The ocean is our most precious resource. It covers 71% of our planet, produces half of the world’s oxygen, helps regulate global temperatures and weather patterns, and provides the main source of food for three billion people. In addition, the ocean is a place for recreation and restoration. Studies show that being in and around water makes us happier and healthier. Ocean health and human health are intertwined.
Each concert is paired with a volunteer waterway cleanup or other activity in partnership with a local conservation organization. This experience gives audiences and musicians the opportunity to work hand in hand toward the common goal of cleaner oceans for all. Additionally, they contribute a portion of donations to their partner organizations.
Website: https://oceanmusicaction.org/
About Kinan Azmeh
Hailed as “intensely soulful” and a “virtuoso” by The New York Times, clarinetist and composer
Kinan Azmeh has gained international recognition for his distinctive voice across diverse
musical genres. Originally from Damascus, Syria, Kinan Azmeh brings his music to all corners of
the world as a soloist, composer, educator, and improviser. He has appeared as a soloist with the
New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Dusseldorf
Symphony, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic among others, and has
shared the stage with such musical luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, Marcel Khalife,
John McLaughlin, and Francois Rabbath.
Kinan’s compositions include several works for solo, chamber, and orchestral music, as well as
music for film, live illustration, and electronics. His recent works include commissions by the
New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Knights Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber
Orchestra, Elbphilharmonie, Brooklyn Rider, Aizuri Quartet, and Bob Wilson. In addition to his
own Arab-Jazz Quartet CityBand, he has been a member of the Silkroad Ensemble since 2012. The
Silk Road Grammy Award-winning album “Sing Me Home” from 2017 features Kinan as a
clarinetist and composer.
Kinan is a graduate of the Juilliard School as a student of Charles Neidich. His first opera “Songs
for Days to Come” which is sung in Arabic, was premiered in Osnabruck, Germany in June 2022
to critical acclaim. He was appointed to the National Council for the Arts by President Joe Biden.
About Layale Chaker
Composer and violinist Layale Chaker was raised on the verge of multiple musical streams in her
native Lebanon. Described by NPR as “beguiling” with “bright and beautiful strands,” her complex
sounds universe lies at the intersection of classical contemporary music, jazz, Arabic music, and
improvisation. Her practice is committed to art as both sanctuary and crossroads—a place where
ancestral narratives meet contemporary voices in a continuous reimagination of the world we
inherit, live in and bequeath. A 2020-2022 Jerome Hill Fellow, Chaker received the Opera
America Discovery Award in 2022.
This past year has seen the premiere of a solo work, Qarar/Jawab, commissioned by the Venice
2024 Biennale, and the New York Philharmonic premiere of her double concerto, “Dawning,”
composed alongside Kinan Azmeh, for clarinet, violin and orchestra. "Ruinous Gods,” Chaker’s
debut full-length chamber opera, will see its world premiere at the 2024 Spoleto Festival, followed
by its European premiere at Wuppertal Opera in the fall. 2024 also brings the release of a new
double portrait album on In a Circle Records, one disc featuring Chaker’s classical works
performed by the ETHEL Quartet, and the other a complementary portrait with Chaker’s chamber
jazz quintet, Sarafand.
Layale has worked with Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Ziad Rahbani,
Johnny Gandelsman, Holland Baroque, Oxford Orchestra, New World Symphony, London Jazz
Festival, Lucerne Festival, Beethoven Festival Bonn, and Avignon Festival among others, with
featured performances at the Berlin Philharmonic, Abbaye de Royaumont, National Sawdust, Royal
Albert Hall, and Wigmore Hall.
Layale’s debut album Inner Rhyme (In a Circle Records, 2019) was named "Top of The World" by
Songlines, ranked #2 on NPR’s 10 Best Releases, lived at #1 for several weeks on Amazon Music,
and received rave reviews by the The New York Times, BBC Music Magazine, Strings Magazine,
Jazz World and many others. Composed between Beirut, Paris and London from 2016-2018, the
album unveils musical threads that are mapped through the rhythmical cycles of the twelve
classical Arabic poetic meters, the fluidity of oral and free forms, the abstraction of language into
the physical contour of verses and the percussive potential of words.
Layale Chaker commenced her musical training at the National Higher Conservatory of Beirut in
her native country, before pursuing higher degrees at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Royal
Academy of Music in London. She is a Laureate of the 2019 Concours international de Chant-
Piano Nadia et Lili Boulanger; winner of the 2017 Ruth Anderson Competition; and recipient of
the 2019 Diaphonique Franco-British Commission Prize, the 2018 Arab Fund for Arts and Culture
Grant and the 2018 Royal Academy of Music Guinness Award.
