Equal Billing Project

EQUAL BILLING PROJECT


MISSION

The Jackson Symphony Orchestra’s “Equal Billing Project” aims to record and support the music of a deceased composer that wasn’t equally billed or recognized during their lifetime. The project supports costs associated with recording, research, music publication and travel.


ADVISORY BOARD

MATTHEW AUBIN

A sought-after leader in today’s orchestral landscape, Dr. Matthew Aubin cultivates musical excellence through an innovative, community-minded, and inclusive approach.

Dr. Aubin currently serves as Music Director of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and Artistic Director of The Chelsea Symphony. In his role at TCS, he has led highly visible collaborations with partners such as actor John Lithgow, award-winning television series Mozart in the Jungle, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Dr. Aubin has played a principal role in the initiation and development of The Chelsea Symphony’s annual competition for emerging composers with high profile adjudicators such as Conductor Laureate of the Seattle Symphony and music director of the All-Star Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz. Dr. Aubin has led TCS in their Lincoln Center debut and conducted the New York City premieres of works by Mark O’Connor, Fazil Say and Caroline Shaw, among others.

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As a consultant for the Amazon Prime series Mozart in the Jungle created by Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, Dr. Aubin was the off-camera conductor for an episode filmed on Rikers Island. Since then, Dr. Aubin has continued a relationship with the NYC Department of Correction, designing and conducting a series of concerts and education initiatives for detainees, both in person and online. He also served as the onstage conductor for the film Bel Canto with Julianne Moore and has been an artistic consultant for the hit television show Younger.

In his role as Music Director of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Aubin has transformed the orchestra’s visibility, both in the community and on a national scale. He has collaborated with world-renowned soloists such as pianist Pascal Rogé, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, cellist and composer Jeremy Crosmer, cellist Julian Schwarz, and composer Lowell Liebermann. During Dr. Aubin’s time as Music Director, the JSO’s season has expanded, and the organization is now regularly reaching audiences of all ages through expanded family concerts, education concerts, and the JSO’s Music on Tap series geared towards young adults. During the 2020 pandemic, he launched a series of digital initiatives, most notably the Random Acts of Music series. In 2022, he launched the Equal Billing Project, which records and supports the music of deceased composers who didn’t receive recognition or equal billing during their lifetime. Under Dr. Aubin’s leadership, the JSO also released a series of asynchronous, multimedia educational videos to be used in K-12 classrooms. These videos were based on the 2021 season’s virtual programming and explored musical concepts.

Dr. Aubin is the foremost scholar on the French composer Fernande Decruck. He has earned multiple research grants to study her significant life and work. In 2022, he was invited to be a panelist at the Fernande Decruck International Competition for Saxophone in France. A champion of the critical role of women in composition, Dr. Aubin is working to promote Decruck’s newly discovered lost music. He has edited and created critical editions of her work, which are published with the French publishing firm Éditions Billaudot, and has organized performances of Decruck’s music in the United States and abroad. To date, he has created two large-scale recordings alongside the Jackson Symphony Orchestra of Decruck’s orchestral works, with the first being released in 2022, and the second anticipated to be released in 2024. The first of their kind, these recordings are aimed at giving orchestras further access and insight into her brilliant work.

Dr. Aubin continues to be active as a freelance horn player, and regularly performs across the country. A devoted music educator, Dr. Aubin’s past associations include Assistant Professor of Music at Washington State University, Adjunct faculty at The Hartt School and Educational Programs Conductor for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

ADAM MILLSTEIN

Adam Millstein is a violinist who is developing a multifaceted career as a performer, lecturer, and music curator. He is currently pursuing his Artist Diploma at the Colburn School in Los Angeles under the renowned pedagogue, Robert Lipsett. He holds his Masters Degree from Colburn and his Bachelor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Danielle Belen.

