Saxophonist and composer Titus Abbott brings a very personal approach to improvised music. Over the past 25 years Titus has presented music that although steeped in the history of jazz pushes the limits and finds a place of unique expression. Titus was born in Canada in 1960 studying jazz saxophone and jazz and classical composition in Ottawa, Toronto and London, UK completing a degree in composition from the University of Montreal. His groups Delawareness, The Titus Abbott Collective and the Happenstance Quintet have performed at venues and festivals in the US, Canada and Europe. Notable collaborations include performing with pianists Frank Carlberg, Curtis Clark, Mary Anne Driscoll, Mike Effenberger – drummers Luther Gray, Noel Brennan, RJ Miller, Michael Sarin – bassists George Koller, Jim Lyden, Pascal Niggenkemper, Ross Gallagher and the late Oud master Al Gardner. Titus combines his own performance and composition with a dedication to teaching at college, high school and middle school levels.

Brian Shankar Adler is a multidisciplinary drummer, percussionist and composer.

Using rhythm to tell stories, Adler transcends the terrain between genre and geographic region. His music: “flows organically in pursuit of mystery, movingly existing in an ultimate state of fluidity,” according to Jordan Richardson of Canadian Audiophile.

Adler grew up in an ashram, in the mountains of upstate New York and began his rhythmic studies on a tabla style mridang at the age of five. He received a jazz percussion scholarship to attend New England Conservatory and in Boston, collaborated with Korean vocalist, Sunny Kim, releasing three albums and touring the northeast and Europe.

In 2005, Adler moved to New York City where he has worked with: Benedikt Jahnel, Bomba de Tiempo, Bombay Rickey, Cochemea, Sheila Jordan, Guillermo Klein, Michael Leonhart, Frank London, Kate McGarry, Raga Massive, Kamala Sankaram and Elizabeth Swados, among others.

Brian Shankar Adler has been recorded on over thirty albums including his most recent works, “For a Gallery on the Moon” (Chant Records, 2020) and “Fourth Dimension” (Chant Records, 2019). His music video, “Mantra” won best music video at Transcinema International Film Festival in Peru and official selection at Quiet City Film Festival in New York City. Adler has also been featured in Jason Bivin’s book “Spirits Rejoice,” Newsweek, JazzTimes, NPR, Downbeat and Modern Drummer Magazine. Other projects include Human Time Machine, Helium Music Project and Prana Trio.

Chiharu Naruse has performed as a soloist and a chamber  musician throughout the United States, Germany, France  and Japan. Her broad range of orchestral repertoire includes  performances of Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Mozart and  Schumann piano concertos with multiple orchestras.  Naruse has also performed with the Da Ponte Quartet,  Portland String Quartet, Venti Cordi and the Portland  Ballet. Her musical projects range from German classical  repertoire to regular collaboration with contemporary  composers in the interpretation and performance of their  compositions. Naruse is frequently contracted by recording  companies to record contemporary music. To date, she has  several recordings with Navona Records and, most recently  in 2018, released a solo album of compositions by Kenneth  Kuhn from Big Round Records. 

In addition to maintaining a regular performance schedule,  Naruse is also a well respected teacher, chamber music coach  and competition adjudicator with many of her students  receiving competition awards and gaining acceptance to  major music conservatories. Naruse is currently a member  of the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College applied music faculty and the faculty  of the Portland Conservatory of Music. 

Naruse is a graduate from Hochschule fĂĽr Musik “Hanns  Eisler” in Berlin, Germany where she studied piano with  Klaus Bäßler, art song collaboration with Wolfram Rieger and chamber music with Suzanne GlĂĽtzmann. In addition  to her European studies, she is also a former student of  Frank Glazer.

Momenta Quartet will join ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝’ Department of Music as Artist-in-Residence for the 2019-2020 academic year. The quartet has performed for, and worked with, our students numerous times over the years, and we are delighted that they have agreed to step into this role.

