Biographies:

Jeffrey Milarsky is the leading conductor of contemporary music in New York City. In the United States and abroad, he has premiered and recorded works by contemporary composers, including Charles Wuorinen, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Lasse Thoresen, Gerard Grisey, Jonathan Dawe, Tristan Murail, Ralph Shapey, Luigi Nono, Mario Davidovsky and Wolfgang Rihm. His wide ranging repertoire, which spans from Bach to Xenakis, has brought him to lead such accomplished groups as the American Composers Orchestra (which has just named him Assistant Conductor), the New York New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Columbia Sinfonietta, Sinfonietta Moderna, Speculum Musicae, Cygnus Ensemble, The Fromm Players at Harvard University, The Composers' Ensemble at Princeton University, and the New York Philharmonic chamber music series. Most recently, he has joined the faculty of The Manhattan School of Music as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Percussion Ensemble.

Mr. Milarsky received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. Upon graduation, he was awarded the Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding leadership and achievement in the arts. He regularly conducts The Juilliard Orchestra, with whom he has premiered over 150 works of Juilliard student composers over the past fifteen years. He is also on the Pre-College Percussion Faculty at Juilliard, and has been, until recently, Director of the Composition Forum.

As an active chamber and orchestral musician, Mr. Milarsky performs and records regularly with The New York Philharmonic, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The American Composers Orchestra, The Stamford Symphony and Concordia. He has recorded extensively for Angel, Bridge, Teldec, Telarc, New World, CRI, MusicMasters, EMI, Koch, and London records.

Mr. Milarsky is Professor in Music at Columbia University, where he is the Music Director/Conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. Conductor, Percussionist, Professor, Music Director: Jeffrey Milarsky has created a truly unique international career.

Artists from l'IRCAM

Eric Daubresse

After studies in both music and science, notably at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, Eric Daubresse went on to complete internships at CEMAmu and l'INA-GRM.

As part of the ensemble 2e2m, he was involved in the production of new works and activities at the Premis Studio. He also worked on various new mixed music works with the Ensemble Itinéraire. In 1992, he started working as a music assistant at IRCAM, where he has been responsible for the computer music aspects of several new works by Emmanuel Nunes, including Lichtung I et II, Wandlungen, Einspielung I, Nachtmusik I. He is a composer of electroacoustic, instrumental and mixed music and is involved in diverse educational activities linked to contemporary music and new technology

Olivier Pasquet started writing and experimenting with computer music on his own before going on to develop his composition studies at the University of Cambridge. He organized different events including the Cambridge Digital Arts Festival. Based at IRCAM between 1999 to 2004, he worked with La Comédie Franéaise, Georges Aperghis, Mathew Adkins, Xavier Alvarez, Fredrik Hedelin, Brice Pauset, Franéois Sarhan, Rand Steiger,

Himself a composer, he is particularly interested in algorithmic composition and electronic improvisation.

Frederic Voisin was born in 1966.  In 1980 he discovered the ancestor of the sea siren (Alitherium Schinizi) in an exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Venice.  Before working as a researcher in ethno-musicology with the CNRS from 1989 to 1995, Voisin studied musicology at the University of Paris IV in addition to Inuit linguistics.  He carried out research in central Africa with Simha Arom and then on Java, Indonesia, carrying out the first ethnomusicology experiments using sound synthesis. Voisin has been a musical assistant at Ircam in Paris since 1995 and has worked with ArtZoyd since 2000 in addition to taking part in numerous projects with composers, choreographers, and producers.  Since 2003, Frederic Voisin has been the head of musical research at CIRM in Nice.

The Columbia Sinfonietta

In the Spring of 2000, Joshua Fineberg, Fred Lerdahl, Jeffrey Milarsky, and Tristan Murail, with the support of Columbia University’s Alice M. Ditson Fund and Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music, created a group called the Columbia Sinfonietta and put on a season of concerts called “New Music for a New Century” at Merkin Concert Hall and Weill Recital Hall.  These were special concerts. The New York Times, which rarely covers the early concerts of a new ensemble, wrote “Thrilling occasions in contemporary music are bound to be rare. Monday evening brought one of them…” about our very first concert.  It was clear that as remarkable and dynamic as the new music scene in New York has always been, something had been missing.

