Classical Music Indy has commissioned six different Indianapolis-based composers to create new engaging works to disrupt the genre’s traditional listening experience.

Six composers have been selected to create a new work for the 2020 Micro Composition Project: Gabrielle Cerberville, Rob Funkhouser, Timothy Gondola, Mina Keohane, Eric Salazar, and Nicholas Sokol.

The composers were commissioned to create a one-movement piece for a chamber ensemble of only five minutes or less. Indianapolis-based chamber ensemble Forward Motion will premiere these works at the Music in Bloom Festival, so instrumentation was required for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion. As the only ensemble of its kind in Indianapolis, Forward Motion are emerging artists pioneering the city’s New Classical culture by bringing audiences innovative performances by living composers.

The Micro Composition Project’s impact will reach far beyond the Music in Bloom Festival. Each commission includes a profile interview for a special radio show produced by Classical Music Indy to be distributed on WICR 88.7 FM, studio time with professional musicians to record the new work, and distribution as a featured artist on Classical Music Indy’s 24/7 music streaming service.

Performance Schedule

Gabrielle Cerberville

Gabrielle Cerberville (b. 1991 in Sleepy Hollow, NY) is an American composer, multi-media artist, and pianist. Her music explores such themes as landscape, disappearing, insecurity, resolve, and image. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Butler University in composition and theory, and has studied traditional and electronic composition with Drs. Frank Felice and Michael Schelle.

Gabrielle’s works have been featured across the US and Europe. She has been honored with residencies at Listhus in Iceland, Arts Letters and Numbers in New York, and NES in Iceland, Convergence in Indianapolis, and has been invited to attend several festivals, including highSCORE, SPLICE, EMM, Skammdegi, and A! Festival. Gabrielle’s beautiful and unusual compositions have been highlighted by the artistic talents of Elizabeth Baker, Ascending Duo, Circuit721, Sotto Voce, Verdant Vibes, and others.

Rob Funkhouser

Rob Funkhouser is a composer, performer, and instrument builder. He recently received an M.M. from Butler University in Music Composition, and most recently completed confidently, but with an awkward gait for the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet. He has released projects through various labels in three different countries, and has had his music played on the radio in many places, including Australia. He also collaborates with a wide variety of performers and artists. Most recently he has worked with Forward Motion, Corey Denham, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, and Classical Music Indy. His principal teachers include Dr. Michael Schelle, Dr. James Aikman, and Dr. Frank Felice.

Timothy Gondola

Timothy, 26, was born in Ithaca, NY, grew up and resides in Hawaii. He majored in geography and minored in music at Macalester College (St. Paul, MN). At age four, Timothy started learning piano from his mother. He began private lessons at five, and started lessons in classical piano with Jackie Murphy at seven, which continued through high school. At Macalester College he discovered jazz, delving into the jazz piano repertoire by learning Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum transcriptions, including ones he transcribed himself. Beginning in summer 2013, he began teaching himself the principles of jazz improvisation, and joined the Macalester Jazz Band junior year. That year, Timothy also started taking lessons in jazz with Mike Vasich, and classical lessons with Lauri Saeger-Wright.

Mina Keohane

Composer Mina Keohane’s self-titled group is undeniably jazz but draws more influences from rock and hip-hop grooves rather than the standard swing or bop styles. The Group has been steadily making a name for themselves with a fanbase in the midwest, New England, Down South and parts of Europe. The beautiful emotional pieces on the album are complemented by tunes with dissonance and edgy bass and drum grooves. There’s a lot of freedom for the soloists as well as Mingus-style group improvisation. The seven-piece band consists of trumpet, alto/tenor sax, trombone, guitar, piano, bass and drums. Many of the players come from the Internationally recognized Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra. Fans of creative modern instrumental music will love the Mina Keohane Group’s “Doppelganger.”

Eric Salazar

Dubbed a super-human clarinet hero (Big Car, 2015), Salazar unites people of differing backgrounds by sharing jaw-dropping experiences of feeling through new classical music. He takes his classical training and fuses together modern electronics with classical instruments, blending ancient styles with present musical trends. Salazar is a solo artist in the catalog of Centaur Records with his new release, Soul Search, and also appears as a soloist on Records for a Reason: Vol. 1 with Beneficence Records. 

Salazar holds a B.M. in Clarinet Performance from Ball State University and an M.M. in Clarinet Performance from Bowling Green State University. He has performed as a soloist and group musician in 8 states of the US and overseas in Belgium. Salazar resides in Indianapolis, IN area. Here, Salazar teaches music, performs, and composes. Eric can be heard on iTunes, Spotify, and other major music platforms. He released an album with Centaur Records entitled Soul Search on May 11, 2018. The album contains studio recordings of Salazar’s original compositions for solo clarinet and electronics.

Nicholas Sokol

Nicholas Sokol is a composer, conductor, and pianist specializing in solo, chamber, orchestral, choral and electronic music. Nicholas’ music has been performed throughout the United States and at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall. His music has been performed by members of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, members of the New World Symphony, the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, and the Atlantic Music Festival New Music Ensemble. 

Recent compositions include Relativity (after M.C. Escher) (2018) for solo flute, a Honorable Mention in the 2019 FNMC composition competition, and The Light Wraps You (after Pablo Neruda) for solo piano (2018) written for and premiered by new music virtuoso Huizi Zhang at Carnegie Hall. Nicholas has attended Butler University (B.M.A.) for his undergraduate studying piano, music composition, and conducting. While at Butler University, he studied music composition with Michael Schelle, Frank Felice, and James Aikman. He is a recent graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music (M.M.) studying music composition with Keith Fitch.

The 2020 Micro Composition Project is made possible by the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation.