Musical Explorations of Identity and The Art of Becoming
Fuse Ensemble is a concept-based new music/new media performing ensemble based in the Washington, DC area. Each season a concept is presented, giving voice to new music composers and creating musical happenings with visual elements of live, interactive video and/or kinetic installations. The musicians of Fuse perform on an eclectic mix of flute, clarinet, electric violin, electric guitar, cello, piano, electronic playback, percussion, and invented instruments. Linked by the insane possibilities of software such as MaxMSP/Jitter and Processing, using sensors on the musicians and live interactive cameras on stage, the artists create an experience that fuses sound, video and humans into a liquefied state and gives each concept a setting — a visual and kinetic environment to experience it in that furthers communication and unifies the concept.
Fuse Ensemble is: Gina Biver, composer, director, electric guitar, electronics/laptop; Pam Clem, cello; Ethan Foote, contrabass; Martha Haines, electronics; Greg Hiser, violin; Jenny Lapple, flute; Ina Mirtcheva, piano, Angela Murakami, clarinet, and guest percussionist Scott Deal.
This season, Fuse Ensemble presents SKETCH, The Art of Becoming: Musical Explorations of Identity with performances of works by Steve Antosca, Eve Beglarian, Linda Dusman, and the premiere of Gina Biver’s We Meet Ourselves for marimba and triggered audio by guest percussionist Scott Deal.
Bios
Gina Biver composes music for chamber ensemble, multimedia, choir, sound installations, dance and film, and is the director of Fuse Ensemble. Many of her works integrate technology, acoustic instruments and old-school electronics. She finds much inspiration in the visual world, in moving pictures and static ones; in the written and recorded word and found or DIY instruments. Her most recent film score for the short “Condemned” premiered February 2016 at the Sedona International Film Festival. www.ginabiver.com
Scott Deal, Percussion
Percussionist Scott Deal has performed throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. He has premiered solo, chamber and mixed media works, and can be heard on the Albany, Centaur, Cold Blue and SCI labels. Deal’s recordings have been described as “soaring, shimmering explorations of resplendent mood and incredible scale”….”sublimely performed”. His recent recording of John Luther Adams’ Four Thousand Holes, for piano, percussion, and electronics was listed in New Yorker Magazine’s 2011 Top Ten Classical Picks.
Greg Hiser, Violin
Greg Hiser studied with James Caesar, Nancy Luttrell, and Andrej Grabiec at Wichita State University. Through the 90′s he played bluegrass, rockabilly, and swing with bands New Mountain, Virginia and the Blue Dots, and Murphy’s Lawyer, and also taught privately. In 1998 after the break up of his successful rock/jazz quartet Boud Deun, (recordings available on Cuneiform Records) he was happy to get back to his classical roots, performing regularly with the Carina Trio, The Washington Savoyards, Trinity Chamber Orchestra. He currently serves as assistant concertmaster of The McLean Orchestra and maintains a large private violin studio.
Jennifer Lapple, Flute
Jennifer Lapple is currently working on her Doctorate of Arts in music performance and education at George Mason University, and holds flute performance degrees from Miami University (BM) and Yale University (MM). Jennifer currently performs with Fuse Ensemble, The Pan American Symphony in Washington, D.C., and the American Pops Orchestra at GMU. Jennifer conducts Pulse, GMU’s resident flute choir, and is the music director of the high school wind ensemble, Flutopia, which recently performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Ina Mirtcheva, Piano
An active performer and teacher in Northern Virginia, Dr. Ina Mirtcheva has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States and abroad, notably the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution, Prösels Castle in northern Italy, and recital halls in Holland, Poland, Bulgaria and Canada. Currently she teaches at George Mason University where she won the 2014 GMU Adjunct Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Ina Mirtcheva joined Fuse Ensemble in 2011.
Pam Clem, Cello
Pam Clem has been playing cello since the age of 10 and has studied with Robert Hofmekler and then under Robert Ashby at James Madison University. A
Northern Virginia native, she has played with McLean and Loudon Community Orchestras since college. She also plays in several trios, performing classical music and jazz in venues such as Wolftrap, The Lyceum and Blues Alley.
Ethan Foote, Contrabass
Ethan Foote is a bassist, composer, arranger, and songwriter based in Washington, D.C. His original work and his career as a performer have encompassed jazz, folk, classical, and popular idioms, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations involving theater and visual art. He has taken the stage at such D.C.-area performance venues as the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre’s Sydney Harman Hall, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the Mansion at Strathmore, and many others.
Angela Murakami, Clarinet
Angela Murakami (clarinet) is a member of the Trinity Chamber Orchestra, Washington Sinfonietta, Ensemble à la Carte, the Rock Creek Chamber Players and the FUSE Ensemble. She earned her BM from the University of Maryland and her MM from Northwestern University. Her teachers included Clark Brody, Norman Heim, Robert Marcellus and Charles Stier. Ms. Murakami has recorded Mozart’s Five Divertimenti in C Major, K.439b as well as two other CDs on the Halcyon Production’s label.
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