UE composers from the United States

A native of Chicago, Aaron Alter's musical background was a product of the rich musical life that he found growing up in the Windy City. Aaron received his Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University, where he studied piano with Frances Larimer and Gui Mombaerts, and composition with Lynden DeYoung and David Noon. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree from Princeton University, where he studied with Milton Babbitt and James K. Randall. Aaron’s new music, first performed in 2015, what Aaron calls his "New Beginning", is an exploration of a new style and energy that defies categorization. Aaron’s new music has won numerous awards from the Global Music Awards and The American Prize. Aaron is a regular contributor of compositions to the repertoire of the flutist Iwona Glinka, the pianist and Steinway artist, Susan Merdinger, the Cracow Duo, the ÉxQuartet, the pianist Vania Pimentel, The New Mexico Performing Arts Society and Composers Concordance in New York.

Composer-vocalist Akmal Parwez was born into a musical and artistic family in Punjab, Pakistan. (His father was the renowned poet, music scholar and journalist, Afzal Parwez.) He studied electronics in Tokyo on a Japanese government scholarship, receiving B.E. and M.E. degrees. However, after a brief engineering career, and encouraged by his composition teachers Yasushi Akutagawa and Klaus Pringsheim, he felt compelled to devote his life to composing, singing and teaching music. He came to the U.S. to study voice with Joseph Klein, and later studied composition with Florence Jolley, Leo Kraft, Samuel Adler, Warren Benson and Joseph Schwantner. He received an M.A. in Composition from Queens College and a Ph.D. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music. Parwez is a bass-baritone soloist, choral conductor and voice teacher who often performs his own works.

1989 Born in West-Berlin, Germany

2005 First composition lessons

2013 BM Music Conservatory Hanns Eisler Berlin

GEMA Composition Competition Special Award

2014 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award

Juilliard Orchestra Composition Competition winner

2015 MM The Juilliard School

2017 Juilliard MAP faculty

2020 Carl Kanter Prize in Music Composition

2022 DMA Manhattan School of Music

Publication of Birdsong: A Musical Field Guide

Saul Braverman Award in Music Theory

2023 Feature on CBS Sunday Morning: “Calls of the Wild: A composer transcribes bird songs."

Alexey Shor was born in Ukraine in 1970, immigrated to Israel in 1991, and now lives primarily in the USA. Mr. Shor is the Composer-In-Residence for the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Academie and Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. In 2018 he has been awarded an honorary professorship at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan.

CDs with his compositions have been issued by Warner Classics, DECCA, SONY Classics, Delos, Berlin Classics and Melodiya.

His compositions have been heard at some of the most prestigious venues in the world, including Wiener Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Mozarteum, The Concertgebouw, Munich Gasteig, Wigmore Hall, Barbican, and many others. Mr Shor’s music has been showcased on MediciTV, Euronews, Fox Business News and the websites of Bloomberg News, the New Yorker, Yahoo and the Huffington Post. The Overture to his ballet “Crystal Palace” was performed at the 40th Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony in London.

Many internationally acclaimed soloists have performed Mr Shor's music, including (in alphabetical order) Behzod Abduraimov, Salvatore Accardo, Gautier Capuçon, Ray Chen, Steven Isserlis,

Evgeny Kissin, Denis Kozukhin, Shlomo Mintz, Mikhail Pletnev, Gil Shaham, Yeol Eum Son,

Yekwon Sunwoo, Maxim Vengerov, Nikolaj Znaider and many others.

"Verdiana" has been performed by some of the best clarinetists in the world, including Andreas Ottensamer, Paul Meyer, Boris Allakhverdyan, Shirley Brill, and many others.

He also holds a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Dr. Allen McCullough, b.1978, is an active composer and pedagogue, and is currently on the music faculty at Purdue University. With an undergraduate degree in music from Brown University, he also holds one Master’s degree in Composition from Manhattan School of Music, along with a second Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Pennsylvania. He has composed extensively for the piano, for voice, and has several entries in the string quartet genre, alongside works for full orchestra, including a concerto for piano and orchestra, and a symphony in five movements. He has received commissions and/or grants from various entities, including the National Endowment for the Arts. Recent honors include selections for "drift" – vol.34 of the Society of Composers, Inc. new music CD series, inclusion in the scores library for the American Viola Society for his Sonata for Viola and Piano (c.2019), and RMN Classical’s album "Modern Music for Piano 4."

Ben Zucker lives for acts of creative juxtaposition and speculation. As an intentionally wide-ranging composer/performer, he has contributed to experimental scenes across North America and Europe. Performance highlights include working with musicians including Anthony Braxton, Gareth Davis, Myra Melford, Karen Borca, Vocal Constructivists, Rinde Eckert, and the San Francisco Choral Artists, amongst frequent appearances as an ensemble contributor, and bandleader of experimental jazz quartet Fifth Season and creative music collective Mad Myth Science, the latter called “the next generation of Chicago jazz” by the Quietus. 

Their ““stirring compositions” (Chicago Reader) have received awards and performances by ensembles including the Mivos Quartet, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Khorikos, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Chicago Composers Orchestra, and appeared at DOCNYC, the Darmstadt Fereinkurse, Steppenwolf Theater, Trinity College Dublin, Nordic Percussion Festival, Ostrava New Music Days, and Ear Taxi Festival. He has been acclaimed as a "master of improvisation" (IMPOSE Magazine) and “more than a little bit remarkable” (Free Jazz Blog) for solo albums released on labels including Whitelabelrecs, Dinzu Artefacts, ears&eyes records, Slow Tone Collages, and A Red Thread.

Following studies at Bennington College, Wesleyan University (BA), Brunel University (MA), and Northwestern University (PhD), they currently live in Chicago. Current life includes ongoing freelance performing and composing, teaching, and curatorial and production work as the President of New Music Chicago.

As a composer, pianist, programmer, and sound artist with a wide range of interests, Brad Robin composes and perform in numerous genres including classical, jazz, electroacoustic, contemporary, and popular mediums, as well as traditional and experimental intermedia theatre. His music has been performed at national and international festivals including the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), SEAMUS, and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. His recent work Spread for piano and live electronics received 2nd place in the Golden Key National Piano Composition Competition, has been performed in Vienna at the awards ceremony and Electronic Music Midwest, and appears RMN Classical's Call of Piano Works 2020. His live piano improvisations album, Release, is available through Naxos on the Centaur label. He currently teaches at DePaul and Northwestern Universities in Chicago, Illinois, where he resides with his wife Nicole, and daughter Bridget.

Brett L. Wery is an active composer/arranger in the Capital Region area of upstate New York. He is the Music Director/Conductor of the Capital Region Wind Ensemble in Schenectady, NY and composer/editor for Sonata Grendel Publishing in Scotia, NY. He was recently named Visiting Artist in Residence in Winds and Director of the Wind Ensemble at Williams College in Williamstown MA. For twenty-five years he taught theory, conducting, and applied woodwind studies at the State University of New York, Schenectady County Community College where he also directed the college wind ensemble. As a professor at SUNY Schenectady, Wery has been the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, and the SCCC Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching. Wery later served as dean of the School of Music at SUNY Schenectady before retiring from academic administration to pursue composition and conducting full time.

An award winning member of ASCAP and SCI, Wery’s compositions have been performed and recorded around the world and include Sonata for Guitar Quartet, Dance Variations for Woodwind Quintet, Oot-kwa-tah for chamber orchestra, Four World Variants for Clarinet Quartet, and Sonata for Multiple Woodwinds and Piano. Wery’s 2013 String Quartet was the 2021 Grand Prize winner of the Classic Pure Vienna International Music Competition. In addition to composing and conducting, Wery is an active woodwind doubler—performing on flute, clarinet, and saxophone.

Mr. Wery received his bachelor’s degree at the North Carolina School of the Arts and his Master’s Degree at the University of Denver.

Bruce Lazarus earned his B.M. and M.M. degrees in music composition at Juilliard where he studied composition with Vincent Persichetti and Andrew Thomas, and later earned his Ph.D in music theory and composition at Rutgers University. His albums and EPs – Galaxy Mix, Musical Explorations of Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae, Works for Solo Piano, Sonata for flute and piano ("Autumnal"), and Song of the Earth - are available on iTunes, Amazon, eBay, and Spotify. His music has been aired on WQXR, WBAI, WKCR, and Concertzender Amsterdam. Lazarus has served as composer-in-residence for dance at Northwestern University and New World School of the Arts in Miami, and music coordinator for Mark Morris Dance Group, with composer guest residencies at Yaddo, Storm King Music Festival, and ArtsAhimsa. Lazarus is currently Music Director for the Joffrey Ballet School.

He has been performed broadcast throughout the including “Performance Today” on NPR and RIAA in Italy. Opus 94 on 94.5 Instituto Mexicano de la Radio devoted two programs to Mason’s music, in 2022 was a featured composer on Tania León’s Composers Now IMPACT series. He has received many awards in recognition of his work including the the 2005 Rome Prize. And he has received commissions from a number of top musicians such as Maestro Gerard Schwarz, The Ritz Chamber Ensemble, The Percussion Collective, Quince ensemble, The Empire City Men’s Chorus, the American Composers Orchestra, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Dale Warland Singers, the Corona Guitar Kvartet and the Fairbanks Symphony Orch.

Charles Yassky is a conductor, arranger, producer and clarinetist. He has performed and recorded with the Metropolitan Opera (Richard Strauss "ELEKTRA" with Birgit Nilsson), and conducted and performed on many recording sessions for commercials, sound tracks and chamber music. His collaborations with MUSIC AMICI on EMI have featured jazz greats (Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, Bob Mintzer, Lew Soloff, Warren Berhardt and Fred Hersch), chamber music of Film Composers (Howard Shore, Bruce Broughton, Michael Kamen, Rachel Portman and David Raksin) on Arabesque and PONDER NOTHING, the Chamber Music of 20th century American Composer Ben Johnston on New World Records. His music for ESPN COLLEGE FOOTBALL was broadcast internationally for 21 years.

Christian Baldini is a conductor and composer. Praised by the international press as a conductor with "a keen ear for detail" (The Scotsman) who brings "a symphonic revival" (Buenos Aires Herald), Baldini has conducted the Munich Radio Orchestra, North Netherlands Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphonies of Portugal and Argentina, Northwest German Philharmonic, Florida Orchestra, Orquesta de Cámara de Chile and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has conducted opera for English National Opera, Aldeburgh Festival, and overseen yearly collaborations with the San Francisco Opera (Mondavi Center Rising Stars of Opera, of which he is artistic director), and for the Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, where he is a frequent guest conductor for opera and concerts. Baldini has collaborated with numerous composers of our time and premiered over 100 works. He was formerly assistant conductor with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. His album conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for Linn Records (Mozart: Arias and Overtures) was chosen as Recording of the Month by the BBC Music Magazine and MusicWeb International. His newest album, featuring works by Ligeti, Varèse, Lutosławski and Baldini was just released on Centaur Records (August 2021), and is already garnering excellent reviews: "all four recordings on the album are genuine, top-class live performances, that is to say, actual, unedited one-shot takes. [..] the top-class performances are awash with invigorating energy and fine-tuned sensitivity, resulting in a wonderfully balanced survey of rhythm, texture and colour." [...] "The disc opens with Baldini’s Elapsing Twilight Shades, an absorbing orchestral tableau of thrilling transformations, inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1841 poem Excelsior. In the course of the seven-minute score, musical objects are rotated and permuted into various guises, generating some brilliantly surprising, almost cubist sonic events. The orchestral textures are unraveled with fascinating trajectories, full of bewitching instrumental combinations." (Jari Kallio, Adventures in Music)

Global Music Awards silver medalist Daniel Burwasser is an American composer, percussionist and teacher. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Burwasser has been writing and playing music since the age of five. Originally a student of the piano, he eventually progressed to other forms of percussion, including drum set and orchestral percussion. He received a Bachelor of Music degree from Temple University, and then went on to receive his Master of Arts degree from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in Music Composition from the City University of New York. During that time he studied with many of the music world's leading contemporary composers including Robert Moevs, Charles Wuorinen, Noel DaCosta, David Olan and David Del Tredici. This myriad of influences can be heard in the diversity of Burwasser's own works. He has received grants from The American Music Center and Meet the Composer.

Born in Los Angeles in 1946, composer-conductor-flutist Daniel Kessner received his Ph.D. with Distinction at The University of California, Los Angeles, in 1971. Composing in all genres, including works for orchestra, wind ensemble, choir, the opera, and numerous chamber and solo pieces, his more than 175 compositions have received over 950 performances worldwide, and 28 works are recorded commercially. His scores are available from Theodore Front Musical Literature at www.tfront.com. Kessner’s most important awards include the 1972 Queen Marie-José International Composition Prize in Geneva, two BMI Composer Awards, one of three winners of the competition “New Works for Music Theater” in Amsterdam in 1981, a 2003 Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to lecture and perform at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen, Germany, a Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant to perform and lecture in Trondheim, Norway in 2007, and a similar residency at the Universidade do Minho in Portugal in 2011.

David has been a musician and composer for over 45 years. He wrote his first song at the age of 4 and began playing bass at age 9. At 15 he joined a 19-piece big band called the Nomads. After years of private lessons, he graduated from the Musician's Institute, Hollywood, California, in 1987. David has a graduate degree in an unrelated field.

David Lipten…is a composer with a strong sense of direction, a fluid syntax and an inventive linear-abstract melodic gift. Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music , Feb. 2015. Axiom Brass, NYNME, and Donald Nally, cond., etc., have premiered his compositions. Recent premieres/performances include his “Waits & Measures” at Adelphi University, “Double Down” at Carnegie Hall, and “Double Clutch” in France. David’s “Tongue & Groove” for oboe/strings received 1st prize by Elevate Ensemble. His string quartet “Ictus” won 1st prize at the Portland Chamber Music Festival. The chorus “Volti” performed and recorded “Time’s Dream” in 2012 (American Prize 2013 finalist) and Harold Rosenbaum’s New York Virtuoso Singers recorded “A Widow’s Song” and “How To” in 2016 (American Prize 2018 2nd place). Other awards/commissions include those from the Fromm Foundation/Harvard, and the Jeffrey Jacobs Award. He has attended Yaddo, MacDowell, Aspen, etc. David holds a Ph.D. from Duke University.

David Salvage (b. 1978) is an American composer and pianist who lives in Bologna, Italy. Born into a family of non-musicians, at age four he asked his parents for a piano, a wish that was granted on the condition that he take lessons for five years. Instead, he took them for fifteen years, along the way developing an interest in composition, winning local and national competitions as a pianist and composer, becoming one of the first pianists selected for the Perlman Music Program, and winning a scholarship to Harvard University, where he shifted his focus to composition. He continued his studies at Manhattan School of Music and the City University of New York, earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation on György Kurtàg, and went into academia full-time, teaching music theory and history. A lifelong Europhile, when the opportunity arose to live abroad for a while, he took it, and now he is a dual citizen of Italy and the United States. He has composed for orchestra, film, choir, and ensembles of all kinds and has received over a hundred performances at venues ranging from the Juilliard School to the British Institute of Florence. His music can be as familiar as songs you’ve heard a thousand times or as strange as the latest musical novelty. What he strives for is not so much stylistic consistency as a faithfulness to human experience in all its variety. He enjoys reading, commiserating about current events with his wife, and playing backgammon with his children. His music can also be heard on Navona Records and his website, www.albumleaves.com.

In over 75 works reflecting Zeppelin to spectralism, Miami composer Dorothy Hindman pushes the boundaries of the technically possible with unique, visceral elegance.  Fusing a punk/grunge background with classical refinement, Hindman’s driving rhythms and distortion give way to deeper emotional and intellectual levels as simple ideas are woven into highly complex structures. Forms arise organically from timbre, and juxtaposition, imitation and fragmentation prolong moods. 

