Chris Aiello is an improvising saxophonist and electronic musician living in Brooklyn. The last great student of legendary jazz instructor Sal Mosca and a practitioner of the most modern, minimalist synthesis techniques, he performs solo and in various ensembles around New York City, as well as teaching the art of improvising.
Zoë Aqua is a violinist based in Brooklyn, NY. In 2017, she served as the full-time understudy for the Klezmatics’ Lisa Gutkin in the Broadway production of “Indecent”. Quickly becoming an in-demand violinist in the klezmer scene, Zoë is a co-founder of Tsibele, a five-woman ensemble. Tsibele released their debut album "It's Dark Outside/ In Droysn iz Finster" in September 2017. She also performs regularly with klezmer groups Farnakht, Litvakus, Ternovka, and the Honorable Mentschn. Known for her versatility, she can be seen playing such diverse styles as French-infused reggae with the Blue Dahlia to Mexican folkloric music with the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company. She is a frequent collaborator with Bessie Award-winning choreographer Joya Powell, composing and performing music for two pieces with Powell and the Movement of the People Dance Company, as well as a new work-in-progress to be premiered May 2018.
Hope Arthur is a musician and composer originally from Fort Wayne, IN but currently residing in Chicago, IL where she makes her living performing, composing and teaching music. Holding degrees in German Studies and Piano Performance, her expertise runs the gamut from classical music and dance settings, to German folk/pop accordion playing, to composing film scores, to DIY concerts and house shows. She is a dance accompanist at Hubbard Street Dance, The Lou Conte Dance Studio, Visceral Dance and Hyde Park School of Dance. She composes for and performs in the bands Mucca Pazza, Alpine Thunder, Bloody Tambourine and the Musical Mafia, Silbo Gomero in addition to performing as a solo singer songwriter.
Nancy Baker was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and receieved a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where she maintains a studio in Clinton Hill.A world traveler, she posits this as the major source of her emotional well being, along with her supportive family; husband John and daughter Elizabeth. She has received many fellowships and awards, and missed a few that she thought she owned.
Her current goal is to maintain humility and a keen sense of the absurd, despite living on a planet that is becoming increasingly humorless, jejune and fanatical.
She believes that solipsism is the best strategy for survival.
Nancy first collaborated with konverjdans on a new piece for CounterPointe5 in 2017. Learn more about her at nancysbaker.com
Priscilla Fusco lives and works in New York City. She illustrates non-human agendas through sculpture and writing. She has shown at Underdonk, Ludlow 67 and the Brooklyn Waterfront. She earned her MFA from Hunter College in 2016, and currently serves as the Assistant Gallerist at Thomas Hunter Project Space in New York, New York. mPriscillafusco.com
Cassidy Hall began ballet classes at Pioneer Valley Ballet and continued her professional training at School of American Ballet. From there she danced with Pennsylvania Ballet performing works by Balanchine, Wheeldon and Petipa. After Pennsylvania Ballet Cassidy danced with Suzanne Farrell Ballet, Claudia Schreier and Company, Norte Maar, New Chamber Ballet and guested with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and Les Grands Ballets de Montreal. Cassidy now attends Columbia University and continues to dance with Columbia Ballet Collaborative.
Michael Holden started dancing at the age of 3 at the Maine State Ballet. He then was excepted into the Miami City Ballet school at age 17. There he performed with the company in such ballets as George Balanchine’s “La Valse”, “Slaughter on 10th Avenue”, and a Liam Scarlett premiere “Euphotic”. In 2014 Michael moved to Philadelphia to join the School of Pennsylvania Ballet under the direction of Arantxa Ochoa. Michael got the opportunity to perform with the company in George Balanchine’s “the Nutcracker”, “Prodigal Son”, and Christopher Wheeldon’s “Swan Lake”. Most recently, Michael danced in the finale season of The Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Dancing in George Balanchine’s “Chaconne”, “Tzigane”, and “Gounod Symphony”. He’s now living in New York City, freelancing for various choreographers.
An avid learner and explorer of the musical arts, Max Kanowitz began his studies at the Eastman School of Music in 2011 and completed his bachelor's degree in percussion performance and music education, and as a Kaufmann Entrepreneurial Year Scholar, last May.
Illuminating the unity that binds education, composition, and performance has excelled Max on a constantly enriching pursuit to more deeply understanding the interconnectedness of these unique disciplines.
Seeking ever greater uses for his art, Max has turned many of his efforts towards social activism, and social justice movements. As a member of Semillas Art + Justice + Healing, Max wrote and produced the sound-track for “They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds,” a social justice dance film aimed to expose Mexico’s ever-growing human-rights crisis (see the film at semillasrise.com).
Max is just beginning to collaborate with konverjdans on a series of improvised percussion-and-dance "play" sessions as well as on choreography that will be created to some of Max's original music.
