New England Philharmonic Announces Composers for 2025 New Music Readings
BOSTON — The New England Philharmonic is one of the few volunteer orchestras in the country with a Composer-in-Residence program and a Call for Scores competition, both initiated in 1985. Chosen from applicants to the Call for Scores competition, the New Music Readings gives three composers the opportunity to hear their works performed by full orchestra, often a rare opportunity for composers. Alongside Composer-in-Residence Eric Nathan, two guest mentor composers will provide feedback and discussion on each work performed, as well as solicit feedback directly from the orchestral musicians.
The guest mentor composers this season are Matthew Aucoin and Ileana Perez Velazquez. The composers selected and their works to be featured in this year’s New Music Readings are: Devin Cholodenko (Do Angels in the Sky Sing to the Moon), Oliver Dubon (Speak Louder Than Words), and Shaka Lwaki (Taifa Overture).
Eric Nathan will lead the orchestra in rehearsals to prepare the music and will conduct the New Music Readings on June 1, 2025. The readings is open to the public with limited seating available. Tickets can be purchased at nephilharmonic.org.
The NEP is also pleased to announce this year’s New Music Readings finalists — Gaston Gosselin (Eureka), Jing Feng (Somewhere Between), Jordan Jinosko (Regeneration), Kian Ravaei (Majnun in the Wilderness), Sae-ahm Kim (Inside, Outside), and Sydney Wang (To Journey On). Learn more about the NEP’s New Music Readings program by visiting nephilharmonic.org/new-music-readings.
Devin Cholodenko is a composer who writes music that falls within a skewed tonal framework, with focus and intention. As an artist, Cholodenko is deeply interested in the introspection of time and memory and what that means to the experience of reality. Other inspiration comes from nature, cognition, mortality, extreme experiences, mythology, and personal identity.
His music has been performed, read, and recorded across the United States and internationally by ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Momenta Quartet, HUB New Music, Switch Ensemble, Arx Duo, TEMPO ensemble, and Bent Frequency, and has been featured as part of Composers Now, Red Note, Mizzou New Music Initiative, June in Buffalo, Charlotte New Music, the Rochester Fringe Festival, Nextet Contemporary Music Series, and the International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival in Brooklyn, among other events and festivals. His work has earned recognition by the American Viola Society, NewEar, The Society of Composers, Creatives Rebuild New York and other organizations in various calls, competitions, and grants. He has held residencies at Atlantic Center for the Arts and Kimmel Harding Nelson. His teachers include Michael Gandolfi, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Yotam Haber, Dorothy Hindman, and Charles Mason. Learn more about Devin at www.devincholodenko.com.
Oliver Dubon (b. 1997) is a musician hailing from rural central Virginia. His compositions take inspiration from such sources as modernist literature, philosophy, and the rural countryside and have been performed at the Atlantic, highSCORE, Estonian Music Days, and LaTex Festivals and by musicians such as Grammy™ – Award winning pianist Nadia Shpachenko, Grammy™ – Award winning vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, the Ónix Ensamble, the Kinetic Ensemble, the Confluss Duo, the Pomona College Orchestra, and musicians of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, Dubon was a Fulbright Student Researcher in Tallinn, Estonia, where he studied composition with Toivo Tulev and orchestral conducting with Toomas Kapten. Dubon has been awarded residencies and fellowships at the Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa, Estonia, the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where he was an associate artist working under Timo Andres, and the DACAMERA Young Artists Program. His upcoming works include new works for the 2024-25 DACAMERA Season, a solo piano work for pianist Anthony Ratinov, and an orchestral work for the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra. His mentors in composition include composers Pierre Jalbert, Toivo Tulev, Thomas Flaherty, Karl Kohn, Kurt Stallmann, as well as composer-conductor Eric Lindholm. Learn more about Oliver at oliverdubon.com.
Shaka Marko Lwaki (b. 2000) is a music student at Alabama State University in Montgomery, AL, pursuing a degree in French horn performance under Dr. Brenda Luchsinger, and studying music composition under Dr. Adonis Gonzalez. Hailing from Nairobi, Kenya, he began his musical studies in high school in 2014 through the Harmony Kenya Foundation (HKF), a charitable organization that fosters music education to students in public schools around Nairobi. His biggest musical influence has been his high school music teacher and HKF founder, Mr. Moses Watatua, who instilled in him a solid musical foundation, one that keeps him grounded to date.
Prior to his departure for the United States in August 2022, Shaka worked in Nairobi as a music arranger, composer, librarian, French horn performer and tutor for various ensembles, organizations, and schools across Nairobi. He has written a wide array of works ranging from instrumental solos to orchestral pieces that have been widely performed both in Kenya and the United States.