Dr. JEREMY HALADYNA, Director of UC Santa Barbara's Ensemble for Contemporary Music, holds prizes and academic qualifications from three countries. Jeremy, a laureate of the Lili Boulanger Prize and diplômé of the history-rich Schola Cantorum on Paris' Left Bank, also holds an advanced degree from the University of Surrey (U.K.). He has taught undergraduate composition at UCSB since 1991, and was named to its permanent faculty in March, 2000. His own past teachers include William Kraft, Karl Korte, Eugene Kurtz, Jacques Charpentier, and Joseph Schwantner.

            In addition to his performing activity he teaches orchestration and is on the faculty of the College of Crea-tive Studies, UCSB. As pianist, composer, conductor and organist, he has long been committed to the espousal of new music. His own music has been heard at Carnegie (Weill) Hall; King's College, London; St. John's Smith Square, London; South Bank Centre, London; the Monday Evening Concerts, Los Angeles; St. Paul's Cathedral, London; All Saints Church, London; BMIC, London; and the National Museum of Art, Mexico City. In December 1999 he premiered his The Vision Serpent at the Chopin Academy, Warsaw during a guest residency, also lecturing on his "Mayan Cycle," well over 20 years in evolution. In October, 2000 he was invited to present excerpts from the cycle as the subject of a colloquium at Kings College, London. En la Estera del Chilam Balam and "Aluxes!" from said cycle have been released on Neuma records. In music of William Kraft, he is recorded as pianist on CRI and Albany.  In 2009 "Mayan Cycle" elements figured in concerts in Instanbul, Turkey.  In 2009 an integral release from the "Mayan Cycle" appeared on innova.

            His Mayan Cycle now stretches to twenty-seven pieces, including Zaquico'xol, El Llanto de Izamal,  The Maya Curse Pedro de Alvarado, Pok-ta-Pok, The Oracle of 13 Sky, Copal, and the Jaguar Poems. The Jaguar Poems contain rare settings of Yucatec, the authentic (and ancient) language of the Lowland Maya.