John McLaughlin Williams
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Heather Jones
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Chef Michael Adé Elégbèdé
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Grace Needlman
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Jessica McJunkins
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Thomas Cunningham
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Thomas Cunningham is artistic director of Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra. Founded in 2014, this orchestra for the 21st century is malleable in size, genre and venue and collaborates anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Mr. Cunningham made his New York debut conducting Iolanta for Opera Slavica in 2012. He is on the conducting staff of the Youth Orchestra of Bucks County in Bucks County, PA and Voices of Ascension in New York, NY. He works regularly with The Princeton Festival, Opera Slavica and The CoOPERAtive program.
A conductor of distinctly broad repertory, recent engagements have included the concertos of Bach, Dvorak and Berg, orchestrating Addi & Jacq's award-winning songs, and commissioning numerous young composers. Passionate about the American repertory, Mr. Cunningham believes deeply in the underperformed compositions of African American composers, especially William Grant Still and George Walker. He is currently creating a symphonic suite of William Grant Still’s grand opera Troubled Island. Mr. Cunningham counts Tito Muñoz, Kynan Johns, Kenneth Kiesler and Dennis Keene amongst his teachers and mentors. He is a graduate of Westminster Choir College. For more information, visit www.ThomasCunningham.us |
Rebecca Smithorn
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