Soprano

Soprano Anna Elder’s voice has been described as being, “ethereal” or “a voice that has blues, reds and purples in it” by The New York Times or “a voice that could match, pitch for pitch, the grumble of a truck’s engine or squeak of a scooter’s horn.”- Wilmington Star News. Born and raised in the steel city of Pittsburgh, PA and based in Brooklyn, NY, Anna specializes in interpreting and performing contemporary classical music that expands the traditional vocal performance practice and virtuosity. As a soloist, She was a featured performer on the following virtual festivals in 2021: Oh My Ears, Cleveland Uncommon Sound, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music (SEAMUS), and The International Federation for Electro-acoustic Music (CIME). She has performed with the new music ensemble Kamratōn since 2015, as well as Sydeboob Duo, and wolfTrap. She premiered the soprano role in composer Eric Moe’s chamber opera “We Crossed the River” in May of 2021 and was a featured artist with for the Vermont College of Fine Arts composition residency, 2021. Other engagements have included a set with Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio as part of their Quarantine Concerts in 2020. She was a soloist at The Tanglewood Music Center, where she sang Andrew Hamilton’s “Music For People Who Like Art” with The New Fromm Players at Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary music. She gave the premiere performace of “Peg” in Music on the Edge’s production of Roger Zahab’s opera, “Hegemony.” She appeared in the Corningworks’ production of “with a shadow of...” as a stand in vocalist for an ill cast member. “While an unanticipated addition, Elder’s superb voice and inclusion on stage was seamless and enriching. Her sequence with Brenner, in which they perfectly mirrored each other while performing a particularly tasking and complex choreography, is so unspeakably scintillating that one could scarcely imagine it hadn’t been planned from inception.” -Pittsburgh in the Round. She has also appeared with Pittsburgh’s Alia Musica, Nat28, Opera On Tap, and The Eclectic Laboratory Chamber Orchestra. Anna was the lead vocalist with Squonk Opera for three years and premiered Go Roadshow and sang in the Off-Broadway version of Mayhem and Majesty, where she was described as creating “a sort of persona that becomes tangible which takes shape and begins to define what unfolds on stage.” -Broadway World. Other engagements have included performing Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians with New Music Detroit and appearing as a guest vocalist with Quince Ensemble. She has appeared on Music on the Edge’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, The Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, Detroit’s Strange and Beautiful Music 2017, and The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound festival with Kamratōn. Anna graduated from The Eastman School of Music where her teachers were John Maloy and Constance Haas. She has since attended New Music On The Point, Soundscape, Splice Festival, and NEC’s Summer Institute for Contemporary performance where she studied with Tony Arnold.

This 2021-2022 season Anna will perform concerts and residencies with her ensembles Kamratōn and SydeBoob Duo around the northeast. She will appear on the record Music From Seamus vol. 31 (New Focus Recordings) singing composer Brian Riordan’s “Succubus.” Ms. Elder intends to push the limits of the human voice and enjoys commissioning new contemporary works that take her there. She experiments and improvises with found objects and electronics such as pedals, fans, toys, aluminum foil, field recordings, her beloved autoharp “Deb,” and her own heartbeat. Along with her colleagues, Anna has spearheaded the annual concert series She Scores, which features works by living women composers, performers, and improvisors throughout the United States presented by and with Kamratōn. The ensemble has received support from The Opportunity Fund, The Heinz Endowments, and The Pittsburgh Foundation. Anna can be heard on the album Squonk Opera’s “Go Roadshow” and can be seen anywhere from a basement to a concert hall.

Flutes

Based in Pittsburgh and Brooklyn, flutist Sarah Steranka enjoys a multifaceted career as a recitalist, chamber musician, and advocate for new and experimental music. Since making her solo debut with the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic at the age of nineteen, she has dedicated her career to exploring the innovative work of living composers and pushing the boundaries of her instruments. Ms. Steranka has premiered works by Ramin Akhavijou, Marilyn Shrude, Elizabeth Brown, Zvonimir Nagy, Devon Osamu Tipp, Erin Rogers, Nicole Mitchell, Nancy Galbraith, Lauren Siess, and countless others.

Ms. Steranka has presented programs of new and experimental music at the 2021 SCI National Student Conference, the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Flute Festival, Music on the Edge’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, the New Jersey Flute Fair, The Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, and The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound festival. Her recordings of solo and chamber works have been published by Sound Silence Thought, Albany Records, and Naxos, and have in addition been self-published by countless composers.

As a symphony musician, Ms. Steranka is second flute of the Westmoreland Symphony and also appears as a guest with the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh and the Erie Philharmonic. In addition, she is a core member of the nationally recognized new music collective Kamratōn, where she plays flute and piccolo as well as alto and bass flutes. She also makes up one half of the acclaimed Brooklyn-based group SydeBoob Duo, a group dedicated to commissioning new works for flute & voice and amplifying the voices of women in the arts. ​

In addition to maintaining a private studio of 20-25 students through the Steranka Flute Studio, LLC, Ms. Steranka maintains faculty positions at Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Flute Academy. She has also appeared as a guest artist and lecturer at Duke University, West Virginia University’s International Flute Symposium, and Columbus State University. Ms. Steranka’s instructional work has also included teaching actors to play the flute for film roles. She is passionate about teaching music to students of all ages and abilities, and finds joy and inspiration in the power music has to strengthen a community, topics she discussed as a panelist on the NFA 2021 National Convention discussion panel “Community-Minded Musicianship.”

Ms. Steranka holds a master's degree from Duquesne University where she studied with Jennifer Steele and performed with the Triano Woodwind Quintet under the artistic guidance of James Gorton. She earned a BFA at Carnegie Mellon University where her principal teachers were Alberto Almarza and Jeanne Baxtresser.