Max Giteck Duykers is a composer whose work is dedicated to unusual beauty, unique forms, and collaborative projects.  He frequently incorporates technology in performance in a manner which gives the performers room for individual expression. A veteran of multidisciplinary performance, Duykers is also interested in reworking developmental processes for artists to find their collective "sweet spot" and produce work which is personal, confronting, and starkly beautiful.

An album of his music featuring Ensemble Ipse, was released on New World Records in May 2019, with producer Judith Sherman. Of the album, Kathodik.it writes “[Duykers is] an absolutely original voice within the varied horizon of contemporary music.” Duykers was also recently commissioned by the National Parks Service, New Music USA and the Jerome Foundation to create a chamber opera for tenor, soprano, baritone, electro-acoustic percussionist (performing the Marimba Lumina) and mixed ensemble with the Paul Dresher Ensemble.  Featuring a libretto by acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Philip Kan Gotanda, the piece is a comment on the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.  The piece has been workshopped across the U.S. over the past several years, and was premiered in June 2022 at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco. The piece has also been generously supported by New York State Council on the Arts, The Brooklyn Arts Council, California Humanities, and the JA Community Foundation.

His numerous other commissions and premieres include the Avian Orchestra, The Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, the Oakland Youth Orchestra, the Seattle Chamber Players, Third Angle New Music, The BEO String Quartet, The Glass Farm Ensemble, PUBLIQuartet, Anti-Social Music, The Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and numerous individual performers.  Duykers' Glass Blue Cleft was recently released by the Escher String Quartet on Bridge Records. Of the piece, Three Village Patch writes "[Glass Blue Cleft] is a piece for lovers of the string quartet, those amazed by how fiery and how dulcet these four-stringed instruments can range in expression."  This and other pieces have been featured at music festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker IV, curated by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross. 

Duykers is a founder and co-director of Ensemble Ipse, a contemporary music performance group based in NYC. Ipse’s mission is to find common threads in works whose stylistic profiles appear, on the surface, as divergent. We present recent music that transcends aesthetic categorization and strive to create a forum for composers and sound artists on the edges of the mainstream of contemporary music, as well as those who have been traditionally underrepresented, including women, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC. Since forming in 2016, Ipse has premiered 42 works, 14 of them commissions, performed works from numerous calls for scores for emerging composers from around the world, received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, New Music USA, the Queens Council on the Arts, NET/TEN, and the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, as well as numerous donations from its large donor network.

Duykers has also been commissioned to compose music for over 35 theatrical, dance, film, and multimedia projects in the New York City area.  With the theater group Prototype he was an artist-in-residence at HERE Arts Center in 2002-2004, and in 2000-2001 he worked for Philip Glass’ The Looking Glass Studios and Dunvagen Music Publishers, where he did studio recording, Pro-Tools post-production, music sequencing, music copying and music editing for the Philip Glass Ensemble, film scoring projects, and operatic works.  He received a BM from Oberlin Conservatory where he studied composition with Randy Coleman, and has recently completed his Ph.D. at Stony Brook University where he studied with Sheila Silver.  At Stony Brook he was also honored with the 2012 Ackerman Award for Excellence in Music. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Rebecca and sons Quinlan and Liev. 