Hindman’s unique music has been called “bright with energy and a lilting lyricism” (New York Classical Review), “dramatic, highly strung” (Fanfare), “varied, utterly rich and sung with purpose and heart” (Huffington Post), “powerful and skillfully conceived” (The Miami Herald), and “music of terrific romantic gesture” (The Buffalo News).  ICON magazine says, “Hindman’s music weds technique and syntax of classical music with the directness and impudence of rock. Highly recommended for rockers wishing to get their proverbial feet wet in post-20th century classical music.”

Her over 400 performances span 30 states and 16 countries, in major venues including Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, Boston’s Jordan Hall, the American Academy in Rome, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw, Berlin’s BKA-Theater, and Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center.  Numerous festival appearances include the Havana Contemporary Music Festival, Australian Flute Festival, 2015 Birmingham New Music Festival, Charlotte New Music Festival, and Nuovi Spazi Musicali Festival. 

Hindman’s music is performed by the world’s top new music performers including by renowned musicians including CAMP, Ex-Sentia, Bent Frequency, Empire City Men’s Chorus, Fresh Squeezed Opera, Quince, Splinter Reeds, the [Switch~ Ensemble], Gregg Smith Singers, bassist Robert Black, cellist Craig Hultgren, percussionist Stuart Gerber, and more. Festival appearances include Havana Contemporary Music Festival, Australian Flute Festival, and Rome’s Nuovi Spazi Musicali.

Recognition and support for Hindman’s work includes the 2023 "Città di Udine" International Composition, 14th Edition, NODUS 2022 Fundacio Caixa Castello, a 2019 Mellon Foundation CREATE grant, the American Prize, three Gold Medals in the 2017 Global Music Awards, 2017 ISCM/New Music Miami, 2017 Boston Microtonal Society, Iron Composer 2015, a 2015 Artist Access Grant from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, NoteNova Choral Competition, Almquist Choral Composition Award, Nancy Van de Vate International Composition Prize for Opera, International Society of Bassists Solo Composition Competition, ASCA/National Symphony Orchestra/Kennedy Center Commission Competition, G. Schirmer 1997 Young Americans Choral Competition, an Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, and the NACUSA Young Composers Competition.  

Guest teaching appearances include the 2018 Charlotte New Music Festival, the 2016 Summer Composition Intensive at St. Mary’s College, the 2016 and 2017 Miami International Piano Festival Academy, and the 2015 AmiCa Credenze POP Festival in Sicily. Her residencies include 2017 and 2009 Seaside Escape to Create Fellowships, Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, the Visby International Centre for Composers, and Composer-in-Residence for the Goliard Ensemble. 

Her music appears on twelve CDs, including her critically acclaimed Tightly Wound (innova 965) and Tapping the Furnace (innova 878). Kulturni Magazin UNI raves, “…for many listeners the composer’s first CD Tapping The Furnace represents a remarkable discovery.” Her work is the title track on Corona Guitar Kvartet’s Taut (2015) on Albany Records. Other labels include Capstone and Living Artists. Scores are available from Universal Edition, Subito Music, NoteNova, and dorn/Needham.  

Hindman is Associate Professor of Composition at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami.  She has been new music critic for the Miami Herald and South Florida Classical Review, and hosted WVUM’s Po Mo Show, devoted to a post-modern mix of classical music written since 1980.  dorothyhindman.org

In the early part of his career, Drake Mabry pursued a traditional classical music career performing as first oboe with symphony orchestras in three countries. He then switched to tenor saxophone, flute, and clarinet, playing primarily in jazz big bands and small ensembles. From 1976 he continued his educational studies with Master and Doctoral degrees in music composition. His alma maters include the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, Rice University, and the University of California, San Diego. The principal teachers with whom he worked include Harold Gomberg, Alfred Genovese, Paul Cooper, John Cage, and Krzysztof Penderecki.

While he was teaching at Dartmouth College in 1984, a chance encounter in the music department hallway resulted in Mabry's traveling to France for a year to explore the musical worlds of Paris. After a short return to the U.S., he moved permanently to France in 1988, and today he lives and works in Nice, France. 

Two unexpected events in the 21st century presented him with his current focus of activities.

In 2003 he began developing a music in which silence is equally important with sound. The result is over 60 "Silent Duration" works, from solo instruments to full orchestra. Over 25 have been performed or recorded.

Then in 2011 he went to visit Istanbul, where he stayed several years and studied the Turkish ney and ebru painting. Although these Turkish studies of music and art were rooted in the historical style of each, he also explored and developed new concepts and techniques, combining them with the tradition.

The outcome of all of these life experiences is a constant interest in perpetual development, curiosity, and collaboration between who he is as a person and how this is expressed through his art forms. In addition to music and art, Mr. Mabry is also a published poet and photographer.

Composer Eric Chapelle was born in a village near Paris, France. Music was part of Chapelle’s life from early childhood when he was drawn to the piano whenever he was around a piano. That instrument soon became his outlet for creative expression and exploration of musical thoughts. Chapelle emigrated to the United States at age 7, and spent portion of his life in California, India, and Texas. He received his B.A. in Music, with a concentration in composition, from Texas State University. There he trained under Russell Riepe, himself a former student of Nadia Boulanger.

Moving forward to 2023, Chapelle releases his newest album Works for Solo Piano on his new record label Companionable Streams Music , performed by Michelle Schumann (DMA, University of Texas at Austin, which was released on October 18, 2023. There are 12 solo piano compositions on this album.

A recent review released March 2024 of the new album Works for Solo Piano was posted at the prestigious blog Textura.org. See review at Textura review of Works for Solo Piano.

Here is the review:

Eric Chapelle: Works for Solo Piano

Companionable Streams Music Records

Listeners whose taste gravitates in the direction of Chopin and Debussy should find much to like about this latest collection of lyrical pieces by Austin, Texas-based Eric Chapelle. Whereas he's behind the keyboard on his earlier recordings, for Works for Solo Piano he brought Michelle Schumann, a classically trained pianist and Professor of Music at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, aboard. She's more than a hired hand: Schumann worked with him for three years on the recording and through her involvement influenced the writing of new compositions. Awareness of her superior technical dexterity freed him, for example, to write unreservedly challenging material knowing she'd be able to handle it. As an artful interpreter, she also enhanced the material by building on the sheet music with personal touches, be it a modification in tempo or nuance of touch. Testifying to the collaborative nature of the project, their names are displayed equally prominently on the release cover.

The release of the forty-nine-minute album, recorded in two sessions, one in June 2021 and the other May 2023, is an important event for Chapelle, considering that it's his first full-length since 2010's Across the Water—even if he's issued a number of singles in the interim, four of which appear on Works for Solo Piano. In recruiting Schumann, he chose well: she's a seasoned, award-winning musician who's performed at venues and festivals around the world and is as comfortable playing Gershwin, Glass, and Nyman as Bach, Schubert, and Cage. Such breadth obviously attests to her versatility.

While some pieces are programmatic and rooted in Chapelle's personal experiences, others hew to formal classical type. Titles such as “Place in Landscape (Baga Beach)” and “(Fall) Leaves falling on a gray day” suggest ties to the Impressionism of Ravel, Debussy, and Fauré, and the composer himself notes that “Place in Landscape Moulin de Senlis” was written to capture his experience at the Paris locale in the mid-‘50s as a child. At eight minutes, it's also twice the length of most of the other pieces and thus affords the composer ample time to evoke the character of the fifteenth-century mill and the French setting. Though it's unclear what specifically happened to Chapelle at the site, musically the material oscillates between expressions of stately grandeur and playful ones emblematic of childhood innocence. While “Place in Landscape Moulin de Senlis” doesn't tower over the others in the set, a strong argument could be made for it as the album's pièce de résistance. Following close behind, however, are “Reflection No. 1” and “Nocturne No. 1” when their respectively harmonious and poignant expressions are so beguiling.