About Momenta Quartet
Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Shiozaki, violins
Stephanie Griffin, viola; Michael Haas, cello

Momenta: the plural of momentum – four individuals in motion towards a common goal. This is the idea behind the Momenta Quartet, whose eclectic vision encompasses contemporary music of all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the recent and distant past. The New York City-based quartet has premiered over 150 works, collaborated with over 200 living composers and was praised by The New York Times for its “diligence, curiosity and excellence.” In the words of The New Yorker’s Alex Ross, “few American players assume Haydn’s idiom with such ease.”

The quartet came into being in November 2004, when composer Matthew Greenbaum invited violist Stephanie Griffin to perform Mario Davidovsky’s String Trio for events celebrating Judaism and Culture at New York’s Symphony Space and Temple University in Philadelphia. A residency through the composition department at Temple University ensued, and the rehearsals and performances were so satisfying that the players decided to form a quartet. Through this residency, Momenta gave two annual concerts highlighting the talents of Temple University student composers alongside 20th-century masterworks and works from the classical canon, and repeated the programs at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. From the outset, Momenta treated all music equally, devoting as much time, care and commitment to the student works as to the imposing musical monuments.

Word of Momenta’s passionate advocacy for emerging composers spread quickly. Composers started inviting Momenta for similar concerts and residencies at other academic institutions, among them Harvard, Brown, Cornell and Columbia Universities; the Boston and Cincinnati Conservatories; and the Eastman School of Music. Momenta has received two Koussevitzky Foundation commission grants: for Malaysian composer Kee Yong Chong in 2009 and for Bolivian composer Agustín Fernández in 2011; a Barlow Foundation commission for Claude Baker in 2016; a Jerome Foundation grant to commission Eric Nathan in 2013, and a Chamber Music America commission for Alvin Singleton, whose new work will be featured prominently in Momenta’s 2019-20 season. Deeply committed to the musical avant-garde of the developing world, Momenta has premiered and championed the works of Tony Prabowo (Indonesia), Cergio Prudencio (Bolivia) and Hana Ajiashvili (Georgia). Upcoming adventures include a project to perform and record all thirteen string quartets by Mexican microtonal maverick Julián Carrillo (1875-1965) over the next three years.

Momenta has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, Rubin Museum, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Cincinnati, Louisville Chamber Music Society, Ostrava Days in the Czech Republic, and at the internationally renowned Cervantino Festival in Mexico.

Momenta’s recent and upcoming highlights include a residency at The Laredo Institute in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and closer to home: residencies at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ and Williams Colleges; collaborations with the Cornell University gamelan ensemble and student composers at Brown University; concerts presented by Bard College, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; and another installment of their annual member-curated Momenta Festival in NYC. Momenta also continues its collaboration with Mexican actor/director Fernando Villa Proal on “The Lost String Quartet,” a theatrical string quartet for children with an original score by Stephanie Griffin.

Momenta has recorded for Centaur Records, Furious Artisans, PARMA, New World Records, and Albany Records; and has been broadcast on WQXR, Q2 Music, Austria’s Oe1, and Vermont Public Radio. The quartet’s debut album, “Similar Motion,” is available on Albany Records.

The ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College Department of Music is pleased to welcome Asha Tamirisa, who will be joining their faculty beginning fall of the 2019-2020 academic year. She will be teaching courses in digital music and hardware design, music theory, and interdisciplinary courses in music and technology.

Asha Tamirisa is a time-based media artist working with sound and moving image in both performance and installation. Asha’s creative work is informed by critical studies fields such as feminist science and technology studies and media archeology. Asha has presented work at venues such as the ICA Boston, Bitforms Gallery (NYC), has given talks at the University of Michigan, Mount Holyoke College, Oberlin College, and Wheaton College, and has held residencies at The Media Archeology Lab (Boulder, CO), Perte de Signal (Montreal, CA) and I-Park Foundation (East Haddam, CT). Asha’s work has been mentioned in the Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, the 5th Edition of Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture, and the forthcoming edition of Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking. Asha has taught courses at Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design, Girls Rock! Rhode Island, and Street Level Youth Media in Chicago. Along with many colleagues, Asha co-founded OPENSIGNAL, a collective of artists concerned with the state of gender and race in electronic music and art practice. Asha holds a B.A. in Musical Studies from Oberlin College, and recently completed a PhD in Computer Music and Multimedia at Brown University. Concurrent with her PhD, Asha completed a secondary M.A. in Modern Culture and Media through Brown University’s Open Graduate Education fellowship.

