The Times Are Racing

Dan Deacon

Composer

Dan Deacon is a Baltimore-based recording artist and performer renowned for his five studio albums of innovative electronic music, his live performances in both contemporary and classical settings, and his extensive body of work in film scores.

Deacon has premiered compositions at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and collaborated with artists and institutions including Kronos Quartet, So Percussion, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the LA Philharmonic, and Justin Peck with the New York City Ballet. Deacon has also toured internationally with popular recording artists including Arcade Fire, Mily Cyrus, Future Islands, and The Flaming Lips. His albums Spiderman of the Rings and Bromst were both named Best New Music by Pitchfork, and his album Gliss Riffer received 4-star reviews fom outlets such as AllMusic and The Guardian. He released his fifth studio album Mystic Familiar, featuring “Become A Mountain” and “Fell Into the Ocean,” in January 2020.

Deacon’s original film and television scores include Twixt (Francis Ford Coppola, 2011), Rat Film (Theo Anthony, 2016), Time Trial (Finlay Pretsell, 2017), Well Groomed (Rebecca Stern, 2019), Strawberry Mansion (Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley, 2021), the 2021 PBS documentary series Philly D.A., and All Light, Everywhere (Theo Anthony, 2021). Deacon also scored Jessica Kingdon’s Ascension, which won Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca 2021 and earned a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 2022 Academy Awards; Deacon’s work on the film took home the Best Score prize at the 2022 Cinema Eye Honors.

Deacon’s recent film scores include the Adam Sandler Netflix feature Hustle, directed by Jeremiah Zagar; the Hulu streaming series Wedding Season; the Netflix documentary King of Clones, directed by Aditya Thayi; and the Apple TV+ series The Changeling, starring LaKeith Stanfield, Adina Porter, Clark Backo, and Samuel T. Herring.

Giovanni Villalobos

Stager

Giovanni Villalobos was born in Puerto Rico, where he began dancing at the age of eight under the guide of Roberto Rodriguez. He studied at the School of American Ballet (with Peter Boal, Jock Soto and Andrei Kramarevsky) and the Royal Danish Ballet (as part of the D.A.N.C.E student exchange program), and he choreographed for the New York Choreographic Institute. In 2003, he was awarded the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise, and a year later he joined New York City Ballet. He has worked with prominent choreographers, including Christopher Wheeldon, Susan Stroman, Eliot Feld, Benjamin Millepied, and Liam Scarlett, and he appeared in the film version of Jerome Robbins’ Opus Jazz. In 2014, he was chosen to become a member of the Teachers Fellowship at SAB. Mr. Villalobos was a guest teacher at Pacific Northwest Ballet School in 2015, and joined PNB School as a year-round faculty member in the fall of 2018. He was a rehearsal director for Pacific Northwest Ballet from 2019 to 2024.

Humberto Leon

Costume Designer

Humberto Leon is a creative director, fashion designer, and restaurateur. He is best known for co-founding the fashion brand and retailer Opening Ceremony. Leon was also creative director of the French high-fashion brand KENZO and is credited with injecting a youthful exuberance into the brand. Leon is now the co-owner of three Los Angeles-based restaurants including Chifa, Monarch, and Arroz & Fun, all of which highlight collaboration and Asian-fusion cuisine.

Abe Jacob

Sound Design

Abe John Jacob (born October 7, 1944) is an American sound designer and audio engineer. Called the “Godfather of Sound,” Jacob greatly influenced the design of sound reinforcement in modern musical theatre and was one of the first persons credited in the role of sound designer on Broadway, with a sound designer credit in Playbill in 1971. Jacob brought many new techniques to musical theatre, including head-worn wireless microphones, powerful concert loudspeakers with dedicated electronic processing, delayed speaker zones, under-balcony speakers, front-fill speakers, mix position in the audience, FFT analysis, scene recall, digital mixing consoles, and delay used to focus audience attention. Jacob designed sound for innumerable Broadway productions including Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin, The Rocky Horror Show, and A Chorus Line, among others. He never received a Tony Award, largely because the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League began giving out Tony Awards for sound design in 2008 after his career highlights. In 1999, the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) bestowed upon Jacob the Distinguished Achievement in Sound Award. The same year, Jacob received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the EDDY Awards sponsored by Entertainment Design magazine. In 2008, the USITT gave Jacob their highest award, the USITT Award, and they commissioned the organization’s first audio engineering monograph, titled The Designs of Abe Jacob. In 2016, Jacob was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Live Design Awards ceremony. In 2017, the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA) granted Jacob the Distinguished Sound Designer Award. Jacob was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2022, and in 2023 he was honored with the Ming Cho Lee Award for Lifetime Achievement in Designs. In 2024 Jacob was awarded a Special Tony Award for Theatrical Sound Design.