The transporting character of Chapelle's music is resoundingly conveyed in “Place in Landscape (Baga Beach)” through a lustrous combination of sparkling upper-register patterns and grounding bass chords. A similar design animates the lilting flow of “In the Presence of Beauty,” though this time the balance between the bass and treble parts is more equal. It's also a deceptively challenging piece that benefits from a pianist with the technical command of Schumann. In keeping with its title, “(Fall) Leaves falling on a gray day” introduces a wistful, nostalgic mood to the album; a review of the score also reveals the piece to be more complex than one might suspect, alternating as it does between three sharps and six flats and a plethora of time signatures. The same could be said of the heavily chromatic “Contemplation from a Distance,” whose delicately voiced chords induce a state of drowsy calm in the receptive listener.

Unison bass and treble chords lend “Full Circle” a resonant chiming quality, though the piece includes a note by Chapelle that the chords shouldn't be played percussively but instead “in a gentle approach as if diving gently.” The impact of Schumann on the presentation resonates clearly when she injects the subtlest of pauses between measures, a treatment that bolsters the lilting feel of the music. In keeping with its title, the brooding “Prelude in C# Minor (In Remembrance)” plays like an heartfelt homage, while the chords-driven first part of “First Light” intimates that Satie could be added to the list of Chapelle's kindred spirits; it's an unfailingly pretty creation, regardless. Oft serene and always evocative, his painterly music is easy to give oneself to. The reason why so many years followed the release of Across the Water isn't clear, but hopefully it won't be another thirteen years until the follow-up to Works for Solo Piano materializes.

March 2024

Posted under reviews at Textura.org

https://www.textura.org/archives/c/chapelle_workssolopiano.htm

Frederic Glesser grew up near Toledo, Ohio, where his early musical influences were rock, jazz, and music of the Baroque era. He studied jazz with Gene Parker and had flute studies with Kay Hartsfeld. He was later educated at Kent State University (BMus) in Ohio where he studied composition with James Waters and David Stewart, and studied flute with Raymond DeMattia and Maurice Sharp (former principal flutist, Cleveland Orchestra). His graduate studies where undertaken at the University of Miami (MMus) in Florida where he studied composition with Dennis Kam. Glesser’s music has been presented at concert venues throughout the United States and Europe, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, including the Weill Recital Hall and the Tenri Cultural Center; conferences including those for the Int'l Clarinet Assoc and the Nat'l Flute Assoc; and festivals including Kent-Blossom (USA), JazzWeek (Netherlands), New Music North (Canada), Modern American Composers (Ukraine, Armenia), Subtropics (USA), and Frontwave (USA). His compositions include works for small to medium ensemble, solo instrumental, and orchestra.

Gary Smart’s career has encompassed a wide range of activities as composer and classical and jazz pianist. He may be the only pianist to have studied with Yale scholar/keyboardist Ralph Kirkpatrick, the great Cuban virtuoso Jorge Bolet and the master jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. A true American pluralist, Dr. Smart composes and improvises a music that reflects an abiding interest in Americana, jazz, and world musics, as well as the Western classical tradition. Smart’s work has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Music Teacher’s National Association and the National Endowment for the Arts. Smart’s music has been performed in major venues in the U.S., including the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as venues in Europe and Asia. His “Concordia” for orchestra won the Concordia jazz composition award and was premiered at Lincoln Center, New York. Dr. Smart is a Presidential Professor of Music at the University of North Florida.

Greg Pattillo is originally from Seattle, Washington, where he started playing flute in his 4th grade public school band program. After earning his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Flute Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he then sought to impress his friends by combining flute with beatbox. His viral YouTube beatbox flute videos from 2007 earned him worldwide recognition in the flute community as a leading voice in this style. The New York Times even called him “the best in the world at what he does.” Greg has since spent his career with the Project Trio, releasing 6 albums of music, and touring all over the world. He is an active performer and educator, and released his “Beatbox Flute Method Book Vol. 1” in 2019. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can stay in touch with Greg Pattillo through his website and social media:

- pattillostyle.com

- Facebook @pattillostyle.beatboxflute - Twitter @pattillostyle

- Instagram @pattillostyle

-YouTube @projecttrio

If you have any questions about this music or beatbox flute in general please reach out to Greg directly at [email protected]. 

Grigory Smirnov is a composer and pianist based in New York. His compositions have been performed worldwide in major venues, such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood Festival, Merkin Concert Hall, Moscow Philharmonic Hall. His CD album Dowson Songs • Chaconne, released by Naxos Records in 2016, featuring a large-scale song cycle Dowson Songs commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation, was named a "Critic's Choice" by Opera News magazine. Grigory Smirnov's music has been broadcasted on various radio stations and programmed in numerous festivals internationally, such as Tanglewood Festival (USA), Brevard Music Center (USA), Composers Now (USA), International Diaghilev Festival (Russia), ppIANISSIMO (Bulgaria), Chamber Music Sessions (Ukraine), CTAM Festival (Russia), Blue Lake Summer Arts Festival (USA). During the recent years, he has been closely working with Eurythmy Spring Valley — the performing ensemble and school — both as a pianist and composer.

Born in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia, Grigory Smirnov studied as a pianist at the Novosibirsk Music College and as a composer at the Glinka Novosibirsk State Conservatory, in the studio of Yuri Yukechev. During his years in Russia, he was awarded a composition prize at the IV Prokofiev International Competition and had his music performed by the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2008 he came to the United States where he completed his graduate studies at The Juilliard School in 2011, in the studio of Christopher Rouse. He was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 2011.

As a pianist, Grigory Smirnov performs classical, improvisational music and his own compositions. As a music educator, he has served on the faculty at various institutions, including Rutgers University, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Lindeblad School of Music and Eurythmy Spring Valley.

I was born in Spain; emigrated to Ohio when I was a child. I received my first degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, not far from where I grew up. Following that, I packed up all my belongings in my car & rental trailer and headed West to get my Ph.D in composition from the University of California, San Diego. While at UCSD I was awarded grants from UC Regents and the American Music Center for the performance of my Trumpet Concerto, "Desert Flowers." In 1983 I won the CalArts Young Composers Contest with my piece, "Splinters of a Shattered Space," which was then performed at the CalArts Contemporary Music Festival. In 1989 I received a National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship to study Jazz at Yale University. Years pass: I write, I teach, I learn. Opportunities arose: performances by Royal Liverpool Orchestra, New York Chamber Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra & most memorably with the La Jolla Symphony with whom I play violin.

Ivan Wong began composing at the age of 13 and is self-taught. He was the Grand Prize winner of the 2024 New Jersey Young Composers Competition, and received the Governor’s Award in Arts Education for this achievement. In addition, he received the Third Prize in the 2024 Concorso Composizione “Carlo Sanvitale”, and won the Biola University High School Composition Competition. Originally from West Windsor, New Jersey, he is currently attending the University of California, San Diego, where he is studying music and political science.

James Ricci (b. 1954 in NYC) composes compelling works for soloist, chamber ensemble, voice, and orchestra.

He studied in Boston at the Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, and at Brandeis University with Donald Martino, Martin Boykan, and Harold Shapero. He also participated in diverse seminars and master classes in Europe and the United States with composers György Ligeti, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Earle Brown, Jacob Druckman, Ralph Shapey, Betsy Jolas, Sylvano Bussotti, and Anthony Payne.He studied with Milton Babbitt at the Indiana University Composer's Forum and at the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Music with Elliott Carter. As co-director of the LUMEN Contemporary Music Ensemble in Arlington MA, Ricci curated concerts of new music.

A disc of two recent works for orchestra - Rune and Night Music - has been released on the Ablaze Records label: Orchestral Masters vol. 9 (AR-00066). A collection of his music for piano has been released by David Holzman for Albany Records (TROY1875).

George Grella of NY Classical Review wrote, “Ricci explained that he took an intuitive approach to writing the music, exploring the pathways of his subconscious and the sound of the piano. It initially presents itself as an atonal work, but quickly and smoothly becomes the fundamentally romantic reverie of Ricci’s technical approach. The music seems to sound just the way it should and, in Holzman’s performance, was completely absorbing.”

New Music Connoisseur described Ricci’s Sonatina for solo viola as “…cleverly expressed, while the string writing is emotive, showy, and telling - a fine listen.” 

