Book of Mountains and Seas

Huang has been lauded by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style”. His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “Dimensionalism”. His diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theatre, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multimedia, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film.

His music has been premiered and performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, National Polish Radio Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Asko / Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, and conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Marin Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, and James Conlon. His opera An American Soldier (with libretto by David Henry Hwang) received its world premiere at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2018, and was named one of the best classical music events in 2018 by The New York Times.

Huang is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music in New York, and is the Artistic Director and Conductor of Ensemble FIRE. He was selected as a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States-China Relations in 2006. Huang’s music is published by Ricordi.

Photo credit: © Max Lee

Basil Twist is a third-generation puppeteer. He is the sole American to graduate from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres, France. Twist’s showmanship was spotlighted in New York by The Jim Henson International Festival of Puppetry with his award-winning The Araneidae Show. This recognition coupled with the ground-breaking and multiple award-winning Symphonie Fantastique, Twist was revealed as a singular artist of unlimited imagination. Subsequently Twist has created over 20 original full-length works for the stage. Highlights include Petrushka, The Rite of Spring (Lincoln Center); Dogugaeshi (Barbican Centre, Paris and Charleveille-Mezieres); Behind the Lid (New York) and Arias with a Twist (Paris and Stockholm). He was set-designer and co-director for A Streetcar Named Desire (La Comédie Française).

Other operas he has directed and designed include Respighi’s La bella dormente nel bosco (Lincoln Center Festival and Spoleto Festival) and Hansel and Gretel (Houston, Atlanta and Michigan Opera). Ballet collaborations with Christopher Wheeldon include Cinderella (Dutch National Ballet and San Francisco Ballet); The Winter’s Tale (Royal Ballet) and The Nutcracker (Joffrey Ballet). His honours include Obie Award, Henry Hewes Design Award and Doris Duke Artist Award, multiple UNIMA and Bessie Awards, a Guggenheim fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship and the Rome Prize. He directs the Dream Music Puppetry Program at HERE Arts Center, New York City.

Photo credit: © Elliott Verdier

Born in Wales, Lallemant began his formal musical education as a Cathedral Chorister at Llandaff Cathedral. He was awarded a music scholarship to Monmouth School and studied piano with Richard McMahon at the Welsh College of Music and Drama. He won a choral scholarship to Robinson College, Cambridge where he read Classics and continued his piano studies with Peter Katin in London.

Subsequently Lallemant lived in Ireland for several years during which he sang in the choir of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin and worked as keyboard player with such outfits as Opera Ireland, Northern Ireland Opera, Ulster Orchestra, and RTÉ Concert Orchestra. After Ireland, Lallemant lived on a volcano in Sicily and directed the music at St George’s, Taormina before moving to London. As Director of Music at St Matthew’s, Kensington Olympia, Lallemant co-founded the Kensington Olympia Festival of Music and the Arts with Denis Moriarty. As well as organising a variety of musical events, the Festival exists as a charitable foundation to give performance experience and other assistance to young musicians. Lallemant has worked with Paul Hillier for 14 years during which he has performed and recorded a large variety of music from the earliest chant to the most recent commissions as part of Chamber Choir Ireland, Ars Nova Copenhagen, and Theatre of Voices. Currently Lallemant is the Chorus Master of Ars Nova and lives in Copenhagen.

Ars Nova Copenhagen, founded in 1979, is widely recognised as one of the world's finest vocal ensembles.

Ars Nova specialises in the interpretation of the polyphonic choral music of the renaissance and new vocal music. The ensemble is also building collaborations with creative artists in different fields such as drama, film, and ballet, as well as cultivating new modes of concert performance and innovative repertoire.

The group's performances are marked with precision and nerve with a sound that attracts attention worldwide. With an annual concert season in Copenhagen, numerous concerts in the rest of Denmark and recurring tours worldwide, the group is now more in demand than ever.  In 2015, Ars Nova completed a tour to China with more than ten concerts as a significant part of the Danish cultural campaign in China. In 2016, they co-organised The Nordic Choir Expedition presenting the leading Nordic choirs and vocal ensembles in each of the Nordic capital cities. Other recent tours include Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Holland, Finland, Scotland, England, USA, Canada and Hong Kong.

Ars Nova has recorded a large number of CDs winning numerous awards, including a Grammy for The Little Match Girl Passion with music by David Lang (Harmonia Mundi). Among the most recent records are Gallos y Huesos with music by Pablo Ortiz, a contemporary Argentinian composer (Orchid Classics), First Drop and Crossing Borders featuring music by Danish composers.

For many years, German composer Heinrich Schütz has occupied an important place in  Ars Nova’s repertoire. From 2008 to 2011, the group recorded his complete works for Easter and Christmas and received enthusiastic reviews from the international music press. In 2014, Ars Nova was invited to be artist in residence at the Heinrich Schütz Musikfest in Dresden, Germany.

