About The King’s Singers

One of the world’s most celebrated ensembles, The King’s Singers have a packed
schedule of concerts, recordings, media and education work that spans the
globe. They champion the work of both young and established composers and,
whether singing Tomkins or Takemitsu, Bach or Bublé, are instantly recognizable
for their spot-on intonation, impeccable vocal blend, flawless articulation of the
text and incisive timing. They are also consummate entertainers: a class act with a
delightfully British wit.
During the 2012-13 concert season, The King’s Singers will perform across the
globe in some of the world’s most famous venues, including Carnegie Hall, King’s
College Chapel and Dresden Frauenkirche. Their schedule will take them to South
America, France, Germany, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Canada,
Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland.
With a discography of more than 150 recordings, The King’s Singers have
garnered both awards and significant critical acclaim, including a Grammy® in
2009 for their studio album Simple Gifts on Signum. Always deeply committed
to new choral music, they have commissioned more than 200 works from
prominent contemporary composers, including Richard Rodney Bennett, Berio,
Maxwell Davies, Ligeti, Lukaszewski, Penderecki, Rutter, Takemitsu and Tavener.
Their album High Flight includes works commissioned by The King’s Singers from
Eric Whitacre and Bob Chilcott. It was recorded in the U.S. with the renowned
Concordia College Choir and released in autumn 2011 on Signum. Other recent
Signum releases include Swimming Over London, which combines some of the
group’s favourite numbers with new songs and arrangements; a world premiere
recording of Pachelbel’s Music for Vespers with Charivari Agréable; and a DVD of
Christmas repertoire released for December 2011.
The King’s Singers have an extraordinary history of television appearances. A
favorite of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, they performed with them for the
Winter Olympics and appeared in their 2008 Christmas concert, which was
broadcast on PBS across the U.S. to a combined live audience of 80,000 and is
available on DVD. Following their televised performance at the 2008 BBC Proms
in the Royal Albert Hall, London (also available on DVD — awarded a Midem
International Classical Award in January 2010), they have appeared on BBC
breakfast television and performed frequently on Songs of Praise.
In addition to their sell-out concerts
worldwide, The King’s Singers share
their artistry through numerous
workshops and master classes, and
by publishing prodigious quantities
of sheet music: at present, they
have more than 2 million items in
circulation through their publisher,
Hal Leonard. Their arrangements are
sung the world over by school and
college choirs, and by ensembles both
amateur and professional.
Visit www.kingssingers.com for the
latest news, blog entries, video blogs,
Tweets and YouTube updates.

