Artist Profiles

Leonard Hayes is a doctoral student at the University of Southern California, where he studies under the tutelage of concert pianist Bernadene Blaha. He serves as the graduate teaching assistant in the Keyboard Studies department. Previously, Hayes served as head of piano studies and assistant director in the Music Conservatory at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas.

Hayes is a winner of numerous piano competitions including the 2021 Los Angeles Korean American Music Competition and the 2015 National Piano Competition sponsored by the National Association of Negro Musicians. As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Santa Monica Symphony, New England Repertory Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Korean American Orchestra. As recitalist and chamber musician, Hayes has performed across the U.S. and abroad, including such notable venues as Sweelinkzaal at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; Hammond Hall at the Winspear Opera House; Steinway Hall, Hatch Hall, and Kilbourn Hall (Eastman School of Music); Memorial Chapel (Lawrence University); Ayers Recital Hall (Texas Lutheran University); and Thrasher Opera House (Green Lake, WI). As a scholar, Hayes was awarded the prestigious 2015 Links Scholarship. The award, a cooperative effort between the Rochester (NY) Chapter of The Links, Inc., and the Eastman School of Music, recognizes and celebrates the extraordinary talent of an African American scholar musician.

Hayes received a high school diploma from the Interlochen Arts Academy. He holds a bachelor of music degree from the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University with additional studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam; and a master of music degree from the Eastman School of Music. Leonard’s teachermentors have included Douglas Humpherys, Catherine Kautsky, and T.J. Lymenstull.

Nicholas Houfek lighting designer

Nicholas Houfek is a NYC-based lighting designer working in music, dance, and theater. Selected projects include Claire Chase’s Density Project (The Kitchen), International Contemporary Ensemble; Oyá by Marcos Balter (NY Philharmonic, soloist for light); Natalie Merchant; Maya Beiser; Ojai Music Festival; Silkroad Ensemble; Tyshawn Sorey’s Perle Noire directed by Peter Sellars (Ojai Music Festival, Oberon-ART); Marc Neikrug’s A Song by Mahler; Anohni’s She Who Saw Beautiful Things at The Kitchen; Suzanne Farrin’s La Dolce Morte at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, directed by Doug Fitch; George Lewis’s Soundlines featuring Steven Schick and directed by Jim Findlay (Skirball); Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In The Light of Air; Ash Fure’s The Force of Things (Mostly Mozart); The 39 Steps (Olney Theatre Center). In addition to traditional lighting for live performance, Houfek has been developing a light-organ software interface called the ColorSynth that acts as a link between performer and lighting. Houfek has also designed for the Martha Graham Dance Company, Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, and Ian Spencer Bell Dance; is an ensemble member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, a member USA829, and a graduate of Boston University.

Kayhan Kalhor kamancheh

Three-time Grammy nominee

Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences around the globe. He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations and Masters of Persian Music. Kayhan Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has also performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, he was invited by American composer John Adams to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and in the same year he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing the Mozart Requiem. Kalhor was a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and his compositions appear on several of the ensemble’s albums.