Claudia is a dancer, choreographer and teacher. She started her studies of music and theater at the age of eight. She subsequently studied dance at the National System for Professional Teaching of Dance in Mexico City. In 1987 she joined the dance company U,X. Onodanza and was later asked to join Danzahoy Dance Company from Venezuela, where she danced for five years and began her first choreographic work. In 1992 she founded Delfos Contemporary Dance with Victor Manuel.  

Since the beginning of her career, she has received numerous awards for her artistic works including the National Dance Award in 1992, Best Female Dancer at the International Dance Festival of San Luis Potosi in 2005, and Best Female Dancer at the National Dance Award in 1998 and the 2002. She has also been honored by the National Endowment for the Arts with the fellowships Experience Interpreter (2005-06), Young Creator (2002-03), VII Special Projects Concourse (1996), and Interpreter (1994). Through the State Arts and Culture Found she won fellowships for ?Recognize Artist? in 2001 and Scenic Production Award in 2006. In 2001 the specialized critics selected her as ?One of the 10 Best Dancers of the XX Century? and in 2007 the press named her as the Best Interpreter and Best Choreographic Work of the International Dance Festival ?A Desert for Dance? in Sonora.

In 2007 she was invited as International Visiting Artist at the 25th Bates Dance Festival, which is supported in part by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA). Her work ?Stone Garden?, created for the North American dancer Andree Scott, received the Award of the Austin Critics Table as ?Outstanding Dance Concert? in 2008.  In 2008, The National Endowment for the Arts recognized her artistic development by entering her in the Creators of Art National System.

Claudia has performed in more than 80 choreographies and has created more than 30 choreographic works. She has collaborated with theater and opera directors, photographers, video artists and numerous other artist professionals. Her choreography has been praised by critics in more than a dozen countries and has been presented by seven dance companies, among them the prestigious Mexican National Dance Company and Winnipeg Contemporary Dance.

Claudia is a dancer, co-artistic director and choreographer of Delfos Contemporary Dance and a co- director and teacher of the Mazatlan Professional School of Contemporary Dance (EPDM). She has taught classes and workshops in México and abroad. In October 2008 the International Dance Festival ?Lila Lopez? in San Luis Potosi granted the EPDM the Raul Flores Canelo Award for its pedagogical and artistic contribution to the national dance media.  More about Delfos...

Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Music; Artistic Director, Contempo (the Contemporary Chamber Players)

Shulamit Ran, a native of Israel, began setting Hebrew poetry to music at the age of seven. By nine she was studying composition and piano with some of Israel?s most noted musicians, including composers Alexander Boskovich and Paul Ben-Haim, and within a few years she was having her works performed by professional musicians and orchestras. As the recipient of scholarships from both the Mannes College of Music in New York and the America Israel Cultural Foundation, Ran continued her composition studies in the United States with Norman Dello-Joio. In 1973 she joined the faculty of University of Chicago, where she is now the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Music. She lists her late colleague and friend Ralph Shapey, with whom she also studied in 1977, as an important mentor.  Read more...

August Read Thomas, born in 1964 in Glen Cove, New York, was the Mead Composer-in-Residence for Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997 through 2006. In 2007, her ASTRAL CANTICLE was one of the two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. The "Colors of Love" CD by Chanticleer, which features two of Thomas' compositions, won a Grammy award.

Thomas is a member of: the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the Advisory Committee of the Alice M. Ditson Fund; the Board of Trustees of the American Society for the Royal Academy of Music; the Eastman School of Music's National Council; as well as boards and advisory boards of several chamber music groups. She has been on the Board of Directors of the American Music Center (www.amc.net) since 2000. She was elected Chair of the Board of the American Music Center, a volunteer position that ran from 2005 to 2008. http://www.augustareadthomas.com/