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The bassoon is the most curious of instruments. Its mechanical evolution has made it a challenge to play, and its sound ranges from the most jocular to the most haunting. There have been many pieces that stress its ability to be humorous, so I wanted to focus in this piece on its incredible ability to plead, entice, command, and conjure. Hence its role as an avatar.

An avatar is the incarnation of an immortal being, or of the Ultimate Being. It derives from the Sanskrit word "Avatara" which means "descent" and usually implies a deliberate descent into mortal realms for special purposes. The term is used primarily in Hinduism, for incarnations of the god Vishnu the preserver, but is also used by extension by non-Hindus to refer to the incarnations of the gods in other religions and mythologies.

I. Krishna is one of the avatars of Vishnu. Krishna's body is the color of an enchantingly beautiful dark rain cloud, since Vishnu is epitomized by the principle of water, being himself the God of Preservation. Water is seen as the basic principle for life as we know it on earth, the nourisher of plants and animals alike, the very substance of existence.

II. Kalki is the name of the tenth and final avatar of Vishnu. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for "Eternity" or "Time."

III. Juggernaut is also the title of one of Vishnu’s avatars. The Sanskrit Jagannath, meaning "lord of the world," is used to describe any literal or metaphorical force regarded as unstoppable, one that will crush all in its path.

- Program Note written by Dana Wilson

Dana Wilson holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and is Professor Emeritus at the Ithaca College School of Music where he was Charles A. Dana Professor of Music for more than 20 years. He is co-author of Contemporary Choral Arranging, published by Prentice Hall/Simon and Schuster, and has written articles on diverse musical subjects. He has been a Yaddo Fellow (at Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York), a Wye Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a Charles A. Dana Fellow, and a Fellow at the Society for Humanities, Cornell University. Dr. Wilson has many commissions, grants, and prizes to his credit. His previous work for wind ensemble, Piece of Mind, published by Ludwig Music Publishing Co., Inc., won the Sousa Foundation's 1988 Sudler International Wind Band Composition Competition and the 1988 American Bandmasters Association/Ostwald Prize.

William Schuman was born in New York City in 1910 and pursued several interests before finally focusing on composition. He studied counterpoint, orchestration and harmony with several teachers; earned degrees from Columbia University; and taught at Sarah Lawrence College prior to his appointment as president of the Juilliard School in 1945. He subsequently became the first president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1962 and continued to compose even after a heart attack forced him to retire from active administration in 1968.

At the time of the George Washington Bridge’s construction, Schuman was a business student at New York University. Although it would be many years until Schuman was firmly established as a composer, the bridge created a lasting impression with him. In his words:

There are few days in the year when I do not see George Washington Bridge. I pass it on my way to work as I drive along the Henry Hudson Parkway on the New York shore. Ever since my student days when I watched the progress of its construction, this bridge has had for me an almost human personality, and this personality is astonishingly varied, assuming different moods depending on the time of day or night, the weather, the traffic and, of course, my own mood as I pass by.

I have walked across it late at night when it was shrouded in fog, and during the brilliant sunshine hours of midday. I have driven over it countless times and passed under it on boats. Coming to New York City by air, sometimes I have been lucky enough to fly right over it. It is difficult to imagine a more gracious welcome or dramatic entry to the great metropolis.

Much like the bridge itself, the work’s form is constructed symmetrically. A powerful fanfare opens the work, followed by two contrasting sections. As the piece passes the half-way point, those same sections return in reverse order, ending with a recapitulation of the opening material. The piece’s prominent bitonal harmonic writing is evident from the first entrance, with the brass playing B-flat major and C major triads simultaneously. However, rather than exploiting these extended harmonies for their dissonant potential, Schuman voices the chords in a manner that creates an expansive, even imposing texture.

From the energy of the bustling metropolis to the sheer enormity of the structure, Schuman captures the awe-inspiring spectacle of the George Washington Bridge in what is labeled an “impression for band.” George Washington Bridge was premiered at Interlochen by the Michigan All-State Band in 1950 under the direction of Dale Harris.

