BYZANTION II - LEAD COMMISSIONER
Dr. Conor Bell
World Premiere
Tuesday 23 July 2024 at 1015 a.m.
Kitt Recital Hall, Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ, USA
53rd International Double Reed Society Conference
SECOND PERFORMANCE
Tuesday 27 August 2024 at 1930
​Faculty Showcase
​Northen Recital Hall
WTAMU, Canyon, TX, USA
CO-COMMISSIONERS (in order of joining)

Mr Benjamin Coelho - Professor of Bassoon, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA.  Recital date TBD

Dr Joseph Swift - Principal Bassoon, Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes; Educator & Curator, New Jersey, USA.  Recital date TBD

Dr. Margaret P. Fay - Assistant Teaching Professor of Bassoon, Penn State University; Chamber musician, Canada & USA.  Recital date TBD
BYZANTION III - LEAD COMMISSIONER

​​Dr. Kathleen Carter Bell
World Premiere TBC
54th IDRS Conference (10-14 June 2025)
Butler University, Indianapolis, USA
(Depending upon proposal acceptance)
​
CO-COMMISSIONERS (in order of joining)

Dr Jillian Camwell - Assistant Professor of Oboe, Troy University, Alabama, USA

Nicholas Daniel - Soloist, Chamber musician & Pedagogue, UK

Denise Wilson - Principal Oboe, Scottsdale Symphonic Orchestra, Arizona, USA

Erin Brophey - Principal Oboe, Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, Saskatchewan, Canada
Based in London, England, international prizewinning musician Althea Talbot-Howard is a classical composer who began her professional career in 1992 as a soloist and orchestral guest principal. In 2005, Gramophone Magazine called her “a superb oboist”.  A graduate of Girton College, Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music; she won Third Prize in the Paris-Ville d'Avray International Oboe Competition in 2007; and was one of twelve equal prizewinners in the Ora Singers Christmas Gift Composition Competition in 2019. 
​​
Of Afro-British ancestry, she is a 12th-generation direct descendant of King Charles II, who formalized Britain’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade; and therefore a 14th-generation descendant of King James I & VI, who commissioned the Authorized Version of the Bible.  Both anti-slavery and Christian themes feature strongly in her compositional output.