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Bio
Cayenna Rosa Ponchione was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska and now resides in the Southern Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York. She currently serves as the music director for the Binghamton Community Orchestra, the Ithaca Community Orchestra, and the GrassRoots Festival Chamber Orchestra. Passionate about community involvement in orchestral music, she continues to create programs that celebrate community resources and are relevant in today’s society. Ms. Ponchione believes that the unique and irreplaceable experience of live symphonic music is an integral part of the current American culture and works diligently to encourage participation and its appreciation. She has been invited to lead student ensembles at New York all-state and all-county festivals, and has worked extensively with high school and collegiate level percussion ensembles. Her conducting teachers have included Madeline Schatz, Grant Cooper and Jeff Grogan, and additional studies at the Conductor's Institute at the University of South Carolina with Peter Jaffe, Kate Tamarkin, Paul Vermel and Donald Portnoy.
Ms. Ponchione has gained international attention as a composer with her work "The Creation," which won the 2003 Percussive Arts Society Percussion Ensemble Composition Contest. Percussion ensembles and individuals at the University of Costa Rica, Eastman School of Music, Boston Conservatory, University of Michigan, University of South Florida, University of Kentucky, San Francisco Conservatory and throughout the United States have performed her works. A recent commission by Brazilian marimbist Gilmar Goulart, brought the composer to South America for its world premiere in October 2006 and to give master classes on composition and marimba.
An advocate of new music Ms. Ponchione is director of Tabula Rasa, an arts organization in Ithaca, New York dedicated to presenting the works of local composers to the Ithaca area community. Constantly striving to encourage the creation of new music she organized the 2003 Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra Composition Contest, has personally commissioned composers Erik Spangler, Coltan Hubbard, Tom Schneller and directed the Binghamton Community Orchestra in its commissioning of a Tsunami Memorial by Binghamton area composer Timothy Rolls. She serves on the board of the Zeltsman Marimba Festival and is active in the ZMF New Music project. In addition to her advocacy she has conducted and performed numerous contemporary works.
As a percussionist she has performed as a soloist with the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Wind Ensemble and the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra as their 2000 concerto competition winner. She was also a prizewinner at the 2000 Music Teachers’ National Association International Concerto Competition. She continues to perform in solo, chamber and large ensemble settings. Ms. Ponchione served as the sabbatical replacement for Gordon Stout, Professor of Percussion at Ithaca College School of Music, in the Fall of 2005. Her percussion instructors have included Gordon Stout, Nancy Zeltsman, Jack VanGeem, Scott Deal and Doug Wolf.
Ms Ponchione holds a Bachelor's degree in Percussion Performance from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and Masters’ degrees in Instrumental Conducting and Percussion Performance from Ithaca College.