ARTIST BIOS

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Wild Tracks: Music from the byways and the hedges

Sunday, July 26, 2026

7:30PM

Trinity Episcopal Church

1015 Holman Street, Houston, Texas

Rhapsode Guild Founding Board

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B. P. Herrington (artistic director) was born in the Big Thicket of eastern Texas and his music is rooted in the folk ballads, Pentecostal gospel music, rural singing styles and instrumental music of this unique region.  His works have been performed by artists such as soprano Tony Arnold, conductor James Baker, Ensemble Linea, El Perro Andaluz, the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the BBC Singers, in venues such as Rothko Chapel, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, and London’s Purcell Room. 

Composition awards include the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, Morton Gould Award (ASCAP), Leo Kaplan Prize (ASCAP), First Music Award (New York Youth Symphony) and two composition awards from the Royal Academy of Music. 

Herrington earned a Ph.D. in music composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he studied with Simon Bainbridge. He also studied with Marc Satterwhite and Steve Rouse at the University of Louisville, and with Joe Alexander and Frank Felice at Lamar University. Herrington founded the New Music Lab contemporary music ensemble at Sam Houston State University and currently chairs the Music Department at Lone Star College-CyFair near Houston.

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Misha Penton (founding member) is singer-composer, improvisor, and multidisciplinary artist creating immersive vocal works, sonic installations, and mythic media experiences. Blending voice, electronics, moving image, and atmospheric composition, her work explores memory, landscape, transformation, and the poetic edge between ancient ritual and speculative futures.

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Misha’s works include two residencies with her ensemble Misha Penton Collective for Sculpture Month Houston; Threshold, a site-responsive vocal work for the monumental Silos at Sawyer Yards in Houston; Anecdote of the Spirit, a contemplative sonic meditation for the Rothko Chapel; The Medusa Project, which premiered at the Women Composers Festival of Hartford and was reimagined as a film installation for Bath Spa University’s 35-foot MediaWall in the UK; and Blessings of the Moon, an musico-visual invocation of the mythic feminine. Misha made her directorial debut with Houston Grand Opera's Star Cross’d web opera series, and she has spearheaded many original evening-length performance works, experimental music films, and music media projects. 

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Misha holds a PhD in Music & Performance from Bath Spa University, UK, and collaborations and guest artist residencies include Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Menil Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, DiverseWorks, The Juilliard School, Concordia University Montreal, University of Houston, Sam Houston State University, Texas A&M College Station, and Concordia University, as well as others across music, visual art, and literature.

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Upcoming projects: Resonant Bodies, a sound installation and performances at Bosque Gallery in Cypress, Texas in collaboration with ceramicists Jeff Forster and Gaby Soto; and Watercolor Scores: Sound, Water & New Mythologies at Archway Gallery: an evening of new original music, poetry, and dance inspired by a collection of Misha’s watercolor paintings with guest artists from ConTempo Studios. mishapenton.com

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Stephen Yip (founding member) obtained his doctor of musical arts (D.M.A.) at Rice University. He has attended major music festivals including: Wellesley Composers Conference, Aspen Music Festival, Asian Composers’ League, ISCM World Music Days, Chinese Composers’ Festival, Darmstadt, Germany. Residencies include: Yaddo Colony and MacDowell Colony.

 

Yip’s works have been performed in the Asia, Europe and America. He has received several composition prizes, included “Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award”, “Taiwan Music Center International Composition Prize”, “Singapore International Composition Competition for Chinese Orchestra”, the ALEA III composition Competition. His musical works are published by the Universal edition

and Babelscores; and recorded on CD labels such as: Kairos, Albany, ERM-Media, PARMA, Capstone, North South recording, Ablaze records, ATMA Classique, and Beauport Classical labels and now serves faculty at HCC and Lone Star College-CyFair.

More information: www.stephen-yip.com

 

Composers and Performers

 

Antonio Sanz Escallón is a composer and pianist who focuses on projects involving elements of theatre, poetry and music. His work often explores unusual and surreal experiences through sounds and texts that embody such states.

