University of North Texas 
As a wide-eyed misfit growing up in the Lone Star State, Allison Ponthier built a world all her own to escape her strait-laced surroundings. Raised in a Dallas suburb much like the football-obsessed town of Friday Night Lights, the 24-year-old singer/songwriter spent her adolescence under the spell of eccentrics like Henry Selick, Vincent Price, and Elvira, whose warped sensibilities catalyzed her own creativity. During that time, she brought her beautifully strange imagination to everything from making sculptures to writing skits to self-recording songs alone in her bedroom. Finally, at the age of 20, Ponthier fled the Bible belt for Brooklyn despite not knowing anyone in New York—an initially disastrous move that ultimately inspired the writing of her song “Cowboy,” a life-changing breakthrough on both a personal and artistic level.
By bringing such a depth of attention to every aspect of her music, Ponthier has essentially created a more fully and extravagantly realized version of the world she retreated into as a kid back in Texas: a place where difference is endlessly celebrated, even as her songs push into painful terrain. “All these songs are stories from my life, and they’re all related to mental health, whether I’m talking about anxiety or identity or anything else I’ve gone through,” she says. “I hope it’s comforting to people to hear me talk about those things, especially other LGBTQ+ people. I hope that they see themselves in me, and that my fanbase can be a community where people can reach out and make friends and support each other and feel like they’re not alone.”
Seraph Brass was founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden with the mission of elevating and showcasing the excellence of female brass players and highlighting musicians from marginalized groups both in personnel and in programming. Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, the group has been praised for their “beautiful sounds" (American Record Guide), "fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura). Now in its ninth touring season, Seraph primarily performs as a quintet, with a dynamic roster drawing from America’s top brass musicians. The group is currently in residency at the Walton Art Center’s Artosphere Festival, alongside the Dover Quartet. Seraph Brass is a Yamaha Performing Group and performs exclusively on Yamaha instruments.
The ensemble has toured around the world, including performances at the Tafalla Brass Week in Spain, Lieksa Brass Week in Finland, the Busan Maru International Music Festival in South Korea, the Forum Cultural Guanajuato in Mexico, the International Women’s Brass Conference, the International Trumpet Guild Conference, and a two-week tour across China. 2022-23 performance highlights include Anthony DiLorenzo’s Chimera for brass quintet and orchestra with the Florence Symphony in November, and performances at Chamber Music Raleigh, Chautauqua Institution, University of Toronto, Asheville Chamber Music Series, National Gallery of Art in D.C., Diehn Concert Series in Norfolk, UNC Greensboro, and extensive touring around the United States through Live On Stage.
Seraph performs a diverse body of repertoire, ranging from original transcriptions to newly commissioned works and core classics. The group has commissioned new pieces by Catherine McMichael and Rene Orth; both featured on the Silver Medal Global Music Award-winning debut album Asteria. The group regularly participates in commissioning consortiums, recently supporting works by Kevin Day, Mischa Zupko, and Lillian Yee. In 2023, Seraph will premiere a new wind ensemble arrangement of Anthony DiLorenzo’s Chimera at the 2023 American Trombone Workshop with the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” and later will premiere and perform a new concerto commission from Jennifer Jolley with Texas Tech University. The group will return to Lieksa Brass week in Finland in Summer 2023.
ALOK (they/them) is an internationally acclaimed author, poet, comedian, and public speaker. As a mixed-media artist their work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017), Beyond the Gender Binary (2020), and Your Wound/My Garden (2021) and the creator of #DeGenderFashion: an initiative to degender fashion and beauty industries. In recognition of their work, they have been honored as the inaugural LGBTQ Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and awarded a GLAAD Media Award and Stonewall Foundation Visionary Award. Over the past decade, they have toured in more than 40 countries, most recently selling out their runs at the Soho Theatre in London, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Kennedy Performing Arts Center. Their show has been described as "provocative and powerful" (CHORTLE), a "potent combination of comedy and poetry" (THE SCOTSMAN), and a "Jaw-dropping celestial event" (TO DO LIST LONDON). On screen, they will make their feature film debut in Absolute Dominion opposite Patton Oswalt and next can be seen in Emmie Lichtenberg’s film Complicated Order opposite Midori Francis that will premiere at OutFest 2023. On television, they can next be seen in the critically acclaimed MAX series SORT OF opposite Bilal Baig. They have also appeared on Hulu’s Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne, ABC’s PRIDE: To Be Seen – A Soul of A Nation, Netflix’s Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness and The Trans List.
