ASL 2015: Pianist, Corey Hamm

Returning for a fourth year, we're thrilled to welcome back pianist Corey Hamm for Art Song Lab 2015.

A champion of new music, Corey is considered to be one of the leading interpreter's of Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated! and has even edited a publication of Rzewski's piano music.

It is an understatement to say that he is an avid commissioner; having commissioned, premiered, and recorded over 200 works from composers around the world. In a recent project, he and Erhu virtuoso, Nicole Li have endeavored to premiere and record a collection of newly composed pieces for piano and erhu, including pieces by 7 composers who have participated in Art Song Lab.

A fuller bio can be found on the UBC website, where he is an Associate Professor of Piano and Chamber Music.

Here is a recording of Corey performing at ASL2014.

ASL 2015: Pianist, Rachel Iwaasa

After taking a year off from ASL to direct Vancouver's Queer Arts Festival, we're excited to have pianist Rachel Iwaasa back for her third year at ASL 2015. Check out her website for more info, but this quote speaks for itself.

"Pianist Iwaasa quite simply pulls no punches, attacking each composer's work with passion, intensity and the nuanced playing she's acclaimed for. . . she manages to instill a sense of dynamic tension and pull to every note."
-Stuart Derdeyn, The Province

 Here is a recording from Rachel's performances at ASL 2013.

ASL 2015: Pianist, Alison d'Amato

One of the driving forces behind Art Song Lab, Co-Director Alison d'Amato is excited to be one of our three pianists for ASL 2015.

Pianist Dr. Alison d’Amato is a dynamic and versatile musician, committed to performing and teaching in the full spectrum of collaborative musical genres. A valued member of several pioneering organizations, she is Artistic Co-Director of Florestan Recital Project (www.florestanproject.org) and co-founder of the Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI, www.songinstitute.ca). Among her current initiatives is the Academy for Collaborative Performance, a new summer program with Florestan Recital Project that explores interdisciplinary collaborations and new approaches to the performer-audience relationship. In all these activities, Alison is dedicated to energizing the relationships and communication inherent in music.

Here is Alison d'Amato performing with contralto Lynne McMurtry at the ASL 2014 final concert.


Apply today for the chance to work with a pianist who works tirelessly for the advancement of words and music!

ASL 2014: Mezzo, Lynne McMurtry and pianist, Alison d'Amato

As founding faculty of the Vancouver International Song Institute, this couple is the embodiment of dedication to art song. Alison d'Amato is a phenomenal pianist and one of the program's three co-directors, and this will be her fourth year making music as part of Art Song Lab. Joining for her third year, Lynne McMurtry is a mezzo to be reckoned with!

Here they are performing together, three songs from ASL 2012:

ASL 2014: Tenor, Will George and pianist, Corey Hamm

Avid commissioners of new music, Corey Hamm and Will George were a natural fit for ASL 2013.

Listen below to the three songs they worked together on last summer.

ASL 2014: Soprano, Phoebe MacRae and pianist, Marguerite Witvoet

ASL veteran, Phoebe MacRae is joining for her fourth year with the program. Joining for her first year, Marguerite Witvoet is no stranger to the kind of collaboration that makes Art Song Lab what it is!

After reading more about each of them on their websites, listen to some audio samples.
Here are two songs Phoebe performed at previous Art Song Labs:
And here is a video of Marguerite:

ASL Program Co-Director: Pianist, Alison d'Amato

Pianist Alison d'Amato is a dynamic and versatile musician, committed to performing and teaching in the full spectrum of solo and chamber music genres. A member of several pioneering organizations, she is Artistic Co-Director of Florestan Recital Project (www.florestanproject.org) and co-founder of the Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI, www.songinstitute.ca). In 2011, she joined the faculty at Eastman School of Music as Assistant Professor of Vocal Coaching. In all these activities, Alison is dedicated to energizing the relationships and communication inherent in music and bringing students’ love of music to the forefront of their projects.

Alison enjoys a variety of interdisciplinary projects with musicologists, composers, writers, and dancers. Alison is co-creator of the 2011 Art Song Lab, a new partnership between VISI and the Canadian Music Centre (Vancouver) that presents new works in collaboration with composers, poets, and performers. Alison has been a guest artist at numerous schools including The American University in Bulgaria, University of Toronto, Tufts University, Royal Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, SUNY Fredonia, Boston University, and Boston Conservatory. In addition to traditional masterclasses in collaborative repertoire, Alison has shared classes with colleagues such as musicologist Barbara Heyman, English professor David Ball, singers Lynne McMurtry and Aaron Engebreth, and flutist Barry Crawford. From 2006-2011, she was Visiting Assistant Professor at University at Buffalo, working directly with colleagues to create and enhance collaborations and chamber activities in the music department.

Alison has performed at venues across North America, including Boston’s Jordan and Symphony Halls and New York’s Weill Recital Hall. The 2012-13 season features a wide variety of activities in new and established repertoire including reappearances with the Buffalo Chamber Players, several recitals with saxophonist Wildy Zumwalt, and original interdisciplinary projects at Eastman and VISI.

