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Farayi Malek is a jazz and contemporary vocalist, composer, arranger and educator currently residing in Eugene, Oregon. She received her bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory of Music in 2017 where she studied with vocalist and composer, Dominique Eade. Upon completion, she continued on to receive a master’s degree in Contemporary Performance at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute in 2018, under the tutelage of world-renowned pianist and composer, Danilo Perez. Farayi’s teachers at the Global Jazz Institute and Berklee included Grammy Award winning artists, Terri Lyne Carrington, John Patitucci, Joe Lovano, Peter Eldridge of the New York Voices, and more.
In January of 2018, Farayi was a Berklee Global Jazz Ambassador at the Panama Jazz Festival where she was a performer and instructor of workshops. In May 2018, she was invited to perform in Novosibirsk, Russia with Berklee’s New Spirit Quintet under the direction of the Dean of the Performance Division at Berklee, Ron Savage. In January 2019, Farayi returned to the Panama Jazz Festival as vocalist of Danilo Perez’s Global Messengers, with whom she now tours worldwide. She completed her Post-Master’s Fellowship at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute in June of 2019 and, shortly thereafter, was invited to perform with the Ron Savage Trio at the Mindel Summer Jazz Festival in Sao Vicente, Cape Verde.
In addition to her performance ventures, Farayi Malek is a passionate music educator. In January of 2020, she founded Allegro Virtual Preparatory Instruction, an online learning platform that strives to provide students with the highest possible level of preparation for the study of music in higher education in order to maximize admittance, scholarship funding, and foundational skills for success and heightened creativity. In addition to her online program, an instructor of voice, piano and composition at Eugene Piano Academy, located in Eugene, Oregon.
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Daniel Cho is a Korean-American conductor and violinist from San Francisco, California. He began his journey as a conductor at the age of sixteen, when he was selected as Assistant Conductor of the Napa Valley Youth Symphony, in which he also served as concertmaster. Daniel continued his music education with a Bachelor’s Degree in Violin Performance at New England Conservatory in Boston, MA and upon its completion in 2016, began his Master’s Degree in Conducting at the same institution in 2017. In 2018, Daniel was selected as a Conducting Fellow by the Vienna Summer Music Festival, studying with Maestros Christian Schulz, Wolfgang Scheidt, and Simeon Pironkoff and was chosen for an engagement with Ensemble PHACE, a Vienna-based contemporary ensemble. During the same year, he attended the International Conducting Institute Czech Republic Workshop in Kroměříž, Czech Republic, studying with Maestros Tomas Netopil, Neil Varon, and Tsung Yeh and led the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic in a performance at the Archbishop’s Palace.
In 2019, Daniel was appointed as Conducting Fellow of the Eugene Symphony, as well as Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players and Eugene Opera, all based in Eugene, Oregon. In addition to his professional work, Daniel studies Orchestral Conducting as a Graduate Employee at the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance under the tutelage of Dr. David Jacobs. In 2020, Daniel launched a podcast that he hosts and produces called Con Fuoco. The objective of the podcast is to discuss the current state of the field of classical music and where it is headed in the future. Guests of the show have included violinist Alexi Kenney, Principal Trombone of the Boston Symphony Toby Oft, President and Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization Afa Dworkin, and acclaimed composer Jessie Montgomery.
When not making music, Daniel enjoys reading books, watching movies and TV shows, and walking with his red golden retriever, Lucy.