramin Torkian, Azam Ali, Pejman Hadadi, Molly Rogers, Mahsa Ghassemi, Sinan Cem Eroglu, Sufi Rahmanian, Iman Torkian
Puppets
Design: Saba Niknam, Hamid Rahmanian
Construction and Mechanics: Zach Broome, Esme Roszel
Puppet Assembly: Neda Kazemifar, Ray Dondero, Neda Izadi, Parisa Harandi, Negin Keyhanfar, Weiyi Chen, Shuhei Matsuyama, Sonia Kim, Kevin Marinelli, Katayoun Amir Aslani
Stage Manager: Mo Talani
Company Manager: Ray Dondero
Sound Mixing: Mehrnaz Mohabati
QLab Setup: Mo Talani
Fight Choreography: Rob Aronowitz
Script Consultants: Ahmad Sadri, Lauren Whitehead
Grant Writing: Alexandra Guglielminetti
Additional Creative Contributions: Syd Fini, Leila Ghaznavi
Technical Services: Tyler Gothier, Kaveh Haghtalab
Laser-cut service provided by: Joseph Szegda Jr., Vahid Pourkay at
Print Icon
Photographs: Richard Termine
Representation: Laura Colby — Elsie Management
Cast of Major Characters
(in order of appearance)
Rostam
Performance by Sam Rotengold
Manijeh
Performance by Emily Batsford
Bijan
Performance by Kirk Bixby
Gorgin
Performance by Harrison Greene
Simorgh
Performance by J Hann
Hamid Rahmanian (Creator, Designer, Director) is a 2014 John Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of the 2020 United States Artists Fellowship. His work centers on theater, moving image and graphic arts. For over a decade, Mr. Rahmanian’s work has been rooted in the Persian epic poem, Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, modernizing and adapting the work for new diverse audiences. Some of his recent works include the 600page illustrated art book Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings (2013), which the Wall Street Journal
lauded as a “masterpiece,” and the immersive audiobook version with an introduction by Frances Ford Coppola. In 2018, he released the popup book, Zahhak: The Legend of the Serpent King in English and French which was awarded the Meggendorfer Prize for the Best Popup Book and hailed as “simply breathtaking” by Le Monde. In 2016, he created the UNIMA-USA award winning shadow theater piece Feathers of Fire which premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music and toured around the U.S. and abroad. In 2019, he was commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble to create a video animation for their multimedia
project, Heroes Take Their Stand. Mr. Rahmanian has recently completed the second installment of his shadow theater trilogy, Song of the North (2022) and published a new popup book, The Seven Trials of Rostam.
Loga Ramin Torkian (Composer) is an Iranian-born multi-instrumentalist and composer. He is recognized internationally for his ground-breaking work with World Music groups Niyaz and Axiom of Choice, both of which he co-founded. A highly gifted composer and a visionary, Loga is greatly respected for his ability to adapt the Persian classical repertoire to his own unique and modern compositions. In 2014, Loga was nominated for a Canadian JUNO Award in the Category of “Best World Music Album” for the album he recorded with musical partner Azam Ali titled Lamentation of Swans. He continues to produce albums and tour worldwide with Niyaz.
Azam Ali (Vocalist) is one of the most prolific, versatile and gifted singers/ composers on the international music stage today. Azam’s most notable work is with the cutting-edge world music electro-acoustic project Niyaz. Her distinctive voice can be heard on myriad film and television scores including Thor: The Dark World, Matrix: Revolutions, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Fight Club, True Blood, Alias, The Agency, and Prison Break. Azam has also collaborated with numerous musicians such as Serj Tankian of System of a Down, Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, Dredg, Chris Vrenna formerly of Nine Inch Nails, Kodo, Zakir Hussain and Mickey Hart.
Emily Batsford (Ensemble) is a NYC-based puppeteer and theater maker. Their artistry prioritizes inclusion and accessibility, and takes inspiration from immersive and physical theater practices, puppetry, and experimental forms. International puppetry includes: Book of Mountains and Seas (Basil Twist), Song of the
North (Hamid Rahmanian/Two Chairs Productions), Unfolding (Margarita Blush Productions). New York puppetry includes: PACKRAT (Concrete Temple Theatre), The Eye Which We Do Not Have (HERE Arts), Set in Stone (Sara Stern), End of the World (Center at West Park). New York theater includes: Stop Motion (Theater for a New City), Touch (with Katrina Lenk, 59E59), The Brightness of Heaven (Cherry Lane).