More about Max: maxkanowitz.com
Blake Krapels, a 2011 United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts, has been dancing since the age of three under the tutelage of Billy Larson and Jamie Salmon. In 2015, Blake graduated from The Juilliard School with a BFA in dance, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes. While at Juilliard, Blake has had the opportunity to perform repertoire by William Forsythe, Merce Cunningham, Elliot Feld, Jose Limon and Peter Chu. Since graduating he has danced for Keigwin & Company, GroundWorks Dance Theatre, The Metropolitan Opera, Emery LeCrone Dance and had the privilege to present his own work in 2016 APAP choreographers conference. In the fall of 2016 Blake launched a dance theatre company called Alpha, with two classmates Michael and Gemma. They curated their world premier in June as apart of Cleveland Dance Works 2017. In addition to his core training at school, Blake traveled to Den Haag to partake in Nederlands Dans Theatre’s 2014, 2016 Summer Intensives as well as Montreal for Springboard Danse Montreal 2013. In 2011,The National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts recognized Blake for his choreography and afforded him the privilege to present his work at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Blake is continuously traveling around the country and Canada teaching and setting work on pre professional companies. Blake currently dances with Ballet X in Philadelphia.
Hailing from the Bronx, a veteran of the New York City streets, Christian Lee is a proactive musician aspiring towards the Jazz music scene. Emerging as an autodidact in his early 20s, while first learning of Jazz through an ensemble for some years in Queens at college, reading philosophy and poetry all at once, he’s cultivated his superpower in the realm of music as a drummer. While most of his youth takes influence from Michael Jackson and much of Hip-Hop, stemming from a tight-knitted black community, and even growing up in church, his influences come from many music genres: those of Jazz, Metal, Rock, Afro-Cuban, Funk, World, Classical, Hip-Hop, Pop, R&B, Electronic, etc. Names such as Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Meshuggah, Opeth, The Roots, Common, TLC, Kool & The Gang, Frederic Chopin, Yo la Tengo, Porcupine Tree, and many others, have influenced his playing and growth as a musician. His current engagement involves three bands: one being Classic Rock/Funk, another of a Jazz/Metal project, and an ideal Jazz band based on doing covers.
He’s most seasoned behind percussion and the drum kit, and with brief rigorous training on the piano. Spending most of his youth in church, he heard gospel often from his father and the latter’s friends. This was never of deliberate utility for him but the church scene is where he first heard the voice of the drums, where also the rhythms of gospel would influence him to question the power of music. In a high school marching band is where his love for the drums first kindled. He first learned reading through the bass drum and following the snare; this kind of foreshadowing towards his goal of becoming a professional drummer is due to his high school friend, a trumpeter and music enthusiast, a nephew of the great Thelonious Monk. He introduced him to Jazz through sitting in on the kit every Sunday at a small jazz venue named 449 LA in Harlem. Listening to the elders talk about and playing jazz was a rewarding experience for Christian, and is the cornerstone of where his love for jazz drumming truly sparkled. Initially, he was a self-taught drummer. He eventually discovered two mentors that have acknowledged his playing style and passion for drums. With nearly a year of influence from these two experienced instructors, Christian’s exponential growth has instilled more confidence towards the goal of becoming a professional drummer.
Coreisa Janelle Lee, born in Birmingham, Alabama, started playing the flute at age eight. Contributing to her success, she has had the pleasure of working with highly trained musicians such as: Ian Clarke, Greg Patillo, Raffaele Trevisani, Lorna McGhee, and more. Her past teachers include: Kim Scott, Dr. Frank Adams, Aaron Evens and Ann Edwards. Coreisa is a graduate of the Alabama School of Fine Arts(ASFA) where she held the spot of principal flutist of the ASFA Orchestra and the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra. In 2011 and 2012, Ms.Lee won first place in the woodwind division at the Alabama Federation of Music Clubs Competition. In 2012, she also won the Concerto Competition at Rocky Ridge Music Center in Colorado, and had the privilege to solo with a live string orchestra. In 2013, Ms.Lee won 1st place in the Lois Pickard Concerto Competition and also attended the Music Teachers National Association competition in Anaheim, California and was named a finalist after winning the State level in Alabama and the Southern Division level in North Carolina. Recently, Ms.Lee made an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show and has been a guest on the Meredith Vieira show where she was awarded a brand new professional Powell flute by Meredith Vieira herself. She also had the chance to perform for the United Nations 69th anniversary alongside the famous pianist, Lang Lang, and the famous singer, Sting. Former principal flutist in the New York Youth Symphony, Coreisa Lee has now finished her senior year as a full four year scholarship recipient in the undergraduate program at the Manhattan School of Music. She was a 4th year recipient of the William Randolph Hearst Scholarship and privately studied with Linda Chesis majoring in Classical Flute performance.
