A native of West Virginia, Dr. Taylor Giorgio is recognized as an imaginative performer and teacher. An active orchestral musician, she is a contracted violinist with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Gulf Coast, Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and the Ocala Symphony Orchestra. Taylor currently maintains a private violin studio in Tallahassee, where her students have received honors at the regional and state level. She recently completed her doctoral studies in Violin Performance at Florida State University, where she was a graduate teaching assistant for Professor Corinne Stillwell for her Master’s and Doctoral degrees. An active pedagogue, she presented a session at the 2020 American String Teachers Association National Conference, and served as a violinist and teaching artist in Sinfonia Gulf Coast’s String Quartet-in-Residence for the past two years. Taylor graduated Summa Cum Laude from West Virginia University, with undergraduate degrees in Music Education and Violin Performance. While at WVU, she conducted the Morgantown Community Orchestra, won the Young Artist Concerto Competition, and premiered a solo concerto written by a student composer with the WVU Orchestra. Taylor is also a founding member of Invicta Trio, a new music trio comprised of violin, trombone, and piano, and co-directs Classical Revolution Tallahassee.
Dr. Kenneth Johnson currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida, where he is the Principal Trombonist of the Ocala Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonia Gulf Coast, and Bass Trombonist of the Gainesville Orchestra. He has appeared as a soloist with the Ocala Symphony, the Fredericksburg Brass Institute Faculty Ensemble, the West Virginia University Symphony Orchestra, and the Piedmont Symphony Orchestra. Kenneth has been a finalist in national and international solo competitions such as: the 2016 International Trombone Association Alto Trombone Competition and the 2014 American Trombone Workshop National Tenor Trombone Solo Competition Division II. He is also a founding member of Invicta Trio.
He recently completed his doctoral studies at Florida State University, where he was a Graduate Teaching Assistant for Dr. John Drew. He earned his Master’s degree in Trombone Performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with Peter Ellefson. In 2013, he graduated cum laude from West Virginia University with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education, where he studied with Dr. Keith Jackson and Dr. Brian Plitnik. In the summers, Dr. Johnson serves on the faculty of the Fredericksburg Brass Institute, Tidewater Brass Institute, and Music for the Sake of Music Summer Festival in Green Bay, WI.
Born in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, Elias Tanenbaum studied trumpet at an early age and played with many jazz bands. After serving with the U.S. Army in World War II (during which he was awarded the purple heart), he received a B.S. from the Juilliard School of Music in 1949, and an M.A. from Columbia University. He studied composition with Dante Fiorillo, Bohuslav Martinu, Otto Luening and Wallingford Riegger. Mr. Tanenbaum composed over 100 works in all idioms, including concert music, jazz, theater, television, ballet and electronic and computer music. His music has been performed extensively throughout this country, Europe and Japan by orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonia, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Westchester Philharmonic and many other performing groups. His many awards and grants include a WCBS commission, a MacDowell Fellowship, a commission from the Chicago Symphony, two Composers Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Ford Foundation Recording Grant, two American Composers Alliance Recording Awards, a Composers Grant from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and numerous "Meet the Composer" grants. Mr. Tanenbaum was the Founding Director of the Electronic Computer Music Studio and a member of the composition faculty at the Manhattan School of Music until his retirement in 1970. He was married to pianist Mary Tanenbaum in 1952. They have two children, David and Jacob, and three grandchildren.
Coming Together - Elias Tanenbaum
Recorded at home in Tallahassee, FL, July 2020
Taylor Giorgio, violin
Kenneth Johnson, trombone
Mastered by Robert Scott Thompson, Aucourant Records.
Property of Shelter Recording Project, American Composers Alliance
