New York City-based, JUNO-nominated composer Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis (b. 1982) hails from Montreal, Canada. "Dreamy yet rhythmic" (NY Times), with a “terrible luminosity” and “ferociously expressive” (Times Colonist), his concert music is “an amalgamation of the classical music tradition and the soul and grime of heavy metal” (I Care If You Listen). With an intimate background in progressive metal and traditional Greek music, Stafylakis has developed a unique conception of musical temporality and rhythm, infusing his compositions with a propulsive vitality that “favors doomsday chords and jackhammer rhythms” (The New Yorker).

Since 2016, Stafylakis is the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's Composer-In-Residence and Co-Curator of the WSO's Winnipeg New Music Festival. His works have been performed by orchestras including the Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa, Regina, Québec, Victoria, PEI, Spokane, Stamford, Longueuil, FSU, and Greek Youth Symphony Orchestras, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestre Classique de Montréal, and Israel Chamber Orchestra. 

He has collaborated with artists and ensembles including Animals As Leaders, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Roomful of Teeth, JACK Quartet, Bent Knee, Decoda Ensemble, ShoutHouse, Raphael Weinroth-Browne, Contemporaneous, Vicky Chow, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Alexandre Da Costa, and Philippe Sly, among others. 

His works have been featured at venues and festivals around the world, including Carnegie Hall and the NY Philharmonic Biennial. In 2018–19 he collaborated with progressive metal pioneers Animals As Leaders on the symphonic adaptation of their music for metal band & orchestra, and in 2020–21 collaborated with Courtney Swain and members of Bent Knee and ShoutHouse on the prog metal & chamber music fusion dontwaitforme. Hard Rubber Orchestra’s 2022 album Iguana earned Stafylakis a JUNO nomination for his metal–big band fusion composition Source Code, featuring the composer on guitars.

Recent recordings featuring his music include albums by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Naxos), Jenny Lin (Sono Luminus), the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo (Analekta), Patrick Kearney (Contrastes), and the Hard Rubber Orchestra (Redshift).

His music has been recognized with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Leonard Bernstein Award, SOCAN’s Classical Composer of the Year Award, four SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, FACTOR, SSHRC, and New Music USA. He serves on the board of directors of GroundSwell (Winnipeg), is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and a founding member of the NYC composer collective ICEBERG New Music.

Stafylakis holds degrees from McGill University and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He lectures at the City College of New York (CUNY) and Purchase College Conservatory of Music (SUNY), and is a guest lecturer at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. His research examines the conception of rhythm and meter in progressive metal.

www.hstafylakis.com


current as of Apr. 9, 2023

Minnesota-based soprano Liz Pearse has an affinity for music of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as a long-standing love of the music of earlier periods, from medieval to Mozart. Check out her website for more information and more recent recordings!

“In equal measures intelligent, playful, ambitious and moving” (New York Times)—Resonant Bodies presents festivals of contemporary vocal music around the world. The Festival showcases "today’s most talented singers... seamlessly blend[ing] classical, avant-garde and indie-folk” (Feast of Music). Vocalists are invited to curate and perform in their own set, with no restrictions on repertoire, format, or style. This freedom gives each show a "happy zealousness, where the singers’ enthusiasm for their repertoire [is] contagious” (Sequenza 21).

Founded in 2013 and having "already made a valuable contribution to the city’s music scene” (New York Times), the Resonant Bodies Festival is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to hear virtuosic contemporary music vocalists perform cutting-edge repertoire. Thus far the festival has presented in NYC, Chicago, Melbourne, Sydney, and at Banff Centre (Canada) with future festivals in Los Angeles and beyond.

Our Mission

Resonant Bodies Festival supports the growth and evolution of contemporary vocal music and vocal artists. Our goals are to: 

Produce festivals of the highest caliber that are thrilling to artists and audience
Catalyze the creation of new vocal music 
Expand the audience for contemporary vocal music
Challenge and transform the role of the vocal recitalist
Bring together a global network of contemporary vocalists
Create and archive media resources to better connect contemporary vocal music audiences, performers, and composers.

Inés Thiebaut (1979) was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. She is currently an Associate Professor in Music at California State University, East Bay. She holds a Ph.D in Composition from the CUNY Graduate Center (New York). 
 
Her music has been performed by multiple ensembles in the United States, and internationally in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico. For more information on her music and her projects, you can visit her website: inesthiebaut.com

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