collaborators
Titilayo Ayangade
Featured Season 11 + 12 Artist
With over two decades on the cello, Titilayo Ayangade has gracefully navigated classical music's landscape. A recent recipient of the Chamber Music America Artistic Projects grant, as the cellist of Duo Kayo, Titilayo continues her history of excellence in chamber music preceded by awards at Fischoff and tours spanning China to Brazil.
Titilayo is a passionate educator, coaching chamber music at New York Youth Symphony, various summer festivals and she is also a 2024 Lift Every Voice Juror at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. In Spring of 2024 Titilayo was awarded the Sphinx MPower Artist grant, to record and release a newly commissioned work by Curtis Stewart.
This season features collaborations with m Sphinx Virtuosi, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Lukes, and performances on stages at MAD Museum, Caramoor, Newport Classical, Lincoln Center and more. Titilayo champions BIPOC musicians through commissioning new works, research and performance, advocating for an inclusive musical tapestry. Off-stage, she's a successful portrait photographer, crafting vibrant and colorful images with Grammy-nominated musicians and creatives from all arenas. Explore her journey at www.titilayoandco.com
Kinan Azmeh
Syrian Dances, Composer
Hailed as “intensely soulful” and a “virtuoso” by The New York Times and “spellbinding” by The New Yorker, Winner of OpusKlassik award in 2019 clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh has gained international recognition for what the CBC has called his “incredibly rich sound” and his distinctive compositional voice across diverse musical genres. Originally from Damascus, Syria, Kinan Azmeh brings his music to all corners of the world as a soloist, composer and improviser. Notable appearances include the Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie Hall and the UN General Assembly, New York; the Royal Albert hall, London; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; Der Philharmonie, Berlin; the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie; and in his native Syria at the opening concert of the Damascus Opera House. He has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Dusseldorf Symphony, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic and the Syrian Symphony Orchestra among others, and has shared the stage with such musical luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, Marcel Khalife, John McLaughlin, Francois Rabbath Aynur and Jivan Gasparian. Kinan’s compositions include several works for solo, chamber, and orchestral music, as well as music for film, live illustration, and electronics. His recent works were commissioned by The New York Philharmonic, The Seattle Symphony , The Knights Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Elbphilharmonie, Apple Hill string quartet, Quatuor Voce, Brooklyn Rider, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Aizuri Quartet and Bob Wilson. An advocate for new music, several concertos were dedicated to him by composers such as Kareem Roustom, Dia Succari, Dinuk Wijeratne, Zaid Jabri, Saad Haddad and Guss Janssen, in addition to a large number of chamber music works.
Chris Patishall
Songbook - Pianist/Arranger
Chris Pattishall is a pianist and composer known for his wide stylistic breadth, meticulous sense of detail, empathy, and an inclination towards the surreal. An in-demand pianist and musical collaborator, Chris has established himself over the last decade as “an expert at using the jazz tradition as a jumping-off point for experimentation” (JazzTimes). His 2021 release Zodiac — a reimagining of the Zodiac Suite by pioneering yet under-appreciated pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams — was called “a startling achievement” (NY Times) and “a hell of a debut album” (Stereogum). With an expanded ensemble and subliminal layers of electronic sound design,
Zodiac immerses the listener in a visceral, dreamlike experience of Williams’s kaleidoscopic suite. Chris is a featured performer on a wide range of recordings, from the GRAMMY- nominated debut album of Jamison Ross to the film scores of Knives Out, Nightmare Alley, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. He has collaborated with artists across multiple disciplines, including Shariffa Ali, Kamilah Long, Michela Marino-Lerman, Simeon Marsalis, Najja Moon, Kambui Olujimi, and Samora Pinderhughes.
Vuyo Sotashe
Songbook, Vocalist
Vuyo (Vuyolwethu) Sotashe is an award-winning New York-based jazz vocalist and composer, originally from the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Since moving to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, Sotashe has performed with jazz legends including Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jimmy Heath, Al Jarreau, and Winard Harper. He has appeared at Montreux Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, and Newport Jazz Fest, and was the first male vocalist to place in the finals of the Thelonious Monk Institute competition.
Nicholas Phan
A Change is Gonna Come, Tenor
Described by the Boston Globe as “one of the world’s most remarkable singers,” American tenor Nicholas Phan is increasingly recognized as an artist of distinction. With an incredibly diverse repertoire that spans nearly 500 years of music, he performs regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies. Sought after as a curator and programmer, in addition to his work as artistic director of Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, Phan has also created programs for broadcast on WFMT and WQXR, and served as guest curator for projects with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Merola Opera, and San Francisco Performances, where he served as the vocal artist-in-residence from 2014-2018. A celebrated recording artist, he has twice been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. He is the first singer of Asian descent to be nominated in the history of the category, which has been awarded by the Recording Academy since 1959.
Michele Kennedy
Night Sky and the Number Pi, Soprano
Praised as “an excellent and impassioned” soprano possessing "a graceful tonal clarity that is a wonder to hear" (San Francisco Chronicle), Michele Kennedy is a versatile specialist in early and new music. Her recent venues include Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood, and Washington National Cathedral. She is a Winner of the 2023 American Prize in Voice.
In high demand across the country, Michele has been a featured soloist in Bach’s St. John Passion with Voices of Music and The San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Handel’s Messiah with NYC’s Trinity Wall Street Choir, Poulenc’s Gloria and Handel’s Messiah with The Bach Society of Saint Louis, Undine Smith Moore's MLK Oratorio at U.C. Berkeley, and in her Carnegie Hall debut with The Hollywood Film Orchestra.
