Portfolio - Creative Work and Research
Grand Electric: Dawn (2024), Record Label: Bright Shiny Things
Grand Electric creates music that explores the sonic possibilities of the electric guitar (Mark Dancigers) and grand piano (Aaron Wunsch). The duo was created out of the desire to expand the boundaries of chamber music by fusing acoustic and electric worlds.
Aaron Wunsch is an accomplished pianist who teaches at Juilliard and directs the free Music Mondays series in NYC and the Skaneateles Festival in the Finger Lakes. He has worked with composers Thomas Adès, Nico Muhly, and Kaija Saariaho, and performed with cellist Lynn Harrell, clarinetists Charles Neidich and Anthony McGill, violinists Miranda Cuckson and Jennifer Koh, and the Miró and Parker Quartets.
Dawn was produced by 4-time Grammy Award winning producer Jesse Lewis and Kyle Pyke.
Bright Shiny Things is a Grammy Award winning label. With a focus on 21st century classical music, Bright Shiny Things has released recordings by artists including Decoda (the affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall), Mike Block and Yo-Yo Ma, Alexi Kenney, and many others.
The album was made possible with generous support from New College of Florida research funding.
“Aurora” and “Image and Gravity” are composed by Mark Dancigers. “Take Chants” is by Aaron Wunsch.
Digital Booklet Aurora Score Image and Gravity Score Gramophone Review WNYC NewSounds Broadcast For The Record Review
Jehanne (2023), with Sarasota Contemporary Dance, choreographed by Leymis Bolaños Wilmott
This is an evening-length work inspired by the life of Joan of Arc. The music is for solo electric guitar and electronics, including live loops and delays. This performance is from April, 2023, at the Jane B. Cook Theater at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
Sarasota Contemporary Dance (SCD) is a professional dance company bringing dance, performance, and education of the highest caliber to the West Coast of Florida, having served the regional community for more than 19 years. In addition to a variety of community collaborations and performances at local venues, SCD has also been presented at the Alabama Ballet Center for Dance, John F. Kennedy Center, Dennis C. Moss Theater, Merce Cunningham Studio Theatre, and the Ailey City Group Theatre.
As the Founder and Artistic Director of Sarasota Contemporary Dance, Leymis Bolaños Wilmott’s work has been called “stunning and imaginative” by Carrie Seidman of the Herald Tribune. As Artist-in-Residence at New College of Florida, she has received the Dance Magazine award for “Southeast Best Choreographer” and was listed in Sarasota Magazine as one of the Top 28 Most Powerful People in the Arts. Her works have been performed nationally at the John F. Kennedy Center, Ailey Citigroup Theater in NYC, Colony Theater and Jackie Gleason Theatre in Miami, and internationally in Ramallah, Argentina, and Spain. Leymis pioneered the Dance and Healing certificate at the University of Florida and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Performance and Choreography from Florida State University.
Michael Mizrahi: Dreamspace (2024), Record Label: Sono Luminus
Michael Mizrahi is the Frank C. Shattuck Professor of Piano at Lawrence University.
This is the third solo piano album in which I have had the role of Producer with Mizrahi. Producing involved artistic oversight of the recording, editing, and release of the album. Working with Grammy-nominated engineer Daniel Shores, the album was recorded and released in DSD audio, offering high fidelity sound several times that of CD quality.
Artists that have released with Sono Luminus include the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, pianist Jenny Lin, composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and many others.
“For Nightfall” is composed by Mark Dancigers. The other composers on the album are Evan Williams (Berklee School of Music), Joanne Metcalf (Lawrence University), Andrea Mazzariello (Carleton College), Chia-Yu Hsu (University of Wisconsin Eau Claire), Yvonne Wu (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs), and Alan Shockley (who, sadly, passed away in 2020, Cal State Long Beach). Music from the album has aired three times on WUSF, Florida’s classical music station, on the program Modern Notebook; see here, here and here.
Digital Booklet For Nightfall Score Textura Review Inactuelles Review (France)
NOW Ensemble and Sean Friar: Before and After (2021), Record Label: New Amsterdam Records
This is an evening-length work for NOW Ensemble by composer Sean Friar, Chair of Composition at the University of Denver. I performed electric guitar on the album.
A portion of this work was commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University.
This project was supported in part by the University of Denver Creative Arts and Materials Fund.
The piece was workshopped and performed at the following institutions and venues:
University of California, Los Angeles, Art of Élan, San Diego, Fast Forward Austin, TX, Kerrytown Concert House Ann Arbor, MI, Denison University, OH, University of Southern California, Centre des Artes Musicales, Tijuana MX, University of Redlands, CA, Lawrence University, WI, Ripon College, WI, Parkway Theater Minneapolis MN, Antenna Cloud Farm Gill MA, Owl Music Parlor Brooklyn NY, Audio for the Arts Madison WI, Red Note New Music Festival Illinois State University, Le Poisson Rouge, NYC
Mark Dancigers, “Lullaby By The Lake” (2025), words by Tania Coambs
Performed by Tania Coambs, soprano, and Jesse Martins, piano
Premiered at “Threads of Tradition and Innovation”, New College of Florida, 2025.
Mark Dancigers, “For Each Other” (2024)
For Grand Electric: Mark Dancigers and Aaron Wunsch
Commissioned by REVolutions Dance, St. Petersburg, FL.
For Each Other Score
Melodic
for NOW Ensemble: flute, clarinet, electric guitar, piano, bass
Score PDF
In Melodic, the music contains individual melodies for the piano, flute, and clarinet. These melodic ideas are contrasted with unison melodies played by those three instruments together. The electric guitar and bass provide accompaniment and heterophonic textures, with the guitar using a rhythmic delay effect throughout. Large sections of the piece repeat, which provides a sense of structural clarity. The music has the feeling of continuous motion, and is a single movement with a flowing character.
Sunlight
for flute and piano
Score PDF
Sunlight was written for Michael Mizrahi and Alex Sopp’s residency at Antenna Cloud Farm. In Sunlight, I explore extensive unison writing for the flute and piano. The unison yields a unique color that emerges between the two instruments.