Kirk Bixby (Ensemble) is a performer, director, playwright and lyricist. His original web-series, Oscar and Herman Play Inside!, now has two seasons streaming. He is also the co-creator of Witch Wartsmith’s Halloween Spooktacular, an original not-so-spooky monster puppet musical. Notable performance credits include: Mr. Popper’s Penguins (first national tour), Jim Henson’s Dinosaur Train Live! (first national tour), Fiddler on The Roof (broadway national tour), and official voice and performer for Scooby Doo in Warner Bros. Scooby Doo Live! He also works with Up in Arms Puppets and the Ronald McDonald House Musical Magic band.
Ray Dondero (Ensemble/ Company Manager) is a Brooklyn based multidisciplinary designer, artist and lover of all things puppetry. They are a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut’s Design and Technical Theatre undergraduate program, focusing on scenic and costume design, as well as printmaking, puppetry and animation. Assuming the role of company manager, they are proud to have cultivated a loving and supportive environment in which this incredible team makes magic happen.
Harrison Greene (Ensemble) is a puppeteer, actor and musician based in Brooklyn, NY. A company member of Chinese Theatre Works, he performs Budaixi and shadow puppetry in NYC and abroad. Recent Puppetry Credits: The Tiger of Zhao (Flushing Town Hall) Triple Zhongkui Pageant
(International Puppet Fringe NYC), Chinoiserie Redux (Ping Chong & Co), Nora From Queens (Comedy Central), Ratso by Mollie Heckerling (Troma Entertainment) Manufacturing Mischief (The Tank), Tiger Tales (CTW), and Caveman Ballet (Boxcutter Collective). In 2019, Harrison performed in the 2nd International Teatro Lambe Lambe Festival in Puerto Montt, Chile with his original piece, The Waiting Womb He returned to participate in the third festival in 2023. He received his B.F.A. from University of Connecticut.
J Hann (Ensemble) is a puppeteer, director and fiber artist. Their weird and whimsical works have been performed in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Hong Kong, nationally, and in various venues in New York City. J was the Emerging Artist at the 2022 Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference. They have been a resident artist twice at The Object Movement Theatre Festival as well as an artist in residence at Governors Island. When not performing on stage or on the screen, they teach puppetry and the fiber arts to students of all ages, and have led workshops with The Jim Henson Foundation, Museum of Moving Image, Arts Corps, and Arts Connection, among others.
Esme Roszel (Ensemble) is a puppeteer, public historian and illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY. He is a graduate of University of Connecticut where he received his B.F.A. in Puppet Arts. Esme has performed and fabricated puppets for touring productions around New England. When not performing, Esme can be found teaching puppetry workshops to students of all ages and working at a history museum in his hometown of Plymouth, MA.
Sam Rotengold (Ensemble) is a theater artist, puppeteer and writer. As a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, Sam trained in traditional forms of puppetry around the world. His
work has been supported by The Jim Henson Foundation and featured at St. Ann’s Warehouse, BAM and Lincoln Center, as well as in festivals around the world. Sam is co-founder of The Brothers Čampur, a Balinese/American shadow puppet company performing Wayang Kulit throughout the U.S. and Indonesia. When not performing, he works as a teaching artist at The Kennedy Center, The New Victory Theater and the Pasadena Playhouse.
Christopher Williams (Ensemble), named a choreography fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2021, is a New York
Dance and Performance “Bessie” award-winning choreographer, dancer and puppeteer working in the unceded lands of the Lenape people (now designated New York City) and abroad since 1999. His works have been presented in Europe, South America and Russia, nationally, and in many NYC venues including The Joyce Theater, Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Live Arts, Lincoln Center, City Center and Danspace Project. He holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, and has performed for Tere O’Connor Dance, Douglas Dunn & Dancers, Rebecca
Lazier, Yoshiko Chuma, John Kelly, Peter Sellars, Basil Twist, Dan Hurlin, Lake Simons, Chris Green and Erin K.Orr, among others.
Mohammad Talani (Stage Manager) is a San Francisco-based musician, actor and videographer. He has worked with several artists and bands, including Marcus Shelby, Stephen Daldry, Pallett and Babak Jalali.
Major Funding provided by the National Theater Project, New York State Council for the Arts, Hamid and Christina Moghadam Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Jim Henson Foundation, Flora Foundation, Neda Nobari Foundation and Brooklyn Arts Council
Commissioning partner: The University of Richmond’s Modlin Center for the Arts
Special thanks to our generous donors
Vernon Davis Grizzard III, Francis and Dionne Najafi, Tahbazof Family Foundation, Maximum Difference Foundation, Bijan and Soraya Amin Foundation, Primex International Trading and Yaghmaie Family Charitable Fund
Additional support provided by Rostam Zafari, Farhad Mohammadi, Parto Moshayedi, Amir Farman Farma, Michael Sabourian and Mrs. Massoudeh Sudeh Sabiurian, Haleh Emrani, Razi Family Foundation, Andrew Tavakoli, Sunset Franchise Capital, Gholamali Yaganeh, Niloofar and Bahmani Fakhimi, Nader Sanai, Alex Ramzoo, Khosrow Hakakian, Kazem and Karen Yahyapour and the Iranian Association of North Carolina
We would like to express our deep gratitude to the following individuals who have helped us throughout this journey: Mark Amin, Rostam Zafari, Mahsa Hakimi, Ram Devineni, Bessy and Navid Khonsari, Amir Farman Farma, Ali Amin, Mohammad Amin and Farhad Mohammadi
Located in the lobby of the Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Theater near Door C, the Skexe Panels are inspired by the Coast Salish wooly dog blankets of the People of the Salish Sea.
