Etchings responds to the growing number of student, professional and emerging composers who have few opportunities for quality recordings of their works.  Composers today realize that recordings are necessary for advancement in the field and yet quality recordings are offered at very few conferences within the United States and abroad. Etchings fills the artistic demand of our international community by providing high quality recordings of composers’ works.

Guest Ensemble ECCE will perform and record ten participant works over the course of four concerts throughout the week. Works will be rehearsed each morning and evening. Double exposure concerts will offer two opportunities for performers and audiences to interact with the works and will give participants two recorded performances of their composition. Each afternoon, guest composers David Rakowski, Beth Wiemann, John Aylward and James Wiznerowicz will chair master classes on participant works.

The population of Auvillar is deeply invested in the arts. Audience members from the community will attend each concert as well as open master classes and rehearsals. The public nature of the festival will create optimal participant interaction with the performers and the larger artistic community in Auvillar.

Between sessions, participants are encouraged to explore the exceptional cultural environment of Auvillar and its spectacular natural surroundings in southwest France.

Includes: All instruction, four rehearsals and one Double Exposure Concert of your work, private lessons and masterclasses with all four Guest Composers, professional concert recording, housing (double occupancy), all lunches, four dinners, pick up and drop off at transportation centers in Toulouse or Agen. Single occupancy requires a $200 supplement. Please note that airfare is not included in the registration price, and is the responsibility of the participant.

This workshop is conducted in partnership with ECCE.

ABOUT THE GUEST COMPOSERS

DAVID RAKOWSKI is a widely performed and awarded composer whose music is highly regarded for its balance of formal rigor and visceral surfaces and for its brilliant scoring. He has written a great deal of music for nearly every combination, and his expanding set of piano etudes are performed frequently. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in music, was awarded the Elise L. Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for his contributions to the repertory of chamber music, and has also received the Rome Prize, the Barlow Prize, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music is published by CF Peters New York and recorded on Bridge, New World, Albany, Innova, and others. He is a dedicated teacher and has served on the faculties of Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, and New England Conservatory. Currently he is the Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Composition at Brandeis, where he has taught since 1995.

BETH WIEMANN was raised in Burlington, VT and studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and Princeton University. Her works have been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, Continuum, Ensemble 21, Earplay, the Motion Ensemble, Opera Vista, saxophonist John Sampen, singers Paul Hillier, Susan Narucki, D’Anna Fortunato, and others. Her compositions have won awards from Copland House, the Orvis Foundation, Colorado New Music Festival, American Women Composers, and Marimolin as well as various arts councils, and have been featured on the Capstone, Americus, Innova and Albany record labels. She teaches composition, music theory and clarinet at the University of Maine.

JAMES WIZNEROWICZ is the coordinator of musicianship studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. He received degrees from Eastern Michigan University (B.A., M.A.) and the University of Arizona (D.M.A.). His composition teachers have included Anthony Iannaccone, Ladislav Kubik and Daniel Asia. Recently, his music has been performed at festivals and conferences in Australia, Europe and the U.S., including the La Roque d'Antheron of France, the International Trumpet Guild Conference and the Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference. He has had a broadcast of his "Aria for Solo Bassoon" and "Micrologus for Solo Flute" on the National Public Radio program "Theme and Variations." He was awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts for a two-week artist residency in 2003. Prior to 2003 his work, "…trees rustling in silence," performed in France, Turkey, Brazil and the U.S., won first prize in the 8th International Saguaro Film Festival. A recent work for solo organ, "Fandanguillo," received performances in Connecticut, Atlanta, Georgia and Berlin for the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright program in Germany. In addition to various fellowships and awards from the University of Arizona, he won Standard Awards from ASCAP for seven consecutive years (2002-2008).

Composer and pianist JOHN AYLWARD is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the winner of the 2008 International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) Composition Competition. Informed by his work as an active pianist, his music features a combination of rigorous technique with experimental formal, textual and harmonic concepts. At home with acoustic and electronic media, Aylward’s work strives to capture the energy of our contemporary zeitgeist.

