WoCo Fest 2023 Awaken: Opening Concert

Alma Ensemble

The Alma Ensemble was founded by flutist Sarah Wardle Jones, clarinetist Michelle Smith Johnson, and pianist Erica Sipes.  It was birthed from a desire of the founding members to create music in a way that is empowering and personally resonant. We place a high priority on playing music by women and underrepresented composers, educating our audiences by creating context for the pieces we select, and challenging traditional performance paradigms that inhibit, rather than enhance, our ability to communicate and connect with an audience.  In fact, we chose the name “Alma” because it speaks to our mission on several levels. Because we want to do our part in promoting the artistic work of women, we chose Alma Mahler as our namesake precisely because she could have used the social support that we ourselves, by comparison, enjoy.  She is most famous for her relationships with prominent artistic men, but she was a composer in her own right who never received the opportunities of her romantic counterparts.  “Alma” also means “nourishment” or “soul” which is something that we endeavor to bring to each performance for ourselves and our audiences. 

More information about Alma Ensemble's scope of work, performances, and projects can be found at almaensemble.org. 

Arco Belo

ARCO BELO is a group of high-energy improvisers dedicated to redefining the concert form. Drawing its name from the words bow and bellow, the GenreFluid ensemble captures an irreverent sound melding reeds, strings, and percussive timbres. Led by pianist, accordionist, and composer Simone Baron, their adventurous compositions reimagine a sound at the junction of avant-garde chamber music, creative jazz, Brazilian music, and Jewish diasporic music. Together, they skip effortlessly from long-form Neo-baroque string counterpoint to sludgy hip-hop pads. Post-romantic cadenzas collide in moments of spontaneous noise with reedy prepared piano; guttural bow noises and cascading plectrum bring color to plush hypnotic grooves and sharply angled linear phrases. 

Since 2016, the ensemble has performed for audiences across the US, including at the Kennedy Center, Strathmore, and Brevard Music Center. Arco Belo has toured the West Coast and Southeast to critical acclaim, and won grants from South Arts / Jazz Roads, the Maryland State Arts Council and Chamber Music America’s inaugural Performance Plus grant, working with internationally acclaimed bassist and composer Linda May Han Oh. Their debut album, The Space Between Disguises was released in November 2019 and lauded as editor’s pick in both Downbeat and JazzTimes magazines. In 2023 they will release their long-awaited second album, featuring collaborations with bassist Petros Klampanis, violinist Sara Caswell, percussionists Keita Ogawa and John Hadfield, and Christylez Bacon. 

Simone Baron

Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms. Educated at Oberlin and Tel Aviv University and joyfully de-educated at festivals and performances across Europe and the Americas, Simone has won grants, fellowships and residencies from Chamber Music America, South Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Bloedel Reserve, Instituto Sacatar, the Hambidge Center, iPark, Strathmore Foundation, ArtOMI, UMD, Avaloch Farm, the Banff Centre, and Spectrum Toronto. In 2016 Simone founded Arco Belo, a GenreFluid chamber ensemble. Simone is a Victoria Artist and plays a Poeta XB Accordion. 

Christylez Bacon

Christylez Bacon (pronounced: chris-styles) is a Grammy Nominated Progressive Hip-Hop artist and multi-instrumentalist from Southeast, Washington, DC. As a performer, Christylez multi-tasks between various instruments such as the West African djembe drum, acoustic guitar, and the human beat-box (oral percussion), all while continuing the oral tradition of storytelling through his lyrics. 

With a mission towards cultural acceptance and unification through music, Christylez is constantly pushing the envelope – from performances at the National Cathedral, to becoming the first Hip-Hop artist to be featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, composing and performing with the National Symphony Orchestra and Princeton Symphony Orchestra on multiple occasions, collaborating with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and creating an intentional culture exchange project and subsequent documentary between Washington, DC and Brasilía, Brazil. 

In Washington, DC, Christylez began a cross-cultural collaborative concert series, “Washington Sound Museum” (WSM). WSM is a monthly intimate celebration of music featuring guest artists from diverse musical genres with Christylez Bacon and his progressive hip-hop orchestra. Since WSM’s inception, Christylez has collaborated with artists from various cultural backgrounds, ranging from the Hindustani & Carnatic music of India, the contemporary Arabic music of Egypt, and the music of Brazil. At the beginning for the pandemic, Christylez saw this socially-distant period as an opportunity to bring international artists and audiences together in an online video series titled, Beatbox Remix Series, which can be seen on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook Watch.  

Amy McCabe

Whether playing suspended in midair on the Broadway stage or soloing in Symphony Hall in Chicago, Amy McCabe has performed in a variety of capacities. She has made numerous solo appearances including at the International Trumpet Guild, National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, and universities nationwide. Amy is also a member of The “President’s Own” United States Marine Band, and has completed two national concert tours as a soloist in addition to her duties at the White House. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, Brass Band of Battle Creek, Barclay Brass, and Seraph Brass. In addition, Amy was the “Loss” soloist in the first National touring cast of the Tony and Emmy-award winning show, “Blast!” in addition to touring with pop artist Michael Bolton. She holds a degree in elementary education from Illinois Wesleyan University and a performance degree from Northwestern University. Amy loves collaborating with Boulanger Initiative because it has inspired her to discover, expand and share repertoire written by women with the larger brass community, and has given her elderly Plott Hound, Justice, new music to sing along with. 

Bryan Young

Bryan tours the US and internationally as bassoonist and co-founder of the Poulenc Trio, and has served on the faculty at Morgan State University. He founded Intertwine Systems, a healthcare focused software company. As a technologist, Bryan worked with the State of Maryland in collaboration with the University of Maryland and the Alvin Toffler Institute to develop iPad-based software for cardiologists, and with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in conjunction with the government of Trinidad and Tobago to develop new research tools for endocrinologists. Bryan served as chief technologist at JobJybe, an Austin-based startup focused on business communications, and as Director of Connected Healthcare Solutions for Asymmetrik, a Maryland-based software company. Currently, Bryan is Leader of the Health Data Analytics and Visualization Group at MITRE, the United States’ Federally-Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for Health. 

Bryan is president of the board of the Candlelight Concert Society, and he serves on the boards of Chamber Music America and Boulanger Initiative.