Gateways pianists

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

MIKAEL DARMANIE | Mikael Darmanie has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, Russia and the Caribbean. Recent appearances include The Weil Institute at Carnegie Hall, Trinity Wall Street, Prototype, Bang on a Can Marathon, Close Encounters With Music, Berkshire High Peaks Festival, Cape Cod Symphony Nth Degree, Pianofest in the Hamptons, the Mozarteum, Mainly Mozart, and L’Acadèmie de Musique de Sion, to name a few.

As a member of the Warp Trio, he performs throughout the world in genres ranging from jazz to hip-hop, to rock, fusion and electronic music. He DJs and teaches master classes and workshops to students of all levels from kindergarten through university.

Since his debut as a conductor with the Carolina Chamber Symphony in 2008, he has performed across the U.S., conducting various piano concerti from keyboard and symphonic works.

Also a composer, his works have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. A former New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, he currently pursues a Ph.D. at SUNY Stony Brook under the guidance of Gilbert Kalish and teaches undergraduate piano, music history and theory.

TABITHA JOHNSON | Tabitha Johnson is a 23-year-old Canadian pianist and graduate of McGill University. She is the 2021 first prize winner of the National Association of Negro Musicians’ national competition.

At the age of sixteen, Johnson toured Ontario and at the Canadian Music Competition in Quebec, she placed third. In June 2018, she won the Miami Music Festival concerto competition and performed with orchestra that year.

Johnson is currently a collaborative pianist at Manhattan School of Music - Precollege Division. She has her ARCT certificate in pedagogy from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Giving back to the community is important to Tabitha and she often embarks on mission trips overseas, fundraising concerts, and other projects to help those in need.

ARTINA MCCAIN | Artina McCain is described as a pianist with “power and finesse” (Dallas Arts Society), and enjoys an international career throughout Europe, China and the US as a solo and chamber performer, pedagogue and speaker. McCain’s solo and chamber performances have been broadcast on radio in Chicago, Austin, Toronto and Hong Kong.

An American Prize winner for her solo piano recordings, she will release an album of works entitled “Heritage: The American Composer” on the MSR label. She has won performance awards from the Austin Critics Table for the Black Composers Concert Series and is a three-time Global Music Awards winner for the album I, Too (Naxos), Shades and Trombone Czar with her husband, bass trombonist Martin McCain.

Recent performance highlights include guest concerto appearances with the Oregon East Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Austin Civic Orchestra and the University of Memphis Symphonic Band. Television appearances include features on C-SPAN and an inspirational leader on the PBS documentary series "Roadtrip Nation: Degree of Impact."

McCain graduated cum laude from Southern Methodist University. She received her Master of Music from Cleveland Institute of Music and completed her Doctoral Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Previous faculty positions include Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music, Texas Lutheran University, University of the Incarnate Word and Huston-Tillotson University. Dr. McCain is currently an Assistant Professor of Piano at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis and co-artistic director of the Memphis International Piano Festival and Competition.

NNENNA OGWO | Nnenna Ogwo is known for her exquisite tone and fascinating programming that features an eclectic mix of music from the African diaspora and works by composers too often left on the classical music margins.

An American musician of Jamaican and Nigerian descent, she curates dynamic concert experiences in an effort to illuminate and broaden our understanding of what the classical canon could and should be.

Her performances have taken her across the globe, delighting audiences from North and South America to Europe and the Middle East.

She is perhaps best known in NYC for her annual Juneteenth Celebration concerts at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, an event that is now in its fourth year.

Current projects also involve editing an engraving of the rarely performed Dream Variations by Dorothy Rudd Moore, to be followed with a recording under the auspices of the American Composers Alliance. Nnenna is also currently working on a project to record the piano works of African-American composer Ulysses Kay.

JOSEPH WILLIAMS | Joseph Williams is a passionate advocate for accessible, high quality music education in South King County, Washington. He is founder and director of Tukwila Kids Make Music, a free after-school music mentorship program offering piano, guitar, voice and violin lessons to 50 children every week, year-round. At 17, he was awarded first place in Washington state for solo piano in the 2010 WIAA/WMEA State Solo and Ensemble Contest. He subsequently pursued a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Ohio. Upon graduation, he received the Piano Faculty Prize in Accompanying and was immediately hired on the faculty as a full-time Instrumental Collaborative Pianist for the 2015-2016 academic year. He obtained a Master of Music in Piano Performance from Cleveland State University where he studied with both Joela Jones and Sheila Paige. Williams has since enjoyed performing at numerous venues across the United States including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and abroad in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Committed to inclusion, he has been a behavior therapist for children with Autism and regularly mentors youth of color on becoming the music educators of today and tomorrow. He envisions a world where classical music curriculum is decolonized and outdated master-apprentice models of music pedagogy are dismantled.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEGRO MUSICIANS

Founded in 1919, the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. (NANM) is the United States’ oldest organization dedicated to the preservation, encouragement and advocacy of the music of Black Americans. The mission of the organization is to promote, preserve and support all genres of music created or performed by African-Americans.

NANM had its beginning in Washington, D.C. at a temporary initial conference of “Negro” musicians under the leadership of Henry Grant and Nora Holt. Its first national convention was held in Chicago, Illinois in the same year. The organization is supported by people of strong cultural ideals and high musical standards, all of whom care deeply for the fine art of music and for an inclusive musical culture throughout the country.  Within NANM, educators and professional musicians share their musical knowledge, amateurs and enthusiasts grow in their musical enjoyment, and people of all ages come together to participate in the powerful forces of spiritual and cultural development and the total human experience that is music.

The organization has awarded scholarships to scores of talented young musicians over the years, and winners have included such luminaries as Marian Anderson (first scholarship award recipient in 1919), William L. Dawson, Florence B. Price, Margaret Bonds, Warren George Wilson, James Frazier, Julia Perry, Grace Bumbry, Leon Bates, Joseph Joubert, Awadagin Pratt, and many, many others.