About Us
CanvaSounds is a group of composers, curators and artists dedicated to the presentation of new works. As we represent a diverse demographic, we do not attempt to represent a singular aesthetic or creative practice, but rather to curate events that encompass the spirit of new media and multidisciplinarity. We strive to not only bring art to an audience, but to allow the audience to submerge, actively interact, and be a part of the art making process.
Originally formed to exclusively represent the underrepresented voices of women composers, CanvaSounds endeavors to perform concerts that embody the spirit of multiculturalism and multimedia interaction. The musicians who belong to CanvaSounds come from several different countries, each bringing their own cultural and musical understanding to the performances.
Our Story
CanvaSounds began in 2013 as the result of a collaboration between Boston-based composers. Always focused on presenting the voices of underrepresented groups (in the case of our original mission, specifically that of women composers), we found that our members all possessed varied international backgrounds and cultures, and that we were all interested in writing with different musical idioms. To augment and celebrate this diversity, we decided to relate and base our pieces on external media - these sources were initially paintings, which inspired our name, CanvaSounds. We then opened ourselves to collaboration and conversation with artists of varied media, quickly expanding to include those working in photography, poetry, and sound design.
On April 27, 2013 we had our first concert at an art gallery in Boston, playing to a packed house, with many subsequent concerts. In 2018, seeking to renew this mission after a hiatus, Bahar Royai approached composers and colleagues Diana Rodriguez, Lee Gilboa, Stephen Spencer, and George Katehis in reforming CanvaSounds and redeveloping its mission to serve New York City and its surrounding communities.
Our Curators
Bahar Royaee (Founder)
https://soundcloud.com/bahar-royaee
Born and raised in Iran, Bahar Royaee is a composer of concert and incidental music. Her compositions are a mixture of timbral and sound-based atmospheric structures, interspersed with lyrical influences derived from her Iranian background. Her works have been performed worldwide, including Italy, Greece, Germany, Canada, Iran, and the USA.
Bahar was recently recognized as a runner-up in National Sawdust's 2018-19 Hildegard Competition. Other awards include the Roger Sessions Memorial Composition Award, Walter W. Harp Music & Society Award, John Bavicchi Memorial Prize, and the Korourian Electroacoustic Award.
Bahar received her M.M. in composition from Boston Conservatory, where she studied with Marti Epstein and Felipe Lara, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. from CUNY where she studies under Jason Eckardt and Suzanne Farrin.
George Katehis -
http://www.katehis-music.com/
https://soundcloud.com/gkatehis
@gkatehis
George Katehis is a Greek-American composer who specializes in high-density and complex works for small chamber ensembles and solo instruments. His interests include early music and early/modern performance practice, polyphony, complexity, issues in music engraving, complex performance techniques and their praxis, and the preservation of rare and apocryphal 20th century and contemporary scores. More recently, his research has expanded to the Byzantine music tradition.
Born in Manhattan in 1991, George Katehis received his B.A. in composition from the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University (SU) magna cum laude, where he studied with Nicolas Scherzinger; and his M.M. in composition from the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) with Reiko Füting. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center as a student of Jason Eckardt and Jeff Nichols. A recipient of the 2013 Brian Israel Prize in composition (SU) and a Manhattan School of Music Composition Scholarship (MSM); among other academic achievements, Katehis remains interested in issues of composition, pedagogy, and performance of modern and historical plucked string instruments. Katehis has studied classical guitar with Kenneth Meyer, and early plucked strings (renaissance lute, baroque guitar, and theorbo) with Charles Weaver. As a composer, his work has been exhibited in masterclasses held by ensembles Loadbang, Dinosaur Annex, and ‘cellist Friedrich Gauwerky; and he has participated in lectures with ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl. As an engraver, he has worked for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, and produced work for pianists Renate Rohlfing and trio Longleash - among countless other projects. In 2014, he received the first student commission prize from the American Guild