ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Michael Compitello is a dynamic, “fast rising” (WQXR) percussionist active as a chamber musician, soloist, and teaching artist. He has performed with Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Signal, Ensemble ACJW, and has worked with composers Helmut Lachenmann, Nicolaus A. Huber, David Lang, John Luther Adams, Alejandro Viñao, Marc Applebaum, and Martin Bresnick on premieres and performances of new chamber works.
With cellist Hannah Collins as New Morse Code, Michael has created generating a singular and personal repertoire through long-term collaboration. Currently, Michael’s Unsnared Drum project seeks to reinvent the snare drum through collaboration with four of America’s most dynamic women composers.
Michael is Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University of Kansas, and is Assistant Director of Avaloch Farm Music Institute. He earned a DMA and MM from the Yale School of Music, and a BM from the Peabody Conservatory.
ABOUT THE SHOWCASE CONCERT: Unsnared Drum
Unsnared Drum is a new project dedicated to pushing the limit of what is possible with the snare drum. I will present four new works for snare drum with or without electronics and live video developed collaboratively by some of America’s most esteemed women composers: Nina C. Young, Hannah Lash, Tonia Ko, and Amy Beth Kirsten. These pieces have expanded the expressive potential of this underutilized instrument through dramatic, sensitive, creative, and multi-media solos. My goal is to change the way that people think about, listen to, perform, and practice the snare drum.