Guitarist Daniel Lippel, called an “exciting soloist” (New York Times), “precise and sensitive” (Boston Globe) and a "modern guitar polymath" (Guitar Review) enjoys a unique and diverse career that ranges through solo and chamber music performances, innovative commissioning and recording projects, and performances in diverse contexts. He has premiered more than fifty new solo and chamber works, many written for him, recording several on the independent label he co-founded and directs, New Focus Recordings. Lippel is the resident guitarist for two critically acclaimed new music groups: the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) since 2005 and new music quartet Flexible Music since 2003. More about Dan: danlippel.com
Hank Mason is a New York-based pianist, composer, and electronic musician. He is also a musical accompanist for American Ballet Theatre, Mark Morris Dance Group, Ballet Tech, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Charles trained at the Center of Creative Arts, as well as at Ballet Chicago, the School of American Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. He joined PNB in 2011 where he performed featured roles in works by Balanchine, Cerrudo, Dawson, Kylián, Stowell, Stromann, and Tharp. In 2016, he joined Royal New Zealand Ballet and performed with Missouri Ballet Theatre before returning to NYC to work with Sonia Dawkins, Emery LeCrone DANCE, and, most recently, konverjdans! Charles is also a classically trained bass baritone and has sung with the New Zealand based choir Inspirare and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Visual Artist
Jim's professional music career began at the Montreux Jazz Festival at the age of 13. A long career of touring and composing have given Jim opportunities to perform and record on 5 different continents with superstars such as Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Sting, Janelle Monae, Nas, The Roots, Josh Groban, Erykah Badu, Kygo, and many more. Jim has been living and breathing music for most of his life, yet each day remains as exhilarating as the first day holding an instrument. Learn more about Jim at http://www.bassicmusic.com/
Kurt Roembke is a classically trained musician who spends his time creating interactive, immersive art experiences in collaboration with visual and performing artists. He is currently working on SoundWalk, an app that maps audio to physical space, allowing people to explore sound pieces as their body position directly controls elements of the piece. He also makes his own video games, and composes music for other game developers. On the side, Kurt also plays in several groups with his collaborating partner, Hope Arthur, including Silbo Gomero, Bloody Tambourine and the Musical Mafia, and Hope Arthur Orchestra. More about Kurk: soundwalkapp.com; spaceowlproductions.com; @spaceowlpro
Bassist Cliff Schmitt has performed thousands of gigs since his professional debut in 1992. From his first gig on the south side of Dallas with R&B legend Al "TNT" Braggs, to nightclubs in New York, Paris and Rio De Janiero, to crowds of thousands at festivals in North and South America, Europe and Asia. He was a resident of Brooklyn, NY for ten years, but now calls Jersey City, NJ home. Cliff is currently the bassist for Concord recording artist Curtis Stigers, and co-leads a duo project with Guitarist/Harmonica player Noé Socha called Likho Duo.
Rebecca Walden received her early ballet training from Radenko Pavlovich, Hillary Krieger, and Gabor Toth in Columbia, South Carolina. She graduated from North Carolina School of the Arts ballet program, and went on to further her contemporary training at Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet Training Program. She has danced professionally with Columbia Classical Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Terra Firma Dance Theatre, Ballet Inc., and Yoo and Dancers, among other projects in New York City. She recently toured with Kay Nishikawa and Artists to Kochi, Japan to perform at the Makino Botanical Garden at the Makino Museum of Plants and People. Rebecca has choreographed for the LINES Ballet Training Program and for CoLab at Columbia University. Alongside her dancing career, she studied at and recently graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Anthropology, and is a certified trainer of the GYROTONIC® Expansion System.
The Real Mike Wilson is a musician, composer and sound engineer from Brooklyn, NY. Mike has performed at classic NYC venues such as Arlene’s Grocery, Bowery Poetry Club and Goodbye Blue Monday. In 2015, Mike appeared in Deli Magazine’s emerging artist issue. He’s opened up for the legendary Dougie E. Fresh and superstar Big K.R.I.T. He’s placed third in a rap completion at the Pyramid club and has managed and produced a few of NYC’s growing talents.
Dalen Wuest is a composer, saxophonist, and improviser from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in saxophone performance from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne where he studied with Farrell Vernon. While at IPFW, he also studied composition with Chris Rutkowski, Ken Johnson, and Geoffrey North. He was named the Outstanding Senior in Music Performance for the 2012-2013 academic year.
Wuest completed a Master of Music degree in composition at Bowling Green State University in May 2016, where he studied with Mikel Kuehn, Christopher Dietz, and Marilyn Shrude. He also studied improvisation with Rob Wallace and Thomas Rosekranz, and Balinese Gamelan with Kurt Doles.
Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, Jeff Young has been playing guitar in the Greater New York area for 20 years.