Over the last four decades, librettist Philip Kan Gotanda has specialized in investigating the Japanese American family writing a cycle of works in theater, film, song and opera that chronicle Japanese America from the early 1900s to the present.   Mr. Gotanda holds a law degree from Hastings College of Law and studied pottery in Mashiko, Japan with the late Hiroshi Seto.  Mr. Gotanda is a respected independent filmmaker.  His 3 films: Life Tastes Good, Drinking Tea, The Kiss, all have been official entries at the Sundance Film Festival.  Mr. Gotanda adapted his play, The Wash, into a feature film, directed by Michael Toshiyuki Uno.  The Wash is one of the first films about the Asian American family to have a theatrical release.  A CD of Mr. Gotanda performing his original songs in a 1980 concert with violinist DH Hwang is now available at Yokohama, Ca. Records.  Mr. Gotanda wrote the oratorio for the Kent Nagano piece,  Manzanar: An American Story, an orchestral work about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.   Mr. Gotanda is a Guggenheim recipient.  He is presently an inaugural recipient of the Dramatists Guild 2021 Playwrights Legacy Initiative, a two-year award acknowledging Mr. Gotanda’s body of work in American Theater.  Mr. Gotanda is a professor with the Department of Theater Dance and Performance Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.  He resides at the Berkeley Art Plant in the Hills with his wife, Alameda Arts Commissioner, Diane Takei Gotanda. Visit Phillip’s website at philipkangotanda.org

Director Melissa Weaver has directed the collaborative creation of more than forty original music theater works. As General Director of First Look Sonoma, with partner, tenor John Duykers, Missy is currently developing text for Heart of the Great Divide with composer Philip Aaberg. Weaver was a founding member of Bay Area’s George Coates Performance Works, the Paul Dresher Ensemble and of Main Stage West, where she recently directed Stef Smith’s Swallow and S. Massicotte’s Mary’s Wedding. She directed and designed original operatic works for the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, and West Edge Opera. She directed Rinde Eckert’s The Gardening of Thomas D., Virko Baley’s Holodomor. Red Earth Hunger at Kiev Opera and the Gerald Lynch Theater; and directed Kurt Rohde’s Bitter Harvest, a farmer’s oratorio with Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. Weaver collaborated with Amanda Moody on Serial Murderess, on Caliban Dreams, and on D’Arc, woman on fire, with music by Jay Cloidt. With music by Miguel Frasconi, she wrote and directed Trespass Knot and Hand to Mouth, also with Both Eyes Open “visual alchemist” Matthew E. Jones. Weaver was an artist-in-residence at CalArts from 2000-05, directing 5 original pastiche operas.

From complex contemporary and twentieth-century scores to core traditional repertoire, conductor Benjamin Makino has been recognized for his nuanced and thoughtful interpretations of broad and varied repertoire. Throughout his career, his work has been affiliated with some of the companies most recognized for innovation. Following the success of the first 30 Days of Opera festival, Makino was named Music Director of Opera Memphis, a position he held for four seasons. During his tenure the company rose to national and international prominence, praised for its innovative community engagement programs, experimentation, and groundbreaking commissioning projects.
Beyond working with Memphis’ largest performing arts organizations, Makino was deeply involved with the Memphis Slim Collaboratory, a membership-based community recording studio in the historic Soulsville Neighborhood, home of Stax Records and the Stax Music Academy. In 2014 he was identified by Opera America as a future leader in the field of Opera in the United States. In 2015, in recognition of his contributions to the City of Memphis, he was named one of the Memphis Business Bureau’s 40 Under 40. He currently lives in Porterville, California with his wife, jazz musician Sarah Rector, who heads the music program at Porterville College.

David Milnes serves as Music Director of the Eco Ensemble, Berkeley’s internationally recognized professional new music ensemble in residence, as well as the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. In his early years, he studied piano, organ, clarinet, cello and voice, and briefly entertained a career as a jazz pianist, appearing with Chuck Mangione, Gene Krupa, Billy Taylor and John Pizzarelli. After studying with Charles Rosen, Otto-Werner Müller, Herbert Blomstedt, Erich Leinsdorf and Leonard Bernstein, Milnes won the prestigious Exxon Conductor position with the San Francisco Symphony at age 27, where he appeared frequently on the New and Unusual Music Series.  He also served as Music Director of the highly acclaimed San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra which he led on its first European tour. He became a Professor at UC Berkeley in 1996 and currently serves as Chair of the Department of Music.

