Composer Commissions
We actively commission the works from women, non-binary persons,people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. Take a look at some of the composers we’ve COMMISSIONED works from
Monica Re Martin
Monica Re Martin is a New York City based violinist, violist and arranger. She performs regularly with several orchestras around the country, including the New York City Ballet, Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, New York City Opera, Philharmonia Orchestra of New York, and the Orchestral Arts Ensemble of Queens. Ms. Martin is an avid lover of musicals, and plays in the pit orchestra for Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. She has also had the honor to share the stage with many versatile musicians such as Andrea Bocelli, Danny Elfman, Kygo, and Thorgy Thor to name a few. Recently, Ms. Martin has recorded and been featured on albums with Gabriel Garzon-Montano and Victor Gould. Besides being an active performer, she is also a passionate teaching artist, and has worked with hundreds of string players of all ages for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, where she was also the Assistant Head of Music for many years. It has been an honor and a privilege for Lotus Chamber Music Collective and its founder, Sasha Ono, to ask Ms. Martin to arrange a few of tonight’s selections for their quartet. She holds a B.M. in Violin Performance from the Aaron Copland School of Music at CUNY Queens College studying with Daniel Phillips and Carmit Zori.
2017-18 Composer in Residence: Kaitlyn Raitz
New York native Kaitlyn Raitz grew up surrounded by an array of musical genres, finding each one more exciting than the next. These passions have led her to a career as a versatile cellist who is equally at home playing Schubert or Sondheim, sitting in on a bluegrass jam or reading a Beethoven string quartet, and performing on stage at New York's Carnegie Hall or Nashville's Station Inn.
Kaitlyn has worked with artists Frank London of the Klezmatics, tabla player Shawn Mativetsky, as well as numerous folk and jazz artists. Kaitlyn has been invited to join cellist Matt Haimovitz’s innovative, GRAMMY-nominated cello ensemble Uccello and has performed with them at Carnegie Hall and Berkeley's Cal Performances. Her former folk duo, Bride & Groom, toured Canada and America playing numerous venues and festivals including NXNE, Canadian Music Week, and In The Dead of Winter Music Festival. She is currently touring with Montreal based band The Bombadils with whom she has played Americanafest, Wintergrass Music Festival, Mariposa Music Festival, and the Listening Room Festival. Most recently, she began playing with fiddler Ben Plotnick. The duo, Oliver The Crow, plans to release their first full length record in 2018.
As an educator, Kaitlyn believes in the value of exposing her students to a wide range of genres and ways of learning. From 2008 to 2016, Kaitlyn directed the Southampton String Festival (Long Island, New York), a music camp for children that integrated classical training, improvisation, creativity, and musical discovery into one program. She has maintained a private teaching studio since 2008 and has taught non-classical string workshops with Ben Plotnick across North America.
Kaitlyn is one of the co-founders of Folk Fights Back, an organization that puts together concerts that benefit local non-profits.
Jocelyn Gould
Jocelyn Gould is a jazz guitarist based in New York City and Toronto. She cites Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass as primary influences of the instrument.
Jocelyn maintains an active performance career in the U.S. and Canada. She has performed at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, the Detroit Jazz Festival and the TD Toronto Jazz Festival. She has performed internationally with Grammy nominated vocalist Freddy Cole, Trumpeter Etienne Charles and DownBeat Rising Star trombonist Michael Dease. She currently holds the guitar chair of The Gathering Orchestra, a big band based in Detroit under the directorship of bassist Rodney Whitaker. She is featured on saxophonist Diego Rivera’s album “Connections”, and recently recorded with Michael Dease and acclaimed guitarist Randy Napoleon for their upcoming albums.
Jocelyn is passionate as an educator and in August 2019 began a professorship at Humber College in Toronto as Professor of Guitar. She is recording her debut album as a leader in September 2019 on Positone Records. In August, 2018, Jocelyn won 1st place in the Wilson International Jazz Guitar Competition.
Julia Chen
As a shy bespectacled child, Julia Chen learned to rely on music to express her personality and connect with others in ways she couldn’t with words. Raised in Brooklyn by parents from Poland and China, she grew up learning music by ear before getting her Bachelors in Jazz Piano Performance and a Bachelors in Psychology from the Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio. Her previous teachers include Marco Benevento, Roberta Piket, Billy Hart and Dan Wall. She now leads her own quartet, which performs her original compositions regularly in New York City venues such as Rockwood, the Bitter End, Nublu, and Kitano. Her music has been described* as “if Jazz ate a full plate of Baroque Classical music sprinkled with Brazilian Choros and a bit of R&B and then washed it down with some Pop.” Her first EP, “Silver Spoons,” was released in October of 2018 and is named after one of the many beautiful houseplants that fills Julia’s apartment.