- Program Note written by the Northshore Concert Band

Benjamin Horne is a conductor, composer, arranger, and low brass performer whose works span various styles. Horne has worked with and had music performed by musicians from the Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, San Antonio Symphony (now reorganized as Philharmonic), Atlanta Symphony, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Opera, and the "President's Own" United States Marine Band, as well as many renowned instrumental soloists.

He is currently a Doctoral Wind Conducting and Master’s Music Composition student at Michigan State University. He previously attended the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University (GA).

Mr. Horne describes this work:

Deep River is a musical portrait paying homage to the history and heritage of the spiritual. The work opens with imagery of the river with woodwind trills and piano rolls (the piano rolls in particular are quoted from Henry T. Burleigh's art song arrangement of 1917). Over this texture are various testimonial solos featuring several members of the wind ensemble. The first and only proper presentation of the song begins with a tuba solo. The bass voice introduction serves as a tribute to Paul Robeson, a renaissance man whose accomplished singing career frequently featured the spiritual in his performances and recordings throughout the 20th century. The second presentation of the song leans on the more religious aspects of the spiritual opening with a saxophone section soli meant to imitate the stylings of organ playing in a Black American church. The full ensemble then enters as if a choir is joining in to share the moment before fully taking over for the climax. The work then returns to the texture of the introduction. The river flowing with new testimonies of the "promised land.”

Deep river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground

Oh, don’t you want to go to that Gospel feast?
That Promised Land, where all is peace?

- Program Note written by the Northshore Concert Band

Love & Nature (2024) was commissioned by a consortium of wind bands led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and explores how love prevails through cosmic lore, social movements, and mercurial mythos.

Each of the work's three movements connects a different instrumental sound world to the concepts of earth, air, and fire, depicting a blossoming of kindness and hope for the future of our planet. The first movement, "Flower Power," is inspired by the titular social movement of the 1960s and 1970s and sonically critiques the juxtaposition of fragility and strength, beauty and utility, and nonviolence and force. "Flower Power" reflects the ethos of Marc Riboud's iconic photograph The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet and incorporates a musical Easter egg -- a countermelody for counterculture. The second movement, "Star-Crossed," summons the hope, whimsy, and longing of its ill-fated protagonists through celestial textures and luminous scoring. The third and final movement, "Slow Burn," explores both versions of the titular literary trope -- romantic and anger-fueled -- through the arboraceous lens of controlled fire, an originally indigenous practice that mitigates the drought-driven effects of climate change. "Slow Burn" foregrounds bright and wooden sounds to pay homage to our forests and the necessity of ecological restoration.

- Program Note written by Gala Flagello

Gala Flagello is a composer, educator, and nonprofit director whose music has been described as “both flesh and spirit, intensely psychological without sacrificing concrete musical enjoyment” (I Care If You Listen). She is the Festival Director and co-founder of the nonprofit contemporary music festival Connecticut Summerfest.

Gala was selected as a 2023 Composition Fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, a 2022–2023 Composer Fellow at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and a 2022 Composition Fellow at Aspen Music Festival. She was commissioned by Hub New Music to write The Bird-While, a concerto for Hub New Music and symphonic winds premiered by Michael Haithcock and the University of Michigan Symphony Band in March 2023. Other recent commissions include works for “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, Albany Symphony, Virginia Tech Wind Ensemble, Peabody Essex Museum, University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club, and the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus. Recent accolades include first prize in the 2022 Musicians Club of Women Composition Competition, the 2020 Sinta Quartet Composition Competition, and the 2020 Michigan Music Teachers Association Commissioned Composer Prize.

Gala holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree from The Hartt School, a Master of Music in Composition degree from the University of Michigan, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan.

I was thrilled to have the chance to write Passages, a large-scale work for wind ensemble and multi-genre soloists. Over the last decade I have written pieces for ShoutHouse, the ensemble that I direct in New York City, with the goal of creating a collaborative space for hip-hop, jazz, and classical musicians to compose and perform together. It has been a joy to bring the work I do in ShoutHouse to other ensembles and to experiment in the wind ensemble medium through Passages.

