We’re thrilled to announce that Fay Victor and Nuiko Wadden have joined our board! Read more about these incredible artists below!
"Fay and Nuiko bring a critical artists' perspective to our board, and along with their vast experiences and leadership throughout the music field, I'm so excited that they're joining the Ensemble's board of directors to set the stage for an even more vibrant future."
— Jennifer Kessler, Executive Director
Brooklyn, NY based sound artist/composer Fay Victor hones a unique vision for the vocal role in jazz and improvised music regarding repertoire, improvisation and composition. Victor’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine & The Huffington Post; Victor’s performed with luminaries such as Dr. Randy Weston, Nicole Mitchell, Misha Mengelberg, Myra Melford, Marc Ribot & Tyshawn Sorey to name but a few.
As a composer, Victor was awarded with the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition, a 2018 AIR in Composition for the Headlands Center for the Arts in California and a 2020 recipient of a Jazz Coalition Commission to create during the pandemic. Victor is on the faculty of the College of Performing Arts at the New School and at the ROC Nation School for Sports, Music and Entertainment at Long Island University. Victor is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, and chairs the Advisory Board for the Jazz Leaders Fellowship, a Brooklyn Conservatory initiative. Learn more at https://www.fayvictor.com/
Nuiko Wadden is the principal harpist of the Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet orchestras and the principal of the Des Moines Metro Opera. Wadden has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions including the Minnesota Orchestra Competition. As a soloist, Wadden has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Skokie Valley Symphony. She performs regularly with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Talea Ensemble, and the Kassia Ensemble. In Pittsburgh, she is half of TinyBeast, dedicated to performing new works for violin and harp. Over the span of her career, she has performed world premieres of works by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Suzanne Farrin, Pierre Jalbert, Hilda Paredes, Karim Al-Zand, John Luther Adams, and others.