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PEOPLE
Shawn Crouch
Executive Artistic Director
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Shawn Crouch is a composer, conductor, and educator recently named Executive Artistic Director of IlluminArts. Described by Gramophone Magazine as a “gifted composer” and by The New York Times as creating music of “gnarling atonal energy,” Crouch has garnered critical acclaim for works such as The Road from Hiroshima: A Requiem, which The Miami Herald hailed as a “staggering achievement, an imaginative, powerful and deeply moving work.” His choral work Visions and Ecstasies: A Mass was named “Best New Work” by the South Florida Classical Review.
Crouch’s music has been commissioned, performed and recorded by leading ensembles across the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has received awards and grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The American Prize, ASCAP, BMI, Yale University, Society of Composers Inc., Meet the Composer, New Music USA, and the Percussive Arts Society. He is also the inaugural recipient of the Dale Warland Singers Commissioning Award, presented by Chorus America and the American Composers Forum. Shawn Crouch currently serves as Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Composition and Theory at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he directs Ensemble Ibis, the school’s contemporary music ensemble, and leads the Experiential Music Curriculum. He holds degrees in composition from the New England Conservatory (B.Mus.), the Yale School of Music (M.Mus.), and the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami (D.M.A.).​​​
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Antonio Urrutia Mendoza
Company Manager
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Antonio Urrutia Mendoza, oboe and English horn, is a Colombian-born, Miami-based musician. As an avid free-lancer, Urrutia holds the Principal Oboe Chair with the Florida Grand Opera and the Solo English Horn and 2nd Oboe positions with the Palm Beach Symphony. He also performs frequently with the Miami City Ballet, South Florida Symphony Orchestra, Symphony of the Americas, Serpahic Fire, Opera Naples, The New World Symphony and has been featured as a soloist with Orchestra Miami. Antonio received his Masters of Music in Orchestral Oboe at the McGill University Schulich School of Music, as well as his Graduate Diploma in Professional Performance, where he was a Graduate Teaching Assistant under the tutelage of former Montreal Symphony Principal Oboe, Theodore Baskin. During his time in Canada, he was a Fellow with the National Academy Orchestra of Canada and also performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Classique de Montreal, Ensemble Obiora, Pronto Musica Chamber Orchestra, and made frequent appearances at the Brott Music Festival in Ontario. Urrutia has also been featured internationally, as he was Acting Associate Principal Oboe of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in New Zealand and holds the Solo Oboe Chair at the St. Georges International Music Festival in Guadeloupe, France. During the summers, Urrutia is a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, where he continues his studies with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Principal Oboe, Elaine Douvas.
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Amanda Crider
Founder
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American mezzo-soprano Amanda Crider founded IlluminArts in 2013 to present world class performacnes of classical music to Miami's vibrant audiences. Maintaining an active singing career, she has sung with numerous opera companies across the US including LA Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Dallas Opera, New York City Opera, Florida Grand Opera, The Castleton Festival, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Boston, Opera Omaha, Des Moines Metro Opera, Anchorage Opera, Gotham Chamber Opera, and Eugene Opera. Ms. Crider has been a prize winner and finalist in many competitions, including the José Iturbi International Voice Competition, Jensen Foundation Voice Competition, Joy in Singing Debut Artist Competition, Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition, Oratorio Society of New York Vocal Competition, and is a recipient of a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation. She is currently the General Manager of Grammy-winning vocal band Roomful of Teeth.