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Steeplechase Arts is a music production and publishing company that integrates innovation and tradition in music and collaboration among the arts. Since 2003, the company has produced concerts, operas, and collaborative arts events throughout the United States and Europe. Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Theatre Project, Georgetown University, the President's House of Stony Brook University, Franklin and Marshall College, the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, St. John's College, Longwood University, Washington College, and Guild Hall are among the locations for our productions. Steeplechase has had press coverage from National Public Radio, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, Johns Hopkins Magazine, The East Hampton Star, and Baltimore City Paper. Over the next year, Steeplechase will be engaged in collaborative projects in the US and Europe in film, dance, poetry, and opera.

Here is a partial list of some of our recent and upcoming collaborators:
The Anderson/Fader Guitar Duo (US), Dimitris Kotronakis (guitarist, Greece), Duo Resonances (France), Sonya Zolotaryovais (filmmaker, Japan), Mei Rui (pianist, US), Svetlana Tovstukha (cellist, Spain), The Paumanok Trio (Korea & US), Gabriela Jaime (filmmaker, Spain), SYREN Modern Dance (US), Sheng-Yuan Kuan (pianist, US), and Cadence Ballet (Canada).
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About Us

Damon Ferrante is a Simkins Award-wining composer, guitarist, and music writer. He has had performances throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, most notably, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, and Guild Hall. Over the next year, he will be on tour in the US, Spain, China, Italy, and Greece for performances of his music. He has written the film scores for Gabriela Jaime's Flor (Spain), Sonya Zolotaryovais's White Winter (Japan), and is working on the scores for several new films. Ferrante was appointed composer-in-residence for Montauk, New York for five years (funded by New York State Council for the Arts). His successful series brought world-famous composers, such as Mark Adamo, David Del Tredici, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Robert Aldridge, to Montauk for performances and talks on their operas and music. He has been the subject of feature articles in the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, The East Hampton Star, and Johns Hopkins Magazine, and has appeared several times on National Public Radio. Ferrante has taught on the music faculties at Seton Hall University and Montclair State University. The Cignus Ensemble, Anderson/Fader Guitar Duo, Guild Hall, John Drew Theater, Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, and Theater Project have commissioned works from Damon Ferrante. His scores and music instruction books are available on Amazon.com and his recordings are available on iTunes and Spotify.

Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun calls Ferrante's music "focused and colorful...with an unexpected, decidedly poetic touch." Geoffrey Himes of Baltimore City Paper states, "If the tune has the elegance of traditional opera, the harmonization is very modern as the vocal lines climb and descend the melodic staircases that Ferrante has constructed for them." During the month of its New York premiere, Anne Midgette, writing in the New York Times, cited Ferrante's opera Jefferson and Poe as one the three operas to see in Manhattan. Mary MacCauley of the Baltimore Sun describes his music as "ebullient and full of shifts of direction." Betsy Murphy of the Ridgewood News calls him "a star on the rise."

In 2003, Damon Ferrante founded Steeplechase Arts & Productions, a company integrating innovation, tradition, and collaboration between music and the arts. As director of Steeplechase, Ferrante has presented concerts and operas throughout the United States.  Now in its fifteenth year, the company has expanded its artistic efforts to include a robust music publishing wing. The publications, which include classical music scores and music instruction guides and courses, are available throughout the world. These publications have sold over 450,000 copies. In 2019, the books will be available in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Japanese editions in both paperback and digital editions.
Daniel Mark Epstein is a poet, dramatist, and biographer with twelve books in print at Farrar Straus & Giroux, Harcourt, Henry Holt, Overlook/Putnam, and Random House. His poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and is widely anthologized. His work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Epstein's dramas have been staged in regional theaters and Off-Broadway, and in productions on National Public Radio. Jenny and the Phoenix premiered at Baltimore's Theatre Project in 1977, and was later optioned by Joseph Papp for the Public Theatre; The Midnight Visitor was presented Off-Broadway in 1981, and The Leading Lady was produced at Theatre Hopkins in Baltimore in 1999.

