About

Music

Praised for her dynamic, passionate conducting style, Taiwanese American conductor Mei-Ann Chen is acclaimed for infusing orchestras with energy, enthusiasm and high-level music-making, galvanizing audiences and communities alike.

Music Director of the MacArthur Award-winning Chicago Sinfonietta since 2011, Ms. Chen has been Chief Conductor of Austria’s recreation - Grosses Orchester Graz at Styriarte since fall 2021 (following two seasons as the orchestra’s first-ever Principal Guest Conductor), making her the first female Asian conductor to hold this position with an Austrian orchestra.

She also serves as the first-ever Artistic Partner of Houston’s ROCO since 2019 (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra); and in 2022-2023, begins her new role as Artistic Partner with Northwest Sinfonietta in Washington. Highly regarded as a compelling communicator and an innovative leader both on and off the podium, and a sought-after guest conductor, she has appeared with distinguished orchestras throughout the Americas, Europe, Taiwan, The United Kingdom, and Scandinavia, and continues to expand her relationships with orchestras worldwide (over 120 orchestras to date). Honors include being named one of the 2015 Top 30 Influencers by Musical America; the 2012 Helen M. Thompson Award from the League of American Orchestras; Winner, the 2007 Taki Concordia Fellowship founded by Marin Alsop; and 2005 First Prize Winner of the Malko Competition (she remains as the only woman in the competition history since 1965 to have won First Prize), and ASCAP awards for innovative programming. Born in Taiwan, Ms. Chen came to the United States to study violin in 1989 as a high schooler and later received a violin performance undergraduate degree from New England Conservatory before becoming the first student in New England Conservatory’s history to be awarded double master’s degrees simultaneously in both violin and conducting and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from University of Michigan.

Theater

Dean Corrin is an Associate Dean for The Theatre School at DePaul University and teaches in the Theatre Studies department. He is a company member of Birch House Immersive where he contributes as a writer, director, performer, and designer.

This includes all six versions of Lonely Hearts, Chicago’s longest running continuing immersive story. He was a founding member of the Playwrights Ensemble at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater (winner of the 2001 Regional Theatre Tony Award), where four of his plays, Battle of The Bands, Expectations, Butler County and Gentrification premiered. His plays have also been produced by the Tacoma Actors Guild, Addison Center Theatre and Stage #1 in Dallas, the Actors Theatre of St. Paul, Northlight Repertory, Missouri Repertory, New York Stageworks, the Wichita Center for the Arts, and the Cape Cod Festival of New American Plays. He has written three plays based on important legal cases for the Illinois State Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission’s “History on Trial” presentations and received the Honorable George N. Leighton Justice Award for exceptional service to the legal community. His play, Threadheads (a musical for young audiences about Mother Jones and the child labor movement), was commissioned by The Theatre School and premiered in Chicago Playworks. It was subsequently presented at the Bonderman National Youth Theatre Playwriting Symposium. Dean served as Literary Manager for two seasons at the St. Nicholas Theatre Company.

Music

Juan Díes is a musician and cultural promoter known for his contributions to the preservation and promotion of Mexican folk music, particularly the Mexican son tradition. He is one of the founders and directors of Sones de México Ensemble.

Born in the U.S. but raised in San Luis Potosí, Mexico until adulthood, Juan Díes has dedicated his career to exploring and sharing the diverse regional styles of Mexican son music. As a member of Sones de México Ensemble, Juan Díes has been instrumental in raising awareness and appreciation for Mexican son both in the United States and internationally. The ensemble has performed at prestigious venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Smithsonian Folklife Festival, showcasing the rich musical heritage of Mexico. In addition to his work as a musician, Juan Díes has also been actively involved in mentoring and supporting emerging talent. He has collaborated with various musicians and organizations to promote the work of Mexican artists and expand opportunities for cultural exchange. Juan Díes's dedication to preserving traditional Mexican music and his efforts to bridge cultural gaps through music have made him a respected figure in the field of folk music. His contributions have been recognized through awards and nominations, including nominations for the GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY awards for his work with Sones de México Ensemble. Juan Díes holds an M.A. in folklore/ethnomusicology from Indiana University. He is an Earlham College Distinguished Alumnus, a United States Artists 2019 Fellow, and an Illinois Arts Council 2020 Fellow. He has served on numerous grant review panels for local, state, federal and private foundations for over 20 years. His area of expertise is traditional, ethnic and folk arts. He currently serves on the City of Chicago’s Cultural Arts Council.

