Founders
Susanna Payne-Passmore, president
Susanna Payne-Passmore is a composer who seeks to inspire listeners with sonorities and tonalities that lie just outside of expectation. Her purpose is to open listener’s minds to new experiences not only in music, but in life. Recent musical explorations include: nonatonic scales, bi-tonality, extended techniques, a “piano clef” system of notation for inside the piano works, and multi-octave scales. Susanna is currently working on an opera exploring gender.
Susanna currently attends the University of Oregon as a master's student in Music Composition. As a graduate of the New College of Florida, Susanna majored in a self-designed Music Composition program and completed an undergraduate thesis on music and meaning. Recent awards include a Fulbright Fellowship to the Republic of Georgia, finalist for the Morton J Gould Young Composer Award, and the Mary Bussman Emerging Female Composer award.
Samuel Lord Kalcheim, personnel
Samuel Lord Kalcheim is currently a doctoral student in music composition at the University of Oregon. Originally from New York City, he previously attended the University of Miami (MM) and the University of Chicago (BA). He is an expert in the style and compositional practice of the Classical and Romantic periods. His compositions include one and a half symphonies, three string quartets, and a one act opera, as well as a good deal of musical theater songs. He wrote his first musical while in high school. In his free time Samuel studies Ancient Greek, Plato especially.
As a performer, Samuel plays violin, viola, and organ, and when not playing Bach to himself, he may be found performing in student new music recitals.
Joseph Vranas, PR
Joseph Vranas is an award-winning composer of concert and film music, having works performed across the United States, Venezuela, and France. Vranas' multimedia compositions have premiered on screen at the Cannes Film Festival and his music has been recognized through local competitions for film scoring, concert, and theatre music in cities such as Houston and Los Angeles.
Vranas is an active conductor, trumpet performer, and private teacher, as well as an activist for music education and music therapy. Vranas is currently pursuing a double masters degree in Composition and Trumpet Performance at the University of Oregon and has studied composition and music education at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
COCO was established in 2017 by composers of the University of Oregon with a conscious effort to provide access to a large chamber ensemble that can provide high quality recordings for local composer's portfolios.