String Quartet no. 1 (1984) - a work that won mention in the 1985 Boston League-ISCM Competition - has been released digitally by the QX String Quartet and can be heard on the major streaming services.

Ricci was an Assistant Professor of Composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He now resides in Chapel Hill, NC.

His work is affiliated with BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.).

Jared Destro was born in Buffalo, New York, USA on August 19, 1998. Jared began his musical career as a piano and organ improviser, starting his lessons at 13. Soon after, he joined the Eastman Community Music School in Rochester, NY for composition lessons with composer Paul Hofmann, and he began regular performances with the Buffalo Chromatic Club as a solo piano improviser.

At the research-focused University at Buffalo, Jared earned his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Music Theory, Harmony, and Counterpoint from 2016-2019. Before graduating summa cum laude, Jared was able to also attend Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic for a term in 2018. While the emphasis in this program was political science and history, it proved instrumental in connecting the composer to the fine arts, literature, history, and, of course, music.

Jared then earned his Master of Music (MMus.) in Composition from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) with distinction, from 2019-2021. He gathered a lot of practical experience, and he was able to collaborate with several musicians and organizations. These include the Ernest Read Symphony Orchestra, BBC NOW, Tŷ Cerdd, the Band of the Welsh Guards, and on several occasions the Symphony Orchestra of the RWCMD.

He was commissioned for the National Eisteddfod of Wales 2021, the World Harp Congress 2022, as well as by the Junior Conservatoire of the RWCMD on numerous occasions. During this time, important works for the composer include: Harvest Festival, for orchestra; Flower Suite, for flute quintet; Chevrefoil (“Honeysuckle”), for brass quintet; Epitaph, for two flutes and harp.

Beginning in the autumn of 2024, he began his Ph.D. studies under Martin Suckling at the University of York in England. The inspiration of his current research, as well as his general approach to composition, is outlined more in the Philosophy section. 

Accolades

Numerous of his works have been awarded or shortlisted for awards. Madonna of the Lilies was awarded the first-place prize (International) in the Warsaw Wind Ensemble Composition Contest 2020. It was performed by Concert Orchestra of the Representative Artistic Ensemble of the Polish Armed Forces, and it was conducted by Michelle Rakers.

Piano Trio No. 1 was awarded second overall in the NMGCS II International Composition, which was a celebration of composer Fikret Amirov. It was premiered in Baku, Azerbaijan on 22.09.2022 at the Hajibeyli International Festival, and it was performed on 20.10.2022 at the Bruno Walter Auditorium Lincoln Center, New York City.

In Flanders Fields, for string orchestra, was performed by the chamber orchestra Kammermusikkreis Würselen on March 5th at 6pm in the Martin-Luther-Church at 52146 Würselen, Bahnhofstraße. 1.

His Piano Quartet was shortlisted for the O/Modernt Composition Award 2023, and his Piano Suite No. 5 was shortlisted for the Red Jasper Award 2022.

Jay Schwartz was born in San Diego, California in 1965 and studied music at Arizona State University. After completing his degree in 1989 he pursued an advanced degree in musicology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. From 1992 to 1995 he worked as assistant Composer in Residence for incidental music at the Stuttgart State Theater.

Renowned orchestras and ensembles throughout Europe have commissioned and performed his works, including the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI (Italian National Orchestra), the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Estonian National Orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera Munich, the Salzburg Opera, the Staatskapelle Weimar, and Ensemble Modern.

His works have been commissioned by and performed at international festivals such as the Venice Biennale, the Munich Opera Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Documenta Kassel, the International Computer Music Conference in Sweden, the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, and the Witten Festival for New Chamber Music.

In 2000 he won the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Composition Prize from the city of Cologne; he is three times recipient of the Southwest German Radio Heinrich Strobel Fellowship for Electronic Music. He has also received the young artist award from the Ensemble Modern and the International Society for Contemporary Music. In 2007 he was nominated for the prestigious Prix de Composition de Monaco for the composition Music for Chamber Ensemble. A CD of his works was released in 2009 from the label Wergo and the German Music Council.

From 2014 to 2016 he was an Artist in Residence at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. He received the Rome-Prize from the German Ministry of Culture and filled the position of an Artist in Residence at the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome in 2017/2018. In 2019 he, furthermore, was a fellow at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy.

Credo - Music for Orchestra VII was premiered by the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino in 2022.

His latest work Theta (Music for Orchestra VIII) was performed for the first time in 2023 with the SWR Symphonieorchester and Theodor Currentzis.

Jay Schwartz’s works are published by Universal Edition, Vienna. He currently lives near Cologne, Germany.

José González Granero  is a Spanish-American multi–Award winning composer and clarinetist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His upcoming premieres as a composer include a premiere at the Teatro Real (Royal Opera House, Madrid) and at The Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming. His music is exclusively published with Universal Edition.

Mr. Granero's compositions have been widely performed and premiered in North America, Europe and Asia by orchestras such as Académie Festival d'Aix—en—Provence, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Stanford Philharmonia, Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra, London City Orchestra, and the University of Granada Orchestra. Mr. Granero has also received commissions from chamber music ensembles such as Music in May Chamber Music Festival (USA), Farallon Quintet (USA), Proemium Metals (Spain), clarinetist István Kohán (Hungary-Japan), Ensemble SF (USA) and Stanford Philharmonic Orchestra (USA). 

Mr. Granero’s skill and talent as a composer has been recognized across the globe. In both 2020 and 2022, he was a two time finalist in the Bartók World Composition Competition in Hungary, he received an honorary mention for his 2nd String Quartet in the 2020 Bartók World Composition Competition. A number of other accolades have been given to him, including 1st prize Winner of the Villiers String Quartet International Composition Competition (UK), 2nd prize in the ‘Ville de Comines-Warneton’ composition competition (Belgium), and two nominations for the Hollywood Music Awards. 

As a clarinetist, Mr. Granero has further been honored by a number of awards, including the Grand Prize for Exceptional Talent and Musicianship in the Pasadena Instrumental Competition (2009), 1st prize in the Burbank Philharmonic Concerto Competition (2009), 2nd place in the Downey Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition (2009), and 2nd prize in the Pasadena Instrumental Competition (2008).

In addition to his awards, Mr. Granero has had a lustrous career as a composer and clarinetist. Notably, he was Principal Clarinet of the Andalucia Philharmonic Orchestra (Spain) from 2005 - 2007. He has also performed as Principal Clarinet with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (Norway), Odense Symfoniorkester (Denmark), Young Musician Foundation Debut Orchestra (USA), Galicia Symphony Orchestra (Spain), City of Granada Orchestra (Spain), Orchestre des Jeunes de la Mediterranee (France), and the European Union Youth Wind Orchestra (Luxemburg). Mr. Granero also had the privilege of touring as a soloist with UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, performing Mozart Clarinet Concerto throughout Spain. In addition, he is an active chamber music player and has performed with Susan Graham, Music@Menlo, Oregon Bach Festival, Music in the Vineyard, Music in May and EnsembleSF.

Presently, Mr. González Granero holds the Principal Clarinet position with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.

Konstantin Petrossian is a renowned Armenian composer of symphonic, choral, chamber, instrumental, and vocal music, sound tracks, and theater music. His works are performed, recorded and have been published worldwide. Konstantin Petrossian graduated with a master’s degree in composition and musicology from the Komitas State Conservatory. He was the artistic director and conductor of the Armenian TV and Radio Orchestra. During the past 25 years he has organized around 270 cultural and education events. He organized the Church Junior Choir in 1995 and in April 2006 presented a special Concert of Armenian Sacred Music at the United Nations in New York City. He has also been the artistic director and conductor of the Armenian Chorale of Rhode Island since 1995, and the Armenian Chorale of Greater Worcester since 2000. Konstantin Petrossian also is the president and artistic director of the Armenian Music Festival of Rhode Island, Inc., which was organized in 1997.

