French-American composer Henri Colombat grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and now resides in Montréal, Québec. In Baltimore Colombat played in a variety of jazz groups, rock bands, and orchestras. He studied piano, as well as composition with Judah Adashi, at the Johns Hopkins Peabody Preparatory. Colombat is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in composition at McGill University with Jean Lesage where he has also studied with John Rea, Phillippe Leroux and Brian Cherney. Colombat has received the Louis Cheslock award in composition from the Peabody Preparatory as well as the Helmut Blume Scholarship from McGill University. Colombat was awarded first and third prize in the Neva Greenwood Student Composition Competition in 2015 and 2014 respectively (Washington D.C.). In the coming year Colombat will be working as composer in residence with McGill University’s Saxophone Quartet as well as a participating composer in the “Quo Vadis Schubert?” project based in Boston.
In recent pieces Colombat has worked to incorporate traceable elements of traditional musical language in order to communicate effectively with a wide variety of listeners while working in more contemporary sound worlds to explore how the fundamental elements of musical language can be expanded. Outside of contemporary concert music Colombat is also an avid performer of American Old Time and Bluegrass
music.
Pierre-Nicolas Colombat (b. 1992, Baltimore, MD) is an American/French pianist and teacher living in Boston, MA. Colombat currently studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston as a Master’s student in the studio of Gabriel Chodos. Aside from being a piano instructor at NEC, Colombat also maintains a studio of private students.
Concert engagements this year include performances throughout various American cities as well as in France. At the invitation of pianist Steve Drury, Colombat was invited to perform in the Boston Symphony’s Prelude Series concerts. These concerts allowed him to work directly with composers such as Timo Andres (performance of Mooring found here) and Julian Anderson. Other concerts feature collaborations with guitarist Zaira Meneses and soprano Sophie Boyer as well as full solo recitals.
As the founding member of the Quo Vadis, Schubert? collective, Colombat commissions and
performs new works from contemporary composers. The concerts held by the Quo Vadis, Schubert? collective focus on audience interaction and strive to encourage audiences to question the works they hear, treating music not as canonized art but as direct and intimate expression. The Quo Vadis, Schubert? collective is the most recent example of Colombat’s desire to provide fresh ways for audiences to interpret and interact with the live music they hear. Other efforts in this direction include writing essays, hosting a concert review podcast, and concerts such as his 2014 presentation/recital at Loyola University Maryland exploring similarities between the French language and French violin/piano music from the turn of the 20th century.
Despite playing music since he was five, Colombat only became committed to studying music around the age of 14 thanks to the influence of Rachel Long, his middle school music instructor. He began formal piano studies at Peabody Preparatory in Baltimore, MD and continued in Chicago at DePaul University’s School of Music. There he studied piano under George Vatchnadze, Kyomi Sugimura, and Aglika Angelova. In 2012, he visited Gargenville, France where he began an extended period of study with pianist and composer Emil Naoumoff. Colombat studied piano pedagogy with the founder of the DePaul Community Music Division, Dr. Susan Baker. He has performed in master classes with Paul Lewis, Alexandre Toradze, and William Wolfram. He also won the Grand Prize in the inaugural Kleinman Piano Competition. During his time in Chicago, Colombat enjoyed serving as Music Director of Berry Methodist Church and as faculty member for the Merit School of Music.
Julian Pozniak is currently attending the New England Conservatory of Music in pursuit of his Master's degree in composition, with an anticipated graduation at the end of this academic year. Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Pozniak attended Carleton College for his undergraduate degree in music and political science, focusing a great deal of attention on the relationships between music and many of the other fields in the liberal arts and social sciences. Despite having studied music since first grade, Pozniak is relatively new to the field of composition, with a small but quickly growing body of works. Much of his music reflects his passion for the broad canon of music history, frequently engaging musical techniques from such diverse traditions as Medieval polyphony, music of the French Baroque, or early Modernism. In addition to the composition of his first piano sonata, Pozniak has recently completed his first string quartet, the premier of which will take place in early April. Beyond composition, Pozniak also works as an educator, sharing his passion of music through his work as writing tutor and teaching assistant at NEC, as well as a private instructor in piano and voice.
Coleman Zurkowski (born 1990 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American composer and musician. Zurkowski studied composition at DePaul University in Chicago, IL with Kurt Westerberg from 2008 to 2012. He continued his studies at the California Institute of the Arts from 2012 to 2014 with Michael Pisaro and Wolfgang von Schweinitz. In 2015, he was chosen to be a resident composer for the Khora Residency at the Syros International Film Festival.
Zurkowski composes music for film and television and releases albums of his own work.
Elias Dagher was born in Boston to a family of Lebanese immigrants. He now studies piano performance at the New England Conservatory with Alexander Korsantia. Though the piano is central to his life, he also enjoys vegetables, dogs, and a sense of shifting spiritual studentship to various composers and poets; for now, he counts Chopin and Schubert among his greatest teachers.
https://soundcloud.com/elias-d-3