DIANA COTOMAN
Composer
French-Romanian Diana Cotoman is a violinist and composer, with a catalogue of works including symphonic works, operas for young audience, chamber music and music for film and video games.
Her works have been played in France, Romania, England, Switzerland, Spain, Canada and the United States, and can be found on her YouTube and Soundcloud channels.
Her musical style could be labeled as neo-tonal or modern romantic and it combines influences inherited from Eastern European folklore and her classical music education, with minimalism, jazz and electro-acoustic explorations. The key word to her musical universe is melody, inherited from her passion for opera.
https://dianacotoman.wixsite.com/portfolio
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnLC7TmH4P8sKtow76r8Zvg?view_as=public
GERMAINE SHAMES
Librettist
Germaine Shames, recipient of her state’s Literary Fellowship in Fiction, is author of the award-winning novels, Between Two Deserts and You, Fascinating You. Writing under the pen name Casper Silk (Hotel Noir, Echo Year), she has been compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene and P.D. James “on steroids”.
A returning playwright, Shames majored in Theatre as an under-graduate. In 2017-18, the playwright celebrated the New York City premiere of her musical comedy,Anna Karenina Lives!, the selection of her drama-thriller, The Degenerates, for Williams Street Rep’s LAB New Play Series, her adaptation, The Virgin and the Gypsy,for the Festival of New American Theatre, and her musical, The Manifesto, for the Art of Adaptation Festival. Her adaptation, The Lost Girl, won Starlight Theater’s 2019 Playwriting Award. Her new musicals, If the Spirit Moves and Naked, will premiere at Theatre Elision in 2019 and 2020 respectively, and her opera, Last American Dream, at the University of Costa Rica later this year. Her bio-drama, The Higher Love, winner of three workshop competitions, will premiere in Phoenix as part of Now and Then Creative Company’s 2020 season.
As a librettist and lyricist, Shames collaborates with world-class composers in musical theatre, opera, choral and popular music.
She is proud to mentor teen playwrights at her state theatre.
Website: https://germainewrites.wixsite.com/buzz
New Play Exchange:
https://newplayexchange.org/users/2551/germaine-shames
Reviews of Note: https://youtu.be/qJ19KgDOIdA
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/germainewrites