 A dedicated proponent of new music, Milnes has led many performances with Earplay, the Empyrean Ensemble, Composers Inc., and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. As Music Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players he commissioned and premiered new works from around the world from such composers as Phillipe Leroux, Liza Lim, Edmund Campion, Shulamit Ran, Zhou Long, Kui Dong, Earl Kim, Jorge Liderman and Cindy Cox. With the ECO Ensemble he has conducted works by Pierre Boulez, Giorgi Ligeti, Jonathan Harvey, Beat Furrer, Harrison Birtwistle, Franck Bedrossian, Andrew Imbrie and Ivan Fedele. He has made recordings of music by John Anthony Lennon, James Newton, Edmund Campion, Jorge Liderman and Pablo Ortiz.

 Milnes has led the UCBSO and Eco Ensemble on four European tours since 2014, each featuring new music from Berkeley composers. In performance, he has collaborated with Pinchas Zukerman, Chanticleer, Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Anna Netrebko, Bill T. Jones, and Paul Hillier, and has appeared at the Venice Biennale and Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Aspen, Other Minds and Monadnock music festivals.

 Suchan Kim (Baritone), a native of Busan, South Korea, recently sang the role of Enrico in Opera in Williamsburg’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. He has performed as a resident in San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program as well as with The Metropolitan Opera Education, The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Opera Philadelphia, The Atlanta Opera, Carnegie Hall, Mannes Opera, Dallas Opera’s The Hart Institute for Women Conductors, Opera Grand Rapids, Sarasota Opera, The Phoenicia International Festival of The Voice, Opera in Williamsburg, Tacoma Opera, First Look Sonoma, Paul Dresher Ensemble, Presidio Theater, Bare Opera, Opera Vezimra, New Rochelle Opera, Teatro Grattacielo, New Amsterdam Opera, Decameron Opera Coalition, Light Opera of New Jersey, Loft Opera, Opera Ithaca, Barn Opera, Teatro Lirico D’Europa, The Palmetto Opera, Amore Opera, Sinfonietta of Riverdale, The New York Concert Opera, New York Grand Opera, New York Lyric Opera, Jamestown Concert Association, Fairfield County Chorale, Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York, Sign & Sing, NYU IMPACT Conference, MidAmerica Productions, National Theater of Korea, Seoul Arts Center and several opera companies in South Korea.

His role credits include Don Giovanni and Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Count and Figaro in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Hoël in Meyerbeer’s Dinorah, Enrico in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Belcore in Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’amore, Marcello and Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohéme, Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff, Alfonso in Donizetti’s La Favorita, Silvio in Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, David in Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz, Roberto in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani, Marullo in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Giorgio Germont and Barone Douphol in Verdi’s La Traviata, Tarquinius in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Dandini in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Germano in Rossini’s La Scala di Seta, Tobia Mill in Rossini’s La cambiale di matrimonio, Yamadori and Bonzo in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Escamillo and Dancaïre in Bizet’s Carmen, Le Marquis de la Force and Jailer in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Hermann and Schlemil in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, Salieri in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, Paquiro in Granados' Goyescas, Fiorello and L’Ufficiale in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Le chat and L’horlage comtoise in Ravel’s L’Enfant et Les Sortilèges, Simeon from Debussy’s L’Enfant Prodigue, Payador from Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires, Father in Kamala Sankaram’s Thumbprint, Bass in Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead, King Solomon in Dina Pruzhansky's Hebrew opera 'Shulamit’, Jinzo Matsumoto in Max Giteck Duykers and Philip Kan Gotanda’s Both Eyes Open, Lum May in Gregory Youtz and Zhang Er’s Tacoma Method. The Critic in John Gilbert’s multimedia opera ‘Rotation’, Strange Man in Faye Chiao’s ‘Island of the Moon’ and Leonitis in 5th Grader of St. David’s School and Thomas Cabaniss’ ‘A Hero’s Journey’.

