composing earth
cohort III
(2023-2024)

 

Rachel Epperly

I am a composer, experimental vocalist, and improviser who prioritizes emotional and bodily vulnerability. In particular, I use voice—an instrument deeply connected to the body—to explore embodied themes such as gender, queerness, religious trauma, and nature. My current focus is in narrative vocal works that incorporate movement, original text, and costume. My music is informed by experimental pop, performance art, and the Korean vocal genre pansori. In addition to being a vocalist-composer, I am also a pianist, accordionist, and loop pedal-player. I improvise primarily with stream-of-conscious text and extended voice as a method of unsurfacing subconscious emotion and imagery.
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Seare Farhat

Seare Farhat strives to create music that connects a listener to the visceral imagination, energy, and transformation within narrative forms. Starting out his musical endeavors in Afghan folk music, he later built on these valued experiences in the western classical tradition combined with other interests, such as mathematics. Seare has received commissions from the JACK Quartet, IU New Music Ensemble, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Quintessence Wind Quintet, and the Oberlin Sinfonietta, and served as the young composer-in-residence of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings in 2019. He has received honors such as FLUX Quartet's 2019 call for scores and being a finalist for Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra's 2019 call for scores. Seare has also held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in 2022 and with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music as a Balhest Eeble Composer Fellow for the 2021-23 cycle.
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Christine Hedden

For Boston-based artist, Christine Delphine Hedden, writing was the beginning of her musical journey. Hailing from the highlands of western Connecticut, she began writing songs in early elementary school, set to Tolkien’s poetry, to accompany fantasy adventures on her grandfather’s Christmas tree farm. Today, her creative process is still deeply rooted in these fields: connection with nature and a magically spiritual sense of the world form the foundations of her work.
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Aakash Mittal

As an artist I seek to heal my communities, music pedagogy and myself through my work. Through the intersections of improvisation, Hindustani raga music and western notation I strive to combat anti-Indian sentiments, challenge patriarchy and eliminate the harshness that is often prevalent in music education. This odyssey has led me to seek out mentors and elders within a variety of musical traditions. From 2013 to 2015 I studied Hindustani Raga Music with Prattyush Banerjee in Kolkata, India with a fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. My time in India inspired a series of new pieces titled Nocturne. Nocturne is my latest recording as a bandleader. The album was hailed as "a magical, evocative suite" by New York Music Daily. Upon moving to Brooklyn New York I began a long study of music, creativity, biology and healing with Milford Graves. It was during this time that I began to further explore the relationship between movement, imagination and sound in my work. 2021 marks twenty years of my work as a performer, composer and teacher. I live in Brooklyn, NY with my wife Jayanthi Bunyan. When I'm not making music I love to cook, play games and drink tea.
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Hitomi Oba

Saxophonist and composer Hitomi Oba was raised in Berkeley, California. Hailed as “powerfully inventive” by the LA Times, recent performances of her compositions include “Fifteenth,” premiered by soprano Tony Arnold and the Third Angle String Quartet, “September Coming,” by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the American Composers Orchestra, and “Aina,” commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, for which Oba participated as both a performer and composer.
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Andrew Rodriguez

Andrew Rodriguez’s (b. 1989) interest in music began with stints as the guitarist for various metal/hardcore bands as a teenager. This path culminated with three full-length albums as one of the main songwriters for the hardcore/punk band Close Your Eyes on Chicago-based label, Victory Records. Rodriguez’s history as a performer sculpts the core of his musical identity. Having spent over three years touring the country, Andrew’s passion for the DIY scene continues to guide his creativity. The embedded experiences of performing intense and passionate music night after night have led to a musical language that is both raw and dramatically expressive. His music combines a personal history and love of indie rock with a traditional education in composition, and is often expanded upon with the use of live electronics.
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