Founders, Partners and Collaborators
Carol Reiley
Cofounder, CEO
Carol Reiley is an entrepreneur and Artificial Intelligence roboticist. She is currently CEO of a healthcare startup, a Collaborative Partner of the San Francisco Symphony, tech advisory council member for Harman Kardon, a World Economics Forum Young Global Leader, and a brand ambassador for Guerlain Cosmetics. A pioneer in teleoperated and autonomous robot systems in applications such as surgery, space exploration, disaster rescue, and self-driving cars, Reiley previously wrote a book and was a diy hacker. She co-founded, invested, and was President of Drive.ai, which was acquired by Apple. The first female engineer on the cover of MAKE: magazine, she was the youngest member on the IEEE Robotics and Automation Board. She has been recognized by Forbes, Inc. magazine, and Quartz’s Most Powerful Founders lists in Artificial Intelligence; served as an advocate for underrepresented groups in technology; and spoken out about bias in AI. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Wired.
Carol Reiley is an entrepreneur and Artificial Intelligence roboticist. She is currently CEO of a healthcare startup, a Collaborative Partner of the San Francisco Symphony, tech advisory council member for Harman Kardon, a World Economics Forum Young Global Leader, and a brand ambassador for Guerlain Cosmetics. A pioneer in teleoperated and autonomous robot systems in applications such as surgery, space exploration, disaster rescue, and self-driving cars, Reiley previously wrote a book and was a diy hacker. She co-founded, invested, and was President of Drive.ai, which was acquired by Apple. The first female engineer on the cover of MAKE: magazine, she was the youngest member on the IEEE Robotics and Automation Board. She has been recognized by Forbes, Inc. magazine, and Quartz’s Most Powerful Founders lists in Artificial Intelligence; served as an advocate for underrepresented groups in technology; and spoken out about bias in AI. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Wired.
Hilary Hahn
Cofounder, VP of Artistic Partnerships
Three-time Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn melds expressive musicality and expertise with a diverse repertoire guided by artistic curiosity. Her barrier-breaking attitude towards classical music and her commitment to sharing her experiences with a global community have made her a fan favorite. Hahn is a prolific recording artist and commissioner of new works, and her 20 feature recordings have received every critical prize in the international press. Hahn is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. In 2001, she was named “America’s Best Young Classical Musician” by Time magazine, and in 2010, she appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. She also holds honorary doctorates from Middlebury College—where she spent four summers in the total-immersion German, French, and Japanese language programs—and Ball State University, where there are three scholarships in her name.
Three-time Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn melds expressive musicality and expertise with a diverse repertoire guided by artistic curiosity. Her barrier-breaking attitude towards classical music and her commitment to sharing her experiences with a global community have made her a fan favorite. Hahn is a prolific recording artist and commissioner of new works, and her 20 feature recordings have received every critical prize in the international press. Hahn is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. In 2001, she was named “America’s Best Young Classical Musician” by Time magazine, and in 2010, she appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. She also holds honorary doctorates from Middlebury College—where she spent four summers in the total-immersion German, French, and Japanese language programs—and Ball State University, where there are three scholarships in her name.
Dana Leong, Composer
Dana Leong is a two-time Grammy award-winning musician, composer, and producer. Considered by many to be the world’s top electric cellist, he has also been referred to as world’s top trombone player by members of the world-renowned Balkan Beat Box. Dana’s music spans multiple genres. He has taught Jazz at Stanford University from the age of 16; completed the public policy program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; has given performances and speeches at TEDxShanghai and the US OPEN Tennis Championship; won two Grammys in Latin Jazz and classical music for his collaboration with Paquito D’rivera; worked with Kanye West and Sean P. Diddy Combs in Hip-Hop, and with DJ A-Trak and DJ Qbert in EDM; been a guest musical director for Fela! on Broadway. As an internationally renowned musician composer, Dana has cooperated with global brands to create music and immersive experiences. A leading innovator at the intersection of music, technology, and wellness, Dana has performed healing music at the World Economic Forum and is a composer on a ‘musicians against violence’ album produced by Harry Belafonte. He also worked with Yamaha to consult on the design of the “Silent Cello,” serves as a U.S. Musical Ambassador, and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
David Lang, Composer
One of the most highly esteemed and performed American composers writing
today. Lang is acclaimed for his vocal music, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning
the little match girl passion
, and for writing narrative music for dance, films, and theatrical productions, as well as his own operas. He earned Golden Globe, Critics' Choice, and Academy Award nominations
for his music for Paolo Sorrentino's film Youth. Most recently, Lang scored Paul Dano's directorial debut,
Wildlife, as well as Patty Jenkins’s limited series I Am the Night.
Recent works include his opera prisoner of the state (with libretto by Lang) — premiered in 2019 by the New York Philharmonic, who co-commissioned the work along with Rotterdam's de Doelen Concert Hall, London’s Barbican Centre, Barcelona’s l’Auditori, Bochum Symphony Orchestra, and Bruges’s Concertgebouw; the writings, commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Netherlands Kamerkoor, and premiered by Theatre of Voices; the mile-long opera co-created with architect Elizabeth Diller and premiered in New York City's mile-long elevated park The Highline; the loser, which opened the 2016 Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and for which Lang served as composer, librettist and stage director; the public domain for 1000 singers at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival; his chamber opera anatomy theater at Los Angeles Opera and at the Prototype Festival in New York; the concerto man made for the ensemble So Percussion and a consortium of orchestras, including the BBC Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; mountain, commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony, death speaks, a song cycle based on Schubert, but performed by rock musicians, including Bryce Dessner from The National and Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond; the whisper opera, for the International Contemporary Ensemble and soprano Tony Arnold; and love fail, an evening-length work for the early music vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, with libretto and staging by Lang.
Lang is a Professor of Music Composition at the Yale School of Music and is Artist in Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York's legendary music collective Bang on a Can. His music is published by Red Poppy
Music (ASCAP) and Ricordi/Universal Music Classical.
today. Lang is acclaimed for his vocal music, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning
the little match girl passion
, and for writing narrative music for dance, films, and theatrical productions, as well as his own operas. He earned Golden Globe, Critics' Choice, and Academy Award nominations
for his music for Paolo Sorrentino's film Youth. Most recently, Lang scored Paul Dano's directorial debut,
Wildlife, as well as Patty Jenkins’s limited series I Am the Night.
Recent works include his opera prisoner of the state (with libretto by Lang) — premiered in 2019 by the New York Philharmonic, who co-commissioned the work along with Rotterdam's de Doelen Concert Hall, London’s Barbican Centre, Barcelona’s l’Auditori, Bochum Symphony Orchestra, and Bruges’s Concertgebouw; the writings, commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Netherlands Kamerkoor, and premiered by Theatre of Voices; the mile-long opera co-created with architect Elizabeth Diller and premiered in New York City's mile-long elevated park The Highline; the loser, which opened the 2016 Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and for which Lang served as composer, librettist and stage director; the public domain for 1000 singers at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival; his chamber opera anatomy theater at Los Angeles Opera and at the Prototype Festival in New York; the concerto man made for the ensemble So Percussion and a consortium of orchestras, including the BBC Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; mountain, commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony, death speaks, a song cycle based on Schubert, but performed by rock musicians, including Bryce Dessner from The National and Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond; the whisper opera, for the International Contemporary Ensemble and soprano Tony Arnold; and love fail, an evening-length work for the early music vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, with libretto and staging by Lang.
Lang is a Professor of Music Composition at the Yale School of Music and is Artist in Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York's legendary music collective Bang on a Can. His music is published by Red Poppy
Music (ASCAP) and Ricordi/Universal Music Classical.
Michael Abels, Composer
Michael Abels is best known for his scores for Jordan Peele's Oscar-winning debut GET OUT, and for US, for which Abels won the World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics’ Choice nomination, an Image Award nomination, and multiple critics awards. The hip-hop influenced score for US was short-listed for the Oscar, and was named “Score of the Decade” by online publication The Wrap. Other scores include BAD EDUCATION and FAKE FAMOUS for HBO, and SEE YOU YESTERDAY for Netflix. Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, game and streaming media. As a concert composer, Abels has received grants from the NEA and from Meet The Composer. His orchestral works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many others. As guest conductor of GET OUT IN CONCERT, Abels has led orchestras like the National Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Several of his orchestral works have been recorded by the Chicago Sinfonietta on the Cedille label, including “Delights & Dances,” a work commissioned by the Sphinx Organization. Recent projects include the ballet FALLING SKY for Butler University, AT WAR WITH OURSELVES with Nikky Finney for the Kronos Quartet, and producing "CRY NO MORE" for MacArthur Genius Rhiannon Giddens and the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.
Christine Payne, AI Scientist OpenAI
Christine McLeavey Payne is on the technical staff of OpenAI and is the creator of Musenet and Jukebox. The co-founder and pianist of Ensemble San Francisco. She completed her masters in the spring of 2004 at the Juilliard School of Music. An avid chamber musician and an audience favorite, she resides now in Portola Valley, CA. In 2006, she was awarded the Coup de Coeur de Bayer Cropscience at the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition and was featured on Radio France and France TV. Ms. McLeavy has performed in such venues as Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival with Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster David Kim, the Banff International Keyboard Festival in a solo concert for Canada's Governor General, and the Tanglewood Music Festival. She has also worked as a rehearsal pianist for the New York Philharmonic.
Ms. McLeavey graduated as valedictorian of Princeton University, with a degree in Physics and a certificate in Piano Performance. She studied most recently with Sharon Mann and Julian Martin, and has participated in Master Classes of Ivan Moravec, Malcolm Martineau, Gary Graffman, and Jerome Lowenthal.
Ms. McLeavey graduated as valedictorian of Princeton University, with a degree in Physics and a certificate in Piano Performance. She studied most recently with Sharon Mann and Julian Martin, and has participated in Master Classes of Ivan Moravec, Malcolm Martineau, Gary Graffman, and Jerome Lowenthal.
Dominic Cheli, Pianist
Dominic Cheli’s playing has been described as “spontaneous yet perfect, the best of how a young person can play.” (Symphony Magazine). His rapidly advancing career included his Walt Disney Concert Hall Debut with legendary conductor Valery Gergiev where Dominic was described as “mesmerizing, (he) transfixed the audience...his fingers were one with each key.” (LA Times). He gave his Carnegie Hall Recital Debut this past season, and recently recorded his second CD on the Naxos label of the music of Liszt/Schubert. In July 2017, Cheli’s first CD, featuring the music of Muzio Clementi and released by Naxos, was hailed as “definitive performances, that match splendid playing with an appreciation of Clementi’s diverse, classically based style.” Also in 2017, Dominic was named 1st prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York City.
Winner of the 2017 Music Academy of the West Concerto Competition, Dominic performed Prokofiev’s 2nd Piano concerto with conductor, composer and MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Matthew Aucoin. Described as a “barnstorming Goliath” Mr. Cheli’s performance of Prokofiev’s 2nd concerto “roared like a locomotive, shot firebrands of energy this way and that, while the piano strained to keep in one piece under the thrall of Cheli’s glorious technique.” (Santa Barbara Voice Magazine).
A native of St. Louis, Dominic has performed with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St. Louis, as well as orchestras all across the country and abroad including the San Diego Symphony, DuPage Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Princeton Symphony, Colburn Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Adrian Symphony, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie (Germany), and the Great Falls Symphony. He has worked with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Yaniv Dinur, Markus Huber, Rossen Milanov, Arthur Fagen, Bruce Kiesling, Matthew Aucoin, and many others. Dominic recently debuted at several major festivals across the United States including the Ravinia Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Upcoming engagements included appearances with the Seattle Symphony, a re-invitation to the Ravinia Festival, his debut at Alice Tully Hall, and recitals in Philadelphia, Washington D.C, and New York City.
Committed to engaging with his surrounding community, Dominic regularly performs at high schools, retirement homes, and gives both masterclasses and lectures for his younger audiences. Upon invitation, he has performed with Paul Coletti at ViolaFest in Los Angeles for younger students, and “Baby Got Bach” with Pianist Orli Shaham at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC. Dominic has performed as an artist for Project: Music Heals Us,a non-profit organization that presents interactive classical music performances to diverse audiences in order to provide encouragement, education, and healing with a focus on elderly, disabled, rehabilitating, incarcerated, and homeless populations.