 He was an Eastern District Winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2011 and he received the Opera Award from Mannes Opera in 2013. Mr. Kim holds a Bachelor of Music from Korea National University of Arts and a Master’s Degree and a Professional Studies Diploma from Mannes College, the New School for Music. He studies with Arthur Levy.

Zen Wu 吳肇文 is a dramatic coloratura soprano from the East Bay. Trained as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist in a wide range of genres, she regularly performs and records as a soloist and guest musician with many groups including the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, San Diego Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, Musica Sacra, Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine, SEM Ensemble, and Ensemble Ipse.

 After having been a chorister in the Bay Area’s own Crystal Children’s Choir since the age of 6, Wu began her formal studies in classical voice at UC San Diego, where she was immersed in experimental performance in addition to training in traditional vocal repertoire and technique. Wu sang two seasons with the San Diego Opera before making her professional mainstage debut and moving to New York, where she is currently based as a freelance classical artist specializing in contemporary and sacred music.

Kalean Ung is an award-winning multi-disciplinary theater artist and vocalist whose professional career ranges from Shakespeare to experimental theatre to contemporary opera and solo performance. She has performed at Disney Hall with the LA Phil, The Kirk Douglas Theatre, REDCAT, The Getty Villa, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Boston Court Pasadena, and The Hammer Museum, among others, collaborating with critically-acclaimed theatre and opera companies including The Industry, Critical Mass Performance Group, Independent Shakespeare Company, Four Larks Theatre, and CalArts’s Center for New Performance. 

Kalean will be Lady Macbeth in The Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival this summer in Los Angeles. Other select roles include: MEASURE FOR MEASURE (Isabella), MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (Titania), THE TEMPEST (Ariel), RICHARD III (Margaret), OTHELLO (Desdemona) PERICLES (Marina), TWELFTH NIGHT (Viola) with Independent Shakespeare Co., KURT WEILL AT THE CUDDLEFISH HOTEL at the Actors’ Gang, TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTONY (Queen Sheba) with Four Larks Theatre (Ovation Award Winner), PROMETHEUS BOUND with CalArts’s Center for New Performance, ALCESTIS (Alcestis) with Critical Mass Performance Group,CAMINO REAL(Esmeralda) at Boston Court Theatre and JOMAMA JONES: RADIATE! (Sweet Peach) at The Kirk Douglas Theatre. New opera includes: HIVE RISE with The Industry at the Geffen Contemporary, Andrew Norman’s TRIP TO THE MOON (Alcofribas) with the LA Phil directed by Yuval Sharon, Andy Akiho’s GALILEO (Andrea) with The Industry, Ellen Reid’s MOTH (Bird), DICE THROWN by John King, LIGHT AND POWER (Tesla) with wildUp, and THE MORTAL THOUGHTS OF LADY MACBETH (witch) by Veronika Krausas.

LETTERS FROM HOME, written and performed by Kalean, is an intergenerational collaboration between her and her father, Cambodian American composer, Chinary Ung. It will have its East Coast Premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in 2023. LFH has had performances at Independent Shakespeare Company, UC San Diego, Cambodia Town Film Festival, Willamette University, LA Mission College, UC Irvine, as well as a four-camera live-stream adaptation that was workshopped at Boston Court Pasadena. In addition to these residences, she co-curated a companion exhibit called “Music, Letters, Home: An Exhibition celebrating the Journey of Composer Chinary Ung and Actor Kalean Ung” at The Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive Center. Kalean was just awarded the competitive California Arts Council Established Artist Fellowship for her artistic work spanning the last ten years.

