Bios: Ghost in the Machine

Matt McBane "[is of] the new breed of contemporary classical musicians” (San Diego Union Tribune). McBane’s music has been performed throughout America and Europe, with pieces for solo instruments, electronics, chamber groups, orchestras, film, and theater. His music ranges from visceral, hard-driving rhythms to delicate, rich textures. He incorporates a wide array of influences - from minimalism to experimentalism to jazz to film music - into a style uniquely his own. Recent projects include “2x4” for string octet commissioned for the California and Calder Quartets and performed at the Carlsbad Music Festival and the Viana do Castelo International Music Festival in Portugal, “The Paw” a retro-noir score (for prepared piano, solo trumpet and string orchestra) for the eponymous independent film, and “Granular Memory” for large ensemble conducted by Brad Lubman with members of Bang On A Can at MassMOCA. Matt is the founder and director of the Carlsbad Music Festival. In the summer of 2003 he founded the contemporary music program at the Viana do Castelo International Music Festival in Portugal where he was the composer-in-residence in the summers of 2003 and 2004. Matt is also on faculty at the California Institute of Music in San Diego where he conducts the Southern California Sinfonietta and teaches theory and composition.
www.mattmcbane.com
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Lucy H G is an internationally exhibiting media artist with a focus on digital video installations and interactive performances. Collaborative, interdisciplinary projects appeal to her. She developed the interactive theater and video piece, Sitting With Stern Ibolyka, at The Kitchen in New York. Reworld, developed at the Troika Ranch workshops in New York, merges actors with video-based interactive scenery. Her artwork frequently brings together art and science through close examinations of the mundane. Merging fantasy with fact, imaginings with memories, and dreams with reality, she reveals hidden worlds of the everyday. Recent exhibitions include a solo presentation of video constructs and interactive video at Gallery Blunk in Norway and Dwellings, a survey of art at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Lucy received her MFA in Multimedia from Claremont Graduate University in 2001, after which she directed the Multimedia Studies program at Los Angeles Mission College and co-founded the Institute of Arts and Multimedia. She has exhibited widely, including in Asia, Europe, Central America, and throughout the United States; her Imaginary Science series will be included in the South American celebration of the Year of Physics at Museón in Bogotá, Colombia, and in spring she will be an artist in residence at the Gunnery Studios in Sydney, Australia.
www.workofboxcom
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The Calder Quartet has created a sensation with elegant chamber music performances and a touch of the avant-garde. Nominated resident string quartet of Los Angeles by critics, the group has been praised for its "splendor and substance" (Alan Rich, L.A. Weekly) and its "accomplished and touching performance" (Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times). Season highlights include the Calder’s debut at the Aspen Festival, an appearance in Avery Fisher Hall for the Mostly Mozart Festival, and appearances in Schoenberg Hall for the UCLA Live Series, at the Irvine Barclay Theater for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, and at the Herbst Theater for the San Francisco Performances Series. The 2005-06 season includes professional appearances at the Summerfest La Jolla and Norfolk Festivals, and the Kennedy Center, and the Calder’s series of free concerts at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts’ Zipper Hall. The Calder Quartet takes its name from the American sculptor and mobile artist, Alexander Calder, whose work inspired Sartre to write, "His one aim is to create chords and cadences of unknown movements. His mobiles are at once lyrical inventions, technical, almost mathematical combinations and the perceptible symbol of Nature." The Calder Quartet is currently the quartet in residence at The Juilliard School in New York.
www.calderquartet.com
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Violinist Andrew Bulbrook began violin lessons at age six and made his solo debut with orchestra at age fifteen. As a soloist and recitalist he has appeared with ensembles such as the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Colburn Orchestra, and the American Youth Symphony in venues from Boston’s landmark Jordan Hall to Royce Hall in Los Angeles. Intrigued by the role of classical music in today’s society, Bulbrook has been a commentator on classical radio stations throughout the United States. He performs on a violin by Francesco Ruggieri, c. 1673 (ex-Ernst, ex-Persinger).
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Eric Byers was principal cello of the Aspen Concert Orchestra, USC Thornton Chamber Orchestra, National Guild Youth Symphony in Philadelphia, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, and Starling Chamber Orchestra at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory, hailed by German newspaper Munchner Merkur as “the world’s youngest chamber orchestra.” He was a prizewinner in the Pasadena Showcase competition, the USC Concerto Competition, and twice in the Aspen Music Festival concerto competition. Byers performs on a cello by Benjamin Banks, made in London c. 1775.
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Benjamin Jacobson made his solo debut at age 13 with the San Diego Symphony. He has appeared as soloist with the Colburn Orchestra, the Culver City Chamber Orchestra, the Zipper Orchestra, and the USC Thornton Symphony. Jacobson has performed in solo recital throughout the southwest United States, most recently in Arizona at Chamber Music Sedona. He acted as concertmaster of the Colburn Orchestra in Los Angeles, where he studied with Robert Lipsett. Jacobson performs on a Joseph Antonius Rocca violin c. 1837, on loan from the Mandell Collection.
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Jonathan Moerschel was born in Boston, Massachusetts into a musical family. His mother, a pianist, and his father, a cellist in the Boston Symphony, fostered his early studies both in piano and violin. At the age of sixteen, he began studying the viola with John Ziarko in Boston and chamber music with the violist from the Kolisch Quartet, Eugene Lehner. Moerschel made his Boston Symphony Hall solo debut with the Boston Pops Orchestra under Keith Lockhart in 1997 after taking first prize in the Boston Symphony Orchestra Competition. He plays on a viola made in London by Georges Chanot in 1872.
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