 

He has received commissions from the Galveston Symphony, the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society, the AURA Contemporary Ensemble, saxophonist Salvador Flores and mezzo-soprano Audrey Welsh. Additionally, he has worked with the Peabody Jazz Ensemble, Hub New Music, the Loadbang ensemble, Ensemble Concept/21, The Rhythm Method Quartet and violinist Barbora Kolářová among others. His music has been heard at a variety of venues, including the Performing Media Festival, the Blaffer Art Gallery and The North American Saxophone Alliance. He has participated in the International Contemporary Ensemble’s Polyaspora Festival, the Curtis Summerfest, the Lake George Music Festival, and the Red Note Music Festival as a composer.

 

Antonio received a master’s degree in composition from the Peabody Institute studying with Kevin Puts. He received a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Moores School of Music studying with Marcus Karl Maroney.

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George Heathco - As a guitarist, composer, educator, and collaborator, Houston musician George Heathco has worked with a wide variety of artists, organizations, and schools. Equally at home in a diverse range of styles, the genre-hopping musician has played guitar with many of Houston’s leading music and theater organizations, local songwriters and rock/pop bands, and numerous churches and contemporary worship services. He has composed and contributed music for television, radio, theater, jazz and chamber ensembles, and rock/pop acts. In 2016, his setting of Psalm 88 was premiered by Duo Scordatura at Carnegie Hall. Since 2004, George Heathco has been active as a music educator, teaching privately, conducting workshops, and teaching classes and courses at numerous Houston-area schools and colleges.

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John Lane is an artist whose creative work and collaborations extend through percussion to poetry, spoken word, and theater, often bridging music performance with socio-political advocacy. As a performer, he has appeared on stages throughout the Americas, Australia, Europe, and Japan.

 

John along with percussionist Allen Otte created and an ongoing social justice advocacy project, The Innocents, which has toured throughout the US including performances and workshops at the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, the Innocence Network Conference, numerous university and public school campuses, and is now the subject of a feature length documentary by Wojciech Lorenc. He has released two albums: The Landscape Scrolls (Starkland Records), and Trigger: Artists Respond to Gun Violence (Albany Records).

 

Currently, John is the Director of Percussion Studies and Professor of Percussion at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He taught previously at the University of Wyoming and held graduate fellowships at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of North Texas.

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Nick Lantz is the author of five collections of poetry: The End of Everything and Everything That Comes After That (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024), You, Beast (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017), How to Dance as the Roof Caves In (Graywolf Press, 2014), The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors' House (University of Wisconsin Press, 2010), and We Don't Know We Don't Know (Graywolf Press, 2010). 

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His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, the Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, the Southern Review, and other journals, as well as in the Best American Poetry anthology. His poetry has received several awards, including the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writer Award, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

He teaches in the MFA program at Sam Houston State University and lives in Huntsville, Texas, with his wife and cats.

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Romanian-American soprano Natalia Leslie spent her formative years in Houston, Texas. She began studying piano and voice at a young age, fostering a love and passion for music. Natalia received her Bachelor’s in Voice Performance with a minor in French studies from Baylor University. While there, she performed many principal roles with Baylor Opera Theatre, including Laurie in Copland's The Tender Land and the title role of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience. Today, Natalia is a graduate student at the University of Houston pursuing two Master’s degrees in Vocal Performance and Vocal Pedagogy as well as in Arts Leadership. With the University of Houston’s Moore's Opera Center, she has performed roles such as Amy in Little Women and Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi. Natalia also has extensive experience with contemporary repertoire and has performed in numerous world premieres, spanning art song to opera. Most recently, she premiered the role of Alice Hobson in Tom Cipullo’s newest opera, Hobson’s Choice. Next, she will sing the role of Königin der Nacht in Die Zauberflöte with Moore’s Opera Center.

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Chinese composer and pianist, Tian Qin, graduated from Shanghai Conservatory (grade 7 to  12), Manhattan School of Music (BM), and Rice University (MM with Brown fellowship),  studying composition with Ying Din, Marjorie Merryman, Karim Al-Zand, Shi-hui Chen, and  Pierre Jalbert; piano with Xiangjun Yu and Jiayin Li. 

 

Tian has composed since age ten. Her music is compelling, humorous, precise, and visual. She  enjoys collaborating and exploring different roles she can play in her artistic language. Her  compositions have won her multiple prizes and workshop opportunities — her trio,  “Obsessed,” comprised of traditional Chinese instruments, won the second prize in the Yinzhong China National Composition Competition. This piece was selected to be performed  at the 34th Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and the Communication Concert of  the Xian and Shanghai Music Middle Schools. Her piece for mixed ensemble “First Name: Last  Name:” was commissioned by Houston Asian American Archive and was premiered in Houston  Asia Society by Musiqa. Her viola piece “NO ‘i think’, NO ‘sorry’” was commissioned by Duo Impetuoso and was featured in Montrose Project. She is also the winner of the American Guild  of Organists student commissioning project 2024.

