Niloufar Nourbahksh
Described as “stark” by WNPR and “darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, an awardee of 2023 Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant, a winner of 2022 Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation Competition, and a 2019 recipient of Opera America’s Discovery Grant, Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been performed at numerous festivals and venues including Ojai Music Festival, Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. A founding member and co-artistic director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nourbakhsh is a strong advocate of music education and equal opportunities. She currently teaches theory and composition at Longy School of Music of Bard College and Berklee College of Music. Niloufar holds a doctorate degree from Stony Brook University and regularly performs with her Ensemble Decipher.
Corrine Byrne
Hailed for her “inimitable delivery” and versatility, Boston and New York-based soprano Corrine Byrne has quickly become a sought-after interpreter of repertoire from the Medieval to the Baroque era, and music by today’s most daring composers. Byrne’s recent roles include Miranda (The Onion by Eric Sawyer), Loralei (Mallory by Nathaniel Parks), Roya (We the Innumerable by Niloufar Nourbahksh), Filia (Jepthe), Anna (Die Todsünden), Doctor (The Scarlet Professor by Eric Sawyer), Cathy (The Last Five Years), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel) and Anima (Ordo Virtutum). Byrne was a young artist with the Boston Early Music Festival and the Lucerne Festival Academy, and has made solo appearances with the American Classical Orchestra, New York Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, REBEL Baroque Ensemble, Symphony New Hampshire, Emmanuel Music, the Lake George Music Festival Orchestra, Mountainside Baroque, One World Symphony, New York Session Symphony, Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, Kansas City Baroque Consortium, the Madison Bach Musicians, Amherst Symphony, West Shore Symphony, Harrisburg Choral Society, Westchester Oratorio Society, Lorelei Ensemble, the Harvard Radcliff Collegium Musicum, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. Byrne sang alongside the Tallis Scholars with the Carnegie Hall Chamber Chorus, and sings regularly on Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata series. Byrne is a co-founder of Ensemble Musica Humana and The Byrne:Kozar:Duo, recently featured on NPR and a nationally broadcast episode of American Public Media’s Performance Today, and whose recording of ‘Bring Something Incomprehensible Into This World’ was featured in the New Yorker Magazine‘s 2017 Notable Recordings. She is also a core member of ground-breaking vocal ensemble Cut Circle, and of the early music collective Polyphemus. Byrne is a member of Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donate a percentage of their concert fee to organizations they care about. Byrne supports the Cares Foundation and South Shore Habitat for Humanity through her performances. She is currently serving as a faculty member at the Longy School of Music at Bard College.
Anne Goldberg
Anne H. Goldberg-Baldwin, a vanguard of interdisciplinary performance art, blurs the definitions of music and dance as a composer, choreographer, performer, and educator. She is cofounder and artistic director of the Tempus Continuum Ensemble, a new music ensemble that premieres and performs her music and that of other 20th- and 21st-century composers. Touring coast to coast and internationally, Goldberg-Baldwin has had her music premiered and performed by Wet Ink Ensemble, ensemble mise-en, the Boston New Music Institute, the Novatrio, and NeoLit Ensemble, and at festivals such as the International Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt and the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory.
Her artistry has been featured at New York venues such as Symphony Space, the Kitchen, the Flea Theater, and many others nationally and internationally. In addition to Tempus Continuum Ensemble, Goldberg-Baldwin is founder and artistic director of dance and multimedia at the Synthesis Aesthetics Project. Through the project, she has produced, composed, choreographed, and directed a variety of productions, most recently as emerging-artist-in-residence at The Field.
Goldberg-Baldwin’s fascination with notation and performance art led her to her research subject: examining the composer-performer dichotomy from a semiological standpoint. She embarked on her study in semiology of the composer-performer, the study of signs and symbols, to decipher the various stages of conception, interpretation, and reflection of pieces.
Goldberg-Baldwin is a freelance performer and educator in the Seattle, New York City, and Boston areas on a multitude of projects ranging from recording sessions to live events. She actively commissions, records, and premieres works for English horn, oboe, and piano solo, as well as holding an annual call-for-scores with collaborators at the Tempus Continuum Ensemble.
Jack Byrne
Jack Byrne is a Boston-based singer/songwriter who weaves intricate fingerstyle guitar lines into his intimate indie-folk songs. Jack was raised in a very musical family and his earliest musical experiences were playing and singing with his parents and siblings. In Jack’s own music, you can hear influence from artists such as Iron & Wine, Johanna Warren, and Simon & Garfunkel. Jack also teaches private lessons at NEMPAC and The New School of Music, and sings in the choir at the Old North Church in Boston. His latest album, New Beginnings and Resolutions, is available on all streaming platforms.
Mahya Hemedi
Mahya Hamedi (born 1999) is an Iranian vocalist, pianist, and composer from Tehran. She is currently based in Boston, Massachusetts, pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music. Singing and playing the piano since the age of nine, Mahya realized quickly that music was her lifelong passion. Her early compositions for theatre won local and national awards, and she performed in groups across Iran and in Greece before university. Unable to pursue studies in vocal performance in her home country due to a national ban on women singing, she studied classical piano at the University of Tehran for two years before traveling to Berklee to focus on voice and composition.
Lisa Weiss
Professor Lisa Weiss came to Goucher in 1986 as a result of the college’s desire to experiment with a position that was new to the institution: a full time performance faculty member in the music department. She currently teaches private and classroom piano, directs a lecture series for music majors and minors, co-directs the Goucher Musical Theater and Opera program, and is a frequent collaborator and accompanist for both students and faculty. She has chaired the music department, led two study abroad music programs in Italy, and was for many years the director of the student Chamber Music Seminar. She was also a recipient of the Todd Professorship, an honor bestowed on one professor every five years at Goucher. Dr.Weiss holds a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.M. from The Yale School of Music, and a D.M.A. from The Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Leon Fleisher. She also holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Lesley University and has published several stories in the flash fiction genre. She began playing when she was three and made her solo debut with the Boston Pops at age seven. Of her New York debut, New Times critic Wil Crutchfield wrote, “…a musician worth attention and able to hold it.” She concertizes regularly as a soloist, chamber musician, and vocal accompanist. A versatile pianist, her recent performances include a new work for piano and electronics by Baltimore composer Samuel Burt, performed at Artscape “World’s in Collusion” event this past summer, and ongoing collaborative-improvisatory piano and dance projects with “What’s Written Within,” a dance company on Martha’s Vineyard. She remains passionately committed to her lifelong practice: learning and performing the incredibly vast, varied and important repertoire for solo piano.
Eddie Byrne
Eddie Byrne is a writer and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. With his band Foley, he has released the albums Songs Of The Lyrebird (2021) and The Joke Turns Sad (2023). He also self-published the chapbook Forever Grocery in 2023.