His biography of Aimee Semple McPherson, Sister Aimee (Harcourt, Brace, 1992) is in its third printing. In 1998 he published an acclaimed translation of Euripides' play The Bacchae. Epstein's biography of Nat King Cole was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and was a New York Times "notable book" of 1999; his biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay was a New York Library "Books to Remember Selection" in 2001. His most recent book is Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington.
For the past 20 years the Anderson/Fader Guitar Duo has been heard in concerts, festivals and Master Classes throughout the U.S., Latin America and Europe, both as a duo and as members of the award-winning Cygnus Ensemble. Guitar Review magazine noted that "Anderson and Fader are expert chamber musicians with a perfect sense of timing, virtuosity and a sensitivity to nuance." Reviewing the Duo's premiere performance of a commissioned work by Milton Babbitt, the NY Times reported that: "His melodies leap freely around the fretboard, and his rhythms are complex and perilous. Yet Mr. Anderson and Mr. Fader played the work from memory, and gave an impressive account of it."

The Duo champions the work of living American composers. The list of composers who have written for the Duo and Cygnus include Babbitt, Bond, Davidovsky, Naito, Rakowski, and others.

Mr. Anderson and Mr. Fader met while in their teens in New York City, as students of the legendary guitarist David Starobin. Now based in New York City, the Duo has performed with many presenters and organizations, most notably with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Chamber Players at Zankel Hall, performing the guitar and mandolin parts in Elliott Carter's Luimen.
Anderson and Fader, with Cygnus, were in residence at the Library of Congress in the winter of 2012. Ongoing residencies at the CUNY Graduate Center and Sarah Lawrence College give the Duo an opportunity to work with young composers. In addition to classical and electric guitars, the Duo has added mandolin, banjo and theorbo to their instrumentation to accommodate their ever expanding repertoire.
SYREN Modern Dance is a New York based company founded in 2003 by Lynn Peterson and Kate St. Amand.  Using live music and collaborations with visual artists, they bring vivid work to audiences from New York to Paris.  SYREN has been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Symphony Space, Dance Theater Workshop, Green Space, Cité Universitaire, The Riverside Theatre, Queens Theatre in the Park, Dancers Responding to AIDS, The Warner Theatre, New Haven Ballet, and The Ethel Walker School, among others. It has been supported by grants from NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Queens Council on the Arts, Harkness Space Grants (92nd Street Y), residencies at DanceNOW/NYC’s Silo and DTW’s Outer/Space, and was commissioned by Purchase College.

SYREN’s mission is to place dance within a broader social context and harness the unique power of live performance. Central to that mission is pairing vigorous motion with live onstage music to bring dance back to where it started – in dialogue with live music. SYREN has collaborated with Galeet Dardashti, Artemis Chamber Ensemble, Steeplechase Arts & Productions, Lauren Cregor Devine, and Yonah Zur to bring numerous performances to the public that feature dance with live music.
Mei Rui is an internationally award-winning concert pianist, an avid chamber musician, a dedicated piano teacher of over 30 students, and Adjunct Professor at the Sophie Davis Biomedical School at the City University of New York, where she lectures in both Organic and General Chemistry. Born in Shanghai in 1983, Mei has given solo recitals in Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, New Haven, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taiwan, Fort Worth, and Vienna, and has soloed with the Beijing and Shanghai Philharmonias, the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra, the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, and Yale Symphony Orchestra. Currently a DMA candidate, she received her Bachelor's in Molecular Biochemistry from Yale, M.M. and A.D. with Claude Frank and Peter Frankl from Yale School of Music. Her awards include the Van Gelder Memorial Award, McDermett Scholarship, Lowenthal Fellowship, Joseph Selden Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts, Sheffield Scientific Scholarship, Bruce Simonds Scholarship, and the George W. Miles Scholarship; top prizes in China National Piano Competition, MSM Concerto Competition, W. Waite Concerto Competition, Friends of Music Recital Competition and Chamber Music Celebration at Yale, Kingsville International, and Kosciusko Chopin Competition. Her summer festival appearances include the Van Cliburn Piano Institute, Music Academy of the West, Norfolk, Taos, and Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festivals.
Countertenor Pascal Horn was born in Guadeloupe (the French West Indies). He began his singing career, at five years old, in his father's choir. At fifteen years old, he moved to Paris to study in the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNR-CSP). In Paris he met and continues to works with some of Europe's most prominent musicians, such as Didier Lockwood, François Rolland, and Michel Legrand. At eighteen years old, he performed in his first starring role in Etienne Mehul's La Legende de Joseph en Egypte.

