Thomas Rosenkranz, Director of HICM, Piano and Improvisation

Thomas Rosenkranz has charted a career that breaks through the conventional boundaries of solo piano, chamber music, and the art of creative improvisation. Described as “brilliant” by the Maui News and “in a league all his own” by the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, Rosenkranz was awarded the "Classical Fellowship Award" in 2003 from the American Pianists Association.Since then he has performed throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Africa including performances at Lincoln Center (New York), Kennedy Center (D.C.), Hilbert Circle Theatre (Indianapolis), Poly Theatre (Beijing), National Concert Hall (Shanghai), L'Acropolium (Carthage), and Theatre de la Ville (Tunis). He has twice been named an Artist Ambassador sponsored by the State Department of the United States and has toured North Africa and the Middle East promoting American Music. He currently lives in Honolulu where he is Chair of Piano Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and is on the faculty at the Soundscape Festival in Italy.

He has performed as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony, National Orchestra of Beirut, and the Northwest Chamber Orchestra among others. He has recorded the music of Reich with the group Alarm Will Sound, for Nonesuch Records and was a jury member for the 2007 Oberlin International Festival and Competition. He continues to include solo piano improvisations into his concerts and recently toured Taiwan in a series of lectures and performances training classical musicians in the art of creative improvisation. Mr. Rosenkranz completed his bachelor's degree at the Oberlin Conservatory where he studied with Robert Shannon and earned his master's and doctorate degrees from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with and was teaching assistant to Nelita True. He pursued further studies in Paris where he studied with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen.

Bichuan Li, Associate Director of HICM, Piano

A faculty member at the Music Department, University of Hawaii since 1986, an honorary Associate Professor at the Shanghai Teachers’ University, a Music Teachers’ National Association certified professional piano teacher, Bichuan Li maintains an active concert schedule, augmenting her repertoire of Chopin, Mozart, Schumann, Ravel, Debussy with piano music by women composers and Chinese piano pieces. She performs regularly in the United States and the Far East, and has enjoyed large audiences and rave reviews in Brazil, Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shan Dong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Penang and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore, Bangkok and Vietnam.

Thomas Osborne, Director of Composition HICM, Composition and Theory

Thomas Osborne's music has been performed by ensembles across the United States, including the American Composers Orchestra, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, L.A. Sound Circle, Rice University's Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, USC's Thornton Symphony and Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Duquesne University Contemporary Ensemble, and the New England Philharmonic. He has received degrees from Indiana University, Rice University, and the University of Southern California, studying composition with Edward Applebaum, Claude Baker, Donald Crockett, Don Freund, and Stephen Hartke. His works have received numerous awards, including a BMI Student Composer Award, the USC Jimmy McHugh composition prize, and an award in the American Composer Forum's American Composers Competition.

Osborne's works have been given premieres in major venues, including the T'ang Quartet's premiere of Furioso: Vendetta for String Quintet at Tanglewood in 2004, performances by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the New York Youth Symphony's premiere of The Nostalgia of the Infinite in Carnegie Hall, and the Pacific Symphony's performances of The Burning Music in Segerstrom Hall. Current projects include a work for marimba and percussion for Yuri Inoo and Yuko Yoshikawa. Osborne is currently Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the UH Manoa, where he is director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble.

Donald Reid Womack, Composition and Theory

Donald Reid Womack is the composer of more than sixty works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, and voice. His music has been performed and broadcast throughout the United States, as well as in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Italy, Poland, Argentina, New Zealand, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and is published by Akamai Music, Dorn Publications, and C.F. Peters Corporation. Born in 1966, Dr. Womack holds Doctoral and Masters degrees in composition from Northwestern University, Bachelors degrees in philosophy and music theory from Furman University, and has participated in such festivals as the Conservatoire Americain in Fontainebleau, France, the June in Buffalo Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. He has also been a fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. The many organizations that have honored his music include ASCAP, Meet the Composer, The American Music Center, Arts Midwest, The Society of Composers, Sigma Alpha Iota, The National Association of Composers, The National Association for Advancement in the Arts, The Tampa Bay Composers' Forum, Northwestern University, The Music Teachers' National Association, and The American String Teachers Association. Most recently, Dr. Womack received a Fulbright Senior Researcher Grant to live and work in Japan during the 2007-08 season, where he is currently guest composer-in-residence with the Tokyo-based Japanese instrumental ensemble AURA-J.

The recipient of more than fifty grants and commissions, Dr. Womack was awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts in 1997 and again in 2002, becoming the only artist in any field to be twice honored. Performances of his work include his Tennessee Crossroads by the Louisville Orchestra, Violin Concerto – In questi tempi di Conflitto, by violinist Ignace Jang and the Honolulu Symphony, Emerald Sparks by the Honolulu Symphony, On Fields of Frozen Fire by the Honolulu Symphony, Out of the Blues by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Bruner's Grove by the Symphony of the Mountains (Tennessee) and Westmoreland (Pennsylvania) Symphony, Na Iwi o Pele (The Bones of Pele) by the Red Hot Lava Chamber Players, Line Drive by Asia Ensemble, Bend by AURA-J, and O magnum mysterium by the Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble. His works can be heard on the Albany, Equilibrium, Tokyo CMC, and MMC labels, as well as on recordings produced by the University Hawai‘i. In 2006 the Honolulu Symphony premiered After, a concerto for shakuhachi, koto, and orchestra, commissioned in memoriam to the Ehime Maru tragedy. A faculty member at the University of Hawai'i since 1994, Dr. Womack presently serves as professor of composition and theory.

Takeo Kudo, composition and theory

Takeo Kudo is Professor of Music at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Composition and Theory. His post-baccalaureate study earned him an MM in Music Theory, MA in Ethnomusicology and a DMA in Composition. His preoccupation with the shakuhachi (since 1971) led to studies in Japan with the internationally-known YAMAGUCHI Goro and instrument maker YONEDA Chikamitsu. Since 1972, most of his works have embraced crosscultural influences (especially Japanese) and have been performed by college and professional orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the U.S., in Japan, Hong Kong as well as in his native Hawai’i. His earlier pieces employed gestures and musical concepts encountered in Japanese classical music, but were orchestrated solely for western instruments. Since 1986, Kudo’s output has included works for non-western instruments (shakuhachi, taiko drums, dizi) in combination with western instruments and more recently, he has written works for non-western instruments alone. Examples of this most recent trend include EAST DRIFT (shakuhachi, koto, shamisen and taiko ensemble) commissioned by the Tokyo Shakuhachi Gassodan, and CHIRU (shakuhachi and shamisen), performed in October 2006 on the concert series “The Traditional and Contemporary in the Present” in Tokyo. In February 2007, his LET FREEDOM RING! for taiko drums and orchestra was the culminating work performed at the Stanford University Pan-Asian Music Festival; in May 2008 it will be performed in Sao Paulo as part of the centennial celebration of Japanese immigration to Brazil. A new work entitled LIQUID PATHS for solo koto will be performed in Tokyo in August 2008, and a commissioned piece for Gayagum and clarinet will be premiered in Seoul in November 2008. Takeo Kudo is a member of BMI.