Friends & Enemies of New Music
Tom Cipullo Composer Tom CipulloŐs works have been heard at major concert halls on four continents, from San Francisco to Tel Aviv, from Stockholm to LaPaz. He has received commissions from the Mirror Visions Ensemble, the Joy in Singing, Sequitur, Cantori New York, tenor Paul Sperry, mezzo-soprano Mary Ann Hart, pianist Jeanne Golan, and the New York Festival of Song; and he has received awards and fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Copland House, the Oberpfaelzer Kuenstlerhaus (Bavaria), ASCAP, Meet the Composer, and the Jory Copying Program. The New York Times has called his music "haunting," and The Boston Globe remarked that his work "literally sparkled with wit." The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has called him "an expert in writing for the voice." To honor his contributions to the American art song repertoire, the Lincoln Center Library and Joy in Singing sponsored a retrospective concert of Tom CipulloŐs works at Cooper-UnionŐs Great Hall in 2000. In 2006-07, Tom Cipullo has received an Aaron Copland Award from Copland House, and the Phyllis Wattis Prize for song composition from the San Francisco Song Festival.

Mr. Cipullo recently completed his first opera, Glory Denied. The work, after the book by journalist Tom Philpott, is based on the true story of AmericaŐs longest-held prisoner of war. The piece was premiered by the Brooklyn College Opera Theater in 2007 and will have its professional premiere by the Remarkable Theater Brigade in New York in June 2008. Writing for The New York Times, Anne Midgette said of the work: "It is tonal, melting into aching lushness,Épropelled by driving Bernstein-like syncopations, with a bite to its harmonies where different versions of the same truth converge." Excerpts from Glory Denied were presented by New York City Opera at its Vox 2004 festival. In its review of that presentation, The New York Times called the piece "intriguing and unconventional," and cited the workŐs "teeming, hard-edged Neo-Romantic style."

Tom Cipullo received his MasterŐs degree in composition from Boston University and his B.S. from Hofstra University, Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors in music. He studied composition and orchestration with David Del Tredici, Elie Siegmeister, and Albert Tepper. Mr. Cipullo is a founding member of the Friends & Enemies of New Music, an organization that has presented more than 60 concerts featuring the music of over 175 different American composers.

Tom CipulloŐs song cycles A Visit with Emily and Another Reason Why I DonŐt Keep a Gun in the House are published by Oxford University Press. His works have been recorded on the Albany, CRI, PGM, and Capstone labels.

John Link John Link has composed for diverse media including orchestra, chamber and jazz ensembles, rock bands, and electroacoustic instruments. He has received commissions from the Athabasca String Trio, the New Jersey Arts Collective (for pianist Anthony de Mare), Flexible Music, the Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music (for the Ames Piano Quartet), The High Mountain Symphony, and the Composers Guild of New Jersey, and awards from the Centre Acanthes, ASCAP, and Meet the Composer. His composition Shadow Traffic was hailed by the New York Times as "an extended rhapsody, often lyrical in its horizontal movement but hard-bitten in mood and color." About his Piano Concerto, the Newark Star-Ledger wrote "Link's modernist atonal language reveled in the contrasts he could pull from his different instruments, both individually and collectively." Dr. Link is a founding member of the composers group Friends & Enemies of New Music, which presents an annual series of new music concerts in New York City and sponsors an annual composition competition. His music is recorded on the Focus Recordings, Bridge Records, and 60x60 labels.

An internationally-known scholar of the music of Elliott Carter, Dr. Link has received fellowships from the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, for his work on CarterŐs sketches. He is the author of Elliott Carter: A Guide to Research (Garland, 2000) and co-editor with Nicholas Hopkins of Elliott Carter's Harmony Book (Carl Fischer, 2002). His writings on music have appeared in journals in the United States and Italy, including Sonus and the Journal of the Society for American Music. In 2008 Link was a panelist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln CenterŐs "Elliott Carter: A Centennial Investigation," and a member of the jury to select the clarinet soloist for a performance of CarterŐs Clarinet Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez. He was a guest lecturer at the 2006 Contemporary Composers Festival in Minneapolis, and the 2002 Oliver Knussen Elliott Carter Workshop at Carnegie Hall.

John Link received a Ph.D. in music from the City University of New York, a MasterŐs degree from The Ohio State University, and B.M. and B.A. degrees from the University of Nebraska. He studied composition with David Olan, Thomas Wells, and Randall Snyder. He is currently Professor of Music at William Paterson University.

Ben Yarmolinsky Ben Yarmolinsky lives and works in New York. He has composed five operas, the latest of which is a "docu-opera" based on the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. He has written musical theater works, orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, film scores and many songs. He is also a classical guitarist and conductor.

Before graduating from Harvard in 1977, Dr. Yarmolinsky had two years of study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. From 1978 through 1982, he lived in Morocco where he taught music at the American School of Tangier and was friendly with Paul Bowles. He has studied composition with David Del Tredici, Ned Rorem and others. He is a founding member of Friends and Enemies of New Music.