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Millstein is the Program Manager of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at the Colburn School. The purpose of this initiative is to promote and perform music by composers whose lives and works were suppressed as a result of Nazi policies from 1933-1945. Adam spearheaded the Initiative’s Schulhoff and More! Project: a unique online series focused on the life and music of Recovered Voices composer Erwin Schulhoff. He curated, performed, and organized filmed recordings of Schulhoff’s music. The critically acclaimed album Shapeshifter: Music of Erwin Schulhoff on the Delos Label was made from these recordings.

Millstein has had the great honor to work extensively with internationally renowned conductor Maestro James Conlon, Music Director of the LA Opera and the Artistic Director of Recovered Voices. Adam curated, performed, and produced a filmed online concert for the Library of Congress that featured musicians from the Colburn School and Recovered Voices composers. This concert included music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mieczysław Weinberg, Franz Schreker, and a world premier by Herbert Zipper. Adam has collaborated with pianist Dominic Cheli and cellist Clive Greensmith in performances and a recording of Mieczysław Weinberg’s Piano Trio. Millstein is a passionate advocate for educating performers and audiences about Recovered Voices. He has performed lecture recitals across the United States and abroad, notably at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, Colburn School, and Accademia Musicale Chigiana. He has been invited to guest lecture at Arizona State University on the subject of Herbert Zipper, a Holocaust survivor, conductor, composer, and ideological forefather of the Colburn School, whose archive Millstein has used as a source of inspiration, curation, and educational programming.

As an orchestral musician, Millstein has already played with some of the country’s greatest orchestras. He acted as guest associate concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony and guest assistant concertmaster of the Louisville Orchestra. He has played as a substitute in the Los Angeles Opera and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He has acted as concertmaster of the Sequoia Symphony and Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra where he received an Orchestral Leadership Fellowship for two summers.

Adam has also collaborated extensively with violinist Sarah Chang on tours of the United States and China as a member of an elite string quintet accompanying Ms. Chang.

As soloist, Millstein has appeared with the Sequoia Symphony with Maestro Bruce Kiesling and on two tours of Bulgaria with Maestro Maxim Eshkenazy.

Adam has participated in the Mainly Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, and performed at the La Jolla Music Series.

ASHLEY JACKSON

Praised for her “soulful” and “eloquent” playing (Musical America), harpist Ashley Jackson enjoys a multifaceted career as a highly sought-after musician and collaborator in New York and beyond. As a harpist, she has performed at Lincoln Center, Big Ears Festival, Celebrate Brooklyn! and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Louisiana Philharmonic, and is a regular member of the Harlem Chamber Players. In Ashley’s debut album, Ennanga (June 2023, Bright Shiny Things), she explores the musical and spiritual connections between various forms of American musical expression.

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Through the works of notable Black composers who have redefined musical landscapes, the album celebrates the centrality of the African American spiritual to the history of American music. Ennanga features The Harlem Chamber Players and Ashley’s harp transcriptions of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Alice Coltrane, as well as original compositions by William Grant Still and Brandee Younger.

She is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Music Department at Hunter College. Ashley holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School, a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University.

HÉLOÏSE LUZZATI

A committed personality, the French cellist Héloïse Luzzati has been involved for several years in the discovery and recognition of women’s musical heritage. In 2020 she founded Elles women composers, an association whose mission is to compensate for the absence of women in today’s musical programming. The project is based on the research of manuscripts and scores that are the subject of daily readings. To carry out the mission of dissemination and expansion of the corpus of known works of women composers of the association Elles – Women composers, Héloïse Luzzati to develop a field of action at 360 °. In particular with the creation of the Festival Un Temps pour Elles. Located in the Val d’Oise, the festival will take place in the great heritage sites of the territory: Abbayes de Maubuisson and Royaumont, Château de le Roche-Guyon, Domaine de Villarceaux… But also in Paris in March 2022 with a concert at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.

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Since the launch in 2020 of the video channel La Boîte à pépites, Héloïse Luzzati has been the artistic director of about a hundred videos of which she is also the author. In a wide variety of forms, the channel offers animated documentaries, a digital advent calendar, and video recordings.

In 2022, the system was expanded with an eponymous record label whose purpose is to publish monographs of women composers.

