about the directors

HERYL SELTZER, pianist, was a founder of Continuum in 1966. Active in contemporary music since studying at Mills College with composers Darius Milhaud, Leon Kirchner, and Lawrence Moss, she also holds graduate degrees in musicology from Columbia University. Mrs. Seltzer made her professional debut with the San Francisco Symphony, and appears as a soloist and ensemble performer in contemporary and traditional music. She has participated in the Marlboro and Tanglewood Festivals, and has recorded for Vox, Desto, Advance, Nonesuch, CRI, Musical Heritage Society, TNC, Naxos, New Albion, and Bridge.

She is on the faculty of the Lucy Moses School of Kaufman Music Center, where she directed the Young People's Program for ten years and introduced contemporary music projects for the students. She is an officer of the Stefan Wolpe Society and the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation.

OEL SACHS has conducted at festivals throughout the world, served as music director for experimental operas, also performing as a pianist in new and traditional music. At Juilliard he conducts the New Juilliard Ensemble, a chamber orchestra for new music, and directs the annual "Focus!" festival of new music as well as Juilliard's concerts at the Museum of Modern Art's "Summergarden" festival. Other appearances include conducting and playing in Austria, Brazil, China, El Salvador, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Mongolia, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the UK. He can be heard on all Continuum CDs and has recorded with La Camerata de las Americas (Mexico City) and ensemble Caput (Reykjavik). Honors include Columbia University's Alice M. Ditson Award to a conductor for service to American music and Poland's Gloria Artis medal for service to Polish music. A Harvard graduate, he received the Ph. D. at Columbia. His biography of Henry Cowell was published by Oxford University Press.

RISTINA REIKO COOPER is the newest co-director of Continuum having first been a member of the Ensemble while still a student at Juilliard. Kristina has been an active enthusiast of contemporary music ever since. She has had many original works written and commissioned specifically for her. Among the composers that she has worked with are Phillip Glass, Mario Davidovsky, Josef Bardanashvili, Kenji Bunch and Roberto Sierra. She has performed as a soloist in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Henry Crown Theater in Jerusalem and the Kennedy Center with such ensembles as the Toronto Symphony, the Tokyo Yomiuri Symphony, Shanghai Symphony and Prague Chamber Orchestra. A prolific chamber musician, Kristina won the Walter M. Naumburg Chamber Music Award first prize and has been a member of many renowned ensembles, including the Whitman Quartet, Quartetto Gelato, Opus X, and Intersection. Her many festival appearances include The Lincoln Center Summer Festival, Mostly Mozart, Musicians from Marlboro, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Stresa International Music Festival. Kristina received her Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate of Musical Arts from The Juilliard School and currently serves as a visiting professor at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She is also the founding musical director of The Israel Chamber Music Society and serves as the Vice-President of the America Israel Cultural Foundation. Kristina is currently working on a music and film project dedicated to the hero, and savior of wartime refugees, Chiune Sugihara.