ITHACA COLLEGE CONTEMPORARY CHAMBER ENSEMBLE
Dr. Ho-Yin Kwok, conductor
Dr. Chris Coletti, conductor
David Biedenbender is a composer, conductor, performer, educator, and interdisciplinary collaborator. David's music has been described as “simply beautiful” [twincities.com, Minneapolis/St. Paul], “striking” and “brilliantly crafted” [Times Argus] and is noted for its “rhythmic intensity” [NewMusicBox] and “stirring harmonies” [Boston Classical Review]. “Modern, venturesome, and inexorable…The excitement, intensity, and freshness that characterizes Biedenbender’s music hung in the [air] long after the last note was played” [Examiner.com]. He has written music for the concert stage as well as for dance and multimedia collaborations, and his work is often influenced by his diverse musical experiences in rock and jazz bands as an electric bassist, in wind, jazz, and New Orleans-style brass bands as a euphonium, bass trombone, and tuba player, and by his study of Indian Carnatic Music. His present creative interests include working with everyone from classically trained musicians to improvisers, acoustic chamber music to large ensembles, and interactive electronic interfaces to live brain data.
About the piece: Grit is lovingly dedicated to my sister-in-law Julia, who was undergoing treatment for a rare form of sarcoma (cancer) while I was writing this piece. In writing the piece, I wanted to capture her tenacity and energy, while also expressing my own frustration in watching her struggle with this horrible disease.
- Program notes by composer
“Why Was I Born Between Mirrors?” is the penultimate sentence in Ben Lerner’s novel, Leaving the Atocha Station. The book is about an American author living abroad in Spain, trying to find his own voice through the act of translating Spanish poems into English. The original phrase ¿Porque naci entre espejos?, comes from a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca, “Canción del naranjo seco” and my title is Ben’s translation.
While composing this sextet, I began thinking about how the act of translation is very similar to the act of transposition in music. On the surface, it is a straightforward operation. However, when a musical idea is shifted out of its original registral or instrumental context, the results are often surprising and not always predictable. This is particularly true in my composition: Mirrors utilizes the unstable sounds of a prepared piano (in this case, metal screws inserted between the strings) and clay flower pots purchased from a local hardware store. Since these are not conventional instruments whose soundworld is consistent or uniform, moving musical ideas up or down a step produces strikingly different results, just as the act of translating words from another language inevitably changes its meaning, for better or worse.
The title also refers to the form of the piece, where the meat of the work occurs “between mirrors.” The piece begins and ends with an undulating tremolo on flower pots; moving inward there is a rhythmic section for prepared piano, at the center is a gentle and lamenting chorale, expressing the core of the work at its simplest: two notes, a third apart, trying to connect to one another.
- Program notes by the composer
Andy Akiho is a contemporary American composer and percussionist whose music defies convention and thrives on energy, color, and rhythmic invention. His works range from solo pieces to full orchestral compositions and have been performed by leading ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony, and the Oregon Symphony, where he has served as composer-in-residence since 2023. Akiho’s prolific output includes nineteen solo works, twenty-seven chamber pieces, one for wind ensemble, and eleven for orchestra. A three-time Grammy nominee for Best Contemporary Classical Composition (2022-2024) and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his Seven Pillars (2022), Akiho is recognized as one of the most dynamic voices in contemporary music. His is a graduate of the University of South Carolina (BM, Performance), the Manhattan School of Music (MM, Contemporary Performance), and the Yale School of Music (MM, Composition).
As a percussionist, Akiho brings a visceral, physical quality to his writing. His music often features the steel pan, prepared percussion, and found objects, blending theatricality with sound in fresh and unexpected ways. His 2008 work to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem fuses these percussive innovations within the instrumentation of the Pierrot ensemble, two strings, two winds, piano, and percussion, an ensemble first used in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912). Highly percussive and deeply personal, to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem unfolds as a fragmented memory, inspired by a real event in which Akiho was stabbed and mugged. The composer describes the piece as a nonlinear narrative, shifting between flashes of recollection and disjointed emotion. The opening attack symbolizes the initial violence, followed by sonic impressions of chaos, rushing footsteps, slamming car doors, and the distant wail of sirens. Through its disordered chronology and vivid sonorities, the work embodies anachronistic in its purest sense: a reconstruction of time through sound, where trauma, memory, and rhythm intertwine.
