ARTISTIC COLLABORATORS

Andy Akiho (Composer) is described as "mold-breaking" and "vital" by The New York Times. Andy Akiho is an eclectic composer and performer whose interests run from steel pan to traditional classical music. Upcoming engagements include a performance with the LA Philharmonic, a tour in Taiwan for the 2012 International Drum Festival, and a headlining show at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for the Centennial National Cherry Blossom Festival. His rhythmic compositions touch a wide spectrum of listeners and continue to increase in recognition: in December Akiho won the grand prize for the 2011 eighth blackbird Make Music National Composition Competition. Other recent awards include the 2011 Woods Chandler Memorial Prize, a 2011 Music Alumni Award, the 2010 Horatio Parker Award at the Yale School of Music, a 2011 ASCAP Plus Award, a 2009 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, and a 2008 Brian M. Israel Prize. Akiho has composed for the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Red Line Saxophone Quartet, The Playground Ensemble, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Aspen Summer Music Festival and School. His 2011 debut CD No One To Know One on innova Records features innovative compositions that pose intricate rhythms and exotic timbres around his primary instrument, the steel pan. Besides being commissioned a chamber work for the Grammy-winning ensemble eighth blackbird, Akiho has recently been commissioned a string quartet for ETHEL, a snare drum and electronics solo for the Atlanta Symphony National Snare Drum Competition, and a marimba/trumpet duet for the Times Two Duo. His works have been featured on PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” and by organizations such as Meet the Composer, Bang on a Can, American Composers Forum, and The Society for New Music. Akiho’s compositions have been heard in venues as various as John Zorn’s The Stone, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall (NYC), MIT’s Kresge Auditorium, Mass MoCA, Chicago MCA, The Players Theater (NYC), (le) Poisson Rouge, The Tank (NYC) and the St. James Theater (Port of Spain, Trinidad).

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), Andy is currently a Ph.D. candidate with The Roger Sessions University Fellowship In Music at Princeton University. At Princeton, he studies with Paul Lansky, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, and Barbara White. He has recently studied composition with Julia Wolfe, Christopher Theofanidis, Ezra Laderman, Martin Bresnick, and David Lang. As a percussionist and steel panist Akiho has performed with numerous professional ensembles, and his immersion in various genres has given him a unique approach to composition that interweaves smooth, flowing sound with piercing and intricate architectural rhythm.

Akiho’s unique style and inspiration stems largely from a moment early on in his career when he was exploring and challenging the boundaries and traditions of the steel pan. After completing his bachelor degree in percussion, he made four extensive performance visits to Trinidad where he participated in the world’s premier steel pan event, Panorama, with the Starlift Steel Orchestra and the Phase II Pan Groove Orchestra. Around the same time Akiho also won Second Prize in the 2002 World Steelband Music Festival solo competition, where he premiered his first original steel pan composition, Macqueripe. Since 2003, he has performed and taught steel pan extensively in New York City and has successfully taught his arrangements to groups including Joubala, Jambalasi, and the Sesame Flyers International Steel Orchestra. As an educator, he served as a lead teaching artist for ArtsConnection, New York’s most comprehensive arts-in-education non-profit organization. Akiho plans to continue his career as a performer while placing a strong emphasis on his chamber and orchestral compositions. To find out more about Andy Akiho’s music please visit www.andyakiho.com.

Will Arnold, (Web Designer) editor and sound designer, earned his BFA in dance from New York University.  He founded the web/media design company DesignBrooklyn.com 2005. With a love of all things technical and a strong devotion to the arts, he began his design career creating web sites for the under-served arts community. As a developer, Will is interested in making new technology intuitively accessible for those who describe themselves as "technically-challenged." Will is an avid cyclist. He holds a BFA (honors) from New York University.  Recent film projects include collaborations with Battleworks, Larry Kegwin, and others.

John Frattalone (Visual Designer) is a Brooklyn-based graphic, visual, and production designer.  A graduate of Clark University's Screen Studies program, John went on to do graduate work in 3D design at Rhode Island School of Design.  John has worked on graphics and visuals for a variety of independent theatre projects as well as music industry clients throughout the NYC area.  Most recently, John has produced touring production designs for international acts such as The Swell Season, Josh Ritter, Mayer Hawthorne and Girl Talk.  He also served as a key art department member at the 2010 Sundance Director's Lab.  He is very excited to be a part of The Soldier's Tale.