We are thrilled to announce that JoĂ«lle Morris, an applied voice instructor at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College, has been appointed Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Music. Beginning in the Fall of 2019, she will teach courses such as Intro to Music, in addition to instructing practical musicianship labs. JoĂ«lle will also conduct the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College Choir, a 25-voice ensemble which performs at least two large concerts per year.

Originally from Evian, France, JoĂ«lle Morris is a singer, choral conductor, music educator and voice teacher living in central Maine.  Recognized for her warm mezzo voice and her ability to sparkle on stage, she is admired for her versatility – from the concert stage to the operatic arena, in intimate jazz settings and French cabaret, or simply sharing her gifts as voice teacher and coach.

JoĂ«lle has performed in an array of opera and musical theater shows, her favorite roles include Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Cherubino in La Nozze di Figaro, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! and Aldonza in Man of la Mancha amongst others.

An active recitalist, JoĂ«lle has sung across the United States, France and Switzerland, most notably in such prestigious halls as La Grange-au-Lac in Evian-les-Bains, at Le Château de Ripaille in Thonon, the festival La Belle Époque at Evian and at l’Espace Maurice Novarina featuring her original production of “Poèmes en Musique” a presentation of French composers and their inspiration of poetry.

Since relocating to Maine in 2011, JoĂ«lle has appeared with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, the Mozart Mentor Orchestra and is regularly a featured artist at Colby College, ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College, Bowdoin College, the Franco Center, Waterville Opera House, Nordica Auditorium, the Colby Jazz Faculty Ensemble, King’s Chapel in Boston and the Early Music Festival in Portland. Her appreciation of chamber music as led her to be the co-founding member of the Amethyst Chamber Ensemble and the Resinosa Ensemble which specializes in 21st century and commissioned works.

An appreciation of Edith Piaf’s repertoire has led to numerous concerts featuring the grande dame of French chanson, most notably at the 2014 World Acadian Congress in Madawaska, ME.   Since 2016, she has joined the Colby Faculty Jazz Ensemble and was featured at Jazz at Lincoln Center in NY in 2017.

In addition to a busy concert schedule in New England and annual summer appearances in France, Joelle is a member of NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and is a frequent adjudicator for All-State auditions and NATS competitions.

We are pleased to announce that Carl Bettendorf, a New York based conductor/composer, will be a visiting lecturer in the Department of Music for the 2019-20 academic year. He will be teaching courses in composition and music theory, as well as conducting the College Orchestra.

Carl C. Bettendorf is a New York-based composer/conductor. Born in Hamburg, Germany, he studied composition with Hans-JĂĽrgen von Bose and Wolfgang Rihm before receiving his doctorate from Columbia University under Tristan Murail. His compositions have been played at many prestigious venues and festivals on four continents. He has received numerous awards, among them a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), residencies at the CitĂ© Internationale des Arts (Paris) and the MacDowell Colony as well as commissions from the Fromm Foundation and the Ralph Kaminsky Fund. As a conductor, Mr. Bettendorf has worked with ensembles in New York (Wet Ink, counter)induction; Ghost and Talea ensembles) and abroad (piano possibile in Munich, Ostravská banda in the Czech Republic) and was director of the Manhattanville College Community Orchestra (Purchase, NY). He recently conducted opera productions at Bard College and the OpĂ©ra national de Montpellier (France) and has served as assistant conductor for the Columbia University and American Composers orchestras, Miller Theatre, and the Munich Biennale. He has recorded for Albany, ArtVoice, Carrier, Cybele, Hanging Bell, Hat Hut, Indexical, and Tzadik. Currently, he is a visiting lecturer at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College where he is director of the College Orchestra and teaches courses in composition and music theory.