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CURRENT GOALS
HISTORY
BACKGROUND OF BOARD MEMBERS

Where we come from: a new organization created in 2006 in response to cultural needs and goals of New York City

L.E.S.P.A. aims to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life in the downtown Lower East Side neighborhood, to create venues and opportunities for diverse composers and artists, to increase opportunities for women, to encourage the creation of new work, to not only entertain, but also enlighten audiences of all ages and backgrounds by presenting exciting pieces with a degree of depth, with the multicultural, multimedia and postmodern elements that effectively address the complexity of our time. The organization is also working with its advisory board (which includes members of multiple ethnic backgrounds) on a five-year development plan with a focus on diversity and service.

Artist Services
L.E.S.P.A. will curate events, target audiences, locate or create venues and produce events in a wide variety of locations from theaters to libraries and parks. Artists of any discipline, musicians, singers, conductors, performance artists, dancers, writers and poets, visual artists and web artists can benefit from L.E.S.P.A.'s services and membership benefits, ranging from career advice to web site development and artist catalogues to publishing music and releasing work to the public as CDs, DVDs and web vehicles.

Audience Development
The L.E.S.P.A. team of experts, combining 20 years of experience in curating, producing and promoting events, including internet promotion and blogs, aims to create exciting, high-quality as well as affordable local venues serving the Lower Manhattan community as a viable alternative to uptown events and plans to reach world-wide audiences as well with innovative internet content.

L.E.S.P.A. is a young organization founded in July 2006. Activities started in 2007 with the launch of the Op on Screen Festival presenting a unique perspective on "neo-opera" through the screening of documentaries of groundbreaking works of the past ten years, hosted by the New York Public Library branch at Hamilton Fish Park. For this event L.E.S.P.A. partnered not only with the New York Public Library but with several other nonprofits: Downtown Music Productions, American Opera Projects, Harpsichord Unlimited and AFMM.

L.E.S.PA.'s Solstice Celebration 2008 featured several premieres of new American chamber and vocal music while encouraging memberships and private contributions.

The Op on Screen Festival 2008 presented four events featuring Ben Neill, Jin Hi Kim, David Strickland and Ilsa Gilbert, and Elodie Lauten.

In December 2009, a Holiday Benefit taking place at 54 Franklin/Lafayette Bar & Grill featured work in progress with the Nancy Zendora Dance Company.

In March 2009 L.E.S.P.A. co-sponsored a music theater production presented by TNC, the world premiere of Elodie Lauten's The Two-Cents Opera for a successful, well-reviewed three-week performance featuring many singers and musicians from the downtown Lower East Side neighborhood as well as artists from Viet Nam and Italy.

On August 22, 2009 L.E.S.P.A. presented Where are the Women, a program of solo flute by twelve women composers, at the Hamilton Fish Public Library, free of charge. Covered by The Villager, the event drew a crowd and was very well received.

The Op on Screen Festival 2009 will feature interactive/inter-generation projects by women: Sofia Paraskeva, Lesley Flanigan, Arleen Schloss, Emma Zakarevicius and Elodie Lauten in four events from October 15-22. The program is supported in part by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Fund for Creative Communities.

BACKGROUND OF BOARD MEMBERS

Carolyn Ratcliffe, president, holds a Master's degree in non-profit management from Milano-New School and is a development consultant for several non-profit arts organizations; since the early 90s she has helped connect cultural programs downtown such a LaPlaza Cultural, where as an artistic director she collaborated with Lincoln Center Out of Doors to present events in the East Village; she is a founder and board member of the Art Loisaida Foundation. She can be reached at: nymagnolia@mindspring.com and by phone at 212-674-4057.

Jeffrey James, vice-president, has an established practice as an arts consultant in classical music with over sixty clients. He has worked with composers, instrumentalists, conductors, orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance companies, and many other arts related organizations in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America since 1981. A current list of clients is available at http://www.jamesarts.com. Mr. James is the Executive Director of the Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition, formerly in Kharkov, Ukraine and now in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. He currently serves as a juror and Special Adviser for the Ibla International Music Competition in Italy, as a special advisor to the American Music Festival in Wroclaw, Poland that took place in November 2007, on the Board of Advisors for Career Bridges, an organization that supports the development of young opera singers, and as an advisor to Weaving Japanese Sounds, a concert series in New York. Jeffrey James is a recognized authority in the use of Internet to promote classical music and musicians. He has lectured on the subject at Boston's Berklee College of Music, Chamber Music America's Annual Conferences in New York, the Karol Lipinski University of Music in Wroclaw, Poland, the Tbilisi Conservatoire in Georgia, and the Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition in both Ukraine and the U.S. He works closely with classical music web magazines, newsgroups and other Internet classical music sites across the U.S., Europe and Asia. He has created ClassicalCDs.net, an Internet-based sales outlet for independent CD companies and International Composer, a composer interview site. Jeffrey James is the President of 4Tay Records and ClassicalCDs.net, and also serves as an adviser to Angelok1 Records. He can be reached at 516-586-3433 - phone and fax, or by email at jamesarts@worldnet.att.net.

Elodie Lauten, artistic director, has taught on the composition faculty at NYU and has 20 years of experience as a composer of classical music with 27 releases to-date, as well as an independent producer of both concerts and recordings. Through L.E.S.PA., she aims to bring forth a progressive and viable vision for the future of classical music. She received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, the American Music Center including the prestigious Music Liberty Award in 2002 for her post-9/11 piece. Her work was presented at Lincoln Center at the New York City Opera. She is active member of the American Music Center and Chamber Music America and a member/publisher of ASCAP. She is a board member of the American Festival of Microtonal Music. She writes regularly for the classical music internet magazine Sequenza21. Email: elauten@yahoo.com, phone 212-388-0202.