 

Greg Goff (Lighting Designer) NYC: Playwrights Horizon Theater School, HERE Arts Center, NYU Tisch Department of Dance and Graduate Acting, New York City 24-Hour Play Festival, The New York Musical Theatre Festival, New York City International Fringe Festival. Regional: Williamstown Theatre Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, New York Stage and Film, TheaterWorks Hartford, Curtain Call Theatre. Design: Robert Wilson, Urban Tap, The Shelby Company, Liguorian Players, Patricia Norowol Dance Company. Education: MFA, NYU-Tisch. www.greggoff.com

Kathy Kaufmann (Lighting Designer) is a long time collaborator with JODP. Projects this past year include designs for David Parker and the Bang Group, Keely Garfield, Michelle Dorrance, Rebecca Stenn, Eiko & Koma, Ben Munisteri, Isabel Lewis, Adrienne Truscott, Jeremy Wade, Vanessa Anspaugh, Hilary Easton, Gina Gibney, Arturo Vidich, Ursula Eagly, Heather Kravas, Maura Donohue, National Dance Institute, Katherine Fisher, Will Rawls, Dance Theater of Ireland with Soul Steps and various special events at The Food Network. Kathy received a Bessie for her body of lighting design work in 2004 and for Yvonne Meier's Stolen in 2009.

Weston
 Minissali
 is an active composer and synthesizer performer living in Brooklyn, NY. His music has been performed widely throughout the US and Canada with such groups as VaVatican, Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Yolt and his latest performance art composition, It Would Be A Period of Detailed Order. His compositions are a careful balance between improvisation and imposed structure. For each new piece, he often develops either embellishments upon standard music notion, or creates a new type of graphic notation specific for the compositions sound and meaning. Last year, Minissali co-founded a record label and collective called Prom Night Records (www.PromNightRecords.com). Prom Night is unique in that makes use of meticulous engineering techniques in avant garde music.  Since its inception, the collective has mixed, mastered and produced 8 records and coming.

Liz Prince (Costumes) has designed costumes for more than twenty years for such artists as Bill T. Jones (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company); Boston Ballet; Berlin Opera Ballet; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Trey McIntyre (American Ballet Theater, Houston Ballet, Washington Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, PHILADANCO); Mark Dendy (Dendy Dance, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dortmund Ballet Theater); Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project (works by Lucy Guerin and Meg Stuart); PILOBOLUS; Jane Comfort; Neil Greenberg; Bebe Miller; Lawrence Goldhuber; Arthur Aviles; Doug Varone; Gabrielle Lanser; David Dorfman; Ralph Lemon and Irondale Ensemble as well as designing a production of PIPPIN at Goodspeed Musicals directed by Gabriel Barre (national tour). Prince's costumes have been exhibited at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art; Snug Harbor Cultural Center; Rockland Center for the Arts and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Prince received a 1990 New York Dance and Performance Award (BESSIE) for costume design. 
 
Juergen Reihm (Set Designer) FAIA, received his Diploma in Architecture from Fachhochschule Rheinland-Pfalz in Tier, Germany (1977). In 1980 Juergen returned to his architectural education at Stadeschule, Academy of Fine Arts, Frankfurt A.M. He moved to New York in 1983 and became a founding member of 1100 Architect, PC. His belief in architecture as an all-encompassing art form, capable of effecting and portraying all facets of life and nature through and honest and timeless architectural expression, became one of 1100's guiding principles. He is currently a member of the teaching faculty at Parsons School of Design. In addition, Juergen has collaborated on numerous performance projects including Art on the Beach, Creative Time, and set designs for the Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects. He has been awarded several visual arts grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and an Artist's Fellowship grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts. 


Katrin Schnabl
(Costumes) has designed extensively for dance and performance artists, such as Trisha Brown Company, Doug Elkins Dance Company, DD Dorvillier, John Jasperse, Jennifer Monson, Amy Cox, Troika Ranch, Zeena Parkins, among many others. She has collaborated with Jody Oberfelder since the mid-80's, most recently as a consultant to 'Dido and Aeneas'. Her work was also featured on the danced vignettes of ABC's Television's "Brave New World" series, hosted by Ted Koppel, costuming Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects. As a fashion designer, her nimble designs merge movement and sculptural forms, as she continually distills influences into ready-to-wear fashion and artisanal pieces. www.katrinschnabl.com

PAST COLLABORATORS

Tine Kindermann is a German visual artist and singer who lives in New York. Her artistic work and recent recordings of old German folk songs draw inspiration from the darker side of folklore and deal with the timeless themes of love and loss, longing and loneliness. Although Tine has been singing for 30 years and worked with artists such as the Kelzmatics, Adrienne Cooper, Joanne Borts, Greg Wall, Lorin Sklamberg and others, "Schamlos Schon," which features some of New York's finest contemporary musicians, is her first solo recording. Most of the songs on the CD, which were first performed live in New York in 2001, are classics of German folk music and were taught to Tine Kindermann by her mother and grandmother. Most recently Tine performed with Iggy Pop in the Ruhrtriennale. 

