Stuart Gerber- Percussion

Hailed as “Instrumentalist of the Year, Percussion” by the Wisconsin Area Music Industry (W.A.M.I.), Stuart Gerber is currently the Percussion Coordinator at Georgia State University in Atlanta and percussionist and co-founder of the piano-percussion duo E N S E M B L E S I R I U S. Before moving to Atlanta Mr. Gerber was the timpanist and principal percussionist of the Kentucky Symphony. An avid solo performer and chamber musician, Mr. Gerber has been involved in a number of premiere performances. The 2001-02 season included 12 premieres in the 12 months. E N S E M B L E S I R I U S has commissioned 9 new works for piano and percussion and in addition, he has given the US and Australian premieres of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Nasenflügeltanz for percussion and synthesizer, and, most recently, the US premiere of his solo percussion work Komet. Other notable premiere performances included the world-premiere of John Luther Adams’ A Strange and Sacred Noise as well as the European premiere of his Earth and the Great Weather at the Almeida Theater in London. Mr. Gerber has performed extensively throughout the US, Europe (with performances in Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal) and most recently in Australia at the Newcastle Keyboard Festival, and the Sydney Spring Festival of New Music. In the Summer of 2000 Mr. Gerber was awarded a top prize at the international Stockhausen-Kurse in Kürten, Germany for his interpretation of Kontakte. In the fall of 2002 he travelled to Mexico for a series of premiere performances commissioned by E N S E M B L E S I R I U S through a grant by the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. In addition to his work with Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Luther Adams, Mr. Gerber has worked with many other notable composers, such as Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, George Crumb, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Gerhard Samuel, Paul Lansky, Mara Helmuth, Andrew Imbrie, and Leonard Salzedo. Mr. Gerber received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied with Michael Rosen. He finished his Master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) where he is currently working on a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree. His principal teachers at CCM are Allen Otte and James Culley. He has also done advanced studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, with Professor Andreas Boettger.

Michael Fowler- keys

Michael Fowler holds Australian citizenship by birth, though traces his ethnic heritage from the Melanesian Islands of Fiji. He studied first in Australia with Colin Spiers at the University of Newcastle where in 1996 he was awarded a Bachelor of Music, Honours (Class I, Division II). His thesis was entitled "The Music of John Cage: Aesthetics in performance practice." He is currently pursuing the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Cincinnati with William Black. His dissertation, "The Japanese Mind: An Inquiry into Art, Language, Pachinko and Toshi Ichiyanagi’s Piano Media" is currently being prepared for submission. Fowler has an acute interest in contemporary music. He has performed premieres of Colin Spiers’s Flecks and Mutations, as well as Daniel House’s Inserts. In August 2000 he gave the Australian premiere of Elliott Carter’s Two Diversions and Wolfgang Rhim’s Zweisphrache. Fowler has also given the US premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke XVI. He has appeared at festivals and venues in Mexico, Australia, Germany, Japan and the US. He recently completed a recording for the independent American label OPEN SPACE of the complete solo piano works of Benjamin Boretz. He has worked closely with the composers Steve Reich, Milton Babbitt, George Crumb, John Macabe and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He has had a long interest in chamber music repertoire, and in 1999 co-founded E N S E M B L E S I R I U S with the percussionist Stuart Gerber. Their aim in this ensemble is to embrace musical complexity and music technology. Fowler does not limit himself to the regular piano; he regularly programs works for toy piano, synthesizers, and prepared piano. He has also collaborated with spoken word artists, dancers and filmmakers.