Concerts @ the Hammers Presents
Amber Evans, soprano
Michael Kirkendoll, piano

Performing Need Fire by Forrest Pierce
May 3, 2020 | 3:00pm | The Hammert Building

Amber Evans is a vocalist, composer and conductor based in New York. Winner of the inaugural Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Advancement Award for Interpreters of Contemporary Music, she premiered over thirty new vocal works and became well-versed in modern contemporary classic works of the last few decades.

A recent graduate of the contemporary classical Masters at Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Lucy Shelton, Ms. Evans is also a featured soloist and chorusmaster on the CD of Poul Ruders’ new opera The Thirteenth Child due to be released in conjunction with the Santa Fe Opera premiere in the summer of 2019 on the Bridge Records label.

Previous summer engagements have included the Cortona Sessions for New Music, Darmstadt Summer Music Festival, Melbourne International Singer’s Festival and the Contemporary Performance Institute as part of Mario Davidovsky’s Composer’s Conference. Upcoming performances for 2019 include joining the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble for their performance season, presenting a concert of Marta Gentilucci’s works with the Talea Ensemble and Steve Reich’s Tehillim at Manhattan School of Music for the Contemporary Performance Program’s tenth anniversary celebrations.

In addition to her masters in vocal performance, she completed her choral conducting degree at University of Cambridge, and has conducted performances of Australian contemporary choral works in the US, UK and Europe.

Originally from Australia, she was composer-in-residence and assistant conductor with The Australian Voices. Two choral compositions premiered by the group have been published published by Edition Peters and recorded under the Warner Classics label. While her compositions have focused exclusively on choral works, she has begun expanding her interest beyond the voice. Upcoming commissions for 2019 include a work for the Australian Flute Festival held in July each year and a new work for the C4 Vocal Ensemble for their 2020 performance season.

Concerts @ the Hammert Presents
Transient Canvas
Amy Advocat, bass clarinet
Matt Sharrock, marimba

April 3 | 7:30pm | The Hammert Building

Boston-based contemporary duo Transient Canvas is on a mission to revolutionize the modern concert experience. Since 2011, their innovative performances have been praised as “superb” by the Boston Globe and “disarming” by Cleveland Classical, with the San Francisco Chronicle lauding “the versatile imagination they both display and inspire in others.” Bass clarinetist Amy Advocat and marimbist Matt Sharrock relish the creative potential of working with living composers, having amassed a varied repertoire of over 80 commissioned works in addition to working with hundreds of student composers from all over the world. Since 2017, they have hosted their annual paid Composer Fellowship Program that is free and open to composers of all ages. They maintain an active touring schedule with recent performances at the Charlotte New Music Festival, Music on the Edge, Composers, Inc., Music at the Forefront, and People Inside Electronics, among others. Recent educational residencies include the University of Southern California, University of Pittsburgh, North Carolina NewMusic Initiative, and Divergent Studio at Longy School of Music. They have two albums, Sift and Wired, both released on New Focus Recordings. Transient Canvas proudly endorses Henri Selmer Paris and Marimba One. For more information, visit www.transientcanvas.com.

Concerts @ the Hammert Presents
Cortona Collective Trio
Sarah Brady, flute
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello
Michael Kirkendoll, piano

Performing: George Crumb’s Vox Balanae (Voice of the Whale) and more

The Cortona Collective is the performing ensemble featuring faculty of the Cortona Sessions for New Music. The Collective creates unique ‘bands’ to perform music of the 20th and 21st Centuries. This concert is being presented in conjunction with the Origami Whales Project to raise awareness for whale conservation and protection.

Called “enchanting” by the Boston Globe, flutist Sarah Brady is sought after across the country as a soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher.  An avid promoter of new music she has premiered and recorded new music from many of today’s top composers. Recent projects have included premieres of new solo flute and electronic music from Elena Ruehr, Andy Vores, Marti Epstein, Reinaldo Moya and John Mallia, Curtis Hughes  as well as music for flute and strings from Marcos Balter, Nicholas Vines and Johnathan Bailey Holland. Her solo, chamber and over 50 orchestral recordings can be heard on the Albany, Naxos, Oxingale, Cantalope and BMOP/Sound music labels. As a leading interpreter of contemporary music, she was invited to read and record new music commissioned by Yo Yo Ma for his Silk Road Project at Tanglewood.

Sarah lives in Boston and performs regularly as principal flute with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera. She can also be heard performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, Portland Symphony Orchestra and Boston Lyric Opera. As a chamber musician she has been described as “clairvoyantly sensitive” (New Music Connoisseur), and has collaborated with the Fromm Players at Harvard, the Firebird Ensemble, the Radius Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva,  The Talea Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Sound Icon and NotaRiotous. She is a member of the Michigan based new music ensemble Brave New Works a group that is dedicated to promoting new music throughout the US and Canada by premiering new music and educating young composers through a college residency program. The ensemble has been in residence at Cornell, Bowling Green University, the University of Michigan, Tufts University, University of Puget Sound, Williams, Western Washington University and the Boston Conservatory.

In competition she was awarded second place in the National Flute Association 2006 Young Artist Competition, where she also won an award for the best performance of the newly commissioned work by Paul Drescher.  She was a Semi-finalist in the Myrna Brown Competition Flute Competition, Heida Herman Woodwind Competition, Eastern Connecticut Young Artist Competition, and twice received second place in Boston’s prestigious Pappoutsakis Flute Competition. As a soloist Sarah enjoyed a sold out debut at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with pianist Oxana Yablonskaya.

Currently, Sarah is the Director of the Contemporary Classical Music Department as well as Associate Professor of Flute at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.