Austin Chamber Ensemble Artists For Season 2019-2020
Martha Mortensen Ahern, Artistic Director And Pianist
Martha Mortensen Ahern, an educator and pianist/collaborative artist, has performed in Europe and throughout the United States. In addition to performing and teaching, Martha also serves as Artistic Director for the Austin Chamber Ensemble. 'Marti' has been heard live in interviews and performances on local FM radio stations KMFA and KUT. She holds leadership positions with Music Teachers National Association (State and Local), American Guild of Organists, and is a member of Mu Phi Epsilon. As an educator, her students continue to receive Superior ratings in contests and festivals, as well as scholarships to attend colleges and universities as music majors and solos with the Austin Lyric Opera. She presented a Grammy Foundation ProSession piano master class in June 2006. For more information, see Martha's website.
Ethan Wickman, Composer
Described as a “composer of facility and imagination, the kind to whom both performers and audiences respond” (The New York Times), composer Ethan Wickman’s (b. 1973) music has been performed by soloists and ensembles in venues in the U.S. and around the world. He has received grants and commissions from the Barlow Endowment, Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, the Wisconsin Music Teachers Association, the Utah Arts Festival, the San Antonio Opera Guild, and Chicago’s Music In The Loft where he was the 2014-15 Composer-In-Residence. He was awarded the Jacob Druckman prize for his orchestral work Night Prayers Ascending at the Aspen Music Festival, the Harvey Phillips Award for his work Summit from the International Tuba Euphonium Association, first place in the Utah Arts Festival Chamber Commission Competition, and was a finalist in the 25th annual ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Orchestral Composition Competition. His works have been performed by many ensembles and by many performers at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and at universities and concert halls both domestic and international. Recent recordings have garnered critical acclaim as “the most attractive new string quartet I have heard in a long while” (Fanfare), “epic and dreamy” (The New York Times), “absorbing” (American Record Guide), and possessing “stunning breadth and poise” (Time Out Chicago). Wickman holds a DMA in composition from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, with additional degrees from Boston University (MM) and Brigham Young University (BM). Formerly on the faculties of Indiana University-South Bend and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, he is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In addition, he is Executive Director of the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University. For more information, see Ethan Wickman’s website.
Claire Vangelisti, Soprano
With a voice that has been described as “pure, lovely, vibrant, truthful, and lustrous,” Claire Vangelisti has found success on both national and international stages, singing repertoire from Bach to Berg. Vangelisti made her American operatic debut with Austin Opera, where she performed several cameo roles in mainstage productions such as Rigoletto, The Ballad of Baby Doe, as well as the role of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. Vangelisti has performed with companies such as the Lyric Opera of San Antonio, Southwest Opera, and Louisiana Opera to name a few. Vangelisti has been engaged extensively as a concert soloist and is an avid champion of the music of living composers, and performed the World Premiere of Letting Go, a song cycle by composer Daron Hagen, in the Fall of 2002. In in 2013, Vangelisti performed the American Premiere of two song cycles by Portuguese composer Eurico Carrapatoso, and she continues to disperse Carrapatoso’s music to the U.S. audience. She has also collaborated with artists such as Libby Larsen, John Harbison, Daron Hagen, Lowell Liebermann, William Bolcom, Frank Ticheli, Stephen Paulus, Jake Hegge, and Eric Ewazen. Vangelisti holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently Associate Professor and Voice Program Coordinator at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For more information, see Claire Vangelisti’s website.
Richard Seiler, Piano
Richard Seiler of Brevard, North Carolina, is a Professor, Keyboard Area Coordinator, and a previous holder (2010-2013) of the Emy-Lou Biedenharn Endowed Professorship in Music in the Department of Music in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Louisiana at Monroe where he teaches piano, piano literature, and music theory. Dr. Seiler holds performance degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (BM), Illinois State University (MM), and Louisiana State University (DMA). His teachers included Peter Paciencia, Robert Blocker, Joseph DiPiazza, Gellert Modos, and Jack Guerry. As a student for three summers at the Brevard Music Center Festival, he studied with Anthony Sirianni. A Fazioli artist, Seiler has taught masterclasses and performed as a solo/collaborative pianist in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, and China, has soloed with orchestras in North Carolina, Illinois, and Louisiana, including the LSU Symphony in a performance of the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto, and has recorded for Centaur Records (twice) and MSR Classics. He served on the guest artist teaching and performing faculty at the International Music Festival in Yantai, China (Summer 2006) and as a faculty collaborative pianist at the Curso Internacional de Musica Vocal (Summers 2013-14) in Aveiro, Portugal. Seiler has worked closely with world-renowned composers including William Bolcom, Eric Ewazen, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, Gary Schocker, Frank Ticheli, Gwyneth Walker, and Chen Yi. Eric Ewazen’s Sonata No. 2 for Flute and Piano was commissioned by and written for Seiler and flutist Sandra Lunte and is published by Theodore Presser. Seiler is a co-recipient of the NELAC’s 2006 Artist-of-the-Year Award and won the 2011 ULM Foundation Award for Excellence in Creative/Artistic Activity. For more information, see the Richard Seiler’s webpage.