Alison received the Grace B. Jackson Prize from Tanglewood Music Center acknowledging her 'extraordinary commitment of talent and energy.'

ASL 2013: Pianist, Corey Hamm

Dr. Corey Hamm is both an internationally performing pianist and Assistant Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at The University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. He is Director of the UBC Contemporary Players and joined the faculty of UBC in Fall 2005.

Hamm is pianist with the prominent new music ensemble The Nu:BC Collective. With Nu:BC ("a delightfully diverse evening of sights and sounds" - Georgia Straight) he has performed multimedia concerts of works by Gyorgy Ligeti, Howard Bashaw, George Crumb, Gyorgy Kurtag, and many others. The Nu:BC Collective is proud to have been a part of Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom new music festival for the last three years, premiering dozens of works by Vancouver composers.

Hamm is also a founding member of the Canadian two-piano, two-percussion ensemble Hammerhead Consort, formed in 1990, and winners of such important Canadian awards as the Sir Ernest Macmillan Memorial Foundation Chamber Music Award (1992), and the CIBC National Music Competition (1991), as well as the 1993 ARIA Award for Best Classical Recording.

ASL 2013: Pianist, Steven Philcox

Quickly gaining recognition as one of Canada's finest collaborators, pianist Steven Philcox has performed with many of our most renowned singers including Richard Margison, Jean Stillwell, and Isabel Bayrakdarian. Recital appearances have taken him to many of North America's greatest concert halls, including his 1998 debut at Carnegie Hall (Weill Hall) in association with the American Society for Contemporary Opera and Song. Further recital appearances have included Los Angeles and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York. His debut recording with Canadian soprano Martha Guth features the works of Debussy, Crumb, and Messaien. Steven has participated in the Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, and The Banff Centre's Twentieth Century Opera and Song Festival. He was also on staff at Chautauqua's 1999 Summer Institute. Steven spent several summers teaching and performing in the Aria International Summer Academy in London, Ontario.


A graduate of the University of British Columbia, Steven received his Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a scholarship student of internationally renowned pianist Warren Jones. He has served as vocal coach, répétiteur, and assistant conductor with the Canadian Opera Company and is on the faculty of The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory.

ASL 2013: Pianist, Rachel Iwaasa

Hailed in the press as a "keyboard virtuoso" (Georgia Straight) with the “emotional intensity” to take a piece “from notes on a page to a stunning work of art” (Victoria Times Colonist), pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the United States and Germany. Known for bold and innovative concerts, Rachel combines her warmth and curiosity to touch the hearts and minds of audiences, whether she is playing Beethoven and Schumann or Ligeti and Saariaho.

Rachel has appeared for Vancouver New Music, CONTACT contemporary music (Toronto), New Works Calgary, Groundswell New Music (Winnipeg), the Victoria Symphony, the Aventa Ensemble (Victoria), Music on Main, Redshift, the Western Front, the Little Chamber Music Series That Could, Vancouver Pro Musica and has been broadcast on CBC Radio. Rachel has a shameless passion for contemporary music, and has performed numerous premières, including pieces written especially for her by Rodney Sharman, Jeffrey Ryan, Jocelyn Morlock, Emily Doolittle, Alexander Pechenyuk, and many other Canadian composers. Most recently, Rachel presented Cosmophony, a solo piano recital of music inspired by the cosmos at the HR MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, accompanied by overhead panoramic projections of images of the planets and stars. This site-specific concert, which featured the premieres of no less than nine commissioned works by Canadian composers, was subsequently praised by the Vancouver Sun as a “brilliant” and “unforgettable” event. A CD recording of Cosmophonywill be released on the Redshift label in the Spring of 2010. Other highlights of the 09-10 season include performances of Cosmophony for Music TORONTO and Cornish College in Seattle, and the premiere of a commissioned solo piano piece by Marci Rabe for Vancouver New Music.

Rachel performs regularly with Mark McGregor as the flute and piano duo Tiresias.Theirdebut CD, Delicate Fires, was nominated for a 2008 Western Canadian Music Award in the category of Outstanding Classical Recording. Delicate Fires was produced with the generous assistance of the Barbara Pentland fund, and features the first commercially released recordings of her Sonata Fantasy for solo piano and Trance for flute and piano. It also presents the premiere recordings of works commissioned byTiresias from Canadian composers Rodney Sharman, Jennifer Butler, and Jocelyn Morlock. Later in 2009, Tiresias will release a second all-Canadian CD, Trade Winds, similarly pairing the music of established composer Jean Coulthard with lesser-known and emerging composers Paul Douglas and Christopher Kovarik.

Rachel’s major teachers include Jane Coop, Menahem Pressler, and Robin Wood. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, a Master of Music from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Victoria, where she earned the Victoria Medal as the top graduating student in Fine Arts. She was also a two-time recipient of the prestigious Annual Grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) for graduate studies at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin. Other awards include grants from the Canada Council, the BC Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Alberta Heritage Foundation. Rachel is currently on the faculty at UBC, the Richmond Music School and the Salina Cheng Music Academy. She is also currently editing new scholarly editions of Jean Coulthard’s late solo piano works for Avondale Press.