The 2023–24 Ecker Fellows
Aaron Helgeson
Aaron Helgeson is a composer whose recent choral cycle “The Book of Never”—commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for the Grammy Award winning choir, The Crossing—combines ancient hymns from the Novgorod Codex (a medieval book of Russian psalm chant overwritten hundreds of times by an excommunicated monk in early Ukraine) with contemporary texts by writers in various states of exile.
In 2016 he received an Ohio Arts Council Award for his “Snow Requiem,” an anti-cantata based on author David Laskin’s book The Children’s Blizzard about the Homestead-era snowstorm of the same name. He is also a scholar of creativity and mental health in the arts, frequently offering workshops in creative wellness. His 2021 article “The Doppelgänger Within: How Depression Hides in the Creative Process” discusses the way creative work can lead to mental health obstacles, documenting his own depression and methods that help him manage it. He serves on the advisory board of Creatives Care, a non-profit facilitating low-cost psychological treatment for performing artists. Aaron resides in New York, serving as Associate Professor of Composition and Music Theory at Montclair State University.
Earl Lee
Winner of the 2022 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, Earl Lee is a renowned Korean-Canadian conductor who has captivated audiences worldwide. 2023-24 marks his second season as Music Director of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and his third season as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which he has led in subscription concerts both at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood. Among many others, Earl has conducted the Toronto, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco Symphonies, New York and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and is a frequent guest conductor at North America’s top conservatories.
He studied cello at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School and conducting at Manhattan School of Music and the New England Conservatory. He lives in New York City with his wife and their daughter.
Giselle Ty
Giselle Ty is a theater and opera director who specializes in experimental, interdisciplinary, and site-specific work. She has directed productions for Boston Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera (HGOco), Center for Contemporary Opera, the Peabody Essex Museum, West Edge Opera, NYU Tisch School of Drama, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. Engagements as associate and assistant director include projects with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival, American Repertory Theatre, Gotham Chamber Opera, l’Opéra National de Bordeaux, and London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Her recent staging of Erwartung transformed Schönberg and Pappenheim’s monodrama into a dance-theater piece for seven performers, and was praised as “riveting” (Opera News), “boldly revisionist”, and “superb” (San Francisco Chronicle).
Giselle studied orchestral music and art history at Northwestern University, and has trained in various theater techniques with former resident artists at the American Repertory Theatre, SITI Company, and l’École Jacques Lecoq in Paris.