Interdisciplinary

Dr. Mónica Félix, Executive Director of the Chicago Cultural Alliance (CCA), leads a consortium of over 40 Chicago-area cultural heritage museums, institutes, and historical societies representing over 30 different cultures.

The CCA furthers its mission of celebrating diversity, preserving history, and fostering connections through various programs and support services. Signature programs include the annual Activating Heritage conference, the month-long Journey Chicago series of cross-cultural events, and World Dumpling Fest. Dr. Félix’s nonprofit leadership experience includes serving as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the American Comparative Literature Association (2019-2021) and as the Museum & Development Director of the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center (2017-2019), where she curated exhibits like the Glory of Germania tile mural from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature (Russian/German) from the University of Chicago, earned in 2017.

Dance

Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, Artistic Director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, is a trailblazing leader who began her role in 2021 after a stellar career as a dance artist and educator.

Ms. Fisher-Harrell is the first alumna, woman, and person of color to lead Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. She honors her predecessors while bringing bold, groundbreaking work to the company, reviving live performances with sleek, memorable programming. Born in Baltimore, she trained at the Baltimore School for the Arts, Capitol Ballet, The Ailey School, and The Juilliard School. Invited by Hubbard Street founder Lou Conte, she began her professional career there before joining Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as a Principal Dancer. Her illustrious career includes global performances and works by renowned choreographers. As a dance educator, she’s been a Professor of Dance at Towson University since 2005, contributing significantly to the Ailey legacy and establishing AileyCamp Baltimore. She holds an MFA from Hollins University and is an ABT® Certified Ballet Teacher.

Interdisciplinary

Lin Hixson co-founded Every house has a door in 2008, the Chicago-based performance company that she directs. She was director of the performance group Goat Island (1987 – 2009).

Every house has a door has presented both nationally and internationally including Prague, Helsinki, Glasgow, New York, and Chicago. She has received awards from the United States Artists, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Driehaus Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her writing has been published in the journals Poetry, Performance Research, and Parallax, as well as the anthologies The Creative Critic – Writing as/about Practice and The Twenty-First Century Performance Reader. She is Professor Emerita of Performance at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dance

I have been the primary tap dance instructor at Old Town School of Folk Music for 29 yrs. I have presented programs at many schools, libraries and other educational institutions that combined performance, historical commentary and demonstrations.

I produce a joyful annual holiday show, "The Nut Tapper" and my annual celebration of "National Tap Day" Chicago style. I have traveled the world both national/international performing and teaching tap workshops. In 2021 the NEA honor me with the nation's highest award, being regarded as a living national treasure for folk and traditional art and presented me with the National Medal of Honor. In 2022 Chicago's DCASE honor me with the "Esteemed Arts Award". In 2023 I became the recipient of New York City prestigious "Hoofer Award" and in 2014 its prestigious "Flo-Bert Award". In 2015 Old Town School honor me with its "Distinguished Teaching Artist Award", and in 2020 one of its dance studios was named in my honor. I have been told my efforts have made me a true Chicago tap icon.

Theater · Inglewood, CA

Sharon Bridgforth collaborates with artists and audiences in activating moving soundscapes of her ritual/jazz texts.

An artist that celebrates African-American Southern Migration histories/queerly, Sharon is a 2023 United States Artists Fellow, 2022 winner of Yale's Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, 2020- 2024 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, 2022-2023 McKnight National Fellow and New Dramatists alumnae. A Doris Duke Performing Artist, she has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network.

Interdisciplinary · Santa Monica, CA

Ann Carlson is an interdisciplinary artist whose work borrows from the disciplines of dance and performance as well as visual, conceptual and social art practices.