When Dr. Robert Carnochan from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami approached me about writing a ShoutHouse-style piece for wind ensemble, I immediately thought about language as a unifying theme for the work. I pictured emcees, a singer, jazz soloists, and dozens of instrumentalists attempting to communicate a single narrative through music and words. That tension and opposition among styles would become a basis for playful structural shifts and dynamic musical conversations. I approached my friends spiritchild and Dizzy Senze, both emcees in New York, and we proposed different stories and themes that could serve as inspiration for each movement of the piece.

The sung texts in this piece were written by spiritchild and set to music by me. As with ShoutHouse performances, the emcee lyrics are always written by the emcees, so while the singer’s lyrics remain the same among performances, the rapped lyrics will change depending on the featured soloist.

This first movement, “I. Babel On”, centers around the story of the Tower of Babel from the Book of Genesis. It features the singer as a narrator, guiding the dramatic "ow of the story with spiritchild’s texts. As the movement progresses, we travel from unified harmony to discord and alienation, following the story through the lens of multiple soloists.

The second movement, “II. Heights”, begins where the first movement ends, with a feeling of disconnect and breakdown in communication after the fall of universal language and harmony. The emcees represent opposing forces in this movement, bridging the narrative from the shadows at the end of the first movement to the lightness of the third.

When I read spiritchild’s texts for the third movement, “III. Fluttering / Hovering”, I was immediately transported back to a specific moment in my life, many years ago. It was a beautiful autumn week in Brooklyn, and a friend and I decided to drive up to the Adirondacks in upstate New York for a respite from the city. One morning, I woke up, grabbed my manuscript paper, pencil, and a big thermos of coffee, and wandered into the woods. I spent the next eight hours alone, surrounded by pine forests listening to the language of the natural world around me. Sitting on a wooden bridge on the edge of a remote lake, I wrote loud, ecstatic music, my first attempts at writing for full orchestra. In composing the final movement of Passages, I drew inspiration from that moment in the woods, spiritchild’s texts, and the idea of harmony between the languages of the natural world, the human voice, and varying musical styles.


I want to extend my gratitude to Dr. Carnochan for believing in and supporting this project, and to spiritchild for his creativity and dedication to the creation of the texts. I would also like to thank the soloists on the premiere performance—Dizzy Senze, Chad Nelson, Sydney Altbacker, and José Ignacio, for their incredible virtuosity and individual artistic voices that served as inspiration during my writing process.

- Program Note written by Will Healy

Will Healy is a composer, pianist, and improviser whose work engages with many of the musical worlds in New York City, from classical concert halls to jazz clubs and hip-hop shows. A recipient of the 2023 Leonard Bernstein Prize from the ASCAP Foundation, he is passionate about both tradition and innovation. He has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and National Sawdust, with his compositions featured by ensembles such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Contemporaneous, and Mivos Quartet. His arranging credits include the New York Philharmonic, Donda, the Albany Symphony, and others.

Healy is the artistic director and founder of ShoutHouse, a collective of hip-hop, jazz, and classical musicians. Described by US poet-laureate Billy Collins as “sweetly and smartly off the rails”, ShoutHouse has premiered over 50 new works, and their debut full-length album, Cityscapes, came out on New Amsterdam Records, featuring “a lavishly orchestrated, absolutely unique blend of postrock, art-rock and indie classical.” (New York Music Daily).

Healy’s composition awards include the Ithaca College Beeler Prize (for Passages), The American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Charles Ives Scholarship, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, Vassar College’s W.K. Rose Fellowship, a J-Fund commission, and residencies at the Bogliasco, Willapa Bay AiR, and Brush Creek Foundations. Healy has written chamber and orchestral pieces for the New York Philharmonic’s Bandwagon and YPC Concert series performances, including an original work for rapper and orchestra performed by the New York Philharmonic. Healy received his M.M. in Composition from The Juilliard School where his mentors included Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, and Steven Stucky. He is entering as a PhD candidate in Composition at Princeton University in Fall 2024. Healy is a Yamaha Artist and a member of ASCAP.