Dan Friday is a Native of the Lummi Nation and a lifelong resident of the Puget Sound region. Drawing from cultural themes and using modern processes, his work is contemporary in format while maintaining basic Native American qualities.
Scan the QR code to learn more about Dan Friday and his work
The House Manager desk is located at the entrance to the lobby. Ask the House Manager or any of our ushers if you need assistance or have questions.
The Meany Hall Box Office opens one hour before the performance and is located in Meany Hall’s main entrance.
Food and beverage options are available for Meany Center events. Food and beverage is not allowed in the theater.
Restrooms are located on the lower and upper lobby levels. Lower lobby restrooms are accessible by elevator.
Lobby doors open one hour before the show and seating begins 30 minutes prior to show time. Performances begin promptly as scheduled. Out of respect for the artists and seated patrons, late seating is not guaranteed and is at the discretion of the artists and theater personnel.
Please turn off these devices before performances. The use of photographic recording equipment is prohibited. Flash cameras can be disruptive and dangerous to some artists.
Contact the Meany House Manager in the lobby immediately following the performance or at bnancy@uw.edu or 206-543-2010.
Instruments, skateboards, large bags or other egress hazards are not allowed in the seating area.
Children 5 years of age or older are welcome at all Meany Center performances.
Earplugs are available available at the House Manager desk. Booster cushions are available in the lobby of the Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Theater. Large print programs are available at the House Manager’s desk.
Wheelchair locations and seating for patrons with disabilities are available. Check with an usher for assitance in storing mobility devices near seating.
Assistive listening devices amplify and clarify sound by cutting down on ambient noise. RF (radio frequency) assistive listening systems are installed in the theater. You can check out a receiver and induction loop (can use a personal neckloop with a 3.5 mm jack) for those that use hearing aids or cochlear implants with a “T” switch or a headset for those without hearing aids. Please ask at the House Manager’s desk for assistance. Photo ID deposit is required.
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Our accessible drop off and pick up location is inside the Central Plaza Garage (4100 15th Ave NE), at the CPG 2 Elevator Lobby. For more information: meanycenter.org/visit/directions-parking
The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs and activities for individuals with disabilities. To request these services or other accommodations at no additional cost, please contact the ArtsUW Ticket Office.
Meany Center for the Performing Arts University of Washington Box 351150
Seattle, WA 98195-1150
206-543-4882
ArtsUW Ticket Office 1313 NE 41st Street
Seattle, WA 98105
206-543-4880 or 800-859-5342
Email: ticket@uw.edu
Hours: Mon–Fri, 12 p.m.–4 p.m.
MANY THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING DONORS WHOSE GENEROUS SUPPORT MAKE OUR PROGRAMS POSSIBLE:
PRODUCER’S CIRCLE
Sven & Melinda Bitners
Sylvia & Stephen Burges
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich
Hans & Kristin Mandt
Thomas McQuaid Jr.
Gary L. Menges
Margaret Dora Morrison †
Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert
Judy Pigott
John C. Robinson & Maya
Sonenberg
Sally Schaake Kincaid
DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE
Nancy C. Alvord †
Warren & Anne Anderson
Ira & Courtney Gerlich
Lynn & Brian Grant Family
Hsiao-Wuen & Tiffany Hon
Yumi Iwasaki & Anoop Gupta
Sunil Paul & Michelle Odom
Tina Ragen & son, Ian
Eric & Margaret Rothchild
Donald & Gloria Swisher
Richard Szeliski & Lyn McCoy
Scott VanGerpen & Britt East
Ellen Wallach & Thomas Darden
Anonymous
SERIES BENEFACTOR
Manisha Advani & Rajib
Chakrabarti
Linda & Thomas † Allen
Col. Ron & Mrs. Darlene
Cheatham
Terrel Dean & Robert Lefferts
Cynthia Gantz & Joshua Taft
Sharon Gantz Bloome †
Daniela & Torsten Grabs
Amy & Christopher Gulick
The Hokanson Family
Tuck Hoo & Tom Lyons
Karen L. Koon
Matthew & Christina Krashan
Jeffrey Lehman & Katrina Russell
Dennis Lund & Martha Taylor
Lois Rathvon †
Donald & Toni Rupchock
Craig Sheppard & Gregory
Wallace
David & Marcie Stone
Donna & Joshua Taylor
Jeff & Carol Waymack
George S. Wilson & Claire L.
