The Informants

1. Garth Baxter – From the Heart: Three American Women
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7k9n3QWkHSYQ5e5TGProGb

2. Jennifer Jolley – Prisoner of Conscience
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0kAYkFmqvLvBeFVeKL8Zx4

3. Gleb Kanasevich – your fortress
https://youtu.be/V1l141q9_VA

Panelists:

Soprano Katie Procell has been praised throughout the Baltimore area for her “golden tone and arresting stage presence” (Peter Dayton). Her musical curiosity includes the avant-garde and she has performed Pierrot Lunaire, Ginastera’s third String Quartet, Messiaen’s Harawi, Berio Sequenza III, even Kurtàg’s Attila Fragments. Procell’s past opera credits include Giselle, Jenny, Mel 2, and various roles in the two-woman collection of short new operas called Elevator (ENA Ensemble); Lisa ( La Sonnambula; Opera Alchemy); Susanna ( Le nozze di Figaro; Peabody Conservatory); Giulietta ( I Capuleti e i Montecchi; Alchemy); Krysia (understudy, Out of Darkness; Peabody); Rosina ( Il barbiere di Siviglia; James Madison University); and more. She studies with Elizabeth Futral and has studied with Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Kevin McMillan. Procell has trained at Opera Roanoke (Apprentice Artist), Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, and SongFest. She works closely with composer Peter Dayton and has premiered several of his works and is collaborating with both Dayton and Baxter on upcoming recording projects.

Award-winning conductor Jordan Randall Smith is the Music Director of Symphony Number One and Assistant Conductor of Hopkins Symphony Orchestra. Smith was recently named Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Orchestras at Susquehanna University. Smith was formerly Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Dallas Festival of Modern Music and Assistant Conductor of the Peabody Opera Theatre. Smith was lauded for being “an attentive partner” by the Baltimore Sun. His leadership of Mahler’s fourth symphony was praised by the Sun’s Tim Smith: “The third movement, in particular, was quite sensitively molded.” Conductor Alan Gilbert called Jordan’s conducting of Boulez’ Le Marteau sans Maître, “impressive.” An active supporter of new music, Jordan has a discography spanning four commercial releases and a history of commissions, leading over 50 world premieres. Jordan is also a Creative Director of the International Florence Price Festival. Smith was named to the Executive Council for the Institute for Composer Diversity at SUNY-Fredonia in January 2020.

Ian Power is a composer, performer, and Director of Integrated Arts at the University of Baltimore. Ian’s music is inscrutable, warm, insistent, and performer-driven, and has been performed by ensembles and soloists in the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, and Israel. His writing on rhetoric in new music and reviews of CDs and performances are published in TEMPO, and he has lectured at the American Musicological Society, American Studies Association, and universities in the US, UK, and Turkey. Ian studied with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Takasugi, and John Luther Adams. Ian’s first CD, Diligence, featuring long solo pieces, is out on Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany) in June 2020. His CD Maintenance Hums, featuring chamber works, is out on Carrier Records (New York) in September 2020. He is writing an orchestra piece for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, to be premiered at the TECTONICS festival in Glasgow in May 2022.

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