Biographies

Max Giteck Duykers is the great-grandson of Max Berman and Sophie Levitsky. He is a composer of classical, opera, jazz, electronic, and experimental music and has been involved in the theatre and performance art scenes in New York City for the last 10 years. He is pursuing a PhD in music composition at SUNY Stony Brook where he also teaches music theory, musicianship, and private composition lessons to music majors. He hopes to become a professor of composition at a college or university when he is done with his degree, and to continue to compose for new music ensembles and opera companies. Max also maintains a computer software consulting business called Clear Solutions Group, Inc. Through this occupation he teaches business software (a program called The Master Builder, owned by Sage Software) to building and service contractors throughout the Tri-State area.

You can listen to much of Max’s music and follow his music career at www.jealousgods.com. You can also learn more about his software consulting business at www.clearsolutionsgroup.net.

Rebecca Curinga was born and raised in Westchester County NY, and lived in California for about ten years. She comes from a large and diverse Italian and Irish family who is mostly located in or around the NYC area. She is currently earning a doctorate in Linguistics at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where her focus is second-language acquisition. She teaches linguistics at Lehman College and Queens College and conducts research on “SIFE” or Students with Interrupted Formal Education in NYC public high schools, with the hopes to increase awareness about the need for bilingual education in our public school system. Rebecca and Max are expecting in January and Rebecca looks forward to taking some time off to be with the baby.

You can learn more about Rebecca’s family at their family website maintained by her brother Matt at www.curinga.com.