Flute
Madi Connor*, Poland, NY
Tori Hollerbach, Houston, TX
Stephen Kim, Pennington, NJ
Hannah McAlpine, 
 East Bridgewater, MA
Sydney Tomishima, Chatham, NJ

Oboe
Reid Canham*, Fairport, NY
Amanda Haussmann,
 Center Valley, PA
Natalie Gilbert, Redding, CT
Ashton Meade, Johnson City, TN

Bassoon
Braede Bailey, Greenwich, CT
Casey Delsandro*, Chatham, NJ
Megan Moriarty, Syracuse, NY

Clarinet
Anthony Angelillo, Kings Park, NY
Noemi Bender, Pottstown, PA 
Phoebe Donaghy-Robinson, 
 La Fayette, NY
Amanda Haussmann, Center Valley, PA
Liam Kearney*, East Islip, NY
Christian Laughlin,
 Cortlandt Manor, NY
Fitz McAlpine,
 East Bridgewater, MA
Alia Naqvi, Deer Park, NY
Mackenzie Ward, Williamsburg, VA
Toag Wolf, Clifton Park, NY

Saxophone
Justus Crow*, Highland Falls, NY
Ally Lauth, Binghamton, NY
Aidan Swartz, Lockport, NY
Leah Kilkenny, Center Moriches, NY
Elora Kunz, Elbridge, NY

Trumpet
Lizzy Carvell, Boiling Springs, PA
Nathan Felch, Warner Robins, GA
Cal Fitanides, Ashland, MA
Thomas Papke*, Hampstead, NC
Alessio Vega, Syracuse, NY


*designates Section Managers

Members are listed alphabetically to acknowledge each performer's unique contribution.

Horn
Eliza Ferrara, West Windsor, NJ
Finny Keefe*, Wrentham, MA
Kate Martin, Binghamton, NY
Michael Mezzo, Mountainside, NJ
Orpheus Tulloch, Wakefield, MA

Trombone
Gavin Anderson, Rochester, NY
Estelle Kamrass, Saugerties, NY
Meghan Liang, Parsipanny, NJ
Elias Orphanides*, Groton, CT
Will Shanton, Ithaca, NY

Euphonium
Jamie DiSalvo, Derry, NH
Andrew Herrick*, Mechanicville, NY

Tuba
David Castro*, White Plains, NY
Nick Smith, Hooksett, NH

Percussion
Wyatt Cudworth, Brattleboro, VT
Jack Foley, North Reading, MA
Nicole Galicia*, Woodbridge, NJ
Gerrit Herman, Plainview, NY
Rebecca Muller, Middle Island, NY
Olivia Okin, Staten Island, NY
Brayden Reed, Oak Park, IL

Bass
Matt Argus, Syracuse, NY
Jackson Wade, Penfield, NY

Piano
Andrea Morokutti, Mount Bethel, PA
Andrew Woodruff, Morrisonville, NY

Dr. Daniel Cook is Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music Performance at Ithaca College. In this role, he leads the renowned Ithaca College Wind Ensemble, overseeing all aspects of the ensemble's performances, rehearsals, and artistic programming. His work at Ithaca includes teaching courses in music performance, conducting pedagogy, select components of the music education curriculum, and providing mentorship and supervision to student teachers. Cook earned Doctor of Musical Arts with program honors and Master of Music degrees in conducting from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied with Dr. Mallory Thompson. He graduated magna cum laude with the Bachelor of Music degree in music education from the University of Georgia in Athens. There, he was also recognized as a Theodore Presser Scholar.

Prior to joining Ithaca College, Cook was a Lecturer in Wind Studies at the University of North Texas (UNT), where he directed the UNT Wind Ensemble and the acclaimed 435-member Green Brigade Marching Band. His contributions at UNT extended beyond performance, as he taught both undergraduate and graduate students in conducting and music education, served on Faculty Senate, chartered the University’s Kappa Kappa Psi chapter, and contributed to the robust Wind Studies program. The Wind Ensemble was the winner of the 2021 American Prize in Wind Ensemble Performance, and the Green Brigade earned significant recognition, including a standout performance in the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day Parade and regular appearances at Bands of America and Texas UIL events.