Aylward’s compositional work has been performed within the U.S and abroad by numerous ensembles including the New York New Music Ensemble, The Lydian String Quartet, Third Angle, The Bard Symphony Orchestra, Juventas, and The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. His work has also been championed by internationally touring soloists Steven Gosling, Elizabeth Keusch, and Karina Sabac. Current projects include works for guitarist Dieter Hennings, the Swiss group Ensemble Zora and a project with the Gotra Ballet from Holland.

As a theorist, Aylward’s most recent research has dealt with the innovations in Elliott Carter’s later style, from 1995 to today. Most recently, Aylward has presented research on Carter’s music at the American Innovator’s Series and the New England Conference of Music Theorists. During the summer of 2008, Aylward was a fellow in residence at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, where he researched the sketchbooks of Elliott Carter’s most recent compositions.

As a pianist, Aylward regularly performs contemporary music worldwide. Recent concert dates include The American Composers Forum in Washington, DC, the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, and Distler Hall at Tufts University.

Before his post at Clark University, Aylward taught music theory and composition at Brandeis and Tufts Universities. John lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and is originally from Tucson, Arizona.

ABOUT THE Ensemble

Cellist, James Barralet is fast becoming one of the most sought after young cellists in the UK. Currently, he is simultaneously a Park Lane Group Young Artist, a Making Music Young Artist and a Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist and is represented by Margaret Murphy Management. His debut recording of solo cello works by Kodaly, Britten and Roxburgh is due for release in 2009 on the Landor Records label.

His “flair and commitment which makes for strong communication with his audience” (Peter Grahame Woolf) attracted outstanding critical praise for his Wigmore Hall debut in 2009, and his Purcell Room debut the year before prompted the Strad magazine to write “imposing: he knows how to draw an audience in” and the Times: “no doubting the strength of feeling”. Conductor, Benjamin Zander commented “a great cellist, moreover a great musician” and pianist Clifford Benson remarked on James’s “infinite musicality”.

James is a unique musician with a particular interest in Indian music. His cello and tabla duo with tabla master, Sankar Prosad Chowdhury, has performed at many major festivals in the UK, presenting Indian music in a way which is accessible to an uninitiated audience. He will perform in 2009 as soloist with the London Sitar Ensemble at the Purcell Room in London. His interest in Indian music arose during a six-month teaching visit to Calcutta in 1998 and was he was trained at the Ali Akbar School of Indian Classical Music in Basel.

James does not limit himself to performing - his arrangements for eight celli and various other combinations have been performed at festivals throughout the world.

James is a laureate of numerous awards including the 2007 Landor Records competition, the highly prestigious 2003 Royal Philharmonic Society Julius Isserlis scholarship and the Muriel Taylor Cello Scholarship to name but a few. He has received awards, prizes and scholarships from the English Speaking Union, the Wingate Trust, the Denne Gilkes Memorial Trust, the Haverhill Soloists Competition, the Swiss Government, the Myra Hess Trust, the Tillett Trust, the Bromsgrove International Competition, the Shirley Cattaral Trust, the Countess of Munster Trust, the Hattorti Foundation, the Martin Music Trust and the Sir John Barbirolli Cello Competition.

Thanks to the invaluable support of these trusts James was able to study with Hannah Roberts at the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK for five years and then with Thomas Demenga at Basel Hochschule für Musik in Switzerland for three years. He graduated from both with the highest honours – a first class degree and two performance diplomas from the RNCM and the Soloists Diploma from Basel. He has also benefited a great deal from masterclasses, particularly at the International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove where he has studied with Steven Isserlis, Ralph Kirshbaum, Miklos Perenyi and Boris Pergamenschikow. He has also had masterclass courses with Pieter Wispelwey, Robert Cohen and David Geringas.