- Program notes by Cameron Honnen
Few works shook the musical world as violently as The Rite of Spring. When Stravinsky’s score erupted at its 1913 premiere, its jagged rhythms, primal energy, and bold colors redefined modern music. The original ballet depicts a mythic, pre-Orthodox Russia where a community honors the arrival of spring through ancient rituals—some joyful, some forbiddingly solemn. Stravinsky called it “the great surge of creative power.” Tonight the music tells the story on its own—spring’s arrival, a community’s escalating ritual frenzy, and ultimately, human sacrifice.
That first performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées quickly descended into one of the most notorious evenings in classical-music history. The audience shouted, booed, argued, and even came to blows as the work’s unfamiliar rhythms, harmonies, and choreography collided with expectations. Police were called to restore order. Among those in attendance were several major artists of the day, including Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, who recognized the work’s brilliance even as chaos erupted around them.
The narrative of the ballet unfolds in two halves: “The Adoration of the Earth,” where the frozen world thaws and the tribe summons spring through pounding, irregular dances; and “The Sacrifice,” a darker ritual in which a young woman—the Chosen One—is selected to dance herself to death to renew the earth. The music shifts from earthy exuberance to ritualistic intensity, culminating in a relentless and tragically triumphant final dance.
Tonight’s performance combines Marlijn Helder’s ROCO–Houston–commissioned chamber orchestration, elements of Stravinsky’s 1967 revision, and horn parts adapted by Simon Stainbrook (IC Class of 2026), tailoring the score to this ensemble while preserving its raw power and sharpening its rhythmic edge. This hybrid approach reveals layers often hidden in the massive original, bringing Stravinsky’s contrasts and rhythmic drive into vivid focus.
Although written in 1913, The Rite of Spring remains a springboard for much of contemporary music—its rhythmic language and harmonic daring still feel startlingly modern. Programming it in Contemporary Ensemble honors the innovations it inspired while giving students a rare opportunity to engage with one of the most influential works of the last century.
Described by Classical Voice of North Carolina (CVNC) as an “impressive conductor…outstanding in his attention to detail and his command of the big picture”, Hong Kong-born conductor Ho-Yin Kwok is a three-time winner of The American Prize, 2021, winner of 2017-2018 Vincent C. LaGuardia, Jr. Conducting Competition and 2021 International Conductors Workshop and Competition. Recently concluded an 8-year tenure as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, Kwok is the Director of Orchestras at Ithaca College, New York. He also serves as Music Director of Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra in Duluth, Minnesota.
Having established a nationwide reputation, Ho-Yin Kwok’s recent guest conducting engagements include the New World Symphony, the Syracuse Orchestra, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Arapahoe Philharmonic, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Gwinnett Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Eastern Festival Orchestra, and Collegium Musicum Hong Kong. He also has been invited to serve as cover conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Kansas City Symphony. In the 2025-2026 season, he will make his debut with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra as well as conducting the season opener for Syracuse Orchestra at the Masterworks Series.
An avid music educator, Ho-Yin Kwok directs the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonietta, and Contemporary Chamber Ensemble at Ithaca College. He has previously served as the Director of the Duluth Superior Youth Symphony and in the faculty of Eastern Kentucky University and University of Minnesota Duluth. His recent educational guest conducting engagements include All-State Orchestras, Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, University of Wisconsin-Madison Summer Music Clinic, and Foster Music Camp. He was invited as adjudicator for concerto competitions such as those of Minnesota Orchestra Young People's Symphony Concert Association, University of Minnesota, University of Kentucky, and Cornell University. In the 2025-2026 season, he will conduct the All-state Orchestras of California and Maine.