Bell was born in Wilson, North Carolina. He began his music studies with piano lessons and soon after began playing in a rock band. He attended East Carolina University and Appalachian State University, where he worked with Gregory Kosteck and earned his Bachelor of Music degree in 1974. He then moved to New York, where he attended The Juilliard School, completing his Master of Music degree in 1977 and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1982. While there he studied composition with Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions. A Guggenheim Fellowship (1981), Rome Prize (1982–3), and a Rockefeller grant (1985) took him to Italy, to study, write music, and take piano lessons with Joseph Rollino. Bell began teaching while in college, at the Juilliard Pre-College division (1979–1983). Since then he has been a faculty member of The Boston Conservatory (1980–2005), the New England Conservatory (1992–2018), and the Berklee College of Music (since 2007). (wikipedia entry)

I was born in Spokane Washington USA in 1954. I became fond of music at the age of fifteen. I was introduced to classical music when I began to take piano lessons. In 1967 My dad took me to an all Brahms concert by the Spokane symphony. There I was able to meet, in person, the South American pianist Claudio Arau. I was also fortunate to hear Brahm’s 3rd symphony. After being immersed in the 3rd movement “Poco Allegretto” I knew I was smitten with classical music. I received my Bachelor’s degree in piano performance and composition from the Cornish Institute of the Allied Arts located in Seattle Washington. I graduated cum laude in 1981. I was accepted into the University of Oregon School of Music Master’s degree program in composition. Later I was to study composition privately with Tomas Svoboda. I appreciate the beauty, calm and stillness of nature, of gentle creeks and kind rivers. I love humor. I like being a vegetarian. I appreciate talent, lyricism and good counterpoint.

Medical graduate of Cambridge University (1971). Career in academic medicine (retired 2017). Now pursuing career in music, focussing on composition. After piano lessons in childhood in England, started composing at age 17 (1964). Initial works for solo piano and for small instrumental ensembles; somewhat later, a few vocal works. Self-directed musical education included reading theory, and studying and copying scores. Milestones include performances of music for chamber orchestra by community orchestras in California (early 1990s) and Philadelphia (2005), and (especially) recent professional performances: rehearsal/recording of Sinfonia No. 1 by The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP; 2015); readings of my 4 string quartets by the Wister Quartet (Philadelphia) in 2017-18; performance of String Quartet No. 4 by Wister Quartet (March 2020); performances of work for solo viola (Danza per Viola da Braccio); transcription of Mozart Adagio in B minor (K. 540) for string orchestra performed by COP in January 2020.

An interest in musicology is exemplified by the following article:

Heyworth, Martin F. (2019) "Mozart's Annotations of Haydn Symphony Themes and Their Relationship to the "Linz" Symphony, K. 425", HAYDN: Vol. 9: No. 2, Article 2.

Available at: https://remix.berklee.edu/haydn-journal/vol9/iss2/2.

My wallpaper reflects my affinity with the natural world, and is a photograph that I took at Lower Hilcot in the Cotswolds (between Cheltenham and Cirencester, in England) on the 11th of September, 2006.

Martin has received commissions from the Melrose Symphony, Cape Ann Symphony and Quincy Symphony Orchestras of Massachusetts, Duo Yumeno, and for other works for chorus and for solo instruments. He was a composer and associate director for the Afternoons of Shakuhachi and Koto Music concert series presented in the Boston area (1994-2012), Managing editor for the music journal Sonus (1991-2010), Director of Ellen Sitgreave Motter Concert/Lecture series at Harvard University where he organized and presented concerts and talks of music by living composers (1990-1997).

He began gigging as a clarinetist and saxophonist in 1966 at age 16 under the guidance and support of elder musicians and music teachers around his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. This exposed him to a wide range of experience with popular, jazz and Western classical music.

After serving as a bandsman (clarinetist) in the U. S. Army 1970-72, he studied music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (BM ’76) as a composition student of Philip Bezanson and Robert Stern. He later did his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory (MM ’86) as a composition student of Arthur Berger, Pozzi Escot and Malcolm Peyton.

His compositions for both Western symphonic instruments and for traditional Japanese instruments have been presented across the U. S., in Europe, and in Japan. Several of these works have won him awards from: the Massachusetts Cultural Council; the 21st Century Music Project of the International Center for Japanese Culture in Yokahama, certificate; the New England Reed Trio International Chamber Music Composition Competition; and a Bryant Fellowship from Harvard University Library for production of score and parts of his Symphonic Journey for orchestra.

Martin’s Discography:

Three Japanese Images. Jeffrey Jacob, piano, on "Contemporary Eclectic Music for the Piano," vol. 23. New Ariel Recording, 2023.

A Lullaby in Restless Times for classical guitar. On "Drifting," Aaron Larget-Caplan, guitar. Stone Records, 2021.

Three Japanese Images for piano; Ballade for violin & piano; Opera Scenes without a Libretto for piano. Aleksandra Ivanova, piano and Anastasiya Abadjieva, violin. Stories Beyond Words, independent album, 2020.

Two Japanese Idylls for classical guitar. "The Legend of Hagoromo," Aaron Larget-Caplan, guitar. Stone Records, 2015.

Symphonic Journey for orchestra. Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Robert Black cond. MMC Recordings, 1993.

Michael Kaulkin (b. 1967) is active as a teacher and composer in the San Francisco Bay Area. His choral, orchestral and chamber music has been performed around the world. Most recently, an excerpt from his opera in progress Lilith was included in West Edge Opera's 2022 Snapshot program in San Francisco, showcasing new works.

Chamber works include Zwei Hülshoff Lieder (2015), for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano, American Standard for clarinet and piano, and City Walks (2009) for string quartet, which was a finalist for The American Prize in 2015. By Hook or by Crook (2020), for horn quartet, is the 1st Place winner of the Quadre 2020 International Composition Competition, and was premiered during the 2020-2021 season. 

Kaulkin’s orchestra piece Misterium Tremendum won the San Francisco Conservatory’s annual Highsmith Prize in 2000 and was later performed by the Oakland East Bay Symphony. Other orchestral pieces include Letter to Hungary (2005), for string orchestra and Cycle of Friends(1996) for soprano solo, SATB chorus and chamber orchestra.

In recent years, Kaulkin has composed a number of choral works, popular among them including The Noble Art of Music (2017), a 2-minute choral fanfare, and Tumbalalayka (2015), an arrangement of the popular Yiddish folksong. He served as 2017-18 Composer-in-Residence for San Francisco Choral Artists, and he is the 2020-21 winner of the Organization of American Kodály Educators’ (OAKE) Ruth Boshkoff Composition Prize, resulting in the commission of Redbirds for children's choir.

A native of Washington, D.C., Kaulkin studied composition with Joseph Castaldo at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, followed by 3 years’ post-graduate study at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary, under the tutelage of composer János Vajda and choral conductor István Párkai. He earned his Master of Music degree at the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied composition with Conrad Susa. He is on the Musicianship and Composition faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory’s Pre-College Division. An avid adopter and adapter of the Kodály Method in teaching Musicianship, he has served on the faculties of summer Kodály programs at Holy Names University and Portland State University.

Visit www.MichaelKaulkin.com »

Michael Shapiro’s works have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe—with broadcasts of premieres on National Public Radio (NPR), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), Polskie Radio (Poland), Australian and South African stations, Sender Freies Berlin, WQXR, WCBS-TV, SiriusXM Symphony Hall Living American and Vincent Caruso’s Classics on Film, and over 50 United States, Canadian, and British public and commercial radio stations. His music, which spans across all media, has been characterized in a New York Times review as “possessing a rare melodic gift.” His oeuvre includes more than 100 works for solo voice, piano, chamber ensembles, chorus, orchestra, as well as for opera, film, and television, with recordings on Naxos and Paumanok Records.

