Conducting & Directing Fellows
NANOWorks is happy to announce that we are expanding our 2019 workshop to include conducting and directing fellows. If you are a conductor or stage director interested in new music and chamber operas, we encourage you to apply for upcoming festivals. Our next call for applications will begin in fall 2019
Our May 2019 workshop will feature the following fellows:
Directing Fellow
Minka Wiltz has been a professional actor and Member of Actors Equity Association for well over a decade and singing for 31 years. She began studying classical vocal music with the Young Singers of Callanwolde (YSC) from the ages of 6 to 14 years old. It was with the YSC that she was afforded the opportunity to sing on the stage of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Grammy Award winning, Kennedy Award Winning conductor Robert Shaw and perform throughout London, England and Edinburgh, Scotland. After completing her studies with the Young Singers, Minka continued to study voice privately with Sandra Crawford and then Betty Colson, singing with the chamber chorus of the Westminster Schools. After graduating high school Minka opted to pursue a professional career in the theater which brought her to New York where she studied at he esteemed Negro Ensemble Company and then Atlanta GA where she wrote, co-produced, and starred in her first piece Three Weird Sisters which she wrote, co produced, and performed in at the 14th Street Playhouse [now SCAD Show Theater]. She went on to become a three time Suzi Bass Award Nominee and a highly respected actor in the Atlanta Theater community where she has worked with The Alliance Theater, The Horizon Theater, The Actors Express, Synchronicity Theater, The Atlanta Opera, and Working Title Playwrights. Her first one woman show, Shaking The Wind, was produced by Out Of Hand Theater in 2018-2019 in their Living Room Series where it has been performed in over 30 homes. The show was extended from a 3 month run to a 6 month run in order to accommodate the request for more performances. Wiltz has won the 2019 Community Impact Artists Creativity & Arts Award, and the 2017 Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Female Lead in a Musical.
Conducting Fellow
Alan Buxbaum currently serves as the Assistant Conductor for the New York Youth Symphony. He was one of six participants chosen to conduct the Tonhalle Orchester-Zürich during David Zinman’s 10th International Masterclass and has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Mr. Buxbaum has served as Cover Conductor for the St. Louis Symphony and has served as Assistant Conductor for the Spoleto Festival USA, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (PSO), the Peabody Youth Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra. He was also a Conducting Fellow at the 2018 Aspen Music Festival and School and studied under Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff, Jane Glover, and others. During his tenure with the PSO, Mr. Buxbaum covered concerts for both Marin Alsop and Leon Fleisher. In addition to the mainstream repertoire, Mr. Buxbaum is an avid contemporary music proponent. In October of 2016, he organized and led a concert featuring Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto and several Peabody composers’ works. He is also the youngest conductor to have performed Georg Haas’s in vain, which was featured on Peabody’s contemporary music series Now Hear This under the mentorship of the composer.
Mr. Buxbaum graduated in 2017 with an MM in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory under Marin Alsop and Markand Thakar. He also holds a double-degree in Percussion Performance and Composition from Montclair State University, along with a minor in Microtonality and Harry Partch Studies under the tutelage of the late Dean Drummond. He is a native of Hillsdale, NJ and is a practitioner of Ashtanga yoga.
Apprentice Conductor
Sunny Xuecong Xia is a recent semifinalist in the 2019 National Radio Television of Albania Conducting Competition (Tirana, Albania). Xia currently serves as assistant conductor at the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra and Opera Theater while pursuing a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting and Violin Performance under the guidance of Carl Topilow and Jan Sloman, and has assisted Maestro Harry Davidson in several CIM productions. As a passionate advocate for contemporary music, Xia works regularly with composers and has led the CIM New Music Ensemble in music series such as the Cleveland NEOSonicFest and CIM New Music Series. In the summer of 2018, Xia was named the Kurt & Torj Wray Conducting Scholar at the Pierre Monteux Music Festival where she studied under Maestro Michael Jinbo. Xia has been mentored by a number of prominent conductors from around the globe, including JoAnn Falleta, Jørgen Fuglebæk, Romolo Gessi, Kenneth Kiesler, Ludovic Morlot, Robert Spano and Thomas Wilkins.