Project Details
 | Performance Voice of the Whale is an hour-long multimedia exploration of the whale, musically inspired by George Crumb's Vox Balaenae. Two atmospheric chamber works by American composer Ingram Marshall, Sea Tropes and the world premiere of a piece written as a companion to Crumb's, will accompany a performance of Vox Balaenae. Live painting and animation by Kevork Mourad, recordings of whale song, and readings by Canadian poet Brent MacLaine complement the evocative chamber works, creating an experience that sensorially connects the music with the submarine worlds of whales. Voice of the Whale follows a presentation about the orca, or killer whale, by third-generation ocean explorers Fabien and Céline Cousteau, who continue to promote their family's love of ocean adventure and protection. The magically serene Milstein Hall of Ocean Life plays host to this unique artistic collaboration. The fellows explain "George Crumb's composition Voice of the Whale was really the starting point for our project. Crumb wants the audience to feel that they are in the mysterious, watery world he creates, and so we began to think about how we could take that concept even further. Where in New York, and how, could we develop a performance where the audience would feel as though they were swimming with whales? The answers to that ambitious question came from all directions: the fabulous venue, commissioning a new piece of music, live painting, a poem just for the occasion, and of course, performing alongside the Cousteaus, who do swim with whales. What is truly inspiring is that all of these artists have joined our unique venture with real commitment and enthusiasm." Learn more » |
| Education Fellows will offer short programs to be presented in science, art and music classes in schools in the vicinity of the Museum of Natural History. During these performances, fellows and students will discuss whales, ocean life, and musical imagery. The quartet will then perform selections from the newly commissioned Ingram Marshall piece. As they listen to the music, students will be encouraged to draw and color pictures inspired by what they hear; these artworks will then be collected and displayed during the performance at the Museum. |
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Partners
 | The American Museum of Natural History in New York is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. It comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library. The collections contain over 32 million specimens, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum has a scientific staff of more than 200, and sponsors over 100 special field expeditions each year. |
 | Ingram Marshall Composer Ingram Marshall studied at Columbia University and the California Institute of the Arts, and has been a student of Indonesian gamelan music-an influence heard in many of his pieces through the use of melodic repetition and a slow sense of time. In the mid-1970s, he developed a series of live electronic pieces—including Fragility Cycles, Gradual Requiem, and Alcatraz—in which he blended tape collages, extended vocal techniques, Indonesian flutes, and keyboards. In recent years he has concentrated on music that combines tape and electronic processing with such ensembles and soloists as the Theater of Voices, the Kronos Quartet, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the American Composers Orchestra. Recent recordings are available on Nonesuch (Kingdom Come) and New Albion (Savage Altars). Among his recent chamber works are Dark Florescence, a concerto for two guitars and orchestra, premiered by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2005; and Orphic Memories, composed for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, premiered at Carnegie Hall in April 2007. Marshall has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Having previously lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Washington State, he currently resides in Connecticut. |
 | Kevork Mourad Kevork Mourad, an artist of Armenian origin, was born in 1970 in Kamechli, Syria. In 1996, he received his MFA from the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts in Armenia. Sharing the stage with musicians, his technique of spontaneous painting is a collaboration where art and music develop in counterpoint to each other. Mourad's visual creations are projected behind the musicians after they collectively create a timeline for the story to be told. That timeline sets the points at which spontaneous painting is created in line with the story, and those at which pre-recorded animations come into play—a frame-by-frame creation that mimics the artist's painting technique. Mourad has collaborated most recently with Syrian clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh, Brooklyn Rider, Eve Beglarian, Ken Ueno, Kim Kashkashian, Dinuk Wijeratne, Liubo Borissov, Haruka Fuji, Tambuco, and Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. He has performed at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Chelsea Museum of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Nara Museum in Japan, and the Rubin Museum of Art. His paintings will be on exhibit at JK Gallery in Los Angeles and at the Rafia Gallery in Damascus. His paintings combine the movement of black lines that characterize his live works with palettes of layered color. His themes often relate to the ideas of history—living and lost—and the respect for one's heritage, both ecological and cultural. |