Carlson’s work takes the form of solo performance, large-scale site-specific projects, ensemble-stage based dances and performance video. Carlson often works within a series format, creating performance structures over a period of years that adapt and tour to multiple sites. The most recent renowned of her works in this format are The Symphonic Body and Doggie Hamlet. Carlson is the recipient of numerous awards and over thirty commissions for her artistic work. Her awards include a Creative Capital Award, a Doris Duke Award for Performing Artists, two American Masters awards, a USA Artist Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. She has had numerous awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was the first recipient of the Cal /Arts Alpert Award in dance. Carlson has been a visiting artist / faculty at numerous universities, among them, Wesleyan, Stanford, and Princeton University and currently teaches at UCLA’s Dept. of World, Arts, Culture and Dance. Carlson lives in Santa Monica, California.

Dance · Brooklyn, NY

Faye Driscoll is a Doris Duke Award-winning performance maker who has been hailed as a “startlingly original talent” by The New York Times and “a postmillenium postmodern wild woman” by The Village Voice.

She was the 2021-2022 Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, and is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, a Bessie award and the Jacob’s Pillow Artist Award among many others. Her work has been presented at Wexner Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, ICA/Boston, MCA Chicago and BAM, and internationally at Tanz im August, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, La Biennale di Venezia, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Melbourne Festival, Belfast International Arts Festival, Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens and Centro de Arte Experimental in Buenos Aires.

Music · Evanston, IL

The music of composer Jonathan Bailey Holland has been performed across the country and around the world by the orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, BBC, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kalamazoo, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New World, Philadelphia, San Antonio, South Bend, as well as the Abeo Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Players, der/gelbe/klang, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Network for New Music, Present Music, Radius Ensemble, Plymouth Music Series, and many others.

He is currently the Dean of the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. He previously held the Jack G. Buncher Chair as the Head of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University, and he has served on the faculty at Berklee College of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis Institute of Music, and Vermont College of Fine Art. A recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, he has been awarded the Fromm Commission from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship, a Brother Thomas Award and a Live Arts Boston grant from the Boston Foundation, amongst other honors and awards. Holland has been composer-in-residence with the Cincinnati Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and South Bend Symphony Orchestras, Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota, Ritz Chamber Players, and the Radius Ensemble. His work can be heard on recordings by the Cincinnati Symphony, University of Texas Trombone Choir, Radius Ensemble, Transient Canvas, as well as soloist Sarah Bob (piano), and Christopher Chaffee (flute). He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied composition with Ned Rorem, and a PhD from Harvard University.

Music · Montclair, NJ

Hailed by Pitchfork as “jaw-dropping… one of the finest saxophonists going,” alto saxophonist, composer and educator Rudresh Mahanthappa is widely known as one of the premier voices in jazz of the 21st century.

He has over a dozen albums to his credit, including the acclaimed Bird Calls, which topped many critics’ best-of-year lists for 2015 and was hailed by PopMatters as “complex, rhythmically vital, free in spirit while still criss-crossed with mutating structures.” His most recent release, Hero Trio, was considered to be one of the best jazz albums of 2020 by critics and fans alike. Rudresh has been named alto saxophonist of the year for nine of the last eleven years running in Downbeat Magazine’s International Critics’ Polls (2011-2013, 2015-2018, 2020-1), and for five consecutive years by the Jazz Journalists’ Association (2009-2013) and again in 2016. He won alto saxophonist of the year in the 2015- 2018 & 2020 JazzTimes Magazine Critics’ Polls and was named the Village Voice’s "Best Jazz Artist" in 2015. He has also received the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, among other honors, and is currently the Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz at Princeton University. Mahanthappa has also worked with Jack DeJohnette, Mark Dresser, Danilo Pérez, Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, the collaborative trios MSG and Mauger, the co-led quintet Dual Identity with fellow altoist Steve Lehman, and another co-led quintet with fellow altoist and Chicago stalwart Bunky Green (Apex). His exploratory guitar-driven quartets on Samdhi and Gamak featured David Gilmore and Dave “Fuze” Fiuczynski, respectively. In 2015 he was commissioned by Ragamala Dance to create Song of the Jasmine for dancers and a hybrid jazz/South Indian ensemble. He was also commissioned by the PRISM Saxophone Quartet to compose a chamber piece, “I Will Not Apologize for My Tone Tonight,” which can be heard on the quartet’s 2015 double-disc release Heritage/Evolution, Volume 1. He was recently commissioned by the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble to compose “Finding Our Voice” which premiered in 2021.