Kalean is on faculty in the Theatre School at CalArts. She has also taught at California State University, Los Angeles and Northridge. She received her MFA in Acting from CalArts and her BM in Vocal Performance from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

A Korean-American Tenor from Los Angeles, CA, John has been described as “a clarion tenor,” “that floats his high notes with ease and emotional fervor. John will begin the 24/25 season with Opera on the James, debuting as Rodolfo in Puccini's La Boheme. He will then join New Performance Traditions for a new composition production of Both Eyes Open by Max Duykers, and return to West Bay Opera as the titular character of Verdi's Otello. John started off his 23/24 season with Opera Grand Rapids reviving Ricky Ian Gordon's The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as the Tenor 1 soloist, then immediately head to Lancaster, PA to join Penn Square Opera for their “Opera Couples Therapy” concert, where he will headline signature pieces and duets from Carmen, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Tosca. He made his company and role debut with Opera Modesto as the iconic Mario Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca, and finished the 23/24 season with Mid America Productions at Carnegie Hall as their guest Tenor Soloist for Mozart's Coronation Mass.  John was also a finalist for the Wagner Society of New York's competition and received an encouragement grant.

​After his successful debut as Erik in Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, with West Bay Opera, John traveled to Berlin and debuted as Bacchus in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos with Berlin Opera Academy. He had also debuted as Rick in John Adams’ I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky, with InSeries Opera right before, covering the title role Canio, I Pagliacci, with Opera Tampa in March 2023. John began 2022 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic covering the role of Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio for their collaboration with Deaf West Theatre. Then John joined the Chautauqua Opera’s summer season where he covered the role of Mario Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca, and sang the role of John Adams in Gertrude Stein & Virgil Thompson’s The Mother of us All. The 2021 season began digitally for John, with being placed as a semi-finalist for the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He also participated in the Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition, where he was placed as a finalist and received an Encouragement Award. John's postponed contract with Des Moines Metro Opera was fulfilled and spent the summer performing in their summer season where he covered both Adolfo Pirelli and Beadle Bamford in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.  In October, John joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic to workshop Beethoven's Fidelio in collaboration with Deaf West Theater, and will be returning to workshop the role of Florestan in March 2022. John has performed with various companies and various prestigious young artist programs, debuting roles such as Don Jose Carmen, Faust Faust, Ismaele
Nabucco, Siegmund Die Walküre, and performing as a feature soloist with companies such as the LA Philharmonic, Des Moines Metro Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Sarasota Opera, Central City Opera, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and West Bay Opera.

Internationally acclaimed tenor, John Duykers, has appeared with many of the leading opera companies of the world including The Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and Royal Opera Covent Garden, among many others. He is particularly known for his performances of contemporary music, having sung in more than 100 contemporary operas including 50 plus world premieres. Among these, he created the role of Mao Tse Tung in John Adams’ Nixon in China which he performed throughout the world. Duykers has a close association with many contemporary composers, notably Philip Glass and Paul Dresher. He sang for the premiere of Glass’ White Raven, In the Penal Colony and the title role of Galileo Galilei, and premiered Paul Dresher’s solo opera The Tyrant. Duykers has been featured in new operas including Libby Larsen’s Everyman Jack, Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar, Ann LeBaron’s Crescent City, Erling Wold’s Sub Pontio Pilato andMordake, Allan Shearer’s The Dawn Makers, Don Davis’ Rio De Sangre,  Xenia by Thomas Sleeper, Caliban Dreams by Amanda Moody and Clark Suprynowicz, The Daughter of the Red Tzar by Lisa Scola-Prosek, Holodomor by Virko Baley, SAGA of the 21st Century Girl by Sheli Nan, Miguel Frasconi’s Trespass Knot and Hand to Mouth, and in Amanda Moody and Kurt Rohde’s Bitter Harvest. He can be heard on numerous recordings of opera and contemporary music including the Grammy and Emmy Award winning Nixon In China, in the PBS Great Performances series.

Shinichi Iova-Koga is the Artistic Director of the physical theater and dance company inkBoat, founded by Shinichi in 1998.  He has toured in North America, Europe, South Korea, and Japan, often collaborating with local artists in museums, theaters, studios and site-specific locations. He has co-directed works with Anna Halprin, Ko Murobushi, Sten Rudstrøm, Yuko Kaseki, Takuya Ishide, and KT Nelson (ODC).

