MARY ELLEN CHILDS IN MINNEAPOLIS/ST.PAUL, MINNESOTA & SURROUNDING AREAS
Listen: Parterre (RealAudio)

Composer Mary-Ellen Childs forges three-year partnerships with:

Mary Ellen Childs (photo: Warwick Green)

· St. Olaf College (Northfield) and its Music Department, in collaboration with the Art, Dance, Theater, and Interdisciplinary Fine Arts departments
· The Southern Theater (Minneapolis)
· Eden Prairie High School's band program (Eden Prairie)

Childs and the partnership's goals include:
· Collaborations with visual artists;
· New band and percussion works for Eden Prairie High School and St. Olaf College, to be created in lab sessions with Eden Prairie student ensembles;
· A full-evening performance by Childs' performing company CRASH at the Southern Theater;
· A series of STREET NOISE performances (public space performances) throughout the Twin Cities metropolitan area. STREET NOISE performances are short and informal, given in places where people naturally congregate-a city park, a university quad, outside a busy coffee shop, a street fair, or a farmer's market. STREET NOISE performances have a very important dual aim: they bring new work to audiences that might not otherwise attend formal performances, and they incorporate performance into daily life.
· Childs will also work with students at St. Olaf and Eden Prairie in various capacities, visiting classes, mentoring students and including them in professional performances with CRASH.

Mary Ellen Childs is known for creating both exuberant instrumental works and bold, kinetic compositions that integrate music, dance and theater in unexpected ways. Her working methods run the gamut from traditionally notated compositions to music/movement pieces taught by rote. She is equally at home in settings that range from formal concert halls to high school classrooms to street performances. Childs has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Dale Warland Singers, two commissioning grants from the Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, and a commission from the prestigious Rockefeller Multi-Arts Fund.

BARBARA KOLB IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
Listen: Extremes (RealAudio)

The New Residencies grant enables NYC-based Barbara Kolb to relocate to Providence, RI for the next 3 yrs as Composer-in-Residence. She will build on the momentum, enthusiasm and overwhelmingly supportive environment for dance, music & theater generated by a cultural renaissance throughout Rhode Island, working with:

Barbara Kolb (photo: Carlo Carnevali)

· Festival Ballet of Rhode Island
· the Rhode Island Philharmonic
· WaterFire Providence
· Capital City Community Centers

As part of the Residency, Barbara Kolb plans to:
· Compose original music for The Widow's Broom, a new ballet written by Chris Van Allsburg, a local author of children's books;
· Compose new works for the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and its Music School students;
· Design a new percussion music program for the Capital City Community Center & teach classes to its students;
· Create new music for WaterFire, a multi-media outdoor bonfire installation of 97 braziers along the Providence riverfront.

Born and educated in Connecticut, Barbara Kolb has collected numerous awards including a Fulbright Scholarship to Vienna, two Guggenheim Fellowships, an Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and seven NEA grants. She became the first American woman to win the Rome Prize in Music Composition (1969-1971). Barbara Kolb's music is characterized by interwoven, impressionistic textures and a freely atonal yet deeply expressive harmonic language. Many of her works draw upon ideas and images that have their sources in literature or the visual arts. Kolb has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, IRCAM (Paris, France), the Fromm Foundation, Koussevitzky Foundation, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She has held posts at Brooklyn College, Temple University, Eastman School of Music, and The New School in NYC. In 1986, Kolb created a music theory instruction course for the blind and physically disabled under the auspices of the Library of Congress. She was also a clarinetist in the Hartford Symphony for six years.

REBECA MAULEÓN IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Listen: Congri (RealAudio)

Rebeca Mauleón (photo: David Belove)

For her San Francisco residency, Rebeca Mauleón will work in partnership with:
· Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)
· Bessie Carmichael Elementary School (BCES)
· Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (TODCO)

Mauleón is excited by the prospect of composing new work for and with this partnership: "My vision focuses on a celebration of diversity in our community, bringing together musical and other artistic elements in a tapestry which tells the story of the Americas, from diaspora to transculturation to multi-culturalism." Mauleón's artistry and experience as composer, musician, author and educator will offer optimum opportunities to reach multiple audiences including seniors, adults, teenagers and children (Chinese-Americans; Filipino-Americans; Russian-Americans; Latino-Americans; recent immigrants; low and moderate income populations). She plans to:
· Lead music and composition workshops at BCES, TODCO and YBCA;
· Participate in public programs and educational programs for composers and musicians;
· Join YBCA's curatorial team to plan and develop the Center's multidisciplinary arts programs.

Rebeca Mauleón has been a leading force in Latin Jazz and Afro-Caribbean music for over 20 years as a composer, pianist, arranger, author and educator. She has recorded and performed with Tito Puente, Carlos Santana, Cachao López, Steve Turré, Patato Valdez, Francisco Aguabella, José Luis Quintana "Changuito," Giovanni Hidalgo, Joe Henderson, Armando Peraza, Orestes Vilató, Mickey Hart and the Planet Drum Ensemble, and the Machete Ensemble (of which she was co-musical director for nearly ten years). Mauleón has been commissioned as a composer and arranger by Tito Puente, Steve Winwood, Ray Obiedo, Oakland Youth Chorus, the San Francisco Jazz Festival and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. "Mauleón embraces her pieces much like Duke Ellington did his, using the piano as an orchestral compliment that adds chordal color, guides breaks, rips out riveting solos. . . . A phenomenally gifted artist," wrote Jesse Varela in Latin Beat (February 1998).