Interdisciplinary · New York City, NY

Miya Masaoka is a Guggenheim and Rome Prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist. Her work explores the natural world, bodily perception of vibration, Spatilaization, has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, MaerzMusik, MoMA PS1, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Park Armory.

She had worked with the BBC Scottish Orchestra, ICE, Bang on a Can, MIVOS, Jack among others; and w/Pharaoh Sanders, Pauline Oliveros, Cecil Taylor. She has won the Doris Duke, Alpert Award and Fulbright. She is a Professor at Columbia University Sound Art MFA. She speaks 6 languages.

Dance · Vashon, WA

Bebe Miller’s vision of dance and performance resides in her faith in the moving body as a record of thought, experience, and beauty. Her aesthetic relies on the interplay of a work’s idea, its physicality, and the contributions of company members to fashion its singular voice.

She has collaborated with artists, composers, writers and designers along with the dancers who share her studio practice and from whom she has learned what dancing can reveal. Seeking to expand the language of dance, Bebe Miller Company’s work encompasses choreography, writing, film, video and digital media. A native New Yorker, Bebe first performed her choreography at NYC’s Dance Theater Workshop in 1978. She formed Bebe Miller Company in 1985 to pursue her interest in finding a physical language for the human condition. Since then, Bebe has created more than 50 dance works for the company that have been performed in nearly 400 engagements worldwide. BMC has been commissioned and presented by leading venues including 651 ARTS, BAM Next Wave, DTW, Jacob’s Pillow, Joyce Theater, PICA, REDCAT, Walker Art Center and Wexner Center for the Arts. Her choreography has been performed by Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M. (Abraham In Motion), Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Oregon Ballet Theater, Boston Ballet, Philadanco, Salt Lake City’s Repertory Dance Theater, the UK’s Phoenix Dance Company, PACT Dance Company of Johannesburg, South Africa, and a host of colleges and universities. Over the last decade the Company has produced a variety of digital archive projects that share the company’s creative practice with artists and audiences. Committed to keeping dance available to a wide spectrum of people and to further the conversation about the role of arts and creativity in our culture, BMC is dedicated to providing access to the creative process and expression to diverse communities. Named a Master of African American Choreography by the Kennedy Center in 2005, Bebe has been a Movement Research honoree, has received four New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” awards, the David R. White Award from New York Live Arts, United States Artists and Guggenheim Fellowships, honorary doctorates from Ursinus College and Franklin & Marshall College, and is one of the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artist Award recipients. Bebe is a Distinguished Professor Emerita in The Ohio State University’s Department of Dance and lives in Columbus, OH.

Theater · McLean, VA

Mary Kathryn Nagle is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is an attorney whose work focuses on the restoration of tribal sovereignty and the inherent right of Indian Nations to protect their women and children from domestic violence and sexual assault.

From 2015 to 2019, she served as the first Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. Nagle is an alum of the2013 Public Theater Emerging Writers Program. Productions include Miss Lead (Amerinda, 59E59), Fairly Traceable (Native Voices at the Autry), Sovereignty (Arena Stage), Manahatta (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Return to Niobrara (Rose Theater), and Crossing Mnisose (Portland Center Stage), Sovereignty (Marin Theatre Company), Manahatta (Yale Repertory Theatre), On the Far End (Round House Theater). She has received commissions from Arena Stage, the Rose Theater (Omaha, Nebraska), Portland Center Stage, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Yale Repertory Theatre, Round House Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Theater, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and the Santa Fe Opera. She also works in film and television. Most recently she served as an Associate Producer on the film PREY.She is most well known for her work on ending violence against Native women. Her play Sliver of a Full Moon has been performed in law schools from Stanford to Harvard, NYU and Yale. She has worked extensively on Violence Against Women Act re-authorization, and she has filed numerous briefs in the United States Supreme Court, as a part of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s VAWA Sovereignty Initiative, including most recently, Denezpi v. United States, United States v. Cooley, Oklahoma v. Murphy, Oklahoma v. McGirt, Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, and Brackeen v. Haaland. She represents numerous families of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, including Kaysera Stops Pretty Places’ family who have brought a public campaign demanding an investigation into her murder. More can be read here: www.justiceforkaysera.org

Music · Detroit, MI

Shara Nova has released five albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and has composed works for The Crossing, Conspirare, Roomful of Teeth, yMusic, Oregon Symphony, Aarhus Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and the BBC Concert orchestra among others.