In 2018, Dominic was invited by his mentor, Andre-Michel Schub, to perform at the Virginia Arts Festival, both as a soloist and collaborator, in concerts centered around the music of Mozart. They collaborated in Mozart’s Double and Triple Piano Concertos with the Virginia Symphony, as well as in recital where “Cheli delivered one brilliant performance...it was a dazzling moment by a pianist whose name is destined for Schub-ian heights.” (Virginia Gazette) Mr. Cheli has studied at the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University and the Colburn School. Andre-Michel Schub, Peter Frankl, Fabio Bidini, Zena Ilyashov, and Sylvia Rosenberg are individuals who have been especially influential on his development as an artist.
Winner of the 2017 Music Academy of the West Concerto Competition, Dominic performed Prokofiev’s 2nd Piano concerto with conductor, composer and MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Matthew Aucoin. Described as a “barnstorming Goliath” Mr. Cheli’s performance of Prokofiev’s 2nd concerto “roared like a locomotive, shot firebrands of energy this way and that, while the piano strained to keep in one piece under the thrall of Cheli’s glorious technique.” (Santa Barbara Voice Magazine).
A native of St. Louis, Dominic has performed with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St. Louis, as well as orchestras all across the country and abroad including the San Diego Symphony, DuPage Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Princeton Symphony, Colburn Orchestra, Virginia Symphony, Adrian Symphony, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie (Germany), and the Great Falls Symphony. He has worked with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Yaniv Dinur, Markus Huber, Rossen Milanov, Arthur Fagen, Bruce Kiesling, Matthew Aucoin, and many others. Dominic recently debuted at several major festivals across the United States including the Ravinia Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Upcoming engagements included appearances with the Seattle Symphony, a re-invitation to the Ravinia Festival, his debut at Alice Tully Hall, and recitals in Philadelphia, Washington D.C, and New York City.
Committed to engaging with his surrounding community, Dominic regularly performs at high schools, retirement homes, and gives both masterclasses and lectures for his younger audiences. Upon invitation, he has performed with Paul Coletti at ViolaFest in Los Angeles for younger students, and “Baby Got Bach” with Pianist Orli Shaham at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC. Dominic has performed as an artist for Project: Music Heals Us,a non-profit organization that presents interactive classical music performances to diverse audiences in order to provide encouragement, education, and healing with a focus on elderly, disabled, rehabilitating, incarcerated, and homeless populations.
In 2018, Dominic was invited by his mentor, Andre-Michel Schub, to perform at the Virginia Arts Festival, both as a soloist and collaborator, in concerts centered around the music of Mozart. They collaborated in Mozart’s Double and Triple Piano Concertos with the Virginia Symphony, as well as in recital where “Cheli delivered one brilliant performance...it was a dazzling moment by a pianist whose name is destined for Schub-ian heights.” (Virginia Gazette) Mr. Cheli has studied at the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University and the Colburn School. Andre-Michel Schub, Peter Frankl, Fabio Bidini, Zena Ilyashov, and Sylvia Rosenberg are individuals who have been especially influential on his development as an artist.
Advisory Board
Andrew Ng
Ng co-founded and led Google Brain and was a former Vice President and Chief Scientist at Baidu.Ng is an adjunct professor at Stanford University. Ng co-founded Coursera and deeplearning.ai. He has successfully spearheaded many efforts to "democratize deep learning" teaching over 2.5 million students through his online courses. He is one of the world's most famous and influential computer scientists being named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2012, and Fast Company's Mos
Jeremy Howard
Founder & deep learning researcher & fast.ai / USF; Chair @ WAMRI; CSO @ platform.aiPreviously: Founding CEO of Enlitic; Past president of Kaggle; Founder of FastMail.FM and Optimal Decisions; ex-management consultant, now nearly fully recovered; failed philosophy student.
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Special thank you to Katharine Kemp from Kemp Communications, Amanda Ameer from First Chair Promo as well as Sruly Lazaros for Tech Support.
A huge thank you to all the friends and supporters who helped through discussions and your time. Steven Reiley, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Autumn Loomthong, Sherol Chen, Anna Huang, Tan Le, and many more.