McClenny
Philip Anderson
Barbara Billings & Ernest Vogel
Paul Blinzer & Theodora Letz
Heidi Charleson & Louis
Woodworth
Jim & Margie Chen
Leonard Costello & Patricia
McKenzie
Susan & Lewis Edelheit
Patricia Emmons & Shmuel El-Ad
Phil Lanum & Gail Erickson
Justin & Tiffany Grimm
Dr. M. Elizabeth Halloran
Shuko Hashimoto
Elizabeth Hebert
Hugues Hoppe & Sashi
Raghupathy
David Kimelman & Karen Butner
Olivia Lee
Rebecca Norton & Craig Miller
Richard and Sally † Parks
Lorraine Toly
Manijeh Vail
Michelle Witt & Hans Hoffmeister
Anonymous
Kenneth & Marleen Alhadeff
Charles Alpers & Ingrid Peterson
Jillian Barron & Jonas Simonis
Mel Belding & Kate Brostoff
Cathryn Booth-LaForce & W Kenneth LaForce
Kalman Brauner & Amy Carlson
Pat Braus & Holly Boone
James Bromley Jr. & Joan Hsiao
Shannon Bruce
Eric & Susan Carlson
Carol & Carl Corbin
Margaret Crastnopol & Charles
Purcell
Sharon Ducey
Dunn Lumber Family
Susan Ewens & James Luby
Albert Fisk & Judith Harris
Corinne Fligner & Mark Wener
JoAnn Forman
Davis Fox & Rosemary Coleman
Judith Frey & Flick Broughton
Matthew & Michelle Galvin
Ruth Gerberding †
John Goodfellow Jr. & Barbara
Peterson
Arthur & Leah Grossman
Phyllis Hatfield
Susan Herring
Thomas Highsmith
Paul & Alice Hill
Paul Hopp
Gwen & J. Randy Houser
Mary, Mike & Emily Hudspeth
Weldon Ihrig & Susan Knox
John & Annick Impert
Mike Dryfoos & Ilga Jansons
Jean & David Koewler
Connie & Gus Kravas
Eric Larson & Teresa Bigelow
Teresa Lawson
Hank Levy & Ronit Katz
Kathleen Lindberg & David Skar
Barbara Mack
Melodie Martin & Kenneth
Dayton
Rupal Mehta & Srivats Srinivasan
John & Gail Mensher
Jim & Pamela Murray
Gloria & Dan Overgaard
Gowri & Ramesh Pabbati
Cheryl Redd-Cuthbert & Richard
Cuthbert
Joy Rogers & Robert Parker
Karen Sandeen
Cathy Sarkowsky
Noah & Kate Scooler
Amy Scott & Stephen Alley
Virginia Sly
Clark Sorensen & Susan Way
Robert & Ethel Story Sr.