Other notable recent releases are Creator Spiritus with music by Arvo Pärt (Harmonia Mundi) and The Golden Age of Danish Part Songs (Dacapo Records) featuring a line-up of top Danish vocal composers from the past 200 years.

Photo credit: © Nikolai Østergård

Ayumu “Poe” Saegusa started stage lighting design in 2000 in Tokyo. He moved to New York in 2005 and became the resident lighting designer at HERE Arts Center. He also works as a freelance lighting designer for various types of shows, from New York Fringe Festival to Lincoln Center Festival. He is a good collaborator for multimedia opera and all sorts of puppet shows. His credits include Looking At You (HERE Main stage, New York, 2019) by Kristin Martin, and Rite of Spring (White Light Festival at Lincoln Center, New York, 2014) by Basil Twist. He has been serving as Lighting Designer to Twist since 2008.

Schapira is a co-founder of Eat Drink Tell Your Friends Puppetry Collective. She has worked with Basil Twist, Welcome to Campfire, Ripe Time, The Story Pirates, New Georges,  Opera Slavica, and Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew. She is a teaching artist with Red Hook Art Project,  a 2019 Jim Henson Foundation Grant recipient, and a member of a Monster Trux collective.

Breuer’s Broadway credits include: War Horse at Lincoln Center, The Pee Wee Herman Show at The Stephen Sondheim Theater and The Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Breuer has performed regionally at The La Jolla Playhouse, The New Victory Theater, The David Geffen Hall, The Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park at The Delacorte Theater, and many others. Internationally he has toured as a performer or director to Russia, Brazil, Korea, China, Ireland, among others. Festivals include Spoleto, Edinburgh and Lincoln Center. He is a longtime collaborator with Basil Twist. Most recently he worked on Twist’s production of Hansel and Gretel at Michigan Opera. When Breuer is not in puppet land, he works as a screenwriter.

A puppeteer and theatrical technician. He has worked extensively as an audio / video engineer, and freelance technical director for several Off-Broadway productions. In addition to his technical work, Elling has worked as puppeteer in Basil Twist’s Rite of Spring at Lincoln Center and Symphonie Fantastique at HERE Arts Center.

A performer and puppet maker from Sheffield, UK. Elling trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama puppetry programme, then worked as a fabricator for Nick Barnes Studios before moving to New York in 2015. Elling has worked at Tandem Otter Productions ever since.

A Philadelphia-based multimedia artist and puppeteer. Since 2016, she has toured with Australiabased Snuff Puppets and Director Steffi Oberhoff, performing in the UK and Germany and most recently at the Basel International Figure Theatre Festival. Her work has been seen at The Tank, La Mama, Dixon Place, Coney Island Sideshows, Puppet Showplace Theatre, The Wassaic Project and in internet chatrooms. 

A multidisciplinary artist with a focus on puppetry, poetry, and performance arts. Introduced to puppetry through Basil Twist’s Rite of Spring, Winkfield has found ways to include puppetry in every art form they encounter, including Only Child Aerial Theatre’s immersive aerial experience Two Fold. Winkfield has also puppeteered in Rachael Shane’s The Paper Piece, Mabou Mines’ China tour of Animal Magnetism, and Torry Bend’s The Paper Hat Game and Dreaming.

A percussionist and sound artist who uses sound-making as a medium to question and redefine the relationship between audience and performer. Constantly in pursuit of new possibilities in the performing arts culture, Yu is interested in curating cross-disciplinary collaborations and performances that weave spaces and people together. Based in Hong Kong, Yu is the Artistic Director of Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong, the Co-Founder of the chamber percussion group The Up:Strike Project, and an Associate Musician of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. She is also an instrumental instructor at the University of Hong Kong and part-time lecturer at the School of Theatre & Entertainment Arts, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts .

Photo credit: ©️ Darwin Ng

A top prize winner in numerous prestigious competitions, Chan’s diverse performing experiences have taken him to celebrated concert halls in multiple continents. His past highlights include appearances as soloist with the Houston Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, as orchestral musician with the Malaysian, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Hong Kong Sinfonietta, and in summers at the Lucerne, Verbier, Tanglewood and Pacific Music Festivals. He toured around Europe as the co-principal with the World Percussion Group, and has collaborated with such acclaimed artists as Lawrence Lesser, Angelo Yu, Orli Shaham and Aiyun Huang. He has also premiered works by Esa-Pekka Salonen, George Lewis, Ken Ueno and Tan Dun. Chan studied at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, New England Conservatory and obtained his Artist Diploma from the Colburn School and Master of Music from The Juilliard School.

Photo credit: ©️ Lee Tsz Wah