MIKEL ROUSE IN RUSTON & NORTH-CENTRAL LOUISIANA
Listen: Poor God (MP3)

Mikel Rouse (photo: Michael Mushalla Double M Arts & Events)

Mikel Rouse's Meet The Composer residency takes him back to the rural South. The diversity of his Louisiana New Residencies partnership will ensure that he is accessible to every age, creed, race, gender, and socio-economic segment of the 120,000 constituents. Rouse will work in partnership with:
· North Central Louisiana Arts Council
· Louisiana Tech University School of the Performing Arts
· The Lincoln Parish School District in Ruston, LA

Rouse brings many opportunities for community involvement to the residency. His projects and goals include:
· Realizing the John Cage score, Alphabet, which will be executed with local students and faculty from Louisiana Tech University. This piece will have its international premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2001. Additional performances of Alphabet are scheduled for Berlin, Dublin, Champaign, IL, Los Angeles, Berkeley and Orange County, CA.
· Engaging the rural north Louisiana community in the creation of multimedia works as a means of illustrating the nature of contemporary composing and directing. In this approach, the community will have a direct influence on the resulting new artworks. This fits with Rouse's belief that small-town Southern life has been profoundly influential on his successful work and should be celebrated.
· Collaborating with other community groups on a media work to coincide with the reopening of the Dixie Theater, a 1928 vaudeville and movie house that served as the cultural hub for the community for seventy-five years. This work will employ video documentation and stories from local residents, all formed around the musical score.
· Rouse will also build on the collaborative nature of his previous composition experience, focusing on two large-scale pieces for chorus, chamber ensemble and electronic music, to be conceived and recorded with students and faculty from Louisiana Tech University, Grambling State University and five Lincoln Parish high schools.

Mikel Rouse, born in St. Louis, Missouri, is a New York-based composer, director and performer whose works and media operas have been described as a "new art form." In March 1998 Rouse was the featured performer at the Governor's Conference on Art and Technology at the Palisades Conference Center in New York. His compositions have been performed at Lincoln Center, the New York State Theater, Alice Tully Hall and throughout the United States and Europe. His work has also been presented at major festivals including The Philharmonic Society's Eclectic Orange Festival in Costa Mesa and The Bang on a Can Festival in New York City. Mikel Rouse has been a recipient of numerous awards including a commission from the Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program for a new opera, The Rockefeller Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, and ASCAP.

MARCUS SHELBY IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA Listen: Dance of the Mission Babies (RealAudio)

Marcus Shelby (photo: Scott Chernis)

Marcus Shelby's residency, based in the Mission District of San Francisco, will effectively merge audiences and artistic affiliations by integrating various aesthetic sensibilities, economic backgrounds and socio-political perspectives into the development and production of the residency's diverse projects. This residency will also allow the Mission-based partnership to continue the progression of an already established collaborative relationship with Shelby, and present a rare opportunity to address critical issues in the neighborhood through programming that emphasizes the context of culture and the positive artistic value of social conscience. Shelby has formed partnerships with:
· Intersection for the Arts
· Youth Speaks
· Campo Santo
· Savage Jazz Dance Company in the Mission District of San Francisco and in Oakland

Marcus Shelby and the New Residencies partner organizations plan to build upon an already established history of collaboration. Through this residency, he will:
· Develop socially aware projects with large-scale jazz compositions in collaboration with multi-disciplinary artists working in the fields of literature, music education, theater, and dance;
· Create new compositions, including an extended music work entitled The Lights, which will explore the rich history of San Francisco and will be developed in collaboration with Intersection for the Arts and Savage Jazz Dance Company;
· Develop an evening-length, multi-disciplinary work with the teenagers and young adults of Youth Speaks;
· Lead workshops specifically connecting young spoken word artists with formal composition and the history and future of jazz music;
· Cultivate the development of younger composers in the Bay Area through workshops and discussions.

Composer/musician Marcus Shelby was born in Anchorage, AK, raised in Sacramento, CA, and currently resides in San Francisco. He has been playing the acoustic bass for over two decades, and has built a diverse and accomplished biography. From bandleader of Columbia Records/GRP Impulse! recording artists Black/Note, to music director and composer for theater, dance and film projects, to CEO/President of the San Francisco based independent record label NOIR Records, Shelby believes in the essential need for urban arts and the place of jazz within the urban context. He received a Charles Mingus Scholarship at Cal Arts in 1991 to study under James Newton and Charlie Haden. Shelby has recorded or performed with Joe Henderson, Pharaoh Sanders, Jon Jang, Billy Higgins, and many others. He has composed music for major Hollywood films, short independent films, and most recently, an original score for the PBS presentation of Ralph Ellison's King of the Bingo Game and the Youth Speaks documentary Poetic License. Mr. Shelby has composed five full length ballets for the Jazz Antiqua Dance and Music Company, and has been commissioned by the Robert Moses Dance Company, the Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company, and the Savage Jazz Dance Company to produce original compositions for modern dance performances. He now composes for The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, formed in August 1999.

Leadership support for NEW RESIDENCIES is provided by The Pew Charitable Trust. Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; the Heinz Endowments; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; The Aaron Copland Fund for Music; The Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation; The New York Times Company Foundation; JP Morgan Chase, the New York State Council on the Arts; Weingart Foundation; The Plum Foundation; The Virgil Thomson Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.