Following his early successes, Pascal Horn has been engaged to sing at some of the world's most prominent opera houses and concert halls, including L'Opera de Paris, Mexico's Theater, and Saint Patrick's Cathedral. An opera singer, as well as an expert in French cabaret, he also performs regularly in "Aux trois Mailletz" in Paris. His unique and otherworldly voice, which has not changed since boyhood, has won him praises on both sides of the Atlantic.
The New York Times states that mezzo-soprano Margaret Peterson, "sings attractively and posses a sense of easy authority." Musical America writes that "As Grandmother, mezzo-soprano Margaret Peterson was wonderfully wicked and sexy in her blonde wig and spike heels, easily finessing wide-ranging vocal lines and sounding especially commanding in the upper registers." Peterson is the Recipient of the Orvis Opera Award and 2006 ASCAP Award Recipient; she was a member of New Jersey Opera in 2007.

Her performance credits include Estelle in Later the Same Evening, the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas, Jan in The Golden Gate, and Sara in the Binding of Isaac. Equally at home in musical theater, she has performed the roles of Edwin Drood in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Cinderella in Into the Woods. She has sang roles in the American Musical Theater Ensemble's Defying Gravity, Stephen Schwartz Review, and George & Lenny, Bernstein and Gershwin in Review. She holds a Bachelor's Degree from Manhattan School of Music and is a candidate for the Master's Degree in 2010.
Ryan Ebright (baritone) earned his Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2014. He also holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University (M.M. Musicology and Vocal Performance, 2006) and Westmont College (B.A. Music and Economics-Business, 2003).   Dr. Ebright is equally at home on stage and in the classroom, maintaining an active career as a singer and musicologist. As an advocate for and performer of contemporary music, he has originated roles in the operas Jefferson and Poe (D. Ferrante) and The Alien Corn (T. Benjamin) andpremiered the song cycle The Mountain and Tidewater Songs (Ferrante) at Carnegie/Weill Recital Hall. Dr. Ebright has appeared as a soloist with various organizations and ensembles including the Evolution Contemporary Music Series, Concert Artists of Baltimore, Peabody Concert Orchestra, and Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute.   He has studied voice with John Shirley-Quirk, Steven Rainbolt, and Thomas Houser, and counts among his formative performance experiences coaching directly with composers such as Mark Adamo and Robert Aldridge. As a scholar, his  research focuses on opera, song, and the intersections of music and drama, with his most recent work centering on American minimalist opera and German art song of the nineteenth century. You read more about him at www.ryanebright.com.
Christopher Engel is an Artist, Educator and Expressive Arts Therapist. He incorporates Jungian philosophy and techniques in all of his work. Engel's immersion in the arts began when he was a child - growing up in the theater and surrounded by the art of his parents. One of his earliest memories is standing in his father's New York City studio mesmerized by the palettes, brushes and paints. "My exposure to my parents Off-Broadway multi-media experimental theater pieces, which included poetry, film, photographs, paintings, sculpture and sound compositions, was my early education in the arts," says Engel. He has been an Expressive Arts Therapist and a Visual Arts Teacher for over 20 years in New York City and the East End of Long Island, and is currently Director of Summer and Community Programs at Ross School in East Hampton, NY.

Engel began exhibiting his work in the mid 1980's in NYC and continued to have exhibits in New York City, Paris, Buenos Aires, East Hampton, Springs, Southampton, Watermill and Sag Harbor, NY. His work is part of numerous private collections.

Christopher Engel’s solo exhibits include “Lamb Hole Church” at Enigma Gallery in the East Village, NYC; “Alchemy: The Art of Christopher Engel” at Ross School Art Gallery; “Icons” at Walk Tall Gallery, East Hampton; "Recent Works" at Montauk Yacht Club, Montauk; “Ancestors”, “Madrigals”, “Angels and Prophets”, “Bloom,”  “Numinous,” “Convergence,” “Open Paths,” “The Raga Portraits,” and most recently “Trinity” at Romany Kramoris Gallery, Sag Harbor; “Gathering” at Hampton Hang Gallery, Watermill

Christopher Engel's group exhibits include “Visions” at Enigma Art Gallery, East Village, NYC; “Recent Drawings” at New Media Gallery, NYC; “Recent Trends in Works of Art on Paper” at Museo de Arte, Buenos Aires; “Sensibilites Contemporaines” at CIE Moderne & Contemporaine, Paris; “Passage” at Oddfellows Hall, East Hampton; Members Exhibit at Guild Hall, East Hampton; “Artists Within” at Ross School Art Gallery; “Invitational Art Show” at Gone Local Gallery, Amagansett; "Springs Invitational Art Show" at Ashawagh Hall, Springs; “Artists@Ross,” Art Southampton,  “Recent Works” Romany Kramoris Gallery, Sag Harbor.