Shinichi is the editor of the book “95 Rituals,” a tribute to Anna Halprin, and contributor to “TheRoutledge Companion to Butoh Performance.”

He has co-created performances with music groups Rova Saxophone Quartet and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.  As a guest Director, he has worked with AXIS Dance Company.  As a dancer, he has been a member of the Russian Dance Theater company Do Theatre (2003-2005) Butoh/installation art based TEN PEN CHii (1996-2002) in Germany with Yumiko Yoshioka, Hiroko and Koichi Tamano’s Harupin Ha (1993-1996), and Larry Reed’s Shadowlight Theater (1993-1997).

Under Shinichi’s direction, inkBoat has been recognized numerous times by the Isadora Duncan Awards Committee, receiving 12 nominations and 5 Izzie awards: “Special Achievement Award” for the 2015 performance of “95 Rituals;” “Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design” for the 2011 performance “Line Between;” “Outstanding Achievement in Company Performance” for the 2008 production of “c(H)ord;” “Outstanding Achievement in Company Performance” for 2004’s “Ame to Ame;” “Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design” for 2003’s “Heavens’ Radio.”  Shinichi was named one of the “25 to watch” in 2008 by Dance Magazine and awarded a “Goldie” award by the SF Bay Guardian in 2007.  

Geoffrey Burleson, pianist, has performed to wide acclaim throughout Europe and North America. Current recording projects include Camille Saint-Saëns: Complete Piano Works, on 6 CDs, for the new Naxos Grand Piano label. The first five volumes have been released to high acclaim from Gramophone, International Record Review, Diapason (France) and elsewhere. Other noteworthy recordings include Vincent Persichetti: Complete Piano Sonatas (New World Records), which received a BBC Music Choice award from the BBC Music Magazine, and AKOKA (Oxingale Records), featuring Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, as well as companion works, for which Burleson was nominated for a 2015 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year. Concerto appearances include the Buffalo Philharmonic, New England Philharmonic, Boston Musica Viva, and the Holland Symfonia in the Netherlands.  He has also appeared as featured soloist at the Bard Music Festival, International Keyboard Institute and Festival (New York), Monadnock Music Festival, Santander Festival (Spain) and the Mänttä Music Festival (Finland).   He is a core member of the American Modern Ensemble and Ensemble Ipse. Mr. Burleson is on the piano faculty of Princeton University, and is Professor and Director of Piano Studies at Hunter College-CUNY.

Marja Mutru received her master’s degree in piano performance from the Sibelius Academy in her native Finland. After settling in the San Francisco Bay Area, she would go on to play with various local ensembles and orchestras, including the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, Santa Rosa Symphony, and Berkeley Symphony.

Marja frequently works as a rehearsal pianist for local chamber opera productions. She has also performed with numerous dance companies in the Bay Area, such as Ballet San Jose, ODC, Nancy Karp + Dancers, and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. In addition, she has worked as an accompanist at theSan Jose State University, and as a vocal repertoire coach at the California Institute of the Arts. Marja has performed solo piano repertoire by local composers such as John Adams, Richard Felciano, Paul Dresher, Mark Grey, and Erling Wold. In addition, she plays harmonium on the Kronos Quartet album Early Music, and keyboard on John Adams’ opera I Was Looking at The Ceiling and Then I Saw The Sky with Finnish chamber ensemble Avanti!, both on Nonesuch Records

Joel Davel is a percussionist who combines his classical training with intimate knowledge and use of electronic music resources. Davel’s diverse career and influences range from traditional acoustic folk and classical music to the highly experimental.

Davel has been a member of the Paul Dresher Ensemble’s Electro-Acoustic Band since 1999 and his also works with Dresher as part of the Dresher-Davel Invented Instrument Duo and Double Duo (a quartet).  Other notable close collaborators include Amy X Neuburg, Jack West, John Duykers, Guillermo Galindo, and most recently as part of Vân-Ánh Võ’s Blood Moon Orchestra. He has composed and performed live for several dNaga dance productions and appeared in theater productions for The California Shakespeare Theater, West Edge Opera, and South Coast Repertory.

