Chaya Czernowin was born in 1957 in Israel and studied composition at the Tel Aviv Rubin Academy of Music from 1976 until 1982. Fellowships and studies followed in Berlin (DAAD scholarship 83- 85), the USA (University of California, where she received her Ph.D., 87-93), Japan (93-95 Asahi Shimbun Fellowship and National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship USA), and a year as a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 1996. During these years she was able to concentrate on forming her musical language and thought. Her main teachers were: Abel Ehrlich, Izhak Sadai, Dieter Schnebel, Eli Yarden, Joan Tower, Brian Ferneyhough and Roger Reynolds. 
Well-known
as a champion of twentieth-century music, Institute director Stephen
Drury has given performances throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and
Latin America, soloing with orchestras from San Diego to Bucharest. A
prizewinner in several competitions, including the Concert Artists
Guild, Affiliate Artists, and Carnegie Hall/Rockefeller competitions,
his repertoire stretches from Bach, Mozart, and Liszt to the music of
today. The U.S. State Department sponsored two concert tours that
enabled him to take the sounds of dissonance to Paris, Hong Kong,
Greenland, Pakistan, Prague, and Japan. He has appeared as conductor
and pianist at the Angelica Festival in Italy, the MusikTriennale
Köln in Germany, Spoleto Festival USA, and with the Britten
Sinfonia in England, as well as at Roulette and the Knitting Factory in
New York. Drury has also performed with Merce Cunningham and Mikhail
Barishnikov in the Lincoln Center Festival, at Alice Tully Hall as part
of the Great Day in New York Festival, with the Boston Symphony Chamber
Players, and with the Seattle Chamber Players in Seattle and Moscow. A
champion of 20th-century music, Drury’s critically acclaimed
performances range from the piano sonatas of Charles Ives to works by
John Cage and György Ligeti. He premiered the solo part of John
Cage’s 1O1 with the Boston Symphony and gave the first
performance of John Zorn’s concerto for piano and orchestra
Aporias with Dennis Russell Davies and the Cologne Radio Symphony. He
has commissioned new works from Cage, Zorn, Terry Riley, Lee Hyla, and
Chinary Ung. Drury has given masterclasses at the Moscow Tchaikovsky
Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Mannes Beethoven Institute and
throughout the world, and served on juries for the Concert Artist Guild
and Orléans Concours International de Piano XXème
Siècle Competitions. His recordings include music by
Beethoven, Liszt, Stockhausen, Ravel, Stravinsky, Charles Ives, Elliott
Carter, Frederic Rzewski, John Cage, Colin McPhee, and John Zorn. 
Dr. Corey Hamm is Assistant Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at The University of British Columbia School of Music in Vancouver, Canada. He is also co-director, with Giorgio Magnanensi, of the UBC Contemporary Players. Hamm is pianist and a founding member with the prominent "new music" ensembles Hammerhead Consort (formed 1990) and the Nu:BC Collective (formed 2005).
MATHIAS REUMERT is a Danish multiple
percussionist and marimba/vibraphone performer. A specialist of
contemporary music, he received the First Prize at the International
Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition 2007 in Amsterdam, Holland, the
first percussion soloist to do so since 1979.
Reumert has given solo recitals at major festivals in the USA, France,
Holland, Poland, and throughout Scandinavia. He has has worked with
composers such as Steve Reich, Roger Reynolds, Chaya Czernowin, Per
Nørgård and Bent Sørensen, and has premiered solo
works by Hans Peter Stubbe Teglbjærg and Kim Helweg among others.
His recording of Poul Ruders' concerto for percussion and orchestra
'Monodrama' will be released on DACAPO Records in late 2008.
Trained in classical music, Reumert is also an avid improviser, music
theater performer, and composer. As a member of the PACE Percussion
Trio, he performed as the opening act at the 2002 FIFA World Cup of
Soccer concert in Seoul, Korea, and has since been touring extensively
performing original music. Other ensemble activities include the
Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, a trio project with the Duo Disecheis
from Italy, and a duo with Swedish electronics wiz Mattias Sköld.
As a student, Mathias Reumert was past winner of several competitions,
including the Concours International de Vibraphone 2002 in France and
the Percussive Arts Society Solo Vibraphone Contest 2004. He studied
with Steven Schick at the University of California, San Diego, and with
Gert Mortensen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.
He lives in Copenhagen, where he teaches a course for professional musicians at Artlab (www.artlab.dk).
About the PACE Percussion Trio:
PACE was the opening act at the 2002 FIFA World Cup of
Soccer concert in Seoul and has since toured in Scandinavia, Germany,
Israel, and Korea, performing original music by its members: Mathias
Friis-Hansen, David Hildebrandt, and Mathias Reumert. The trio has
collaborated with several artists, including electronica pioneers Dub
Tractor and Opiate, and with improvisers/composers Thomas Agergaard and
Marilyn Mazur. A CD featuring Thomas Agergaard and other guest
performers will be released in 2008.
Steffen Schleiermacher, born in Halle in 1960, studied piano (Gerhard Erber), composition (Siegfried Thiele, Friedrich Schenker), and conducting (Günter Blumhagen) at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy of Music in Leipzig during 1980-85. He was an assistant in composition, ear training, and new music in Leipzig until 1988 and a master pupil under Friedrich Goldmann (composition) at the Academy of Arts in Berlin during 1986/87 and at the Cologne Academy of Music under Aloys Kontarsky (piano) during 1989/90. Schleiermacher has been a freelance composer and pianist since 1988. As a pianist he focuses exclusively on music of the twentieth century. He has concertized as a soloist with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and other orchestras under Vladimir Ashkenazy, Friedrich Goldmann, Ingo Metzmacher, Jörg-Peter Weigle, Wladimir Siwa, Vladimir Fedosejev, and Fabio Luisi. Concert tours have taken him throughout numerous European, South American, and Far Eastern countries.
Yukiko
Takagi received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the
New England Conservatory where she studied with Veronica Jochum and
Stephen Drury. While a student at the Conservatory she was
selected to perform in several Honors programs and appeared regularly
with the NEC Contemporary Ensemble. Ms. Takagi has performed with
the orchestra of the Bologna Teatro Musicale, the John Zorn Ensemble,
the Auros Group for New Music, Santa Cruz New Music Works, the Harvard
Group for New Music and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble. She performs
regularly with the Eliza Miller Dance Company and the Ruth Birnberg
Dance Company and gives frequent duo-piano concerts with Stephen
Drury. Ms. Takagi is a featured performer with the Callithumpian
Consort. Her recording of Colin McPhee’s Balinese Cerimonial Dances
was released by MusicMasters. At New England Conservatory Yukiko
Takagi has appeared on the First Monday series at Jordan Hall, and is a
teacher and guest artist for NEC's Summer Institute for Contemporary
Piano Performance. 
Nicholas Vines (b.1976, Sydney) is a young Australian composer based in the US. His works have been performed in Australia, the US, the UK and Europe by such interpreters as Alarm Will Sound, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ChamberMade Opera, the Callithumpian Consort, Ensemble Offspring, the Schola Cantorum Gedanesis Chamber Choir, White Rabbit, the BT Scottish Ensemble, the Australian Voices, Eliot Gattegno and Liwei Qin. He has received commissions from numerous ensembles and institutions, such as Faber Music, the Callithumpian Consort, Primary Duo, Prana Duo, the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Firebird Ensemble, the Tait Memorial Trust, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, 2MBS FM Radio (Sydney) and Ars Musica Australis. 
