The Sundance Institute has announced the list of six musicians participating in the 8th Annual Sundance Institute Composers Lab from July 26 - August 11. This year’s Composers Lab Fellows include: Don Byron, Barbara Cohen, Marco d’Ambrosio, Andrea Kapsalis, Ljova (Lev Zhurbin), Gyan Riley.
The two-week program will include workshops and creative exercises led by leading industry composers and film music professionals. According to the Institute, "Composers Lab participants also collaborate with filmmakers from the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program as well as the Sundance Documentary Program to explore the process of writing music for film and to create accompanying scores for scenes shot by the Filmmaker Fellows during the Institute’s Filmmakers Lab."
Biography information for the Fellows follows:
Fellows for the 2005 Sundance Institute Film Music Lab are:
Don Byron
Bronx-born clarinetist Don Byron is a singular voice in a dizzying range of musical contexts, redefining every genre of music he plays, be it classical, salsa, hip-hop, funk, klezmer, or any jazz style from swing and bop to cutting-edge improvisation. He has composed and arranged music for jazz and chamber ensembles, for films and dance, and has recorded ten albums as a leader for Blue Note and Nonesuch Records.
Barbara Cohen
Barbara Cohen is a gifted vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, mandolin, flute, piccolo etc.). Her intricate body of work embraces a variety of musical genres from folk, roots rock, trip-hop, electronica and world music. This former Virgin Records recording artist has been the recipient of many awards including The Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship Grant for artistry and composition.
Marco d’Ambrosio
Marco’s scores have been on projects released by 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Classics, Lucasfilm, PDI/Dreamworks, Pixar, APPP and Columbia TriStar. He has composed music for the independent features including “Haiku Tunnel” (Sundance 2001), the anime “Vampire Hunter D:Bloodlust” and “Testosterone” (Toronto 2003), in theatres on THX, Dolby and Century Theatres trailers and on PBS documentaries including the award winning “Blink”, “They Drew Fire” and “Double Dare”.
Andrea Kapsalis
Andreas Kapsalis song “Cubist” was recently featured on NPR’s “All Songs Considered”. He also received high praise from Jazz legend Dave Brubeck for an arrangement of the classic song “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, recorded in collaboration between Kapsalis and Grammy award winning producer Jim Tullio. Andreas utilities a rare eight finger guitar technique to demonstrate his ability to play melody, rhythm, and bass simultaneously while exploring the traditions of Classical and Mediterranean styles in his compositions.
Ljova (a.k.a. Lev Zhurbin)
Ljova (a.k.a. Lev Zhurbin) is a composer, arranger and violist. Most recently, Ljova has been collaborating with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project and the Kronos Quartet, among others.
Gyan Riley
Gyan Riley, a 27-year-old California native, has emerged as a prominent figure in the guitar world and the contemporary music scene both as a performer and composer. Concert tours with the Europe based World Guitar Ensemble, the Los Angeles based Falla Guitar Trio, and father/composer/pianist Terry Riley have taken him throughout Europe and the United States to perform originals and works from the repertoire.