As a mentee of electronic music pioneer Don Buchla for over 20 years, he continues the design of electronic music instruments, including continued refinement of the Buchla Marimba Lumina — Davel’s signature instrument. Davel holds a Bachelor of Music from Northern Illinois University and an MFA from Mills College.

Violinist Esther Noh has garnered acclaim for her achievements as both a classical and alternative music performer. She won the Audience Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Denmark and first prize in the Julius Stulberg International String Competition. She has soloed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and the Danish National Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, she won first prize in the junior division of the 1994 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and has participated in residencies in Banff, Canada, the Smithsonian Museum, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She has toured throughout the country with the ETHEL string quartet, eighth blackbird, Fireworks Ensemble, and the Meredith Monk Ensemble, and has performed in New York City at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Recital Hall, and Miller Theater. Ms. Noh is also an active champion of improvised and alternative music. She has collaborated with John Zorn, Mark O' Connor, and Bang on a Can, and has presented avant-garde music at Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, The Stone, and the Cutting Room. She plays and records with singer/songwriters and is the featured violin soloist in the Oscar-winning short film God of Love (Best Short Film, 2011). A strong supporter of contemporary music, she performs with numerous groups, including Signal, Wordless Music Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and Either/Or. She premieres composers’ works for both solo violin and chamber ensembles, and has recorded for the New Amsterdam and E1 labels. Ms. Noh received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Michigan. She holds a doctorate with honors from SUNY Stony Brook and is a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. She was the visiting professor of violin at Wichita State University and concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony from January 2004-May 2005.  She currently resides in New York City.

Emanuela Nikiforova’s musical background is eclectic. A native of Bulgaria, she benefited from the influence of the Russian violin school at Varna and Sofia middle and high music schools, the lineage of thinking of Carl Flesh, through his pupil, Yfrah Neaman, and Neaman’s esteemed student, Professor Kevork Mardirossian (Louisiana State University School of Music), the dedication of Lord Yehudi Menuhin and Argentinian Maestro Alberto Lysy at the International Menuhin Music Academy, Gstaad, and the finesse and brilliance of Camilla Wicks at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Nikiforova has performed on three different continents from a young age as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician. She is a former member of Camerata Lysy, Camerata Bariloche, Philharmonica de Buenos Aires, Sarasota Orchestra and Baton Rouge Symphony, and a current member of the Santa Rosa, Marin, Berkeley, Oakland and Silicon Valley symphonies, a substitute at the San Francisco Ballet, Opera San Jose, California and Napa symphonies and others. Nikiforova enjoys making time for private teaching, coaching youth orchestra members and popularizing Bulgarian Classical music as a Music Director of Bay Area Bulgarian Festival Strings.

New York-based clarinetist Christa Van Alstine is dedicated to performing new music and collaborating closely with composers. Recognized by the New York Times as “animated...careful and diligent,” Christa is the clarinetist with Ipse, bass clarinetist with Hotel Elefant, and performs frequently in NYC and abroad with several other contemporary ensembles including Red Light New Music, Mantra Percussion, Wet Ink, A Far Cry, Talea, ICE, Either/Or, Iktus Percussion, Ascolta, and Toca Loca. She has performed and premiered works at festivals including Next Wave (NYC), MATA (NYC), Ecstatic (NYC), Liederabend (NYC), Darmstadt (Germany), Impuls (Austria), soundXis (Canada), avantX (Canada), Moving Sounds (New York City), and the 12 Nights (Miami). Christa received an Artist’s Diploma from the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and her master’s degree from Stony Brook University in New York and is currently on faculty at the United Nations International School.

