Member Bios

 

Michael Boyd is a composer, scholar, and experimental improviser who holds graduate degrees from the University of Maryland (DMA, composition) and SUNY Stony Brook (MA, music theory and history), and is currently an assistant professor of composition, music theory and music history at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. His music, performed throughout the United States, attempts to (re)integrate performers into the creative process of music making through graphic notation and embraces experimental practices such as live electronics, improvisation, installation, multimedia, and performance art. Boyd has published reviews in American Music, Computer Music Journal and Popular Music and Society, and his article “The Roger Reynolds Collection at the Library of Congress” recently appeared in Notes.

 
Stephen Lilly is an internationally performed composer, a published theorist, and a new music performer. After completing an advanced degree in composition (DMA, University of Maryland), he spent a year studying at the Institute of Sonology in the Hague, where he focused on computer programming and electroacoustic composition in both the digital and analog domains. His reviews and writings have been published in Perspectives of New Music, Computer Music Journal, and even included on the Capstone DVD Radial Matrix: Multi-dimensional Electroacoustic Music. An in-depth look at his approach to computer programming was recently published in Organised Sound (Vol. 13, No. 1; the accompanying DVD includes Lilly’s statics: convergence). Lilly currently teaches digital audio production at the Art Institute of Washington and is co-founder and music editor of www.silenteditions.com, an online music publishing company.

 
Stacey Mastrian, soprano, is a Fulbright Grantee, Beebe Fellow, and Richard F. Gold Career Grant recipient who has sung with the Konzerthaus Orchestra (Berlin), Nova Amadeus orchestra (Rome), Experimentalstudio Freiburg at the Fondazione Cini (Venice), St. Peter’s (Vatican City), and from coast to coast in the U.S. Her repertoire spans from Monteverdi through Verdi to contemporary works, with a specialization in 20th century Italian vocal music; her performances have been broadcast internationally. Mastrian teaches privately and is on the faculty of American University and the Peabody Conservatory. www.staceymastrian.com

 
Aaron Jay Myers is a composer, guitarist, performer, and improviser. Over the past fifteen years, he has performed many different kinds of music in solo and group situations including classical, hardcore punk, flamenco, bossa-nova, new music, and free improvisation. He has been giving private guitar and theory lessons for almost seven years, and several of his long-time students will be college music majors in the Fall 2008 semester. In 2006 Meyers taught guitar classes for 6-12 year old students at the Holton Arms School’s Creative Summer Camp in Bethesda, Maryland. As a composer, he has composed diverse chamber works as well as music for dance and short films. Myers currently studies composition with Dave Ballou and William Kleinsasser at Towson University.

 
Michael Sparrow is a percussionist and composer who currently serves as Assistant Director of Operations for the University of Maryland School of Music. He holds degrees in composition (MM) and percussion (BM) from the University of Maryland where he studied with Ron Barnett and Robert Gibson. Sparrow was a founding member of the highly acclaimed New Dark Age Ensemble, a percussion group dedicated to performing cutting-edge contemporary music. He composes for both acoustic and electro-acoustic media.

 
Steve Wanna is a composer and scholar with a wide range of interests. He started his music studies shortly after immigrating to the United States from Lebanon. After completing his doctoral studies in composition, he spent a year at the CCMIX studios in Paris. He has written for a variety of mediums including traditional instruments, electroacoustic music and music for mixed media and interactive electronics. His recent scores are increasingly graphic and/or verbal in nature and present performers with new and unusual ways of thinking about and exploring performance possibilities. His music has been performed in the United States and Europe. Steve Wanna currently lives and works in the Washington D.C. Area.