Her most recent album “The Blue Hour” was released on Nonesuch records in the fall of 2022 and was listed in NPR’s top 10 albums of the year. Nova is a Kresge Arts fellow, a Carolina Performing Arts Creative Futures fellow, a Knights Grant recipient, a United States Artists fellow. The Subnivean Zone received an Opera America Discovery Grant in 2023.

Dance · La Canada, CA

Described as “thrillingly three-dimensional... rapturous and profound” (The New York Times) and “a marvel of buoyant agility and sculptural clarity” (Dance Magazine), Aparna Ramaswamy is Executive Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company with her choreographic partner, and mother, Ranee Ramaswamy.

As a dancemaker and performer, Aparna’s creative vision merges the rich traditions and deep philosophical roots of her Indian heritage with her hybridic perspective as a first generation South Indian American.Through her work, Aparna engages the dynamic tension at the intersection of tradition and innovation, ancestral wisdom and creative freedom, approaching her artistic lineage as a dynamic, living language and a potent tool through which to speak to the contemporary human experience. Her decades of immersive training under legendary Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer Padma Bhushan Smt. Alarmél Valli, known as one of India’s greatest living masters, is the bedrock of her creative aesthetic. Aparna’s choreographic work ranges from intimate solo presentations with live musical accompaniment to large-scale, multidisciplinary theatrical works that have toured widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her work has been commissioned and presented by the Kennedy Center, American Dance Festival, Lincoln Center, Joyce Theater in New York, Harris Theater in Chicago, Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai, the Music Academy in Chennai, and the Soorya Festival in Kerala, India, among others.

Theater · Bronx, NY

ROSALBA ROLÓN is the Artistic Director of Pregones + Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PregonesPRTT), in New York City. She is an accomplished director/dramaturg specializing in the adaptation of literary and non-literary texts for stage performance with live music.

Productions include Torched!, The Harlem Hellfighters On A Latin Beat and ¡Guaracha!. Collaborations include We Have Iré, (with Paul S. Flores/CA), Betsy (with Roadside Theater/KY), and Brides (with theaters in Belgium and Slovak Republic). She has traveled to 500+U.S. cities and 18 countries.Faculty Member of the National Association for Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC)’s Leadership and Advocacy Institutes; and of the Emerging Leadership Institute of the National Assoc. of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP). She has co-authored the curriculum for these national institutes. She has served as Guest Lecturer in universities and colleges including: New York University, Yale University, Lehman College, Hostos Community College, University of Puerto Rico, Muhlenberg College, University of Texas/San Antonio, among many others. Distinctions include: Creative Capital Award (with Paul Flores and Yosvany Terry); Doris Duke Artist Award; Tony Awards Nominating Committee (2018-2023), Co-Chair of the 2021 & 2022 APAP Conferences; appointed to NYC Mayor’s Advisory Council for Arts and Culture Sector (2020-21); featured artist in Primary Stages’ Off-Broadway Oral History Project (2017). Board Memberships: NALAC and United States Artists. Advisory Work: NYC Live Performance Industry Council of NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment; National Latinx Theater Initiative-Steering Committee Member. Professional theater workshops: Adaptations-A New Approach to Writing Plays; Character Development in Musical Theater; and Theater In Motion. These workshops have been a staple of international festivals in the U.S. and abroad (Rotterdam/NE, Bratislava/Slovakia, Monterrey/Mexico, Islas Canarias/Spain). Selected list of funding panel services: National Endowment for the Arts, NYS Council for the Arts; NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, MidAtlantic Arts Foundation, United States Artists.