Michael Shapiro has collaborated with such artists as Teresa Stratas, José Ferrer, Janos Starker, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, Grant Gershon, Deborah Simpkin King, Jerry Junkin, Paul Shaffer, Eugene Drucker, Kim Cattrall, Tim Fain, Lara Downes, Gottfried Wagner, Alexis Cole, Edward Arron, Jerome Rose, Mariko Anraku, Elliott Forrest, Steven Beck, Ariadne Greif, Daniel Mutlu, John Fullam, Captain Kenneth Collins, Jose Ramos Santana, Clamma Dale, Anita Darian, Florence Levitt, Kikuei Ikeda, Ayako Yoshida, Harris Poor, John Edward Niles, David Leibowitz, Robert Tomaro, Anthony LaGruth, Kathryn Amyotte, James Allen Anderson, Matthew Thomas Troy, Sarah McKoin, Albert Nguyen, Kevin Suetterlin, David Kehler, Jeffery Meyer, Glen Hemberger, Diva Goodfriend-Koven, Andrey Litvinenko, and Emily Wong, and organizations such as the LA Opera, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Atlanta Opera, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (LaVerdi), Philharmonisches Orchester der Stadt Trier (Theater Trier), Houston Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico, United States Navy Band, West Point Band, Royal Canadian Air Force Band, Dallas Winds, Dragefjetts Musikkorps, St. Petersburg (Russia) Chamber Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Traverse Symphony Orchestra, New York Repertory Orchestra, Beloit Janesville Symphony, Garden State Philharmonic, Piedmont Wind Symphony, Western Piedmont Symphony, Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, Steamboat Springs Strings Music Festival, Westchester Concert Singers, International Opera Center at the Zürich Opera, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Israel Broadcasting Authority, Sender Freies Berlin, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio (NPR), WCBS-TV, WQXR Radio, Milken Archive of Jewish Music, American Jewish Committee, Argus Quartet, Hawthorne String Quartet, Locrian Chamber Ensemble, Amernet String Quartet, Artemis, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Festspillene i Bergen (Bergen International Festival), and Dateline NBC, and universities in New York, California, Texas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

Michael Shapiro guest conducts internationally and is Laureate Conductor of The Chappaqua Orchestra in New York’s Westchester County, which he conducted for the world premiere of his score for the classic 1931 film Frankenstein (directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff and Colin Clive) (since its premiere the work has received over 50 productions internationally), as well as for the world premiere of his own orchestral work, Roller Coaster, which received its West Coast premiere under the baton of Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music while Shapiro was a composer in residence. He served for two years as the music consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where he produced and performed music by a number of composers who were either murdered by the Germans and their collaborators or had survived as refugees from the Third Reich. He has also been the assistant conductor at the Zurich Opera Studio.

The son of a Klezmer band clarinetist, Michael Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and spent most of his high school years in Baldwin, a Long Island suburb, where he was a music student of Consuelo Elsa Clark, William Zurcher, and Rudolf Bosakowski. The winner of several piano competitions during his youth, he earned his B.A. at Columbia College, Columbia University, where he majored in English literature and concentrated in music, benefiting most—according to his own assessment—from some of the department’s stellar musicology faculty, which, at that time, included such international luminaries as Paul Henry Lang, Denis Stevens, Joel Newman, and others. He studied conducting independently with Carl Bamberger at the Mannes College of Music in New York and later with Harold Farberman at Bard College. At The Juilliard School, where he earned his master’s degree, he studied solfège and score reading with the renowned Mme. Renée Longy—known to generations of Juilliard students as “the infamous madame of dictation” for her rigorous demands and classic pedagogic methods—and composition with Vincent Persichetti. His most influential composition teacher, however, was Elie Siegmeister, with whom Shapiro studied privately.

Neil Stipp is a free-lance performer, teacher, and composer. In 2003, he received his doctorate at UCLA (full scholarship), majoring in organ performance. He won first prize in the international 2010 AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition for his anthem “May Your Life Be Filled with Gladness,” premiering in Washington D.C. Dr. Stipp has won numerous ASCAPlus awards for the prestige value of his catalog of composed compositions, and has been a finalist for The American Prize in composition. Recently in April of 2021, his “Symphony Capriccio” was premiered live in the Republic of Moldova in Eastern Europe, and he was a Platinum Winner in composition for the symphony by the Lit Talent Awards later in the year. His works have been performed throughout the United States, and also in Canada, Greece, Moldova, and Poland, and have been recorded on CDs and on YouTube. When he’s not busy with music, his hobbies include hiking, travelling, playing Sudoku, and dining with his sons.

Ralph Fisher is an organist, choral conductor, composer, and former music retailer. He has written music for organ, chorus, solo voice, piano and chamber music. Born and raised in Pitman, New Jersey he fell in love with the organ as a teenager after hearing Virgil Fox. After his lessons with Frederick E. Starke, he attended and graduated from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, where he studied organ with George Markey and Eugene Roan, choral conducting under Robert Carwithen, and Warren Martin, orchestral conducting under Edward J. Eicher (graduate study), and composition under Malcolm Williamson (Master of the Queen’s Music 1975-2003). He has had works performed in Philadelphia, PA, Princeton, NJ and Glasgow, Scotland (UK). Ralph is currently working on two pieces: a polyphonic, a cappella Mass (in A minor), and the third and final movement to a Piano Quintet (in E minor). He lives, with his wife and dog, plays the organ, and composes by the sea in Quincy, MA.

Randa Kirshbaum is a composer and arranger working in New York City. As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, she studied composition with Harrison Birtwistle and piano with Natalie Hinderas. Ms. Kirshbaum earned a Masters Degree in music composition from Columbia University. In summer 1978, she studied briefly with Donald Martino at Johnson State Composers’ Conference. Subsequently, she studied piano with Sophie Feuermann.

As a freelance composer/arranger her clients included New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, NBC Television, CBS News Productions, Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, jazz drummer Pete LaRoca, bassist Reggie Workman and many others. From 1998-2001 she was the head of Publications at Jazz @ Lincoln Center. From 2008-2014 she was Director of Editorial at Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers in New York City.

Returning to freelance, Ms. Kirshbaum had a performance in 2016 of five string orchestra arrangements of Fritz Kreisler, commissioned by the Folkwang Kammerorchester, Essen; and a performance by Opera Parallèle of a reduced orchestration of Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion. In summer 2017 “Lied (ohne Worte)” and “Colombine”, her two arrangements for violin and piano of works of Schönberg, were performed by Rolf Schulte at the Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna. In May 2019, her wind quintet arrangement of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite was performed by members of the Vienna Symphony at the Musikverein. In the same year, a reading of her orchestration of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps was recorded at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. She has just completed a chamber orchestra work, The Planets and the Sun, recorded in Brno, Czech Republic for Ablaze Records. Her 14-piece reduced orchestration of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Ballet was completed in 2021. In March 2023 her wind quintet arrangement of 7 of Dvořák's "Slavonic Dances" was completed, and in April 2023 her transcription of Thad Jones's lost big band arrangement, "For the Love of Money", will be published by ejazzlines.com.

Randall Snyder was born in Chicago in 1944 and studied saxophone with his father, a professional jazz musician. During high school he won a scholarship to the inaugural Stan Kenton Band Camp and in 1962 was honored with a Downbeat Magazine Student Hall of Fame Award. He attended Quincy College and the University of Wisconsin earning a DMA degree in 1973 and has studied Korean music at the Traditional Performing Arts Institute in Seoul. Snyder has taught at colleges in Illinois, Wisconsin and for several years at the University of Nebraska where he was resident composer. He currently is a free lance musician living in Lincoln, NE. and adjunct professor at Peru State College. Over 50 compositions have been commercially recorded on the CRS, VMM, North/South, Coronet, Opus One, Albany, & Elan labels.

Italian-American composer, keyboardist and conductor Raphael Fusco has been hailed by the international press as “one of the most outstanding composers of his generation (El Mundo).” His genre-crossing compositions for voice, chamber ensembles, historical instruments, orchestra, and theatre have been commissioned by Branford Marsalis, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, I Cantori New York, Hartford Chorale, Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra of New York, I Porporini, Opernfestival Oberpfalz, Opera Lucca and members of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras. Mr. Fusco earned his Masters Degree at the Mannes College of Music, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, Conservatorio G. Verdi di Torino, Vienna Konservatorium, and Paris Schola Cantorum. Since 2019 Raphael Fusco has served as Senior Artist in the Institute for music theater at the University for Performing Arts in Graz, Austria where he is also pursuing a doctoral degree in composition.

