HOME PAGE
Bio
Cayenna Ponchione was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, the ‘golden heart’ of the Alaska interior. In her pursuit of graduate studies in orchestral conducting, she moved to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York where she completed master’s degrees in instrumental conducting and percussion performance at Ithaca College, winning the concerto competition and later serving as the sabbatical replacement for Gordon Stout. Encouraged by the beautiful environment, she welcomed the opportunity to remain in the area to lead two of the region’s community orchestras, the Binghamton Community Orchestra and the Ithaca Community Orchestra, and to conduct the annual GrassRoots Festival Chamber Orchestra.
Cayenna staunchly believes in maintaining the relevancy of orchestral performances and does so by collaborating with other organizations, commissioning new works and engaging in thematic programming. A recent collaboration with narrator, author Raya Lee Then, the Broome and Tompkins County Public Libraries and the Tompkins County Family Reading Partnership earned her the Sorel Medallion in Conducting from the Claudette Sorel Foundation. Cayenna and two of her colleagues founded the Finger Lakes Community Orchestra Festival which brings together members of five regional ensembles for rehearsal and performance. In 2006 her orchestrated accompaniment of electric violinist Ritsu Katsumata’s solo composition “Elegy for the Victims of War,” was paired with a commission by Cornell University composer, Tom Schneller, for the topical concert “Music for a Peaceful Planet,” and in 2005 she directed the Binghamton Community Orchestra in their commission of Timothy Rolls for a composition memorializing the 2004 Sumatra earthquake.
Through her work “The Creation,” for percussion ensemble, which won the 2003 Percussive Arts Society Composition Contest, Cayenna has received international recognition as a composer. “The Creation,” in addition to her other works for percussion has been performed by numerous percussion ensembles throughout the United States and in Central and South America. A commission by Brazilian marimbist Gilmar Goulart brought her to the University of Santa Maria to give master classes and attend the composition’s premiere. Her orchestration of Saint-Saëns’ Sonata for Bassoon and Piano for full orchestra was recently premiered by Eastman School of Music bassoonist David Weinberg.
Cayenna serves on the board of directors for the Zeltsman Marimba Festival, sponsor of the ZMF New Music Project and as the director for Tabula Rasa, an organization which supports new music activities in Ithaca, New York. Tabula Rasa has partnered with the GrassRoots Festival Chamber Orchestra to sponsor the 2009 international GRCO Composition Contest.