Alice Jones is a flutist known for giving performances that are “lively” (New York Times), “delicate and passionate with beautiful articulation and dynamics.” An avid symphonic, chamber, theater, and contemporary musician, with performances ranging from the Brandenburg Concerti to New York City’s Look and Listen Festival, Alice was praised by Mario Davidovsky as “the flute player who could really play.” She was also featured at the Composers Now! Festival at Symphony Space (2010 and 2011) and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (2010), and has received commissions from the Long Island Composers Alliance. She toured China and Hong Kong (2007 and 2008) as a performer and director of chamber music and outreach programs for the Yale-China Music Exchange. Equally passionate about performing, research, and teaching, she has won awards in both baroque performance and musicology, has taught music history courses at SUNY Purchase, and maintains a private studio in New York. She graduated from Yale University and SUNY Purchase and is currently a doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center. Alice joined the faculty at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in 2010.

Joe Fee is a multi instrumentalist from New Jersey. He earned a Bachelor's Degree at Montclair State University and a Master's Degree at Queens College, both in percussion.   As a percussionist he has performed with Newband, The Tibetan Singing Bowl Ensemble, and the Manhattan Symphonie  on their 2010 winter  tour of China.  He has shared bills with Medeski, Martin, and Wood and Bob Weir with Scarecrow Collection, a band devoted to performing original music some of which can be currently heard on Sirius/XM radio. He has performed throughout the east coast at The Knitting Factory,  Albany Convention Center, The House of Blues, and Gathering of the Vibes Music Festival.   As a guitarist, he has co-founded the new music ensemble Elevator Rose, premiering new compositions in such venues as the Symphony Space Cafe, the CUNY New Music Festival, and Queens College.  Joe Fee has taught guitar and percussion classes at Glen Ridge High School in NJ and The Hebrew Academy of Nassau County and continues to freelance and compose in the NYC area.

Brazilian percussionist, Piero Guimaraes, began his musical studies as a member of high school marching bands.  As a performer, Piero Guimaraes specializes in orchestral and contemporary music, having having given the Brazilian premiere of several works by influential composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Steve Reich and Peter Eotvos. He has performed in the United States, Brazil, Austria, Germany, Spain, and Holland. Most recently, he has attended several orchestral and contemporary music festivals including The World Orchestra Festival, International Ensemble Modern Academy, Pommersfelden Summer Akademy and Percussive Arts Society International Convention.  Additionally, Piero has collaborated with John Luther Adams and Heinz Holliger, and played under the baton of Kurt Mazur. Piero earned a bachelor's degree from Sao Paulo State University, and a master's degree from Stony Brook University - NY where he is currently a Doctorate of Musical Arts candidate. 

Committed to artistic innovation, percussionist Ryan Nestor is actively pursuing new musical directions. Interested in large-scale musical works, Nestor is currently performing Roger Reynolds’ Watershed I, a mammoth, genre-defining composition for solo percussion.

In the fall of 2011, Nestor traveled to Germany to perform Sofia Gubaidulina’s 45-minute-long epic, The Canticle of the Sun, with the Stuttgart Chamber Chorus. Nestor held the percussion fellowship with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE) at the Aspen Summer Music Festival and was appointed to the performing guest artist faculty of the nief-norf Summer Festival at Furman University. In the spring of 2012, Nestor will perform solo recitals and present workshops at several universities in Tennessee.

Nestor frequently performs in New York City and was featured at the Bang on a Can marathon, the International Computer Music Conference, Issue Project Room, and the Park Avenue Armory. He has been a participant at the International Festival for Contemporary Performance (IFCP) and a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival.  As a soloist, Nestor performed at the 2009 and 2010 Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Nestor earned his Master’s degree in Percussion Performance at Stony Brook University and his Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Kentucky.

French-American pianist Julia Den Boer holds a DEM from the Lyon
Conservatoire de Region and a Bachelor of Music from McGill
University, where she studied with Sara Laimon, Tom Plaunt and Anton
Kuerti. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral studies at SUNY Stony
Brook with Gilbert Kalish.

A strong advocate of new music, Julia performs regularly in North
America and Europe; recent performances include the Cool Drummings
Festival in Toronto, the International Computer Music Conference, the
Klangspuren Festival, Matrix 11 at the SWR Studio in Freiburg, and
Live@CIRMMT Series.

She has participated in numerous new music workshops such as the
Norfolk New Music Workshop, the Domaine Forget Contemporary Music
workshop, the 2009 and 2010 Ensemble Modern Academy and Acanthes.
Julia is kindly supported by the Solti Foundation.

Scott Litroff is a versatile performer and educator in both jazz and classical styles. A
native of Long Island, New York, Scott earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music with Phi
Beta Kappa Honors from Stony Brook University while studying with Dr.
Christopher Creviston (Crane School of Music). He won the undergraduate concerto
competition twice as the only saxophonist to take first prize, performing the Villa-
Lobos Fantasia and the Ibert Concertino with the University Orchestra. He then
went on to receive his Master of Music in saxophone performance from the
prestigious Mannes College for Music in NYC, studying with Allen Won. He won
Mannes’ concerto competition as well, becoming the only saxophonist to take first
prize in the school’s history. In 2008, Scott made his Lincoln Center debut,
performing the Ibert Concertino with the Mannes Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall. In
October 2008, Scott became Instructor of Saxophones at Stony Brook University, a
position he continues while completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree as teaching
assistant to world-renowned trombonist Ray Anderson. On December 3, 2011, Scott
performed the Larsson Saxophone Concerto with the Stony Brook Symphony
Orchestra as winner of the 2010-2011 Stony Brook Graduate Concerto Competition,
and is the only saxophonist to have won this honor. Scott is the recipient of the 2011
Bob Meyers Award for Excellence in Jazz, an award presented at Stony Brook
University for excellence in jazz performance and education. Scott is also the
Adjunct Professor of Saxophone at Adelphi University and Applied Saxophone
Instructor at Suffolk County Community College.