James has climbed Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc and Switzerland’s highest mountain, Monte Rosa. In 1999 he made his own electric cello.

James plays an 1855 French cello by Henri Derazey and a 1910 French bow by Vigneron.

Maria Wildhaber holds a Bachelor of Music from The University of Arizona, Master of Music from Yale University and a Doctor of Musical Arts in bassoon performance from State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has collaborated with the Macao Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia, Philharmonia of Russia, UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Switzerland.  She has worked with world famous conductors including Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas, Christoph von Dohnanyi and Gerard Schwartz. She recorded her first solo CD in 2008, featuring Bulgarian Folk Songs and Dances that she had arranged for Solo Bassoon and Piano. Her performances have been broadcasted on TV stations in the US, Europe, South America and Asia as well as on New York’s WQXR, Washington’s WGMS and Hong Kong’s RTHK radio stations. She is currently on the faculty at 92nd Street Y School of Music in New York City, Bergen Academy of Music and Art in New Jersey and Kinhaven Summer Music School in Vermont.

Saxophonist Mary Joy Patchett is an avid supporter and performer of new music. Mary Joy is a native of the Boston area, where she has been an active performer for several years. Last season she performed with the Paris Conservatory's saxophone ensemble, the Boston Microtonal Society, as well as a solo performance in New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall with the NEC Contemporary Ensemble. In 2007, Mary Joy toured Holland with the Thump Quartet, an all-female saxophone quartet. Thump has premiered pieces by Wes Matthews, Peter Bayne, and Yoon-Ji Lee. The quartet collaborated in projects combining dance and music, working with dancers from the Boston Arts Academy. Ms. Patchett has played in master classes with many renowned saxophonists including Jean-Marie Londeix, Jean-Michel Goury and the members of the Rascher Saxophone Quartet. Currently, she performs with the Eastman School of Music Wind Ensemble and Wind Orchestra, as well as a saxophone quartet of Eastman graduate students. She has received a Bachelor's degree from New England Conservatory under the study of Ken Radnofsky, and is currently studying Chien-Kwan Lin at the Eastman School of Music.

Violenist Florence Cooke was born in London in 1982.  She has performed in all the major London halls, as well as in Europe, the USA, Canada and Israel, performed at the BBC Proms, and featured live on BBC Radio 3.  She studied at Cambridge University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where gained a distinction in all three years at the Guildhall, and held the prestigious Leverhulme Fellowship.

Recent performance highlights include a 'Composer Portraits' series concert at the Proms broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, quartet concerts in the Barbican and LSO St. Luke's and leading the LPO 'Future Firsts' concert of contemporary music in the Royal Festival Hall. Florence has participated in masterclasses with (among others) Ferenc Rados, Andras Keller, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Gerhard Schulz, the late Lorand Fenyves, the late Howard Davis, and the Heine, Endellion and Takács Quartets.

Florence is a keen chamber musician, and since 2005 she has has participated in the masterclasses and Open Chamber Music at IMS Prussia Cove.  She has performed at many festivals including the Wye Valley Festival, the Banff Summer Festival in Canada, Haaglanden International Chamber Music Festival, Holland, and Kerry International Chamber Music Festival, Ireland, the Obertoene Festival in Austria, Festival Alchimie Sonore in Rimini, Italy.  She has a regular duo partnership with pianist Daniel Tong, and has been a guest performer with the Razumovsky Ensemble and the Fidelio Piano Quartet.  She is also a Young Artist of the Razumovsky academy.  Florence teaches  Chamber Music at the Junior department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Florence is the recipient of numerous awards including the Myra Hess Award (2005), Leverhulme Fellowship (2006), Gordon Clark Memorial Scholarhip (2007) English Speaking Union Scholarship (2006), Countess of Munster Scholarships (2004 and 2005), Razumovsky Trust Award (2006-8) and Nigel Brown Prize (2003).

Florence's main teachers have been Krzysztof Smietana and David Takeno.