Fireworks Ensemble

Fireworks Ensemble presents a uniquely American, 21st-century vision of chamber music. With a repertoire featuring classic cartoon music, Frank Zappa's instrumental rock, American music favorites, dance music from around the world, and a rock-inspired version of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Fireworks is a flexible chamber ensemble that can literally play anything, regardless of genre, vintage, or orchestration. Each Fireworks program spotlights a particular aspect of today's music and presents a wide variety of musical styles with a common voice. Fireworks' mission is to bring its vision of contemporary chamber music to new audiences through its charismatic educational activities and virtuosic, high-energy performances. Fireworks tours throughout North America each year and has appeared on many of the most prestigious stages, including Carnegie Hall, The Library of Congress, and The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The ensemble has performed at summer festivals such as The Chautauqua Institution and The Deer Valley Music Festival, and has been featured on Minnesota Public Radio, WNYC, and NBC's "The 10 Show." Fireworks records for Entertainment One, which will release the ensemble's Zappa and Cartoon projects in 2011. Passionate about its work with young people and dedicated to reaching new audiences, Fireworks devotes a large part of its time each year to educational activities. The ensemble recently conducted a ten-week residency based on its Cartoon program in Peekskill, New York, as part of Chamber Music America's Residency Partnership Program. Fireworks is currently a member of Carnegie Hall's Musical Connections program, a initiative designed to bring free musical performances, workshops, and residencies in homeless shelters, correctional facilities, hospitals, and elderly care facilities in New York City. The ensemble also specializes in working with young composers and is currently ensemble-in-residence at the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.

Brian Coughlin, Director and Bass
Brian has won acclaim throughout the United States as an ensemble director, a versatile double- and electric bassist, and as a genre-defying composer. Prior to founding Fireworks, he served as music director of the Hartt Sinfonietta, the Black Sheep Ensemble, and the Noise Factory new music group. Brian has performed hundreds of concerts throughout the United States in venues ranging from venerable classical music institutions such as the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, to prominent jazz venues such as the Saratoga Jazz Festival, to major rock clubs such as Toad’s Place in New Haven. He has performed as a soloist with the Berkshire Symphony, and has premiered over fifty new works written for him. Praised by NPR as having a "gift for melody," Brian has written music for ensembles such as The Eugene Opera, The Berkshire Symphony, Basso Bongo, Oboist Humbert Lucarelli, Cygnus, The Pacific Rim Gamelan, Non-Sequitur, The Island Breeze Steel Drum Band, and the rock band Oneida. Brian holds both a Master of Music degree in Composition from the University of Oregon and a Master of Music degree in Double Bass Performance from the Hartt School. His teachers include Robert Black and Milt Hinton (bass), and David del Tredici, Robert Kyr, and George Tsontakis (composition).

Leigh Stuart, Cello
Leigh has quickly established herself as a cellist who thrives in a variety of musical settings. She has appeared on the stages of major venues such as Alice Tully Hall, Bargemusic, B.B. King's, Carnegie Hall, Joe's Pub, The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Le Poisson Rouge, The 92nd Street Y, The Nokia Theater, and Zankel Hall. Recent engagements include performances with Savion Glover at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, Sufjan Stevens at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Jay-Z at Radio City Music Hall. She has performed with numerous others including Beyonce, The Roots, Foxxy Brown, Sauce Money, Marty Wilson Piper (The Church), Oneida, My Brightest Diamond, and The Mahavishnu Project. Leigh is currently also a member of the Brooklyn-based acoustic, ambient ensemble, Bing and Ruth. No stranger to the television, film, and recording industry, Ms. Stuart has recently appeared as a cellist in the Warner Brothers film, August Rush, on CBS's Queens Supreme, for a music video with British pop star, Lucie Silvas, and in an episode of Law and Order: SVU, for which she also recorded Faure's Elegy. In addition, she has recorded for Cuneiform, and Rough Trade. Leigh holds her Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School and her Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music.

Elizabeth Janzen, Flute
A native of Newfoundland, Canada, Elizabeth began flute studies at the age of eleven and has gone on to establish herself as a prominent teacher and talented recitalist in Canada and the US. Elizabeth gave her debut recital at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall in 2005 as a winner of the Artist International competition. She has been a featured soloist with the Chelsea Symphony and has worked closely with some of the world's most recognized conductors. She has performed solo flute in Pierre Boulez’s "...explosante-fixe..." under the composer's baton, and worked on both contemporary and period music with conductors as diverse as David Robertson and Christopher Hogwood. In addition to her work with Fireworks, Liz is also a frequent guest with the Talea and Argento contemporary ensembles. Equally devoted to her work as a teacher, she teaches and performs as a Teaching Artist for Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic, and is on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege and The Diller-Quaile School of Music.