About Megan Conley
Megan Conley (née Levin) had a musical upbringing in Austin, Texas. By the time she was 15 she
had played on several albums, including the Grammy Award-winning album ‘Los Super Seven.’ In
2005, she was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study in Paris, France. In 2012, Megan won first place
in the International Ima Hogg Concerto Competition. Megan served as Principal Harpist of the
Houston Symphony from 2015-2022. In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, she created a
video series, ‘Mornings with Megan,’ which offers educational musical content for young children.
Megan joined The Knights as Principal Harpist in 2019. She has performed with the New York City
Ballet, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Bang On a Can
All-Stars, the American Symphony, and the Sarasota Opera. Megan toured with the Irish Chamber
Orchestra in 2013, performing alongside renowned flutist Sir James Galway. She also performed
regularly for the Broadway show The Fantasticks.
In an effort to merge her passions of music and conservation, Megan founded Ocean Music Action
in 2021. This nonprofit is dedicated to promoting climate activism through the transformative
power of music. In 2023, Megan was awarded a New Music America Creator Fund grant.
About Shawn Conley
Hawaiian born bassist and composer Shawn Conley grew up loving all types of music. He is a
member of the Silkroad Ensemble and the The Knights orchestra since 2013. He has performed
with Sting, Peter Gabriel, and Emanuel Ax, among others. Recent projects include Silkroad’s
Grammy Award-winning album Sing Me Home, an album with Gil Shaham and The Knights, the
world premiere tour of Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling Out of Time, as well as an international tour of the
performance-art piece The Head and the Load created by William Kentridge. As a studio musician,
Shawn has performed on soundtracks including True Grit, Moonrise Kingdom, The Vietnam
War documentary by Ken Burns, and the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Equally at home in the classical and jazz realms, Shawn was the winner of the International
Society of Bass Players Jazz competition in 2009 and toured regularly with the Hot Club of Detroit
and singer Cyrille Aimee. In August 2024, he was a featured artist in TOWERING: a performance
commemorating the 50th anniversary of French tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s historic walk
between the Twin Towers.
Shawn won his current position as Principal Bass of the Hawaii Symphony in 2022.
About Shane Shanahan
Shane Shanahan has combined his studies of drumming traditions from around the world with his
background in jazz, rock and Western art music to create his own unique, highly sought-after
style. Since 2000 he has been touring around the globe performing with Yo-Yo Ma as a founding
member of the genre defying, Grammy-Award Winning Silkroad Ensemble and served as Co-
Artistic Director (2017-2020) and Learning Programs Advisor (2012-2020) for the organization. In
addition to his playing, his arrangements and compositions are featured on several of the group’s
seven recordings and he can be heard and seen on Mr. Ma's Grammy Award-Winning holiday CD/
DVD release, "Songs of Joy And Peace." Shane has performed and/or recorded with Bobby
McFerrin, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, Philip Glass, Alison Krauss, Deep Purple, Jordi Savall,
Sonny Fortune, Chaka Khan, Bill Frisell and Glen Velez, among others. Shane’s dynamic
performances have brought people to their feet in the greatest concert halls of the world, including
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Santory Hall, Disney Hall, and the Hollywood
Bowl. He has performed twice for President and First Lady Obama, once at the White House and
once at the Kennedy Center Honors.
A strong believer in the transformative power of education, Shane frequently presents workshops
and clinics at the world’s leading universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, The Eastman
School of Music, Juilliard, and the University of Michigan. He is currently on faculty at the Hartt
School and was also the Lead Teaching Artist for Silkroad’s arts-integrated education initiative, Silk
Road Connect, which brought music, dance, and visual arts into NYC pubic schools. In 2017 he
was a Blodgett Distinguished Artist at Harvard University, where he co-taught a course with
Ethnomusicology faculty. For the last several years Shane has been engaged in intensive work with
students of all ages at the Lame Deer School on an Indian American Reservation in Montana. He
collaborates actively with the dance, theatre and yoga communities in the New York area and
while not on tour, he teaches drumming classes and lessons out of his studio in Brooklyn to
students from seven to seventy years old. Shane has also played in the pit orchestras of several
Broadway musicals including Caroline, or Change, The Color Purple, Shrek, Spider-Man, Fun
Home, Tuck Everlasting, and Mean Girls.