Cook’s dedication to music education is further reflected in his work with prominent organizations such as the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps, where he serves as an Ensemble Specialist and Consultant. Cook’s Drum Corps International background also includes music instructional positions with the Phantom Regiment and Blue Knights. He has also held the role of Resident Conductor of the Dallas Brass Band. Under the direction of Cook and co-conductor David Childs, the British-style brass band rose to national acclaim, releasing an album on WOBPlay, performing at the TMEA Conference, and garnering a first-prize finish in the First Section at the 2022 North American Brass Band Championships.

Throughout his career, Cook has actively engaged in program development, establishing initiatives that benefit both students and the broader music community. At Ithaca College, he founded the Northeast Concert Band Festival, leads the Northeast Wind Conducting Symposium, and is a host of the CSI Northeast/NYSBDA collaboration, all of which have become meaningful platforms for the advancement of music education. Additionally, he curates and manages key endowments such as the Walter Beeler Composition Prize and the Arnald Gabriel Visiting Artist Endowment.

Cook’s ensemble performances have received acclaim, most recently by such composers as Bryant, Daugherty, Del Tredici, Gotkovsky, Higdon, and Schwantner. Ensembles under his direction have performed at the Florida and Texas state music conferences, Bands of America events, the Texas UIL State contest, as well as at the Music for All National Concert Band Festival.

Cook’s professional accomplishments extend beyond the classroom and the concert stage. He is a frequent guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator at festivals, honor bands, and conferences throughout the United States and abroad. His research and presentations on music education, including topics such as performance artistry and flow theory in music, have been featured at national and international conferences, such as the Midwest Clinic, the CBDNA conference proceedings, and at multiple state music education association conferences. Cook has also participated in prestigious masterclasses, such as the inaugural Reynolds Conducting Institute at the Midwest Clinic, and as a winner/invited conductor for the Young Conductor/Mentor Project sponsored by the National Band Association. He is published in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series.

His current professional affiliations include the Collegiate Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, National Band Association, New York State School Music Association, Kappa Kappa Psi, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. Cook is proud to be a mentor teacher within the National Band Association and Kappa Kappa Psi organizations and an Educational Advisory Board member for Music for All.

Hailed as a “soloist, teacher, and force of nature” by The Double Reed (Journal of the International Double Reed Society), bassoonist Christin Schillinger (she/hers) specializes in the accessibility of the avant-garde, aiming to broaden the audience for both new music and bassoon. American Record Guide refers to her playing as “full of life and inspiration.” “She plays [bassoon] with total mastery.” (Fanfare) 

Schillinger works closely with living composers to broaden and diversify repertoire for bassoon. Her solo albums, Bassoon Unbounded (2018), Bassoon Transcended (2013), and Bassoon Surrounded (2009) showcase world-premiere recordings of contemporary works. Collaborative composers remark on Schillinger’s “natural interpretation” and “perfect musical choices.”  
 
Schillinger is an active advocate for womxn in the Art Music Industry. As creator of the fEMPOWER social networking platform, Schillinger envisions a more inclusive, supportive, accessible, and inviting performance paradigm for womxn bassoonists. In celebration of her advocacy, Schillinger was named a 2024 New York Women Composers, Inc. grant recipient. 
 
As a dedicated pedagogue, Schillinger authored the 2016 book Bassoon Reed Making (Indiana University Press). She is currently on faculty at Ithaca College, home of Ithaca Bassooniversity. Previously, Schillinger has held positions with Miami University, the University of Nevada, and various orchestras throughout the United States. Schillinger received her degrees from Northwestern, Michigan State, and Arizona State Universities.

When not bassooning ... Schillinger enjoys spending time with her husband and their two dogs, Roscoe & Hilde.