The first monograph of the label, a triple disc dedicated to the composer Charlotte Sohy, was released at the end of April 2022 in France and continues its development abroad, notably in England and the United States. In just a few months, the label’s success has been dazzling, hailed by the press, this first recording has already been listened to more than a million times on streaming platforms.

With Elles-women composers, Héloïse Luzzati collaborates with numerous cultural structures such as the Orchestre National Avignon Provence, the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, the Abbaye de Royaumont, the Abbaye de Maubuisson or the Palazzeto BruZane and hopes to disseminate as widely as possible the research work and readings of the collective.

Passionate about chamber music, Héloïse Luzzati graduated from the CNSMDP in the class of Roland Pidoux and Xavier Phillips. During her studies, she also benefited from the advice of Philippe Muller, Marc Coppey, Hatto Beyerle, Alain Planès and members of the Ysaÿe Quartet. She has performed with such artists as Xavier Phillips, Célia Oneto Bensaid, David Kadouch, Dana Cioccarlie, Marie-Josèphe Jude, Léa Hennino, Alexandre Pascal, Elsa Dreisig…

ANNA EDWARDS

Conductor ANNA EDWARDS’ musical career progression as a violinist, educator, and symphony conductor has inspired her mission to encourage and promote musical diversity at the highest level from professional, educational, and collaborative music organizations across the country. She is a passionate advocate of music from underrepresented composers on the concert stage. Currently, Edwards balances her time between conducting in the Pacific Northwest, serving as a guest conductor/clinician across the country, and developing young musicians through instruction and collaboration with professionals in concert settings. The 2022-23 season marks the tenth season for Edwards as Music Director of the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, eighth season as Music Director of the Saratoga Orchestra, fifth season as Music Director of the Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute, and third season as team member of Everything Conducting.

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As a recognized leader for the promotion of musical diversity in symphonic orchestral music, Dave Beck, of Seattle Classical KING FM wrote, “The Seattle Collaborative Orchestra under Dr. Anna Edwards’ excellent musicianship, inspired vision, and creative leadership, is doing everything a modern orchestra should be doing to insure the future of the art of symphonic music. The spirit of collaboration among these professional, gifted amateur and excellent student musicians fosters innovation, diversity, and new possibilities in the life of the 21st century symphony orchestra. SCO is showing the way forward like no other orchestra in our region.”

Along with her passion for diversity on the concert stage, in 2022 Edwards launched Anna’s Composer Database; a curated list of underrepresented composers that provides ideas for excellent, well-rounded, and interesting concert programs. Edwards continues to follow her commitment to program innovative music, which balances traditional classical music with music by women, underrepresented composers, and Northwest artists. Commissioned premieres include works by Joe Jaxson, Sarah Bassingthwaighte, Leanna Primiani, Julian Garvue, Brendan McMullen, Andy Clausen, David Lien, Tim Huling, Angelique Poteat, and Victoria Bond. Anna additionally offers lectures concerning music, gender, and leadership to up-and-coming musicians and community leaders in public schools, community businesses, Colleges, and Universities.

Edwards’ dedication to quality musical performance started with her early career as a professional violinist, performing with prestigious ensembles such as the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Northwest Sinfonietta, Auburn Symphony, and multiple Seattle area chamber ensembles. As she has turned her career towards conducting, Edwards has attended numerous festivals and workshops, with mentors such as Ludovic Morlot, Michael Jinbo, Diane Wittry, Neil Thomson, and Gustav Meier. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Washington, and holds a Bachelor of Music Education and Masters in Violin Performance.

In 2013, 2014, and 2018, Edwards received 2 nd and then two – 1st place honors (respectively) for conducting in The American Prize, a national competition for conductors and musical ensembles. Seattle Collaborative Orchestra received two – 2nd place and then 1 st place honors for The American Prize orchestra performance division. In SCO’s performance of Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra, American Prize described Edwards’ conducting as “strong and committed” and “…always ‘in the moment,’ showing clarity of beat, intensity and focus.…the conductor’s face is alive to each musical gesture and the nuance.”