Cory Tiffin has served as the Principal Clarinet for the Las Vegas Philharmonic since 2011 and has appeared with dozens of other orchestras across the United States. A longtime Chicagoan, Tiffin has performed in recital with the Grammy Award-winning Chicago Chamber Musicians and the Grammy-nominated Lincoln Trio, in addition to being a Performing Member of the Chicago Philharmonic. He collaborated with some of Chicago’s leading new music ensembles, such as Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Access Contemporary Music, and the University of Chicago’s New Music Ensemble. He founded and ran the eclectic Anaphora Ensemble for several years and continues to perform on notable concert series and radio programs. Time Out New York called Tiffin a “clarinet maverick,” and Lawrence Johnson of Chicago Classical Review remarked: “…Tiffin’s understated virtuosity was the fulcrum of the performance – as it was all afternoon…”

Tiffin served on the faculties of DePaul University, Loyola University, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and The Chicago High School for the Arts and was an Affiliate Instructor at The University of Chicago. Tiffin studied at DePaul University with Larry Combs, Julie DeRoche, and Wagner Campos.

Since moving to the Bay Area in 2020, Tiffin has grown in demand, appearing regularly with the symphonies of Oakland, Modesto, Monterey, and elsewhere across the region. He was recently featured with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and was named a finalist for the principal clarinet position with the San Francisco Ballet. He is slated to perform at the Mendocino, Bear Valley, and Music in the Mountains music festivals this summer.

This will be the 4th production with First Look Sonoma for Maria Christoff, and she has been a part of the development of Both Eyes Open since the very beginning.  Christoff is a Pratt Institute alumni with a BA in Apparel Design and Art History. Her academic interests in textile, personal adornment and the attire language have lead her to costuming for theater, dance, art installations and sculpture.  While living in Japan, Maria explored the consequences of fast fashion on land and people, the disappearance of handmade articles of clothing from today’s daily experience and the use and revival of natural sustainable fiber. She designed for a series of exhibits and performance art presentations on those subjects in Tokyo, Osaka and Nara. 

In the Bay Area since 2001, she developed an educational course on Mindfulness through Hand Sewing, Hand Writing and Drawing. She applied that method at Bay Area Performance Arts School – Zen Hospice at Sister Mary Philippa Clinic, and at a prisoner’s correspondence support program.   Maria also created costumes for many Burning Man performance projects, including design for Burning Opera, staged at Black Rock City, in San Francisco and Seattle. Recently she collaborated with LED light artist Christopher Schardt on large scale sculptures Firmament and Paraluna, receiving recognition from the Black Rock Art Foundation and exhibited at The Exploratorium, The Smithsonian Institute,  and in public spaces in San Francisco, Sacramento and Houston. 

Kwame Braun is a filmmaker, specializing in performance documentary and theatre projections.  His African videos—passing girl; riverside and Stageshakers!—have screened at international ethnographic film festivals, including New York City’s Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival. After an early career as a scenic artist in theatre and television, he attended New York University’s Graduate program of Film and Television, graduating in 1988.  He has taught film and video production at Chicago’s Columbia College, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and Berkeley.  Representative projects include: Video Portraits of Survival, a series of video portraits of Holocaust refugees and survivors in Santa Barbara, made in collaboration with film scholar Janet Walker and filmmaker Renée Bergen, (2007); 25 short videos to accompany the exhibition Fiat Lux Redux: Ansel Adams and Clark Kerr (2012) selections from the more than 6000 images that Ansel Adams made of the University of California system for its Centennial Celebration in 1968; and extensive projections for Culture Clash’s Chavez Ravine, directed by Sean San Jose in Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. He is currently creating projections for Philip Kan Gotanda and Max Duyker’s chamber opera, Both Eyes Open.

Matthew Eben Jones is a self-prescribed “visual alchemist” and a meta-musician who runs a VJ label/production company called the “Vizwrap Society”. He creates immersive, stereo-scopic, audio-reactive projections for opera companies and for other various events.