Welsh-American soprano Rachel Schutz joined the faculty of Ithaca College in 2018 after serving as a lecturer at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She has taught masterclasses around Asia and the United States, and has also taught high-school voice students at the Punahou School of Music and privately. As a voice teacher, Dr. Schutz is committed to fostering both healthy technique and artistic maturity, whether that be in a masterclass setting or over longer stretches of time in the private studio. She is also a deep believer in the need to prepare students appropriately for a 21st century career in music, and consequently, has presented workshops, masterclasses, and presentations on such topics as practice techniques, programming and production, music psychology and philosophy, entrepreneurship, and arts and social justice. Dr. Schutz's students have won leading roles in IC's opera productions, been finalists in IC's concerto competition, and have consistently moved on to exciting new opportunities, including K-12 teaching positions, field-specific jobs, signing with agencies, and acceptance into top graduate programs including Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Mannes School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Colorado State University, Stony Brook University, and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Dr. Schutz is also an active and passionate performer having sung extensively around the United States, Asia and Europe. She has performed a range of roles from Mozart's Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), to Philip Glass's Lise (Les enfants terribles), and Sondheim's Johanna (Sweeney Todd) with companies such as Opera Ithaca, Opera Paralèlle, Hawai'i Opera Theatre, and Stockton Opera. Dr. Schutz has also been heard at Carnegie Hall's Stern, Weill, and Zankel Halls, the Ravinia Festival, the Ojai Festival, the Tanglewood Festival, the Yellow Barn Festival, with the Hawai'i and Riverside Symphony Orchestras, with DCINY, with the Boston Pops Orchestra, and at venues around China, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand. As an avid supporter of new music, she can be heard on "Elements," an Albany Records album of contemporary American music, and has worked with many composers including Phillip Glass, George Crumb, Milton Babbitt, Jonathan Dove, William Bolcom, Libby Larsen, John Musto, Brett Dean, and Augusta Read-Thomas. Dr. Schutz holds a BA in Music from Stony Brook University, received her MM degree from Bard College, completed an MA in Linguistics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and in 2016 received her DMA from Stony Brook University. 

Saxophonist/composer/arranger Mike Titlebaum (he/him/his) is Professor of Music Performance and Director of Jazz Studies at Ithaca College, where he directs the Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble, coaches combos, teaches jazz saxophone and courses in jazz standards, arranging, repertoire, and pedagogy. In 2010 he founded the Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble Composition Contest, which was endowed in 2017 with a generous gift by David P. ('60) and Susan W. Wohlhueter. Titlebaum also teaches and coordinates the jazz area in the IC Summer Music Academy.

Titlebaum is the author of the book Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment which was published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis in May 2021. He is simultaneously releasing a series of free instructional videos to help introduce the techniques from the book. Titlebaum is also the co-editor of Teaching School Jazz: Perspectives, Principles and Strategies published by Oxford University Press in 2019.

Titlebaum has performed and given workshops and lectures at numerous state and national conferences, including the Jazz Education Network, the International Society for Improvised Music, the New York State School Music Association, the New York State Band Directors Association and the Texas Music Educators Association.

He has played in many of New York's famous musical venues, including the Blue Note, Smalls, Augies, Fez Under Time Cafe and the legendary CBGB's as well as the pit orchestra of the Broadway musical "Cats" at the Winter Garden Theater. He has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, and with other internationally recognized artists and groups including John Hollenbeck, Gary Versace, Jason Robert Brown and dozens more. He performed the premiere of his recent saxophone concerto composition Lifelong Adventure with the Eastman Wind Orchestra in November 2021. Titlebaum has published compositions and arrangements through Lorenz/Heritage Jazz Works, Advance Music/Schott, and GIA Publications. 

Titlebaum earned his BM in Saxophone Performance and the Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music in 1991. He received his MM in 1992 from Eastman in Jazz and Contemporary Media with an emphasis in Writing Skills.

