WQXR has announced its 2023 roster of Artist Steam Lab (APL) participants. The APL is the station’s innovative program designed to support classical music artists in the creation of original work and in connecting with new audiences.
As part of the APL, five new performers – Zlatomir Fung, Briana Hunter, Alexi Kenney, Curtis Stewart, plus Shelley Washington – will be given the space and support to create new work and to share their diverse perspectives and projects with radio, digital and in-person audiences. Each artist is committed to expanding conventional ideas about Western classical music and making the artform more relevant to a new generation of listeners.
The APL was founded during the early days associated with the pandemic to support musicians when live performance came to a standstill. The program now continues as a way to give artists a venue for experimentation and greater exposure for their work.
Over 100 artists were nominated by a committee of over 55 experts in the particular music field, including presenters, educators, plus leaders at organizations that support young musicians. A team of producers, hosts, and project managers reviewed the entries and made the final selections.
“The APL is an expression of WQXR’s commitment to connecting the artists who are reimagining classical music to our audience and the larger performing arts community in NYC, ” said WQXR Chief Content Officer plus Senior Vice President Ed Yim. “With our digital platforms and live event venue, The particular Greene Space, we’re able to provide these important voices with the particular support they need in order to create adventurous work plus take full advantage of our own multiplatform capabilities to connect with new audiences. The 2023 artists share our mission of making classical music related to the next generation associated with listeners, and we are all inspired by the energy these people bring to the particular genre. inch
“Artist Propulsion Lab was an incredible experience for me, ” says flutist Brandon Patrick George , a member of the first class of 2021. “It allowed me to pursue projects that spoke to my own interests as an artist and to fully express myself on a musical and intellectual level. APL has empowered me in order to move forward in the career knowing that my own story and artistic choices can help make meaningful connections along with audiences. The impact associated with the WQXR platform to promote my function, as well as the financial investment during the early stages of my career, is immeasurable. ”
Past projects by the first two classes associated with APL members can be found on our website .
The five members of the Artist Steam Lab Class of 2023 represent the diverse range of genres plus perspectives:
The first American within four decades and the particular youngest musician ever to win the first prize at the particular International Tchaikovsky Competition Cello Division, Zlatomir Fung has already proven himself to be a star among the next generation of world-class musicians. The recipient of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship 2022 and a 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Fung’s impeccable technique demonstrates mastery of the canon and exceptional insight into the depths of contemporary repertoire. A winner associated with the 2017 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2017 Astral National Auditions, Fung has also taken the top prizes at the 2018 Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld Worldwide String Competition and the particular 2016 George Enescu Global Cello Competitors. Of Bulgarian-Chinese heritage, Fung began playing cello in age three. He studied at The particular Juilliard School under Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy. In addition to songs, he enjoys cinema, reading, and blitz chess.
Briana Hunter offers been hailed by Opera News as “a mesmerizing mezzo-soprano with a fiery theatrical presence plus dynamic vocalism. ” Ms. Hunter’s 2022/2023 season began with her Los Angeles Opera debut as Katie Ellen in Omar simply by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens . In 2023, she debuts with Intermountain Opera because the Witch in Into the Woods and makes the girl long-anticipated return to the Washington National Safari stage as the Mother within Blue by Tesori plus Thompson. An accomplished stage actress, Ms. Hunter has worked with Tony and Academy Award-winning playwright Mark Medoff in a production of his play Gunfighter-A Gulf War Chronicle. Under the direction of the Royal Shakespeare Company, she developed and starred in an original double bill titled Infinite Variety/For Every Passion Something, which had a two-week run at the particular Fringe Festival in Scotland. At the Manhattan School of Music, the girl performed within the institution’s first-ever production of The Vagina Monologues and sang with the American Musical Theater Ensemble with regard to productions associated with Godspell plus Ragtime. Microsoft. Hunter is a Lotte Lenya Competition finalist and winner from the Lys Symonette Award from The Kurt Weill Foundation regarding Music. She holds a M. M. from the Manhattan College of Music and a B. A. from Davidson College. Originally through Malvern, Pennsylvania, she currently resides in New York City.
Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that will defies categorization, following their interests, intuition, and heart. He has appeared as soloist using the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Indianapolis Symphony, and St . Paul Chamber Orchestra, among many others; in recital at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall , 92nd Street Y , and the particular Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and in the play-conduct role as guest leader of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In earlier 2023, he debuts Shifting Ground, a solo violin recital that interweaves Bach with contemporary works (including two commissioned compositions simply by Salina Fisher and Angélica Negrón), from Cal Performances, Celebrity Series Boston, Princeton University Concerts, as well as the Phillips Collection. A sought-after chamber musician, Alexi regularly performs at festivals including Holding chamber Music Northwest, ChamberFest Cleveland, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, La Jolla, Marlboro, Ojai, Seattle, and Spoleto, and as the member of the new quartet collective Owls, alongside violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Gabe Cabezas, plus cellist/composer Paul Wiancko. He is an alum of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS 2) with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and an Avery Fisher Career Give, and winner of the particular Concert Artists Guild Competitors, he has been profiled by The New York Times and Strings Magazine, and written for The particular Strad. Born in Palo Alto, California, Alexi received an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory, where this individual studied with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. He plays a violin produced by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and the bow simply by François-Nicolas Voirin. Outside of music, Alexi likes cataloging his favorite Brand new York restaurants, educating himself about architecture and art history, baking for friends, walking intended for miles on end in whichever city he or she finds themselves, and listening to podcasts, Björk, and Bach.
Curtis Stewart is a multi-Grammy-nominated violinist/composer who loves bouncing between MTV specials with Wyclef Jean plus sold out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder , stints on the Kennedy Center with the Jimmy Heath Big Band and runs at the Guggenheim, MoMA and Whitney Museums within NYC. Curtis has performed as a classical soloist at Lincoln Center and with the New York Philharmonic Bandwagon, as well as held holding chamber music residencies at Carnegie Hall , the MET Museum and National Sawdust. His work realizes the vision to find personal plus powerful connections between styles, cultures, and music. Stewart was recently named artistic director of the American Composers Orchestra, serves as faculty at The Juilliard School and director of Contemporary Music in the Perlman Music System, and provides been entrusted to write works for the Royal Conservatory associated with music, The Virginia Symphony, WQXR, Newport Classical Event La Jolla Festival, The particular Eastman Cello Institute, The Knights, Brand new York Celebration of Song, PUBLIQuartet, plus Carnegie Hall : Play/USA. www.curtisjstewart.com
Composer, vocalist and saxophonist Shelley Wa has emerged as a good important and powerful voice of her generation. With an eclectic palette that will draws through classical, jazz, rock, United states folk, and other contemporary musical spaces, Washington’s music tells memorable sonic stories that comment on current plus past social narratives, both personal and observed. Washington’s music has been commissioned, performed, plus recorded across the United States by celebrated ensembles and performers, including Boston Lyric Opera, the particular Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Ie Company, plus Carnegie Corridor ‘s Ensemble Connect. Her chamber orchestra piece, Both, offers recently already been performed by the Los Angeles Chamber Band and Aspen Festival Orchestra. Washington will be a founding member of the composer collective Kinds of Kings, whose collaboratively written concerto, Nine Mothers, premiered in 2022 by Eighth Blackbird and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Washington holds a fellowship from Princeton University and obtained degrees through NYU Steinhardt (MM) and Truman State University (BA, MA. ) As an educator, she has taught using the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers system and the particular Young Composers and Improvisers Workshop. In addition, the lady served since Artistic Director for the Noel Pointer Foundation, where she created new opportunities for songs composition. The girl currently teaches at NYU Steinhardt plus lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Rodeo.