of Organists (AGO) for a solo organ piece, and Tókso was featured in the Society of Composers’ 53rd annual journal of scores. In 2015, Katehis was invited to participate in Longleash trio’s first annual Loretto Project at the Loretto Motherhouse outside of Louisville, KY. In 2016, Katehis’ recent work for solo piano, white as ash, was premiered in Toronto, CA and subsequently performed at the Musiikin Aika “Time of Music” festival in Vitasaari, FN, the 2016 Darmstadt IMD Ferienkurse, and Sound Symposium Festival Newfoundland by pianist Jana Luksts. Furthermore, he received a commission from the American Accordionists’ Association (AAA) for a large-scale work for solo accordion for Finnish accordionist Matti Pulkki. become/dessicated, the resulting work, was premiered in New York (Benzaquen Hall, Dimenna Center) with subsequent performances in Toronto (Array Space, 2017), Helsinki (Camerata Hall, Musiikkitalo, 2018), Basel (Basel Music Academy), and Thessaloniki (Reedblocks Festival, 2018). In 2017, he received a Fulbright Research Grant to provide some of the first modern English documentations of the morphology of mainland Greek traditional music, and to likewise investigate issues of taxonomy, orality, and the construction of national identity in contemporary Greek composition with ethnomusicologist Eleni Kallimopoulou (University of Macedonia) and composer Dimitri Papageorgiou (Aristotle University). Upcoming projects include works for the JACK quartet (Spring, 2019), harpsichordist Wesley Shen, guitarist Anthony Lalena, Longleash, and Jana Luksts.
Katehis has taken lessons with Brian Ferneyhough, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, and Mark Andre, among others. Other instructors have included Joseph Downing in composition and tuning/temperamennt, Michael Calvert in early plucked strings, and Manos Georgandakis in Byzantine chant.
Aida Shirazi
http://aidashirazi.com/
https://soundcloud.com/aida-shirazi
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida Shirazi is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Shirazi’s music is described as “well-made” and “affecting” by The New Yorker and “unusually creative” by San Francisco Classical Voice. In her works for solo instruments, voice, ensemble, orchestra, and electronics she mainly focuses on timbre for organizing structures that are often inspired by Persian or English languages and literature, as well as Iranian classical music.
Shirazi’s music has been featured at festivals including Manifeste, Mostly Mozart, New Music Gathering, Direct Current, and Tehran Contemporary Music Festival in venues such as Maison de la Radio France, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, The Roulette, and the DiMenna Center. Her works are performed by Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Miranda Cuckson, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra.
Currently, She is a Ph.D. candidate of composition at the University of California, Davis and works with Mika Pelo. She has studied with Pablo Ortiz, Kurt Rohde, Yiğit Aydın, Onur Türkmen, Tolga Yayalar, and Hooshyar Khayam, and attended masterclasses by Kaija Saariaho, Raphaël Cendo, Mark Andre, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, and Riccardo Piacentini among others.
Deniz Khateri
Trained as a theatre artist in Iran, Deniz moved to the US in 2013 to experience a new world of art in America. As a playwright, her recent plays have been workshopped and performed at schools of the Boston area including Harvard Graduate school, University of Massachusetts and Boston University.
As an actor she has performed extensively in Tehran and Boston with theatre companies such as ArtsEmerson, Nora and underground railway theatre, Bridge Repertory, Apollinaire, Boston Playwrights', etc.
Completely self taught in animation, Deniz started "Diasporan", an animated web series about immigration, to tell the story of immigrants and the never ending process of immigration.
Gabriel Bouche Caro
Diana Rodriguez
https://music.columbia.edu/bios/diana-m-rodriguez
https://soundcloud.com/dmrodrigz
@___dmr__
Diana is a Colombian composer based in New York City. Erik Drescher, ICE, Berrow Duo, the Ludovico Ensemble, the Ecce Ensemble, Duo Opicaté, and Boston Musica Viva have played her music on the East Coast of the US and Europe. She holds a BM in Composition from New World School of the Arts, and MM in Composition from the Boston Conservatory. Her primary teachers include Susan Epstein-Garcia, Marti Epstein, Dalit Warshaw, and Curtis K. Hughes, with additional studies under David Rakowski, Melinda Wagner, Philippe Leroux, Stefano Gervasoni, Liza Lim, Sabrina Schroeder, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, George Lewis, and Franck Bedrossian. Currently, she is working toward a DMA in Composition at Columbia University.