A freedom singer/artist from the South Bronx by way of Staten Island, spiritchild uses the arts to cultivate a cultural revolution throughout the world, from the United States to Europe, and from Africa to South East Asia. This artist’s eclectic and experimental fusion of true school Hip Hop, Funk, Electronica, and Jazz continues to break the boundaries of the music scene. As spiritchild channels the frequencies of J Dilla having tea with Sun Ra, painting the silhouettes of Nina Simone remixing El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz also known as Malcolm X, no one shares the time and the space without being moved in body, mind, heart and soul. spiritchild integrates revolution and Hip Hop music throughout all his endeavors, as a musician, DJ/soul selector, producer, writer, author, facilitator, mxntor for youth, co-founder along with Fred Ho of a new black arts movement, organizer and founder of the International Movement In Motion Artist & Activist Collective, Vice President of the Universal Zulu Nation's Brooklyn Territory (UZN Chapter 9 - Noble 9 Zuluz), and co-founder and co-leader of the maroon party for liberation and the maroon liberation school.    

Both as a solo artist, since 1992 and as the rhythmic poet of the Hip Hop fusion band Mental Notes since 1999, spiritchild uses music and various forms of art/writing to open conversations with the audience about the injustices facing the poor and oppressed and to inspire action on environmental and social justice in New York City and around the world.


Next to releasing several solo albums and band recordings, spiritchild has been privileged to work with an array of artists from rEvolutionary spoken word activists The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, grammy award winning nominee Maya Azucena, the legendary Les Nubians, Gill Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson’s Midnight Band, The Coup, Dead Prez to Brooklyn's Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.  

Staying in tune with and contributing to the pulse of young people’s musical and social heartbeat is at the core of this artist’s life work. spiritchild has extensive experience developing and leading workshops and programs on ‘critical rEvolutionary hip hop pedagogy’, songwriting, and artist development. spiritchild has worked with homeless youth, youth offenders and young emerging artists as program director of One Mic and EAR (Emerging Artists in Residency) for Art Start and as a mxntor, teaching artist, consultant and artitech for Urban Art Beat. Both are New York based nonprofit organizations that use the power of creative arts and music to transform youth. spiritchild continues to engage, inspire and uplift youth in community centers, juvenile detention facilities, high schools, and colleges and universities throughout the world. This includes spiritchild's work in co-founding commusaic, an international hip hop NGO that has received awards and grants by the Queen of Belgium in 2017 for his pedagogical work and vision expanding the mission of ‘critical rEvolutionary hip hop pedagogy,’ specifically within prisons for young people now a successful reentry network within Europa. 

Currently spiritchild is working with Urban Art Beat and the maroon party for liberation on Rikers Island providing 'critical revolutionary hip hop pedagogy' with young mxn and womxn from the ages of 16-21 since Black August 2017. spirit is also providing professional revolutionary developments on 'critical revolutionary hip hop pedagogy' and writing a book on the praxis. spirit has just released new albums 'timetales' with German Producer creativemaze, self produced album March of the Matriarch (Earth’s Day) and producing for various artist in the works of their EP and Album projects including European artist and pedagogue purplereaad's '80's baby'. spirit has just released his new album ‘maroon militant matriarch (mxn's mirror)’ a tribute for Black August 2021. spirit has been working with Musicambia and Carnegie Hall as well, providing similar workshops with the adult male population at Sing Sing, adding to master classes on the art of emceeing, production, songwriting and artist development.

G-Quan is a dancer, poet, rapper and actor who is passionate about supporting people to unlock their inner creativity. 

He specializes in teaching Hip Hop dance, including different dance styles, like: waving, popping, tutting, isolations, top rock, ground work for breakdancing, and physical conditioning. Developing rappers learn skills of articulation, rhyme schemes, and writing lyrics with a message. Whether beginning, or accomplished, artists of all types can benefit from honing their memorization, rhythm, musicality, and stage presence.

Through his work as a teacher of Hip Hop Arts, he has provided guidance to many youth in the upstate New York region as well as during his 6 months in Thailand.

G-Quan is one of the founders of the Hip Hop group GCF (which stands for “Greatest Common Factor”).




In the past few years, G-Quan has taught at the Community Unity Music Education Program, Jillian’s Drawers, The Finger Lakes Residential Center, as well at the Auburn Public Theater and Wells College. Most recently, he works with youth in the After School program at Southside Community Center, a historical center of the vibrant Black neighborhood that was part of the Underground Railroad in Ithaca, NY.