Music Across Space:
Performances & Online Conversation
Performers include Michael Poll (2012), Elizabeth Ogonek (2012), Emi Ferguson, Juan Jofre and Nicolas Namoradze
Michael Poll (2012) is a classical guitarist and conductor who has performed across North America, South America, and Europe, including in Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the National Theatre of Panama. His debut guitar album, 7-String Bach, was called ‘masterful’ by Gramophone magazine, and Wholenote praised his “warm, rich, and full tone.” Since its release in April 2018, 7-String Bach has been streamed over 900,000 times on Spotify and Apple Music, has been played on Classic FM in London, WRTI in the United States, and was BBC Guernsey’s Feature of the Month for July.
American composer Elizabeth Ogonek's (2012) recent music has been commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, the Fromm Foundation, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Additionally, her music has been premiered and conducted by esteemed figures such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Riccardo Muti, Elim Chan and François-Xavier Roth. At present, she is working on an orchestra piece for the BBC Proms and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Ogonek was born in 1989 in Anoka, Minnesota and was raised in New York City. A former Beinecke and Marshall Scholar, she holds degrees from Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music (BM, 2009), the University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music (MM, 2012) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (DMus, 2017).
From 2015-2018, she held the position of Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Currently she is an Assistant Professor of Composition at Oberlin Conservatory.
Flutist, vocalist, and composer Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals as a soloist and member of the Handel and Haydn Society, AMOC*, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. Emi’s recordings for Arezzo Music, Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes (2019) and Amour Cruel (2017) were amongst the top 10 albums on the Classical and World Music Billboard Charts and showcase Emi’s fascination with reinvigorating music of the past for the present. Emi has been featured in performances by the Marlboro, Lucerne, Lake Champlain, pianoSonoma, and Twickenhamfest music festivals and is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City.
Pianist and composer Nicolas Namoradze, whose performances have been hailed by critics as “sparkling… sensitive and coloristic” (New York Times), “simply gorgeous” (Wall Street Journal) and “astonishing” (International Piano Magazine), came to international attention upon winning the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada—among the largest competition prizes in classical music. His activities as the Honens Prize Laureate include recitals at Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), Konzerthaus Berlin, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Gardner Museum (USA), 92nd Street Y (USA), Toppan Hall (Japan) and deSingel (Belgium); appearances at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr (Germany), Tanglewood (USA), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada), Toronto Summer Music (Canada), Miami International Piano Festival (USA), and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (USA).
Juan Jofre is currently an Assistant Professor in the Foundation Department at Pratt Institute. He is a practicing architect and educator in New York City, a co-founder of JLA Soundsystems, and runs a small interdisciplinary design practice, Estudio Esmero. Juan received his graduate degree in Architecture at MIT and was named a Soros Fellow for New Americans in 2011.