Keith Swartz
Dale Sylvain & Thomas Conlon
Jack & Gayle Thompson
Irene Valdes Wochinger
Pieter & Tjitske Van der Meulen
Christine & Olaf Weckner
Melanie Ito & Charles Wilkinson
John & Lynn Williams
Igor Zverev & Yana Solovyeva
Anonymous
PATRON
Dick Ammerman
Julia Bacharach & Daniel Cory
Heather & Mark Barbieri
Christopher & Cynthia Bayley
John & Carol Belton
Cristi Benefield
Robert Bergman
Michael Bevan & Pamela Fink
David Bobroff
Michelle & Matthew Bomberger
Heida Brenneke
Jonathan & Bobbe Bridge
Dave & Debbie Buck
Leo Butzel & Roberta Reaber
Rita Calabro & James Kelly
Katherine Graubard & William
Calvin
Myrna & Grayson Capp
Diana Clausen
Fran Clifton
R. Bruce & Mary-Louise Colwell Jr.
Jill Conner
Robert Cook
Judy Cushman & Robert Quick
Miguel Rivera Dávalos
Suzanne Dewitt & Ari Steinberg
Toby Diamond
Susan & David Dolacky
Christopher & Carrie Doring
In Memory of Toby Faber
Kai Fujita
Lisa Garbrick
Sergey Genkin
Virginie Grange
Denise Gregory Wyatt
J. David & Brenda Griswold
Richard Groomer & Betsy
Lieberman
Susan & Richard † Hall
Steven Haney
Katherine Hanson & Michael Schick
Karen Henley & Laurie Goldman
Pamela Hinckley
Robert Hirsch
Kate Hokanson
Robert Jenkins
Nancy & Michael Kappelman
Paul Kassen
Aaron Katz & Kate Dougherty
Mary Kenny
Frederick Klein IV
Peggy Larson
Joanna & Frank Lau
Martha Leonard
William Levering III & Susan Hert
Michael Linenberger & Sallie
Dacey
MANY THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING DONORS WHOSE GENEROUS SUPPORT MAKE OUR PROGRAMS POSSIBLE:
Arni Litt
Neil Ludman
Thomas Manley & Mariann Carle
Bernadette Margin
Tessa Matthey & Peter Durkee
Anna & Paul McKee
Christopher & Mary Meek
Robin Mendelson & Josse Delage
M. Lynn Morgan
Jonathan Newmark
Margarete Noe
Anne & Bill Nolan
Amanda Overly
John Nemanich & Ellendee
Pepper
William & Suzanne Phillips
Desiree Prewitt
Kristi Rennebohm & Eldon H. Franz
John Rochford & Nick Utzinger
Mark & Barbara Roller
Richard Roth
Harriet Round
David & Joanne Rudo
Joseph Saitta
Werner & Joan Samson
Peter Seitel & Janet Geier
Mark & Patti Seklemian
Louise Shields
Sigmund Snelson
Sunita Sondur
Mark Taylor
Ericka & Stephen Thielke
Kris & Epaminondas Trimis
Linda Vangelos & Stephen Kaufer
Ann & Richard Weiner
Kai Wilhelm
John & Lynn Williams
Todd & Valerie Yerkes
Carol Young
Anonymous
GREAT PERFORMER
Mary Alberg
Nancy & John Angello
Robert Babs
Trudy Baldwin
Lisa Baldwin & John Cragoe
Melissa Belisle
Dennis Birch & Evette Ludman
James & Suzette Birrell
Peter Byers & Virginia Sybert
Erin Candee
Inez & Lior Caspi
Alan & Phyllis Caswell
Alan & Sandra Chait
Sandra & Dan Ciske
Libby & Leslie Cohen
Misti Davis
Annette de Soto
Karen Domino & Gene Brenowitz
Isabel Doran
Anne Eskridge
Cynthia Ferrell
Gary Fuller & Randy Everett
Beatrice Graham
Martin Greene & Kathleen
Wright
Pamela & Stephen Gruber
Kirsten Gunn
Allison & Paulo Gutscher
Lynn Hagerman & James
Hummer
Dianne Harris & Lawrence
Hamlin
Robin Hendricks
Andrew Himes & Alexandra
Wilber
Tania Hino
Patricia Hynes
Robert Johnson & Heather Erdmann
Tamara & Randel Josserand
Marcia Kamin
Deborah Katz
Marcia Killien
Brandon Koeller & Kim Davis
Inge & Leslie Larsen
Margaret Levi & Robert Kaplan
Kris Lewis
Mary Louis & Robert Arnold
Gwendolyn Lundberg & David
Aggerholm
Dean & Tomilynn † McManus
Christopher Miller
Sally Mizroch
Raymond Monnat Jr. & Christine
Disteche
Marion Nielson
David Owsiany & Everett Seven
James Packman & Andrew Cohen
Kathy Partida
James Phelps & Ena Urbach
Kerry Radcliffe & Michael Fox
Paula Riggert
Chester Robachinski
John & Margaret Sanders
Norman & Elisabeth Sandler
Jean Schweitzer
Michael Scupine & Kim Abson
Harold & Ruth Spalter
Sarah Stanley & Dale Rogerson
Bonnie Steele
David Stiner
Linda Stone
Ingvil Syversen
Diana Frumkes Thompson &
Richard Thompson
Michelle & Stephen Turnovsky
Raymond Tymas-Jones
Mary Vogelzang
Francine Walsh
Merle Weiss & Diana Pien
Tracey West
Ann Adam
Jill Bader
Jonas Barklund
Michelle & Robert Berman
David Bird
Luther Black & C. Christina
Wright
Cleo Bloomquist
Helen Bodkin
Edward & Adele Bolson
Katherine Bourbonais &
Donald Ramsey
Lydia & Scott Brennan
Shannon Bryan
Kate & Jerry Campbell
Frances Carr
Connie Case
Marise Chan
Patricia Cirone
Alton & LeeAnn Cogert
Janet & William Corriston
Jean Crill
Christopher Curry
Dana Davoli & Bob Goldsmith
Lynne De Merritt
Susan Dorn & Adam Jonas
Michael Dryja
Laurie & C. Bert Dudley
Karen Elledge & Gerald Ginader
Hollie & Lynne Ellis
Michael Erickson & David Doody
L. Jay Field & Deborah Dwyer
Melanie Field &
Vinaya Chepuri
Virginia Fitzhugh &
Miguel Morales
Gerald Folland
Brenda Fong
Denise Fonseca
Jackie Forbes & Douglas Bleckner
William Friedman
Michael Furst
Brian Giddens & Steve Rovig
David & Anne Gilbert
George Gilman
Sara Glerum
J. David Godwin II &
Ginger Reeves
Joan & Steve Goldblatt
Harvey Greenberg
Tim Groggel & Annette Strand
Emile Haddad & Terryll Bailey
Keala Hagmann & Bur Davis
Lia & Benjamin Halas
Cathy Halstead
Keith Hawley
Bruce Horne
Nicholas Horvath
Travis Howland
Anne Huey
Lynne Iglitzin & Walter Bodle
Lowell Ing
M. Johnson
Christopher & Linda Johnson
Giff & Mary Jones
Carolyn Kast
Linda Katz
Kayla Kinnunen
James & Elaine Klansnic Jr.