Michele has recently debuted with Portland Baroque Orchestra in the ‘Summer Fireworks’ of Handel and Purcell, with San Francisco Ballet in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Opera Philadelphia in their Sounds of America Recital Series, and with DC’s Washington Bach Consort as the soprano soloist in Haydn’s Die Schöpfung. Her singing is highlighted on a new Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 recording with The Thirteen and Dark Horse Consort, and in her solo debut album with AGAVE - called In Her Hands - showcasing an extraordinary range of female composers from over the ages, from Barbara Strozzi and Pauline Viardot to Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.
A lifelong advocate of new works, Michele has sung premieres with Experiments in Opera, Harlem Stage Opera, Seraphic Fire, Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, The Crossing, and The New York Philharmonic. This year, she is traveling with Lorelei Ensemble in a world premiere tour of Julia Wolfe’s Her Story - an outspoken celebration of women’s civil rights - in concert with the Nashville, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston Symphony Orchestras, culminating with the National Symphony in her debut at The Kennedy Center.
Michele completed her musical studies at Yale University, Yale School of Music, and NYU. A lover of Redwood groves and Bay vistas, she lives with her husband, visual artist Benjamin Thorpe, and their adventurous daughter, Audra May.
Luna Beller-Tadiar
Port City, Dancer
Luna Beller-Tadiar (she/they) is a queer mixed-US-Filipinx multi-media artist and performer who works in choreography, video, text, and comics. As a tango dancer and teacher she has been anchored in the international queer tango community since 2018, and has since interpreted, organized, danced, and taught for queer tango organizations in Valencia, Paris, Lyon, Berlin, New York, Berkeley, and Buenos Aires.
Luna’s dance-choreography work has been shown at Movement Research Judson Church; Ailey Theater; Mark Morris Dance Center; the 92NY; Duke University; Yale University; in La Union (Philippines); in Buenos Aires (Argentina); and in 2024 earned her recognition as a Jadin Wong Artist of Exceptional Merit from the Asian American Art Alliance. In video-art form her work has been selected for ADF’s Movies by Movers film festival; exhibited in installation form at Duke; shown at CICA Museum; and featured in Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies. Luna’s work with queer tango has received support from Yale; McGill University; and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (with Phi Lee Lam). She has taught dance at American Dance Festival studios, Duke, University of Michigan, and currently teaches regular queer tango classes at The LGBT Community Center (NYC).
Photo by Kat Lin
Sheila Solis-Arroyo
Port City, Dancer
Sheila Solis-Arroyo (she/her) fell in love with tango in Argentina during 2019. As a queer dancer she finds joy in the expression of dual role dancing, and is committed to building a welcoming environment rooted in strength, community, and kindness. Based in NYC she teaches regularly at the LGBT center.
Photo by Kay Yanagawa
Heyni Solera
Port City, Bandonenon/Composer
Heyni has enjoyed a career in the US and abroad, performing in Argentina, Canada, and Australia, and collaborating with prominent tango artists such as Ramiro Boero, Julian Peralta, Pablo Jaurena, Santiago Segret, Pedro Giraudo, and many more. In 2019, Heyni was a member of the Argentine tango orchestra schools La Orquesta de Tango de la Una and the Conservatorio Superior de “Manuel de Falla,” where she had the opportunity to perform in the prestigious Centro Cultural Kirchner.
Heyni is part of the cello/bandoneon duo Arco & Aire, with cellist Maxfield Wollam-Fisher. Their arrangement of “La Bordona” won Best Latin Song for the 2022 Wammie awards, which can be found in their EP Overture. This past July, Arco & Aire recorded their first full album of new contemporary tango music, which will be released in 2023. Heyni is also the other half of the Avalos-Solera Bandoneon Duo. In April of 2022, they released the album Bach en Bandoneon, and this past summer presented the album on their first United States tour. Heyni is the bandoneonist of Las Almas, an ensemble which focuses on female tango musicians in a typically male dominated genre, and has performed several times at the San Francisco International Arts Festival.
As a scholar, Heyni received her Masters of Music in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has developed the lectures A GPS for Tango Listening: What Makes Tango a Tango? and Today’s Woman in Tango: Carving Out Spaces, among others. These lectures have been extensively presented throughout the United States and Canada for public audiences and academics alike.
Past projects include playing in the orchestra of the highly praised IN Series production of Le Cabaret de Carmen at Source Theatre in Washington, D.C. and at Baltimore Theatre Project in Baltimore, Maryland. In April of 2022, Heyni had her Kennedy Center debut with the Latin-Grammy nominated PanAmerican Symphony Orchestra, and has performed with the ensemble at the Argentine Embassy of Washington, DC. She also creates various content such as “Today’s Tango with Heyni,” a mini-series that features today’s contemporary tango musicians throughout the world, and “Discovering Troilo,” a mini-series that delves into the iconic style of Anibal Troilo’s tango orchestra.
Matthew Brady
Lullaby & Lifesongs Project Engineer, Producer
Matt Brady is a music producer and audio engineer living in the Boston area. He picked up guitar at age 11 and found an interest in the recording process soon after. He's produced projects with genres that range as widely as his musical taste – from electronic to pop to classical. In addition to engineering, he's also a keen songwriter, garnering praise for his personal projects as well as collaborations. He has worked with Palaver Strings on both the Lullaby and Lifesongs projects since 2016 and deeply enjoys how meaningful the musical experience is for everyone involved. Aside from making music, he enjoys sushi, time spent in record stores, and propagating plants to the best of his ability.