 

Her compositions have also been performed  and workshopped by the Windscape Ensemble, the Byrne:Kozar:Duo, the Unheard-of  Ensemble, the Atlantic Music Festival contemporary ensemble, The Rhythm Method,  Loadbang, and Roomful of Teeth. As a pianist, Tian has held multiple recitals performing her  music. She has performed in the International Music Foundation’s Rush Hour Concert Series,  the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, and New Art-New Music at the Moody Center for the  Arts. She is also an active member of Gamelan of the New Moon and has held concerts with  the ensemble all around Houston at Jones Hall, Miller Outdoor Theater, and Asia Society.

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Paul Mortilla currently studies music composition as a doctoral candidate and professor at Rice University. Before attending Rice, he received a Master’s of Music from the Yale School of Music (2020) and a Bachelor’s from Indiana University (2017). He has studied music composition with Art Gottschalk, Anthony Brandt, David Lang, Christopher Theofinidis, Martin Bresnick, Aaron J. Kernis, Don Freund, David Dzubay, Aaron Travers, Scott Stinson. Paul attended notable summer festivals such as Tanglewood (2017), Mizzou International Composer’s Festival, and Aspen Music Festival (2022). His music has been performed by Albany Symphony’s Dog’s of Desire, the Callithumpian Consort, and Alarm Will Sound. Paul is a recipient of various awards such as Chamber Music America commission/grant, American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship, Yale School of Music Charles Wood Award, and Yale School of Music Teaching Fellowship.

 

Along with composition, Paul is an active conductor and performer. He was previously director of music at Narberth Presbyterian Church (2022) and composer in residence at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl (2018-2020). He is an avid conductor and facilitator of the performance and recording of contemporary music. Paul has played violin in Indiana University’s University Orchestra, Yale Cabaret, and at Rice. Paul also studies viola da gamba, having performed with Yale Collegium and Rice Collegium. Paul is currently a staff singer at Trinity Episcopal Church Midtown.

 

Beyond Western Classical music, Paul also studies Javanese Gamelan with Mas Dar and Maho Ishiguro and is active in the Houston’s Gamelan Wilun Enggal. Paul studies North Indian raga with composer Michael Harrison. Paul experiments in electronic music and music production as well as performance art. Paul’s music has been released on an album with emerging ensembles such as the Pathos Trio.

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Cellist Daniel Saenz has performed and presented master classes throughout South America, Mexico, and the USA. Recent engagements have taken him to internationally renowned venues throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. 

As a concerto soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, France, and Bolivia. An advocate of the music of our time, Mr. Saenz has performed under the auspices of Aperio, Music of the Americas, The Foundation for Modern Music, the University of Missouri Kansas City Musica Aestas Composition Festival, and SoundSCAPEComposition and Performance Exchange in Maccagno, Italy. 

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More recently, Daniel performed at the Schlern International Music Festival in Völsam Schlern, the Rio International Cello Festival in Rio de Janeiro, and the National Arts Institute (UNA) in Buenos Aires. 

A graduate of the University of Houston, Rice University and the Eastman School of Music, Mr. Saenz is the Assistant Professor of Cello at Sam Houston State University School of Music where he teaches cello, coaches chamber music, and is a member of the Kolonneh String Quartet.

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Cellist Adrian Tellez is an active performer and educator in the greater Houston area, and has appeared in orchestras such as the Toledo Symphony, Adrian Symphony, and Brazos Valley Symphony. He is currently completing a Certificate in Music Performance at the University of Houston under the tutelage of Dr. Eunghee Cho. He received his Master’s degree in Music Performance from Bowling Green State University studying with Dr. Brian Snow as a graduate assistant where he was the principal cellist of the Bowling Green Philharmonia, and cellist in the Graduate String Quartet.

 

He received his Bachelor’s degree from Sam Houston State University studying with Dr. Daniel Saenz. Adrian has a passion for cello pedagogy, and he strives to teach his students valuable lessons about goal-setting, discipline, and dedication through music. In his free time, he enjoys watching sports, especially the Houston Astros!