Congratulations to beatboxer Shodekeh, cellist Audrey Chen, and artist Gary Kachadourian for their $25,000 Baker Awards!
Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician and performance artist born outside of Chicago in 1976. Using the cello, voice and analog electronics, Chen’s work focuses on the combination and layering of traditional and extended techniques. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is often extremely personal and visceral. Her performance work incorporates sound, movement and visual/sculptural concepts. Chen performs solo and in collaboration with a wide number of musicians and dancers. View her Baker Award Nomination here.
Shodekeh Talifero is a professional beatboxer & vocal percussionist currently working in the Baltimore, MD area & beyond. Boldly taking his craft wherever the passion for music brings him, he works in a number of artistic fields for Dance, Music, & the Visual arts. By channeling the concepts of various instruments & sound scapes, he vocalizes many dynamic emulations of everything from drum sets, turntables, ocean waves, to sleigh bells. These abilities & his keen musical adaptability have brought him far & wide across many genres & artistic traditions within a very short period of time, which has also allowed him to repeatedly become the first Beat Boxer/Vocal Percussionist to serve in array of creative settings. View Shodekeh’s Baker Award Nomination here.
Gary Kachadourian worked for the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts coordinating exhibitions and grants from 1987 to 2009. He currently is in the MFA program at UMBC and makes art in his suburban Baltimore home when not at school. View his Baker nomination here.