For the last thirty years, European groups such as the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Ensemble Modern, and the London Sinfonietta have commissioned and performed works by composers around the world. This music ranges from solo works to compositions involving twenty or more musicians. Such ensembles have also proved an ideal medium for exploring innovative instrumental combinations and pairing traditional instruments with electronics. Many of the works written for and championed by these ensembles have become an essential part of the contemporary repertoire. However, often these works have not been performed in America, nor have American composers often had the opportunity to compose for sinfonietta-sized forces. We are dedicated to mixing both reference works and premieres covering aesthetic trends from throughout the world. Moreover, we will always reserve a privileged position for works of younger and less well-known American composers.

With seed support from the Ditson and Reiner funds and additional support from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Columbia Sinfonietta has been revived. We have gathered together New York’s finest performers, under our Music Director Jeffrey Milarsky. Musicians performing with us must agree to make our ensemble their first priority. We will be of sufficient size and scope to demand a real commitment of time spread across our season. Our conductor and Music Director, Jeffrey Milarsky, has been the most active and respected conductor of new music for all sizes of instrumental ensemble in New York for several years, but until now he has not had the chance to invest in his own group. Our first concert attracted a broad spectrum of professionals and music-lovers and our efforts at reaching the broadest possible audience have only barely begun.

Contemporary classical music is at a critical juncture. The social inertia that has allowed it to continue throughout the twentieth century, in spite of dwindling acceptance by the public, is mostly spent. If the kind of demanding, intellectually engaged music that requires large-scale subsidies that we feel is so artistically and culturally important is to continue to exist, it will only be with society’s support. This support is not won merely through acceptable events and reasonable goals. Art music is based on a belief in the possibility of the extraordinary, of masterpieces, of greatness. The Columbia Sinfonietta is dedicated to producing full seasons of extraordinary music-making year after year. This newly recreated group represents a considered, ambitious attempt to make a difference in presentation and acceptance of significant contemporary music.

The Argento Chamber Ensemble

Argento Chamber Ensemble performs cutting-edge works which confront important issues in contemporary Western music. Our inspiration comes from composers whose imaginations have led them to explore new modes of musical expression and communication. The ever-growing access to the music of non-Western cultures, as well as ground-breaking advances in electro-acoustic music, enliven the sound world of many contemporary works. At the same time, other composers are energizing the musical experience through diverse approaches, such as multi-media collaboration or the deconstruction of traditional instruments and styles.

We pride ourselves on meeting the challenges and risks that such composers take to continually renew their art. We feel extremely fortunate to live during this exciting period of musical discovery which inspires our commitment to the works we perform, to our evolving musical work with one another, and most especially to our listeners, whose lives we hope to enrich through our continued efforts.

Argento was founded in the fall of 2000 as a small five-person group and has since grown to an ensemble with eleven resident members, as well as a general membership of musicians who join us for larger events. The Argento Chamber Ensemble has:

• performed widely in the US and abroad with a scale of musical works ranging from virtuoso solo music to twenty person chamber orchestral music.

• worked closely and in collaboration with such prominent living composers as Pierre Boulez, Tania Leon, Tristan Murail, Elliott Carter, Philippe Hurel and Gerard Pesson.

• played concerts in collaboration with leading institutions of electronic music, including IRCAM, and the Computer Music Studio of Columbia University, as well as with leading electronic programmers and performers, such as Miller Puckette.

• performed as a resident contemporary ensemble at prestigious venues including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, International Festival of Spectral Music in Istanbul, the American Festival of Microtonal Music, and the 2003 New York Sounds French Festival.

• recorded and performed a complete video and audio recording of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire for online education on the topic of 20th century music.

• performed with leading non-Western musicians, such as singer Kani Karaca with whom we had our first encounter with Middle Eastern microtonal Makam harmony.