Le Moyne College’s Music Program will present a virtual mini-concert of Program Director Edward Ruchalski’s settings of Elizabeth Twiddy’s poems, featuring soprano Julia Ebner; mezzo-soprano Danan Tsan and pianist Sar-Shalom Strong.
These new poems by Twiddy were written prior to the coronavirus pandemic and chosen for this performance with the pandemic and its effects in mind. The songs were composed by Ruchalski specifically for the performers. Twiddy and Ruchalski worked closely on the songs from January to August of this year in their home in Syracuse.
Recorded by Hobin Studios (audio) and Greg Giovanini (video) in the Panasci Family Chapel on Oct. 5, this mini-concert is the first performance of the Music Program’s 2020-21 Guest Artist Series, which has taken a virtual approach to its performances due to the coronavirus.
A live Q&A with the poet, composer and performers will follow the performance.
To attend the virtual premiere, email
[email protected] for the Zoom link by Monday, Nov. 9.
About the Artists:
Elizabeth Twiddy is an award-winning poet whose work has been featured on National Public Radio. Her first full-length book of poems, “Love-Noise” (Standing Stone Books, 2010), won the Gold Medal for Poetry from the e-Lit Book Awards. Twiddy won The Joyce Carol Oates Award from Syracuse University and has been nominated four times for The Pushcart Prize. She won the national “Dear You” poetry contest, judged by Garrison Keillor and Patricia Hampl. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac”, and she is featured in an interview on “The Writer’s Almanac Bookshelf”. Twiddy’s poems have been published widely and internationally, including in Barrow Street, POOL, The Alembic, Redactions, the Australian magazine Skive, the French magazine Le Zaporogue, and elsewhere. Twiddy earned her MFA as a Creative Writing Fellow from Syracuse University’s Creative Writing Program.
She has taught at Le Moyne College, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Penn State at University Park and at the Syracuse YMCA's Downtown Writer's Center. Twiddy is at work completing drawings for her first illustrated children’s book and is working toward a book of essays as well as her second full-length book of poems.
Edward Ruchalski is professor of practice and director of the music program in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Le Moyne College. In addition to teaching music courses, Ruchalski serves as director of Le Moyne’s Rock Ensemble and advises students in the music minor. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theory and Composition from SUNY Fredonia and a Masters in Music from the University of Miami.
Professor Ruchalski is a composer, sound artist, field recordist, and maker of his own instruments. Ruchalski has been commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Helen Boatwright, Syracuse's Society for New Music, and dG Studios, among others. Ruchalski’s work has been chosen for performance by the Buffalo Guitar Quartet, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Robert Black, Shiau-uen Ding, Stephen Porter, and others. His compositions have been performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, Mass MOCA, Miller Theatre, Symphony Space on Broadway, the Festival of Miami, Harvard University, Yale University, Kirk in the Hills in Detroit, the Everson Museum of Art, and elsewhere.
Ruchalski’s work has been widely reviewed—including by Paul Griffiths in The New York Times, by Thurston Moore in Arthur Magazine, by François Couture in AllMusic, and by Ed Pinsent in London’s The Sound Projector. His composition "For Carrie Mae Weems" has been performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. as part of MacArthur Genius Fellow Carrie Mae Weems' new production, Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, a gift for Barack and Michelle Obama.
Sar-Shalom Strong is recognized for highly sensitive performances as soloist and collaborative artist. For over 30 years, he has had the privilege of making music with many international touring artists and multitudes of fine musicians who live and perform in upstate New York. Strong is a lecturer in piano and coordinator of staff pianists for Hamilton College, where he has taught since 2001, and was previously associated with Colgate and Syracuse Universities. He is committed to teaching and mentoring aspiring younger musicians: pianists, singers, instrumentalists and composers, and is active as an adjudicator and vocal coach. He is a member of MTNA, American College of Musicians, and the American Federation of Musicians and holds degrees from Knox College and Syracuse University.
Julia Ebner is a seasoned performer, choreographer and teacher of the performing arts. She has performance credentials across the country including work with the Metropolitan Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Florida Grand Opera and more. Ebner received her Masters in Music from Binghamton University and her bachelors in music from Syracuse University. She is the recipient of the Moore Opera Award, the Jessie Gaul Vocal Music Scholarship, and the Ernst Bacon Vocalist Award, Helen Boatwright Award and many other honors.
Ebner has taught applied voice and music theory at Mount Olive College in Mount Olive, North Carolina as well as holding voice studios at Cortland University, Binghamton University and Le Moyne College.
Danan Tsan is a versatile performer with a background in classical singing. Tsan has appeared with Syracuse Opera, Oswego Opera, Baldwinsville Theatre Guild, Society for New Music, in addition to being featured with Symphoria, The Buffalo Philharmonic Pops Orchestra, The Cincinnati Pops, and The Naples Pops Orchestra with Erich Kunzel, and more.
Danan has many original pop songs featured in films in America and Japan and her voice has been featured on many other songs for films. She recorded an album with songwriter and collaborator, James Durham, under the name of Aeolian May, and the song Way Down South runs during the closing credits of the sci-fi film 95ers: ECHOES (Durham Films). While living in New York City, Danan was in the ensemble for Timmy the Great with Savion Glover (off-off Broadway), lead her own award-winning band (Top 25 albums of 2007 Indie-Music.com) and sang back-up for Chris Isaak and Wynona Judd. She holds degrees from Southern Methodist University (BM, ‘97) and The Eastman School of Music (MM ’00).