Third Coast Percussion joins forces with the groundbreaking choreography of Movement Art Is (Lil Buck and Jon Boogz), for an intimate, evening-length program that explores the duality of human nature. At once intensely personal and fiercely virtuosic, two disparate styles of street dance blend seamlessly with new music by Jlin, Tyondai Braxton, and Philip Glass.
With nearly two decades of spellbinding performances to its name, Chicago-based quartet Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore) is the first percussion ensemble to win a GRAMMY® Award. Also nominated for a GRAMMY® as a composer collective, TCP recasts the classical musical experience with a brilliantly varied sonic palette, crafting music to “push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR). The ensemble celebrates its 20th anniversary in the 2024-2025 season, having blossomed from percussion students who met in 2005 at Northwestern University into a thriving nonprofit organization.
Carolina González Valencia (born in Bogotá Colombia, based in Portland, ME)
Carolina’s films lie at the intersection of personal, social, and political narratives. She weaves multiple media–animation, video, film, performance, and writing–to create projects that challenge social and historical representations of migration, otherness, diaspora, and labor. She has worked on projects in Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Lebanon, and the United States. Carolina’s work has been shown internationally at venues such as GAZE (San Francisco); International short films showcase (Jakarta, Indonesia); Full Frame Theater/International short films and videos (Durham, NC); Contra el Silencio Todas Las Voces (Mexico City); Cinemateca Distrital (Bogotá, Colombia); Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago). Her films have been screened on public access TV on sites such as Can TV (Chicago) and Videonautas (Colombia). She is the recipient of a BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship, LEF Foundation Production and Post-Production Grants, the Lyn Blumenthal Scholarship (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), the Gelman Travel Fellowship (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), and the Programa Nacional de Estímulos (Colombian Ministry of Culture). She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation). Carolina is now an associate professor in the Department of Art and Visual Culture at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Rico Gatson is a multimedia visual artist whose work explores themes of history, identity, popular culture, and spirituality through sculpture, painting, video, and public art projects. Over the course of almost two decades, he has been celebrated for politically layered artworks, often based on significant moments in Black history. The Watts Riots, the formation of the Black Panthers, and the election of President Barack Obama are a few subjects touched upon. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Essl Museum, Austria, Vienna; and The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. In 2019, he completed a large commission for MTA Arts and Design titled “Beacons”, which featured eight permanent large-scale mosaics of prominent figures which were installed in a subway station in the Bronx. His work is featured in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Denver Art Museum, The Cheekwood Museum, The Kempner Museum, and The Yale University Art Gallery. His work is also included in numerous private collections.
Ottessa Moshfegh has been heralded as one of the boldest voices in fiction since the publication of her debut novella, McGlue, a work of historical fiction released shortly after she earned her MFA from Brown University. McGlue was the inaugural winner of the Fence Modern Prize for Prose, received the Believer Book Award, and was optioned for film by Vice with a screenplay adaption written by Moshfegh.
Her short story collection, Homesick for Another World, received numerous accolades, including being named a finalist for the prestigious Story Prize. Homesick for Another World was again highlighted in The New York Times in 2018 as one of the best books written by a female author in the 21st Century, with Ottessa Moshfegh herself being named part of the “New Vanguard” of women who are propelling literature forward with their work. Her novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, is a darkly comic story about a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation. It was named a best book of the year by multiple publications, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly, among other outlets. Moshfegh continues to showcase her literary creativity in Death in Her Hands, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds an ominous note on a walk in the woods. Her upcoming novel, Lapvona, takes an exciting leap into a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, in this spellbinding story about a motherless shepherd boy that finds himself in the unlikely pivot of a power struggle.
Originally from Boston, Ottessa Moshfegh now lives in Los Angeles. She has received the Pushcart Prize, the O. Henry Award, and a Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review for her short fiction as well as a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A prolific essayist, Moshfegh’s work has appeared in outlets including Vice, The New Yorker, Granta, and various online journals.