About the Seán Curran

Company
“When I see something good that reminds me what dancing can be at its most
basic, I’m faint with pleasure,” hailed Deborah Jowitt in The Village Voice. Pleasing
audiences is exactly what the Seán Curran Company has been doing since it
burst onto the dance scene in 1997. Known for his wit, intelligence, ingenuity and
uncanny physical humor, Seán Curran successfully blends a myriad of influences
into a purely original style. A champion Irish step dancer in his native Boston,
Curran went on to become a leading dancer (and Bessie award winner) with the
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and later a cast member of STOMP!
In 2012, Seán Curran Company was chosen by Dance Motion USA (produced
by Brooklyn Academy of Music), to perform and teach throughout Central Asia
as cultural ambassadors of the U.S. State Department. The Company’s most
recent works include Left Exit — an examination of spirituality, faith and religion
commissioned by the University of Notre Dame, an evening of works with the
Grammy Award-winning King’s Singers, and I Dreamed in a Dream — a premiere
in collaboration with the Kyrgyz traditional music group Ustat Shakirt. Always
seeking to titillate, intrigue and entertain, Curran offers audiences a richly poetic
experience, affirming our lives today though his impeccable crafted dances.
Seán Curran began his dance training with traditional
Irish step dancing as a young boy in Boston,
Massachusetts. He went on to make his mark on the
dance world as a leading dancer with the Bill T. Jones/
Arnie Zane Dance Company. He received a New York
Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for his
performance in Secret Pastures.
A graduate and associate chair of the dance department
at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Curran
was an original member of the New York City cast of
the Off-Broadway percussion extravaganza STOMP!,
performing in the show for four years. He has performed
at venues throughout the United States as well as at
Sweden’s Danstation Theatre and France’s EXIT Festival.
Theater projects for Curran include productions of Much Ado About Nothing and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The Shakespeare Theater, the 20th anniversary
production of Nixon in China and Street Scene at Opera Theater of St. Louis;
choreography for the New York City Opera productions of L’Etoile, Alcina,
Turandot, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Capriccio, and Acis and Galetea; the
Playwrights Horizons’ production of My Life with Albertine; and Shakespeare in
the Park’s As You Like It. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut choreographing
Romeo and Juliette. He directed Salome for Opera Theatre of St. Louis, San
Francisco Opera, Opera de Montreal and San Diego Opera, most recently directed
Daughter of the Regiment for Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
Curran’s work has also appeared on Broadway in James Joyce’s The Dead for
Playwrights Horizons, The Rivals and Cymbeline at Lincoln Center Theater. He
has created works for Trinity Irish Dance Company, ABT II, Denmark’s Upper Cut
Company, Sweden’s Skänes Dance Theater, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Ririe
Woodbury Dance Theater, and Dance Alloy, as well as for numerous college and
university dance departments.
Curran has taught extensively at the American Dance Festival, Harvard Summer Dance
Center, Bates Dance Festival, and Boston’s Conservatory of Music. Irish American
Magazine selected Curran as one of its “Top 100.” He has also been awarded several
Choreographer’s Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Happiest when making new work or performing, Curran hopes to continue
being an ambassador for the art of dance by building and educating the dance
audiences of tomorrow.
Elizabeth Coker Girón trained at the Washington School of Ballet and the Ballet
Nacional de Cuba before joining The Washington Ballet for several seasons. She
has been a member of the Seán Curran Company since 2006, and its associate
artistic director since 2009. Girón has been creating work and performing with
Ana Isabel Keilson since 2008. Girón graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta
Kappa from Columbia University in 2006 with a degree in psychology and dance
and earned an M.A. in 2010 from Teachers College of Columbia University in the
field of motor learning and control. She is currently a doctoral student at Teachers
College, researching uses of motor imagery by dancers.
Joe Doran has worked with Armitage Gone! Dance, H.T. Chen & Dancers,
Gabrielle Lansner and Co., and Martha Graham Dance Company, among others.
He is the producing artistic director and resident designer of Equilateral Theatre
Company, a nonprofit organization he founded in 2004. He recently designed
an adaptation of The Tempest starring Olympia Dukakis for the Alpine Theatre
Project. Regionally, Doran has designed for Historic Swift Creek Mill Theatre and
Richmond VA’s Festival of the Arts at Dogwood Dell. He is the 2008 and 2009
recipient of the Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award for outstanding lighting
designer. He is an artistic member of Resonance Ensemble in N.Y.C., a graduate
of North Carolina School of the Arts and a member of United Scenic Artists Local
829. www.joedorandesign.com.
Mark Randall For more than 15 years, Randall has been principal of Worldstudio, a
strategy and design firm creating unique marketing, branding and communication
programs that drive positive social change. Randall lectures regularly on social design
at colleges and universities and industry conferences, such as AIGA and HOW. In
addition, he has taught at Parson’s School of Design and Fordham University in New
York and at Hartford University in Connecticut. Randall is the co-founder and chair
of Impact! Design for Social Change, an annual six-week graduate-level summer
intensive at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He currently serves on the
advisory board for desigNYC and the committee of the Times Square Arts Advisors.
He also served on the national board of AIGA, the professional association for design.
Randall graduated in 1984 from the University of Washington in Seattle with a B.F.A.
in graphic design.
Rebecca Arends holds a B.A. in history and Afro-American studies from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Arends attended The Ailey School under the
direction of Denise Jefferson and was awarded the Oprah Winfrey Foundation
Fellowship. Arends dances with the Seán Curran Company and has helped teach
Seán Curran repertory at The Ailey School/Fordham University as well as N.Y.U.’s
Tisch School of the Arts. Other select New York performance credits include
ROSARIO, Judith Jamison’s Divining, Alvin Ailey’s Memoria with Alvin Ailey
American Dance Theater and Tino Sehgal’s Kiss at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum. Most recently, Arends played Anybodys in the El Paso Opera’s West Side
Story. Arends is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild and has been featured
in commercials, print ads and voice overs.
David Gonsier was born and raised in New York City. He came late to the
dance world, starting his training while studying philosophy at Skidmore College.
Since graduating and returning to New York he has trained at the Paul Taylor
and Alvin Ailey schools, as well as with a great many wonderful teachers and
choreographers. In modern concert dance, opera productions, and musicals he
has toured across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Michael D. Gonzalez grew up in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, where he trained at Larkin
Dance Studio under the direction of Michele and Shirley Larkin. After graduating
from St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists in 2008, he attended New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts where he earned his B.F.A. in dance upon
graduation in 2011. While at school, he performed works by Gus Solomons Jr., Pamela
Pietro, James Martin and Lucinda Childs. He also danced with Andrew Jannetti and
Dancers, the Charles Weidman Foundation and the Trisha Brown Dance Company.
Since graduation, Gonzalez has performed with the Metropolitan Opera and stayed
as a performer with the Charles Weidman Foundation. He currently dances with
the Metropolitan Opera and is a company dancer with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance
Company and appears courtesy of H.T. Chen & Dancers.
Michael Richman is originally from Omaha, Neb. and began his training as a
vocal and instrumental musician at University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he first
saw the Sean Curran Company perform. He now holds a B.F.A. in dance from
University of Colorado Boulder. During his eight years in Colorado, Michael had
the opportunity to work with many choreographers including The Hannah Kahn
Dance Company, Katie Elliott’s 3rd Law Dance/Theater and Gabriel Masson Dance.
He is an avid educator within the pageantry arena and was a performer with
the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps Colorguard and Oracle Winterguard before
going to teach with many other premier colorguard programs. Richman is also
co-artistic director for his own dance collective called Tough Cookie Dance with
his collaborator Josselyn Levinson-Dustin, creating humorous and absurd dances
centered around the many issues that go along with being an artist.
Christina Robson is from the small town of Tewksbury, Massachusetts. She
graduated Summa Cum Laude and Alpha Chi from Roger Williams University,
where she earned a BA in dance. In 2007, Robson studied abroad at the London
Contemporary School while she completed a core concentration in visual arts
and British studies. She has had the joy of performing and collaborating with
artists such as Deganit Shemy, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Kinodance, Michael and the
Go-Getters, Heidi Henderson, Raja Feather Kelly and Lonely Goat Dance Company.
She currently dances with The Sean Curran Company (2009), Monica Bill Barnes &
Company (2011) and Kendra Portier — Band Portier (2012).
Shane Rutkowski graduated with honors from Fordham University Lincoln
Center. Credits include: Sean Curran Company, Alison Chase Performance, Tap
Kids, and Step Up 2: The Streets. When not on stage he teaches at Steps on
Broadway. For more visit: www.Shanewho.info.