Performer Bios

Giacomo Fiore

Italian guitarist Giacomo Fiore has presented eclectic programs to audiences across the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, and Italy.
Highlights include appearances at Other Minds (SF), the Stone (NYC), Spectrum (NYC), Constellation (Chicago), Omaha Under the Radar,
Tuesday@MonkSpace (LA), the wulf. (LA), Microfest (LA), Garden of Memory, and Thingamajigs; numerous invitations to guitar festivals (Healdsburg, Santa Barbara, LaConner, Northwest, South Bay Guitar Society, Sierra Nevada, Sarzana, and Cervo); and performing with Wild Rumpus, SFSound, West Edge Opera, and the UCSC Symphony. A new music specialist, Giacomo has given world and U.S. premieres of dozens of works for classical, just intonation, and electric guitars, including pieces by Larry Polansky, Kenji Oh, Ron Nagorcka, Agustin Castilla–Ávila, Garry Eister, Lanier Sammons, Fernanda Navarro, Edward Schocker, and many more. To date, he has released seven recordings for Cold Blue, Pinna, and Paper Garden Records, as well as his own impressum. His fourth recording, iv: american electric guitars, was awarded a Project Grant by New Music USA in 2014.

Stephen Kent

Multi Instrumentalist and composer Stephen Kent's musical career has taken him across five continents, living at various times in the UK, Spain, East Africa, Australia and the US. His musical scores, composed for theatre, circus and dance companies, have received international acclaim and his work as a performer and recording artist has established him in the world music scene, exploring a broad range of playing styles and musical genres. As a performer on the Australian Aboriginal Didjeridu he has pioneered its use in contemporary music across the globe collaborating with a number of musicians, including Airto Moreira (Brasil), Zakir Hussain (India), Habib Koite (Mali), Omar Sosa (Cuba), Leonard Eto (Japan), Choi Jong Sil (Korea), Steve Roach (USA) and many more. Stephen also hosts Music of the World, a weekly show on Pacifica Radio's KPFA.

Marguerite Brown

Marguerite Brown (b. 1990) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator currently located in Santa Cruz, CA. Marguerite received her BM in music composition graduating magna cum laude from Cornish College of the Arts in 2013. While at Cornish, Marguerite studied composition with Jarrad Powell, Janice Giteck, and Emily Doolittle as well as classical guitar with renowned classical guitarist Michael Nicolella. Marguerite has always involved herself in a wide variety of artistic projects, often in collaboration with dance, theatre, and film. 

In 2013, Margueirte was a recipient of the Darmasiswa scholarship, where she was given the opportunity to study music (karawitan) abroad in Indoesia. Marguerite currently plays in Gamelan Pacifica and has had her original work premiered by the ensemble.

Jungyoon Wie

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Jung Yoon Wie is a composer, educator, pianist, and producer. Themes of identity have been the center of her compositional journey, and her current research involves creating a short film in collaboration with filmmaker Toko Shiiki, dancers Rie Kim and Jun Wakabayashi, and Converge String Quartet which explores shifting dynamics of identity, otherness, and the marginalized experience of women. This film highlights a string quartet by Ms. Wie, han, which uses Korean, folk, traditional, European, American, and contemporary expressive modalities.

John Kennedy

John Kennedy has forged a diverse musical life with a mission of presenting music of all eras as a strategy for environmental and social consciousness. Kennedy presently serves as the Resident Conductor and Director of Orchestral Activities for Spoleto Festival USA, where he plans and leads the Festival’s “highly regarded presentations of music” (The Wall Street Journal). In his role at Spoleto since 2011, he has distinguished the festival’s opera programming with a succession of critically acclaimed American Premiere productions of new operas, including Faustus, the Last Night (Pascal Dusapin), Kepler (Philip Glass), Matsukaze (Toshio Hosokawa), Facing Goya (Michael Nyman), Proserpina (Wolfgang Rihm), Emilie (Kaija Saariaho), and The Little Match Girl (Helmut Lachenmann). In 2015, he led the World Premiere production of Huang Ruo’s opera, Paradise Interrupted. During his tenure at Spoleto, the Festival Orchestra has developed into the most competitive summer orchestra program in the U.S.

Kennedy has conducted a wide range of ensembles across genres, serving as a guest with numerous organizations from the Lincoln Center Festival and New York City Ballet, to the Singapore Symphony and Talea Ensemble. John has collaborated with many of the leading composers of our time in presenting their work, and has conducted American orchestral premieres by many composers including Michel van der Aa, Louis Andriessen, John Cage, Tansy Davies, Brett Dean, Toshio Hosokawa, Giya Kancheli, Steve Martland, Michael Nyman, Wolfgang Rihm, Somei Satoh, Peteris Vasks, Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, and Julia Wolfe.

Cornelius Cardew Choir

Founded in 2001, the Cornelius Cardew Choir is a vocal performance ensemble based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The choir is an exciting intersection of community and experimental music brought together by singing. The ensemble consists of professional, amateurs, and novice singers who collectively work to turn their ideas into sonic action. All participants feel free to make suggestions about ways of performing a given piece or try new approach to singing.