DEBRA AYERS performs extensively as a recitalist with singers, instrumentalists, and chamber music ensembles including Vega string quartet, Arcadian Winds, Auros New Music Ensemble, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Aspen Music Festival Chamber Players, Emerald City Opera, Breckenridge Music Festival, Serenata of Santa Fe and Taos Chamber Music Group. She is co-founder and pianist of Boston-based MONTAGE Music Society. With MONTAGE cellist Marc Moskovitz she presented the North American premiere of the rediscovered Zemlinsky Cello Sonata at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. She is a proponent of contemporary music whose premieres include works by William Bolcom, Paul Elwood, Andrew List, Daniel Schnyder, Ron Strauss and Yehudi Wyner among others. Ms. Ayers is recipient of numerous awards, including grants from the Adele Marcus Foundation and USC Norman Cousins Award. An alumna of the University of Southern California and the University of Wisconsin, her teachers include André-Michel Schub, Brooks Smith, Gwendolyn Koldofsky, Martin Katz, and John Barrows. Recordings include a critically acclaimed recording with Ilana Davidson of Ernst Krenek Lieder (Capriccio) and MONTAGE Music Society’s newly-released STARRY NIGHT Project…music based on visual art (MSR).