Glen Kriekenbeck & Quentin King
John Lee & Pm Weizenbaum
Peter LeVeque
Kathryn Lew & Dennis Apland
Ariel Lopez & Thomas Finley
Sara Magee
Ronald & Lee Magid
Constance Mao
Janelle Martin
John Martines & Joel Gibson
Lila May
Robin McCabe
Pamela & David McDonald
Mary McGuire
Robert & Catherine McKee
Susan McNabb
Michael & Sarajane Milder
Jacquelyn & Gordon Miller
Reza & Carol Moinpour
Anne Morrison
Christine Moss
Susan Mulvihill & James
Liverman
Joseph & Kay Neal
Michael Nelson & Louise Durocher
Betty Ngan & Tom Mailhot
Marianne Nijenhuis
David Norman
Georgia Oistad
Dennis Oliver & Stephanie Prince
Robert Otto
Jae Paek
Cathy Palmer
Anna Peterson
Jeanne Peterson
Gregory & Margaret Petrie
Wendy & Murray Raskind
Linda Reeder
Dennis Reichenbach
Jason Reuer
Cynthia Richardson
Carla Rickerson
Sharon Rodgers
Keith Rowe & Ann Stover
John & Janet Rusin
Jerret Sale & Rachel Klevit
Margaret Sandelin
Murl Sanders
Laura Sargent
Patricia Scott
George Sharp
Marc Sinykin
Sara Stamey & Winston Saunders
Derek Storm & Cynthia Gossett
Dawson & Lois Taylor
Kevin Thompson
Mary Thorbeck
Christian Torgersen & Emily Vason
Elena Trubnikova
John & Gail Wasberg
Robert & Andrea Watson
James Whitson & Patricia Adams
Karin Williams
Deborah Wilson & Ngan Teng
Eyva Winet
Grant Winther
Donna Wolter
Evgueni & Tatiana Zabokritski
Maxine Zemko
Reginald Zisette & Beth Gendler
Anonymous
Julia Adams
Adrianne Allen
Suzanne & Marvin Anderson
Dean Arnold
Samia Ashraf & Lewis Davidson
Lauret Ballsun
Holly Bays
Dana & Rena Behar
John Beierle
G. Carter Bentley & Lynda Emel
Thomas Bird
Jane Blackwell
Wayne Briscoe
Virginia Burdette & Gary Wieder
David Butterfield & Janice
DeCosmo
Dennis Calvin
Joan Casey
Carol Chellino & Robert Andrews
Thomas & Susan Colligan
Merrilee Conway & James
Young III
Diane Darling
Trisha Davis & Eric Muller
Alban Dennis
Marsha Devine
Kathleen Dickeman
Janice Dilworth
Cliff Eastman & Leah Kleinman
Sally & Stephen Edwards
Gaylord Escalona
Nicole Faghin & David Spence
Molly Flemming
Bryant Fujimoto
Matthew Gani
Dolores Gill Schoenmakers
Harold Gillies
Jerry & Lyn Grinstein
Stephen Haeck
Susan Hamilton & Timothy Bates
Michael Harnisch
Eddie & Marguerite Hasson
Erin Hawley
Maryetta & Tina Healy
Judith Herrigel
Katharine & Frank Holland
Lynn Holmes
Greg Hope & Sandra Hunt
Leslie Jacobson & Barbara
Barnes
Natarajan Janarthanan & Ponni Rajagopal
David Johnson
Barbara & P. Redmond Johnston
Erica & Duane Jonlin
Margaret Kenrick
Linda Kent & James Corson
Lee Klastorin & Ralph Walden
Roger Kohn
Kent Koprowicz
Susan Krom
Elizabeth Leo
James & June Lindsey Jr.