Scott is involved in various music scenes, both in and out of academic settings.
In spring 2008, Scott played saxophone and flute with the St. Bart’s Players In a
revival of Steven Sondheim’s “Follies,” which received critical acclaim from the Off-
Off Broadway Review as, “…the most perfect version of Follies to grace the stage
in many a year.” He has had the pleasure of performing alongside some of today’s
best musicians, including Ray Anderson (Downbeat Magazine’s 5-time Trombonist
of the Year and Guggenheim Fellow), Bakithi Kumalo (Bassist on Paul Simon’s
Graceland album), and Steve Salerno (guitarist in the Ray Anderson Quintet). In
October 2009, Scott played flute, clarinet, and violin on a west coast tour with Verve
Recording Artist Nellie McKay promoting her album, As Normal As Blueberry Pie,
performing multiple shows at San Francisco’s Yoshi’s Club and Seattle’s Jazz Alley.
Scott regularly premieres new music by both up and coming as well as established
composers, including David Loeb, Dawn Chambers, Andriy Legkyy, Ronnie Reshef,
Martin Loyato, and Tristan Eggener. In May 2011 he was chosen to present a lecture
recital at the University of Toronto MGSA Symposium on the David Loeb Concerto
for Saxophone and Orchestra, a work Scott commissioned. Scott’s performing
schedule includes collaborations with several performing groups, including the
avant-garde Martin Loyato Quintet, the jazz collective known as the Oatmeal Jazz
Combo, and the award-winning quadrATOMIC Saxophone Quartet. His equaled
passions for classical, jazz, and contemporary music have shaped Scott into a
multitalented musician with a wealth of experience in different genres in which he continues to demonstrate great facility. Scott performs exclusively on Vandoren mouthpieces and reeds.

Nicholas DeMaison is a highly regarded interpreter of new music and contemporary opera whose performances have been called "consistently invigorating" (Alan Kozin, New York Times). A composer and conductor, he serves as Music Supervisor for the critically acclaimed production company Giants Are Small, which received national acclaim for their stagings of Ligeti’s ‘Le Grand Macabre’ and Janáček’s ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’ with the New York Philharmonic. For the latter, the Philharmonic commissioned DeMaison to contribute an original electronic soundscape for Avery Fisher Hall.

He has conducted premieres and led recording projects of new pieces by over forty living composers (including Lewis Nielson, Reiko Füting,NIcholas Deyoe, James Ilgenfritz and Philippe Manoury), and was founding Music Director of Chicago’s Opera Cabal, called “Chicago’s most daring opera company” (Chicago Magazine). DeMaison’s own music has been described as “emotionally provocative” (Time Out NY) and “faster and blippier…both ominous and playful at the same time” (Lucid Culture).

This season he will conduct new productions of Milhaud’s ‘Le Pauvre Matelot’ and Poulenc’s ‘La Voix Humaine’ with Pocket Opera New York, the premiere of James Ilgenfritz’s opera ‘The Ticket That Exploded’ (based on the writings of William S. Burroughs), and a new production of Georges Aperghis’s ‘L’origine des espèces.’

Nicholas is currently the Artistic Director of Ensemble Sospeso, one of New York’s most dynamic chamber orchestras, called “stunning” (New York Times), “a wonder to watch” (Wall Street Journal) and “gorgeously rich” (Village Voice), and Music Director of New York’s Florilegium Chamber Choir. Previous appointments have included positions with the La Jolla Symphony and the South Hadley Chorale and Orchestra.

A native of Maine, flutist Roberta Michel now lives in New York City and is an active performer of solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Michel recently won the Artists International Special Presentation Award and was presented in her debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall for which she was described in the New York Concert Review as a “solid craftsman” who “riveted with her performance, inspiring one to want a repeated hearing”.  Michel has performed with groups throughout North America including the Portland String Quartet, SEM Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Lunatics at Large, Kagel Nacht, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, Cheyenne Symphony, and the Greeley Philharmonic in venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tulley Hall, Merkin Hall, and The Kennedy Center.  She has recorded on New Dynamic Records and Innova Records.

Dedicated to the advancement of new music and described for her “extreme adventurousness” (New York Concert Review), Michel has premiered numerous works.  She is a founding member of The Cadillac Moon Ensemble, a quartet dedicated to commissioning and performing new works.  The group was recently signed on the New Dynamic Records label and recorded its debut CD in September 2011.  For more information, please see cadillacmoonensemble.com.  Michel’s flute and piano duo with Mirna Lekic, Duo RoMi, is invested in performing new works and promoting composers of our day as well as presenting standard repertoire.

Michel holds a BM with highest honors from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an MM from SUNY-Purchase College, and is currently a doctoral candidate at the City University of New York Graduate Center.  Her teachers include Robert Dick, Tara Helen O'Connor, and Alexa Still. Michel has been a Bang on a Can Summer Institute fellow and a participant in the Institute and Festival of Contemporary Performance at Mannes College, as well as participating in festivals at Banff and Domaine Forget. She is on faculty at Great Neck Music Conservatory.