Performances and Premieres: January through July 2026

2026 has been especially exciting for me as a composer for dance and film. Instead of updating my resume or this blog, once a performance is done, I usually keep moving on to the next project, without pausing to take stock. So to remedy that, here's a look back at some of the highlights of the first half of the year.

March 2026

On March 1, 2026, at the Festival of the Arts BOCA, my dramatically reimagined (and newly rerecorded) version of David Bowie's iconic song "Heroes" accompanied a new duet created and performed by the magnificent Blakeley White-McGuire and Daniel Fetecua Soto. The program was titled "From Swan Lake to the Stones" and took place before an audience of 1,200 people at Mizner Park Amphitheater. The first photo below is of Blakeley's entrance to the music. 

From the Festival of the Arts BOCA website: 

"Dance icons Melanie Hamrick, Joanna DeFelice, and Christine Shevchenko bring their exhilarating dance production back for its Festival Boca Three-pete. Featuring principal dancers from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and special guest artists Blakeley White-McGuire and Daniel Fetecua, the production includes excerpts from some of the most loved classical ballets, including Giselle, Swan Lake, Le Corsaire, and features world premieres set to the music of David Bowie and The Rolling Stones."

The work of Houston-based artist David McGee inspired this 16-minute composition, Urban Dreads / Oracles. The piece was commissioned by the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for McGee’s first major museum survey, The Griot and the Nightingale, on view from March 14 to August 23, 2026. The exhibit has been very well received and has broken all attendance records. 

Urban Dreads / Oracle is available to listen to on the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art website and on my Bandcamp page. 

May 2026

My most recent collaboration with choreographer and director Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions, Assemblage (My Mother's Eyes and My Grandfather's Nose), took place May 2, 3, 9, and 10 at 56 Bogart Street in Bushwick, NY in a special "Labatelier" installaion / environment. 

I composed and arranged nearly 90 minutes of original music and arrangements for the performances, which  featured Lucia Stavaros on harp, Samuel Gray on viola, with dancers Masumi Kishimoto (also Racoco's assistant director), Meghan Schardt-Gensberg, Fina, and Toby Billowitz. 

Photos below by Andreas Troeger

June 2026

I have been creating film scores for the award-winning multidisciplinary visual and performing artist Jil Guyon for over a decade. Working with Jil has really pushed me as a composer, recording engineer, and mixer, and challenged my preconceived notions of what constitutes "film music." Our most recent collaboration, Threshold, screened June 7, 2026 in New York City at the Abrons Art Center. Created with the support of the Foundation Obras, and shot on location at the Castle of Evoramonte in Estremoz, Portugal, Threshold is a noir-like montage, in sumptuous black and white, that simmers with underlying violence and ritualistic calm. The music I  created is similar in its extremes and features multiple overdubbed performances by Houston cellist Patrick Moore. Below is a photo of the Abrons Art Center screening. (Jil's split-screen, two-channel video Widow's End, which features my composition Nocturne #3 as its score, also screened at Abrons.)

Here's to another six months of creativity.