Artists-in-Residence
Artists-in-residence in the School of Music give Georgia Tech students opportunities to interact with music professionals from a variety of disciplines. Past visiting artists have included composers, performers, and technologists who have shared with our community through masterclasses, guest lectures, rehearsals, and performances.
When an ensemble gets a chance to rehearse a piece with the composer, those students gain unique insight into that music. Performing with a world class artist gives Tech’s student musicians an example of artistry to which they can aspire, and learning about technological innovations directly from the innovators can be profoundly inspiring while growing the students’ professional networks.
Omar Thomas
Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing "great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future," educator, arranger, and award-winning composer Omar Thomas has created music extensively in the contemporary jazz ensemble idiom. He is the protégé of lauded composers and educators Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg, and has studied under multiple Grammy-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider.
In 2019, he was awarded the National Bandmasters Association/Revelli Award for his wind composition “Come Sunday,” becoming the first Black composer awarded the honor in the contest’s 42-year history.
His second release, " We Will Know: An LGBT Civil Rigths Piece in Four Movements," has been hailed by Grammy Award-wining drummer, composer, and producer Terri Lyne Carrington as being a "thought provoking, multi-layered masterpiece" which has "put him in the esteemed category of great artists." "We Will Know" was awarded two OUTMusic Awards, including "Album of the Year."
Addresses
Couch Music Building
Atlanta, GA 30332
West Village Dining Commons
Atlanta, GA 30332
Exhibition Hall
Atlanta, GA 30332
María Luz Poirier
Argentine pianist María Luz Poirier is an advocate of contemporary music and emerging women composers from Latin América.
For her outstanding artistry and impressive versatility, Poirier garnered recognition through the Italian Government Grant (MAE Scholarship), which allowed her to study at Istituto Pietro Mascagni (Livorno) in 2013 and 2014.
Poirier is member of Ensamble Warmi, an all-women group committed to promote and preserve the music of Latin American women composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Crated in 2019, the group also supports living women composers by actively commissioning music. With Ensamble Warmi, Poirier has premiered more than 10 works in Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil.
Currently, Poirier is professor of piano and piano accompanist at the Carlos Guastavino Music School and the School of Music of Rosario, Argentina.
Daniel Juárez
Daniel Juárez is a renowned saxophonist, composer and educator. He released his first album Caminos as a band leader in 2014, showing great skills on tenor sax, as well as in the field of composition and arrangements.
During his residency, Juárez will perform with with the Concert Orchestra and the Jazz Ensembles, along with offering a public lecture and performance.
As the second collaboration with the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C., Daniel Juárez is the first jazz musician to participate in this Spanish Young Music Talents program, which manifests the versatility and diverse musical interests and talents on the Tech campus and community.
Rex Richardson
Renowned as champion of new, genre-busting music featuring the trumpet as a solo voice, Yamaha Performing Artist Rex Richardson was named the 2008 Brass Herald International Personality of the Year, has been called “One of the finest virtuosos of our time” (Brass Herald, 2018).
A veteran of the acclaimed chamber ensemble Rhythm & Brass, jazz legend Joe Henderson's Quintet and Sextet, William Russo's Chicago Jazz Ensemble, and the world-renowned Brass Band of Battle Creek, his hundreds of soloist appearances include festivals and ensembles on six continents, such as the Phoenix Symphony and Thailand Philharmonic Orchestras, the U.S. Army Field Band and Tokyo Symphonic Winds, England's Fodens Brass Band, and the U.S. Air Force's Airmen of Note Jazz Ensemble.
Richardson has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University since 2002, served as International Tutor in Trumpet at England’s Royal Northern College of Music from 2012-2015 and at Austria’s JAM Music Lab University since 2018.
Laura Ballestrino
School of Music's most recent artist-in-residence, Laura Ballestrino, gave a masterclass for Georgia Tech pianists, gave lectures to Music Technology students, visited the jazz ensembles, held a solo recital, and performed with the Georgia Tech Symphony Orchestra (GTSO) as a soloist.