Wade Jensen
(costume designer) studied fashion at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been working as a designer for Rozae Nichols, Coco Kliks, Bill Blass among others in New York and LA. A lover of Baroque music, he enjoys designing for opera.

David Lachman, cinematographer, Co-director, earned his MFA in painting from Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree in Art and Art History from Oberlin College. He is an interdisciplinary artist who currently works primarily in Film/Video, Installation, and Painting/Drawing. Lachman lives in Massachusetts. http://www.davidlachman.com/

Christoph Hornetz, Junior Perfumer at IFF New York and partner of the fragrance-designer-duo LES CHRISTOPHS; Creator of fragrances and fragrance concepts for unconventional and artistic scent projects such as the fragrance set for "Thierry Mugler interprets 'Perfume - The Story of a Murderer'", or the entire scent design for "FIVE+ Sensotel - The hotel suite of the future". WWW.LESCHRISTOPHS.COM

Janice Ahn, Editor, www.myspace.com/janiceahn

Rachelle Garniez, singer / songwriter / accordionist / performer was born into a musical family in New York City and has been devoted to music ever since. She began playing the accordion in 1986, and her explorations have taken her from playing on the subway platforms and in the clubs of New York to jamming with gypsies in Spain and performing at Carnival in Venice Rachelle's song "Shadowland" can be heard on The Chris Isaak Show on Showtime. Rachelle has also worked in theater, composing and performing original music for productions of Chelsea Bacon's Breaker. She performed in choreographer Keely Garfield's Free Drinks for Ladies with Nuts at the Duke Theatre on 42nd Street in March 2002, to be performed at the Joyce Theatre in January 2003. Her first original musical / theatrical production, The Little Frog Catcher was commissioned and premiered by Dixon Place in June 2002. Rachelle be heard playing accordian for the Big Apple Circus in their 2004-05 season.

Malina Rauschenfels attended Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School as a cello performance and composition major. At Juilliard she began collaborating with and being inspired by dancers. She has written for or worked with Misnomer Dance Theater, Laura Flowers, Elisabeth Motley, Luke Wiley, Human Kinetics Movement Theater and Jody Oberfelder, among others. Her compositions have been performed at Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall. Her choreography has been performed at the Zenon showcase and the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. malrausch@gmail.com.

Mystiquintet is an internationally comprised electric string ensemble with turntables. To find out more information check out www.mystiqmusic.net or email Cody Geil at jk4181@yahoo.com.

Sharon M. Louden (set) graduated with a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Yale University, School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues including the Neuberger Museum of Art, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the Drawing Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. You can find her work in permanent collections such as in the National Gallery of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, Arkansas Arts Center, Yale University Art Gallery, and many other venues. She is represented by Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery in New York City. www.sharonlouden.com

Coleman Hough's poetry has appeared in The Louisville Review, Southern Poetry Review and The Asheville Review. She has written and performed six monologues at Dixon Place in New York City. Her screenplay, FULL FRONTAL, was directed by Steven Soderbergh and released by Miramax in 2002. This is her first collaboration with Jody Oberfelder. Her most recent screenplay, BUBBLE, also directed by Soderbergh, was be released at the end of 2005. This is her first collaboration with Jody Oberfelder.

Frank London is a member of The Klezmatics, The Hasidic New Wave, and Les Miserables Brass Band and has performed/recorded with John Zorn, LL Cool J, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, David Byrne, and others. His Latest projects include the mystical Jewish music projects NIGUNIM and the SHEKHINA BIG BAND, and theater pieces GOLEM and THE MEMOIRES OF GLUCKEL OF HAMELN. Mr.London's compositions for film, theater, and dance include work for Yoshiko Chuma, Yvonne Rainer, Tamar Rogoff, Sharon Pollack, and John Sayles. He has composed music for Itzhak Perlman , produced and arranged songs for Mark Cohn and Jane Soberry, and was music director for Robert Wilson's "The Knee Plays.

Mercedes Murphy dropped out of the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. 2 days later she went back to work professionally with Robert Woodruff, the artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre, as co creator of an adaptation of Phaedra for the program's Institute in Moscow. She is Artistic Driector of Théâtre Trouvé.

Ronald K. Gray is a filmmaker, musican and photographer. His most recent credits include Parliament Funkadelic One Nation Under a Groove, Sweet Honey in the Rock Raise Your Voice, Carmen and Jeffrey, & Quando Los Espiritus Bailan Mambo. He received a Bessie for Shadows Tearing, a collaboration with Sham Mosher & David Pleasant. In addition, Ronald was the Director of Photography for Pull Your Head to the Moon directed by David Rouseeve & Ayoka Chenzira.

Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects | 212.777.6227 | jody@jodyoberfelder.com | 455 FDR Drive B902 New York, NY 10002   Facebook youTube

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