 | Brent MacLaine Born in the farming and fishing community of Rice Point, Brent MacLaine teaches modern and contemporary literature at the University of Prince Edward Island, where he is Professor and Chair of the Department of English. His poetry collections include Wind and Root (Vehicule 2000), These Fields Were Rivers (Goose Lane 2004), and Shades of Green (Acorn 2008). He is also the co-editor of Landmarks: an Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land (Acorn 2001). His forthcoming book of poetry from Goose Lane is Athena Becomes a Swallow, a series of monologues based on Homer's Odyssey. Brent MacLaine holds an M.A. in English and American literature from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England and a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. He returned to Prince Edward Island in 1991 after teaching at universities in Alberta, British Columbia, China, and Singapore. With his wife Kay Diviney, he currently resides on a corner of the family farm in Rice Point overlooking the Northumberland Strait and the Hillsborough Bay. They have two grown children. |
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Fellows
 | Violinist Owen Dalby has performed widely throughout North America and Europe as a solo, orchestral, and chamber musician. Owen was a top prizewinner at the 2007 Lyon International Chamber Music Competition. His enduring love of chamber music began at The Crowden School in Berkeley, CA, and continued to develop at the Aspen, Adriatic, Kneisel Hall, Norfolk, Music at Menlo, and Yellow Barn summer festivals. He has appeared as a soloist with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the Festival Orchestra of Sofia, and on several occasions with the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Acclaimed for his instrumental versatility, Owen is a co-founder of The Hindemith Ensemble and a member of the Momenta Quartet. He is also a guest member of the period-instrument Four Nations Ensemble, and appears regularly with the Clarion Music Society, the Grand Tour Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St Luke's. A California native, Owen received bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University. As part of his fellowship program, Owen teaches in Queens at PS 14. |
 | Montreal-born clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois received a Bachelor of Music degree from McGill University, and a Master of Music degree and an Artist Diploma from Yale School of Music, where she studied with David Shifrin. She won first prize in Yale's Woolsey Hall Competition and was awarded the Nyfenger Memorial Prize for excellence in woodwind playing. A recipient of the Canadian Broadcasting Company Award and the first prize in McGill University's Classical Concerto Competition, she has appeared at such festivals and venues as Banff, Marlboro, and the Orford Arts Centre. In 2006 Romie recorded a recital program for Radio-Canada's Jeunes Artistes d'Espace Musique, and gave recitals and master classes in China. She has studied with André Moisan, Karl Leister, James Campbell, Robert Riseling, Fan Lei, Charles Neidich, and Franklin Cohen. As part of her fellowship program, Romie teaches in Brooklyn at Lefferts Park School, PS 112K. |
 | A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, flutist Erin Lesser has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the US, Brazil, Canada, and China, as well as several countries in Europe. She is a founding member of Argento Chamber Ensemble, a New York-based contemporary music ensemble. Erin recently won the 2008 National Flute Association Chamber Music Competition with her flute and percussion duo, Due East, and also performs regularly with the Scarborough Trio (flute, bassoon, piano), and the Wet Ink Ensemble. She has also been a guest artist with groups such as So Percussion, Sequitur, Alarm Will Sound, American Modern Ensemble, and eighth blackbird. Festival appearances include Shanghai Electroacoustic Music Festival, Warsaw Crossdrumming Festival, Holland Festival, Ojai Music Festival (CA), International Spectral Music Festival (Istanbul), Kilkenny Arts Festival, and Sounds French Festival (NYC). Erin is a Pearl Flute Performing Artist. As part of her fellowship program, Erin teaches in Brooklyn at PS 135. |
 | A native of Prince Edward Island, Canada, cellist Julia MacLaine has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, as well as in Iceland and Argentina. She won first prize in the 2008 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition as a member of the MacLaine-Kazantsev Duo. Julia has played with a variety of classical and new-music ensembles in New York, including the Knights, ICE, and the Ikarus Chamber Players—a group she co-founded to present new and classical music in innovative spaces and programs. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, and Alice Tully Hall, as well as at the Colony Club, the National Arts Club, and the consulates of Poland, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. Julia studied with Timothy Eddy at The Juilliard School and Mannes College The New School for Music, and with Antonio Lysy at McGill University. As part of her fellowship program, Julia teaches in Staten Island at IS 61. |
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