Ho-Yin Kwok is a first prize winner of The American Prize in opera conducting. He had served as Music Director of the Opera Theatre at University of Minnesota Twin-Cities. He enjoys conducting operas of a wide range of periods and styles, including those by Mozart, Puccini, Britten and Menotti. He was the instigating artistic force behind the formation of opera orchestra at Eastern Kentucky University and has collaborated professionally with Arbeit Opera Theatre and Lyric Opera of the North. In the 2021-22 season, Kwok gave one of the first performances of Laura Kaminsky’s new opera, Hometown to the World. He is looking forward to conducting Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle in the spring of 2026.
Known for his passion in diversifying the orchestral concert repertoire, Ho-Yin Kwok has been involved in multiple initiatives and special projects. With the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, he created the annual Foreground Composers Series, a year-round celebration and in-depth research on an underrepresented composer. This ongoing project has led to numerous US premieres of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Ruth Gipps, Ina Boyle, and Bao Yuankai, along with many other neglected composers. Kwok is also a panel member of …And we were heard, a national initiative to promote contemporary music and composers of underrepresented backgrounds.
Ho-Yin Kwok studied conducting at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities and the University of Iowa. His principal teachers are Mark Russell Smith and William LaRue Jones. His other important mentors are Gerard Schwarz, Kevin Noe, Cristian Măcelaru, Giancarlo Guerrero, the Ensō String Quartet, Brentano Quartet, Joel Krosnick, David Shifrin, Kathy Saltzman Romey, and Grant Cooper. He is a Marquis Who’s Who biographical listee.
Hailed as “a technical superstar and household name” by Maestro Paul Haas and “one of the most remarkable double (music) threats… a brilliant trumpeter and imaginative arranger” by David Srebnik (Sirius XM), internationally acclaimed trumpeter Chris Coletti is recognized for his work as a soloist, principal trumpet with top orchestras, arranger, and as a former member of the legendary Canadian Brass, with whom he toured internationally for over a decade and appears on more than a dozen acclaimed recordings.
He is Principal Trumpet of ROCO (Houston) and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, and frequently performs and records as guest principal with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. As a conductor, Coletti directs the Ithaca College Contemporary Ensemble and has also led the IC Gamer Symphony, Trumpet Ensemble, and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra.
He has performed and/or recorded with artists and ensembles such as Jon Batiste, Kanye West, Quincy Jones, the Metropolitan Opera Brass, New York Philharmonic Brass, and conductors Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Kurt Masur. He also appears in the Netflix documentary American Symphony and is a member of the all-star brass octet Brassology.
Most importantly, Coletti’s students have won positions in professional military bands and orchestras, been accepted into elite graduate programs such as The Juilliard School, Yale, New England Conservatory (NEC), and Manhattan School of Music (MSM), completed PhDs at top institutions including Florida State University and the University of Connecticut, and are now professors at schools across the USA.
VIOLIN I
Cristian Rodriguez, concertmaster
Deandre Simmons
VIOLIN II
Naveen Tomlinson, principal
Maya Connolly
VIOLA
Elijah Shenk, principal
Jonas Chen
CELLO
Eli Jort, principal
Tom Bowstead
Ian Croker
DOUBLE BASS
Garrett Jorgensen
FLUTE
Mad Andrus, flute and piccolo
Gianna Gassira, flute and alto flute
SAXOPHONE
Rebecca Wielhouwer, soprano
Michael Scamacca, soprano 2 and alto
CLARINET
Christian Laughlin, 1
Liam Kearney, 2
Anthony Angelillo, bass clarinet
Phoebe Donaghy-Robinson, E-flat clarinet
BASSOON
Abbie Harrison, 1
Dylan Frey, 2
HORN
Kate Martin, 1
Michael Mezzo, 2
Alex Shuhan*, 3
Simon Stainbrook, assistant horn
TRUMPET
Nathan Felch, 1
Lamar Williams, 2
James Owens, piccolo/D trumpet
TROMBONE
Gabriel Ramos, principal
Estelle Kamrass, 2
EUPHONIUM
Tyler Phoebus
TUBA
Noah Smith
TIMPANI
John Santucci
PERCUSSION
Thomas Anzuini
J. Mihalik
Olivia Okin
* IC. Professor of Horn