Esther Noh, Violin
Esther has garnered acclaim for her achievements as a classical and alternative music performer. She has performed as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, and the Danish National Philharmonic and has been a featured artist at the Smithsonian Museum and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She has toured throughout the country with the Meredith Monk Ensemble, and has performed in New York City at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Recital Hall, and Miller Theater. Esther is also an active champion of improvised and alternative music. She has collaborated with John Zorn, Mark O' Connor, and Bang on a Can, and has presented avant-garde music at Le Poisson Rouge, Roulette, and the Cutting Room. She has premiered numerous contemporary composers' works and plays and records with singer/songwriters. Esther received degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Michigan. She holds a doctorate with honors from SUNY Stony Brook and is a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

Oren Fader, Guitar
Oren has performed hundreds of concerts in the U.S., Europe and Asia with a wide range of classical and new music groups, including the Met Chamber Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mark Morris Dance Group, Da Capo Chamber Players, New World Symphony, Absolute Ensemble, Poetica Musica and Speculum Musicae. A champion of new music, he has premiered over 150 works with guitar. In addition to Fireworks, he also performs, tours and records with the new music ensembles Cygnus and Glass Farm. Oren has just returned from a three week tour performing in Turkey (Istanbul International Festival), Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan (US State Dept.). This past summer he performed works of Elliott Carter at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He can be heard on over 25 commercial recordings and film, including the classical guitar parts for the recent film "Everything is Illuminated." His latest solo recordings include "Another’s Fandango", featuring 500 years of guitar music, and "First Flight", a disc of 10 premier solos written for Mr. Fader by New York City composers. Since 1994, Oren has been on the guitar and chamber music faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

Red Wierenga, Keyboards
Red Wierenga is a pianist, keyboardist, respectronicist, improviser and composer currently based in New York City. His longest creative association is with the Respect Sextet, called "a group which has released one of the most compelling recordings of the year," by the Wall Street Journal, and "one of the best and most ambitious new ensembles in jazz" by Signal To Noise. He performs and records in a wide array of musical settings, from free improvisation, jazz and new music to rock, pop, and world musics. He has performed and/or recorded with artists including Nell Bryden, the David Crowell Ensemble, Signal, Brad Lubman, and Salo. Red received his Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music, where his teachers included Harold Danko and Ralph Alessi. During his time at Eastman, Red appeared as soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Eastman School Studio Orchestra and Ossia. He also performed in duo and small group settings with Dave Holland, Wycliffe Gordon, Ben Monder and others. After graduating from Eastman in 2002, Wierenga served as on-air host on Jazz90.1, Rochester's jazz radio station, while maintaining an active performance schedule, playing as a soloist and with the Respect Sextet, the Dave Rivello Ensemble, the Red Wierenga Unit, and others. In 2004 Wierenga moved to the Netherlands, where he studied electronic and computer music at the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. There he studied with Joel Ryan and designed and built the first Respectron, a novel physical interface for gestural control of electronic music. Since moving to New York City in 2005, Red has established a vigorous performance agenda while composing for the Respect Sextet and the Wierenga Manœuvre and continuing development on the Respectron and other electronic and electro-acoustic instruments.

Alex Hamlin, Saxophone
Alex Hamlin is a multi-genre multi-instrumentalist whose arsenal includes saxophones, flute, piccolo, bass clarinet, clarinet, bassoon, guitar, and keyboards. He is a founding member of the Lungcore band, Jerseyband, Amy Lynn & The Gunshow, and the Hog Trio and manages his own record label, Rangletorian Records. Alex has toured Germany and Switzerland with the West-End Production of Grease Das Musikal and "The Spirit of Ray Charles" which was based in Monte Carlo, Monaco & Mumbai, India. In New York City he performs with artists such as the Barbarian Horde, Ken Thomson's Nine Headed Saxophone Monster, Ben Gallina's Salo, Fat Blaster (Ralph Alessi), HiLoFi, Asphalt Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, Antibalas, Transmission, Colin Stetson, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He gives private music instruction on saxophone and woodwinds and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Classical and Jazz Saxophone Performance from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, NY.

Jared Soldiviero, Percussion
Percussionist Jared Soldiviero is known for the focus, professionalism and high standards he brings to any musical setting in the New York area and around the world. Originally from New York, he enjoys ongoing relationships with groups such as Ensemble ACJW, Continuum, Newband and Numinous, and has performed as a guest with the orchestras of Vermont, Springfield, Stamford, Albany and American Ballet Theater, as well as ensembles Alarm Will Sound, Fireworks, and Speculum Musicae. With a strong interest in contemporary music, Jared has taken part in numerous premieres, most notably with Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival and with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in a world premiere by Steven Stucky. Ensemble XII, of which Jared is an original member, has premiered nearly a dozen commissions for large percussion ensemble. A number of those works have been recorded along with the complete percussion music of Fritz Hauser. In addition to performing, Jared is a noted teacher, composer and conductor. He has taught in several venues through his membership in The Academy at Carnegie Hall, as well as private teaching at the Bloomingdale School of Music, Rug Concerts at Diller-Quaile and Family Concerts for the Weill Music Institute. His compositions, available at Bachovich Publications, have been performed by the percussion ensembles of Boston University, Rutgers and NYU. As a conductor he has led Ensemble ACJW, Juilliard Percussion Ensemble and ACME. Jared holds B.M. and M.M. Degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Roland Kohloff and Gordon Gottlieb.