Louise Lipnick
Robin Luke & John Casseday
Donna McCampbell
Meredith McClurg
Brian McHenry
Tim McTigat
Angela Medina
Sharon Metcalf & Randall Smith
Sheree Miller
Charles & Rene Murry
Matthew Nugent & Andrea Hanses
Shyril O’Steen
Jennifer & Robert O’Twomney
Jack Percival
Sandra Piscitello
Gary Prince & Meg Goldman
Ann Rael
James & Ruth Raisis
Meryl Retallack
Tom & Nancy Roth
Eric Schmidt & Kristin Henderson
Michael Schmitt
Joan & Charles Schooler
Lynn Schwendiman
Lika Seigel
Dennis Shaw & Julie Howe
Luciana Simoncini & Todd
Scheuer
Mani & Karen Soma
Hank & Dorothy Stephens
Nancy Stewart
Myrna & Donald Torrie
Emily Transue
Mark Veigl
Bruno & Yvonne Vogele
Greta Ward
Lucy & Larry Weinberg
Robert Wood
Janice Yamauchi
Robert Zauper
Deceased †
This listing includes donors from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
MANY THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS FOR SUPPORTING THE FUTURE OF MEANY CENTER THROUGH PLANNED GIFTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR ENDOWMENT:
Planned Gifts
Linda & Thomas † Allen
Cathryn Booth-LaForce
Wimsey J.N. Cherrington
Cheryl Redd-Cuthbert & Richard Cuthbert
Bill & Ruth Gerberding †
Michael & Nancy Kappelman
Matthew & Christina Krashan
Teresa Lawson
Tomilynn † & Dean McManus
Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert
Lois Rathvon †
Dave & Marcie Stone
Donald & Gloria Swisher
Lee & Judy Talner
Ellen J. Wallach
Anonymous
Ellsworth C. & Nancy D. Alvord
Endowed Fund
Estate of Ellsworth C. Alvord*
Kathleen Dickeman
Arts Al!ve Student Fund for Exploring the Performing Arts
Lowell Douglas Ing
Susan Knox and Weldon Ihrig*
Mina Brechemin Person Endowed Fund
Estate of Mina B. Person*
Sylvia & Steve Burges Meany Center for the Performing Arts Endowment
Sylvia & Stephen Burges*
Nancy & Eddie Cooper Endowed Fund for Music in Schools
Kei Schafer
Marcie & Dave Stone*
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Endowment for Artistic Excellence
Katharyn Alvord Gerlich*
Elaine & Ernest Henley Endowment for Classical Music
Mary Johnke Alberg
Anne Futterman
Joel Gibson & John Anthony Martines
Elaine & Ernest Henley*
Dr. Karen Henley & Dr. Laurie Goldman
J. Randy and Gwen Houser
Catherine & David Hughes Asian Programming Endowment
Catherine & David Hughes*
Matt Krashan Endowed Fund for Artistic & Education Excellence in the Performing Arts Matthew & Christina Krashan
Lee & Judy Talner
(*Multiple Founders)
Gary L. Menges Endowment for Chamber Music and Dance
Gary Menges*
Live Music for World Dance Series Endowed Fund
Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert*
Meany Center Education Endowment
David Aggerholm & Gwendolyn Lundberg
Suzette & James Birrell
Jill Hanley Conner
Sandra Piscitello
(*Multiple Founders)
Meany Center Programming Endowment Fund
(*Multiple Founders)
Margaret Dora Morrison Meany Endowed Fund
Margaret Dora Morrison*†
Elizabeth Rennebohm Music
Performance and Education Memorial Endowment
Roger Kohn
Kristi Rennebohm Franz & Eldon H. Franz*
Gloria Wilson Swisher Music
Education & Outreach Endowment
Julia Adams
John and Nancy Angello
David Olmsted Bobroff
Jonathan Bridge
Paul Crawford
Kristin Henderson
Karen L. Koon
Jonathan Newmark
Kerry Radcliff e & Michael Fox
Alan & Susan Sherbrooke
Deborah Wilson & Ngan Chong Teng
George S. Wilson & Claire L. McClenny
* Endowment founder
† Deceased
Note: Dollar amounts rounded to the nearest thousand.
This listing includes endowment founders and endowment donors from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. For more information on how to make a gift through your will or trust, or to name Meany Center for the Performing Arts as a beneficiary of your retirement plan or insurance policy, please call 206-616-6296 or visit uwfoundation.org/giftplanning.
“If I have seen a little further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
— BERNARD OF CHARTRES
From Haydn to Mozart to Beethoven to the Beatles, each generation owes its progress to the ones that came before.
