Sam Torres

Sam Torres is a Troy, NY based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and audio engineer. His ongoing collaborations with pianist Sophia Vastek include a duo called Tilted Arc, and Organ Colossal, a performing, concert presenting, and musical-community-building collective. Sam has written music for saxophone and live electronics, orchestra, solo piano, and various chamber ensembles. His composition, “Ritual: Breath of a Poem” for percussion quartet and interactive multichannel electronics won the first prize in the Peabody Institute Prix d’Eté in 2018. Sam has been commissioned by Sopriola, The Witches, the Peabody Community Chorus, the public school district of Bedford, NY, Music of Reality, bassist Sam Zagnit, choir director Sonya Sutton, and Sophia Vastek. Sam’s music has been heard in house concerts and coffee shops from Washington, DC to New York’s Hudson Valley, as well as at the Thalia Theater at Symphony Space, the National Cathedral, Spectrum NYC, Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Arts Letters & Numbers, Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Manhattan School of Music, and internationally in South Africa, Germany, the UK, and after June of 2020, Latvia and the Netherlands as well. Performing woodwinds, electronics, and working as an audio engineer has brought Sam to venues across the US, including EMPAC, Town Hall Seattle, University of Chicago, SMOKE, Spectrum NYC, MIT, and others. Sam holds a B.Mus from Manhattan School of Music, and a M.Mus in from the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

https://samtorresmusic.com/

https://samtorresmusic.com/

Sophia Vastek

Pianist and keyboardist Sophia Subbayya Vastek, described as playing with "passion and profound tenderness” (Second Inversion) and with “serene strokes and lyrical beauty” (Brooklyn Rail), maintains a multifaceted life as a performer, educator, organizer, and event producer and curator. She dedicates her musical life to cultivating accessible spaces in which shared listening experiences can help build stronger communities. Sophia’s debut album “Histories” was released on innova Recordings with music by Michael Harrison, Donnacha Dennehy, and John Cage. It was produced by multiple Grammy-winning engineer Adam Abeshouse. In addition to her work as a solo pianist, collaborative projects include Organ Colossal, a nonprofit and musicians’ collective committed to producing accessible concerts that are safe and available to any musician who wishes to perform; Tilted Arc, a synth and piano-based electronic duo with Sam Torres; and The Lift Series, a series dedicated to bringing a diverse range of local and regional artists to the historic Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Performing has taken Sophia across three continents, including tours to South Africa, Mexico, and France. In the United States, she has performed at diverse venues/series such as the Kennedy Center, the United States State Department, The Apollo Theatre, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, An Die Musik, The Linda (Albany), National Sawdust (Brooklyn), Evolution Series (Baltimore), The NoiseGate Festival (NYC), Queens New Music Festival, and Arts Letters & Numbers (NY). Sophia is based in Troy, NY, a community she loves dearly.

www.sophiavastek.com