You, too, can be a giant.
CONSIDER A GIFT to the Meany Center through your will, trust or retirement plan, and help future generations of artists and arts lovers see a little further by standing on your shoulders.
Contact:
Cristi Benefield, Director of Philanthropy, Meany Center 206-616-6296
cristi@uw.edu meanycenter.org/donate
WE ARE DEEPLY GRATEFUL TO THE FOLLOWING CORPORATIONS, FOUNDATIONS, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND CAMPUS COMMUNITY PARTNERS WHOSE GENEROUS SUPPORT MAKE OUR PROGRAMS POSSIBLE:
$25,000 AND ABOVE
4Culture
Classical King FM 98.1*
National Endowment for the Arts
Nesholm Family Foundation
$10,000-$24,999
ArtsFund
Microsoft Corporation
New England Foundation for the Arts
Peg and Rick Young Foundation
Seattle Office of Arts and Culture
The Robert Craft Igor Stravinsky Foundation
UW College of Arts and Sciences/
Jones Fund
University Inn*
Watertown Hotel*
UP TO $9,999
ArtsWA
College Inn Pub
Creative West
Ladies Musical Club
Macrina Bakery*
Pagliacci Pizza*
UW Graduate School
MATCHING CORPORATE GIFTS
Apple Inc.
Google, Inc.
IBM Corporation
Intel Corporation
Merck Company Foundation
Microsoft Corporation
Nordstrom
Starbucks Coffee Company
The Boeing Company
T-Mobile USA, Inc.
CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS
ArtsUW
UW Department of Dance
UW School of Drama
UW School of Music
UW Alumni Association
Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center
Early Music Seattle
Henry Art Museum
Ladies Musical Club
Langston
NW Film Forum
NW Folklife
On the Boards
Seattle Public Schools
Seattle Sacred Music and Art
Unmute the Voices
Velocity Dance Center
Wa Na Wari
* full or partial In-kind donation
Join an impressive roster of companies of all sizes that support Meany Center, its mission, and its performances. Sponsors receive significant recognition throughout the season and an array of benefits catered to your organization’s goals. For more information, please contact the Meany Center Philanthropy Department at 206-685-2819.
Michelle Witt, Executive and Artistic Director
Sarah Wilke, Senior Director for Planning and Operations
Mahmoud Jaber, Assistant to the Executive and Artistic Director
Michelle J. Ward, Director of Finance
Yevgeniy Gofman, Accountant
Eric Schielmann, Fiscal Specialist
Elizabeth C. Duffell, Director of Artistic Engagement
Kristen Kosmas, Engagement Manager
Sara Jinks, Artist Services Coordinator
Alycia Zollinger, Artist Services Assistant
Gloria Gonzalez, Green Room Student Assistant
Cristi Benefield, Director of Philanthropy
Marianna Clair, Philanthropy Officer
Francesco D’Aniello, Philanthropy Coordinator
Kim Davis, Grants Officer
Bella Preciado, Philanthropy Student Assistant
Teri Mumme, Director of Marketing and Communications
Cynthia Mullis, Marketing and Communications Manager
Michaela Marino, Senior Digital Marketing Manager
Ana Alvira, Graphics Specialist
Yvonne Tran, Graphic Design Assistant
Jim Coleman, Arthur Grossman, Philip Lanum, Volunteer Photographers
Amber Sanders, Tessitura Administrator
Tom Burke, Technical Director
Brian Engel, Lighting Supervisor
Juniper Shuey, Stage/Video Supervisor
Matt Starritt, Audio Supervisor
Trevor Cushman, Studio Theatre Stage Technician
Rosa Alvarez, Director of Patron Services
Colette Moss, Assistant Director of Patron Services
Marchette DuBois, Patron Services Associate
Keeli Erb, Patron Services Associate
Liz Wong, Patron Services Associate
Cathy Wright, Patron Services Associate
Kai Arun, Melia Blumenfeld, Maggie Hedrick, Jingyun Li, Yokabed Ogbai, Andrea Yu, Ticket Office Student Assistants
Nancy Hautala, Director of Audience Services
Taylor Freeman, K Bailey, Lindsay Hanlon, House Managers
Keagan Bailey, Joan Swartwood, Dominic Levenseller-Watland, Maleekah Khan, Harry Schuckman
Lead Ushers
Ushers
Hunter Bradshaw / Kaipo Colston / Jayda Fitch / Kaylee Flawau-Pate / Carter Grose / Noor Hasan / Heejin Kim / Jonah Miyashiro / Chloe Osborn / Josha Paonaskar / Belle Pearson / Carlos Salinas / Sebastian Shacteau / Shelby Smithson / Chloe Sprague / Susanna Stumph
Catering by Bay Laurel