Rodney Lister has received commissions, grants, and fellowships from the Berkshire Music Center, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress, the Fires of London, the Poets' Theatre, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, the Preparatory School of the New England Conservatory, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, the Master Singers, the International Barbara Pym Society, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among others. He was co-founder and co-director of Music Here & Now, a concert series of new music by Boston area composers at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1971-1973), and from 1976 until 1982 was music coordinator of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble. His music has been recorded on the Albany, Arsis, Summit labels, and his recording with David Kopp of music for piano four hands by Virgil Thomson, Harold Shapero, and Arthur Berger is on the New World label. He is currently on the faculties of Boston University School of Music, where he teaches composition and theory and is the director of Time’s Arrow, a new music ensemble, and of the Preparatory School of the New England Conservatory, where he teaches composition, theory, and chamber music and is director of the school’s annual contemporary music festival. He is also a music tutor at Pforzheimer House, Harvard University, and is on the faculty of Greenwood Music Camp.

Rodney Lister=s works have been performed by Joel Smirnoff, Tammy Grimes, Phyllis Curtin, Jane Manning, Mary Thomas, Michael Finnissy, Kathleen Supove, Jonah Sirota, Rebecca Fischer, Boston Cecelia, the Blair and Chiara Quartets, the Boston University Wind Ensemble, Collage New Music and the Fires of London among others, at Tanglewood, the Library of Congress, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and in New York and London, among other places. As a pianist, he has been involved in premieres, first US performances, first UK performances or first Boston performances of works by Virgil Thomson, Peter Maxwell Davies, Milton Babbitt, Michael Finnissy, Philip Grange, Lee Hyla, and Paul Bowles, among others. His articles and reviews have appeared in Tempo, Sequenza21, and The Paris New Music Review. He is the author of the article on Arthur Berger in the Grove Dictionary of American Music.  His articles on the music of Peter Maxwell Davies were published in Tempo and in Peter Maxwell Davies Studies edited by Nicholas Jones and Kenneth Gloag.  

Rodney Lister received his early musical training at the Blair School of Music in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music (Bachelor of Music degree, with honors) from 1969 to 1973 and at Brandeis University (Master of Fine Arts degree) from 1975 to 1977, and from which he received a doctorate in 2000. He studied privately with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and was a member of Davies's composition seminar at the Dartington Hall Summer School of Music (1975, 1978, 1980-82). He was a Bernstein fellow at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in 1973. His composition teachers, aside from Davies, were Malcolm Peyton, Donald Martino, Harold Shapero, Arthur Berger, and Virgil Thomson. He also studied piano with Enid Katahn, David Hagan, Robert Helps, and Patricia Zander.

1947 – born in Eugene, Oregon, USA

1965-1969 – studies in theatre at Carnegie-Mellon University, in composition/piano at Philadelphia Musical Academy

1970-1980 – work in New York and San Francisco as composer/arranger/musical director for theatre/dance/cabaret

1986 – Premiere of Three Doñas for Guitar, commissioned by Marco de Waart, Cambridge, Massachusetts

1987 – Premiere of Tangos de Santa Fe, for flute, English horn and guitar, commissioned by the San Miguel Trio

1987 – Premiere of Brocadillos, suite for harp & guitar, suggested by the royal portraits by Velázquez, commissioned by Marco de Waart & Rosalind Simpson, Los Alamos, New Mexico

1987 – Premiere of Laughter in Excelsis, concert overture, commissioned by the Santa Fe Symphony

1990 – Premiere of Arabesco, suite for soprano, oboe & strings on Persian and Arabian texts, in French translation, performed by Serenata of Santa Fe

2001 – Premiere of Barbary Keep, opéra comique, original libretto by the composer and William Wesbrooks based on an incident in post-Civil War San Francisco, at New York University/ Steinhardt

2001 – Premiere of Queen of the Night, opera based on the Arthur Schnitzler novella Das Schicksal des Freiherrn von Leisenbohg, libretto in English by the composer, at the Atelier de la Main d’Or, Paris

2005 – Premiere of Matapolvos, suite for soprano, English horn, viola & cello, text in Spanish, based on texts from Century of the Wind (El Siglo del Viento) by Eduardo Galeano, commissioned by Serenata of Santa Fe

2007 – Premiere of Time Flying, orchestral poem, commissioned by Santa Fe Community Orchestra

2007 – Premiere of revised version of Queen of the Night, Garson Theatre Company’s New Works Series, 2007 Season, Santa Fe

2009 – Premiere of Five Pieces of the Puzzle, septet for winds, strings & piano, Serenata of Santa Fe

2011 – Reading of Interlude for Strings: Winter Solstice, Santa Fe Community Orchestra

2014 – Premiere of Four Dances, septet for winds, strings & piano, Serenata of Santa Fe; later revised to Three Dances

2015 – Premiere of Milonga, aria for soprano & piano trio, text by the composer in English, Serenata of Santa Fe

2017 – Premiere of Los Bufones, operatic cantata based on the jester portraits of Velázquez, text by the composer, rendered into Spanish by María Cristina López and sung in Spanish, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico

2017 – Premiere of A la Luna, suite for soprano, oboe & strings, a setting of the poem by Rosalía de Castro, Spanish text, commissioned by Serenata of Santa Fe

Rooted in his own experiences as a professional cellist in the Columbus Symphony, Michal is a performer’s composer. For ten years Michal served as Composer-in-Residence to The Ann Carson Dater Performing Arts Center in Gallipolis, Ohio while teaching composition, Piano, Strings and songwriting at the University of Rio Grande. An active member of the Cleveland Composers Guild, Scotts works are performed regularly throughout the world.

Scott Robbins's works have been recorded by the Grammy Award-winning Warsaw Philharmonic, premiered in Carnegie Hall, and received over 50 awards, including the International Prokofiev Competition, Yale’s Norfolk Composition Prize, CINE-Eagle Award, Loudoun Orchestra’s Composers’ Competition, ClefWorks Composition Award, and multiple awards from ASCAP and the AMC. He holds degrees from Wake Forest, Duke, and Florida State universities, and is Professor of Musicology and Composition at Converse University. Trained as a drummer and guitarist, Scott writes music that crosses the boundaries of popular and art music and connects with audiences and performers. Visit his webpage at scottrobbins-composer.com

Born in Thailand and educated at Eton and Cambridge, Somtow Sucharitkul was chosen to represent Thailand at the international Asian Composers Conference in 1974 and this experience sparked his composing career. At the age of 25 he was director of the Asian Composers Expo 78, an event praised in the west but so controversial in Thailand that he emigrated to America and started a new career as a novelist. He has published 72 books. In the late 1990s he returned to composing, first film music and then opera. In 2018 he became the first Asian to receive the European Cultural Achievement Award by KulturForum in Berlin and only the second composer to do so after Hans Werner Henze. Recently he have been working to enhance Thailand's international musical profile. He has composed about 20 operas and numerous orchestral, choral and chamber works which are regularly performed. The Thai Ministry of Culture has awarded him its Distinguished Silpathorn Award in music.

Ssu-Yu Huang, a native of Taiwan, enjoys an active career in contemporary music. Her compositions cover a wide range of music with bold and delicate genre. Her music has been performed by professional musicians and orchestras around the world to critical acclaim. German conductor maestro Günther Herbig praised her orchestral work of "a modern and complex style, presenting her own characters and creativity." She has received awards including the winner of the first Call For Score of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in 2010, the winner of Akademia Music Award in 2023, Clouzine International Music Awards, InterContintinental Music Awards in 2024, the most distinguished award of the 2013 IBLA Grand Prize, the 2021 Global Music Award, the finalist of the Women Powered Music in the 2019 Artemis Film Festival, 2015 and 2016 American Prize (semi-finalist), the 2016 Ernst Bacon Award (semi-finalist), the 2016 Maurice Ravel International Composition Competition (semi-finalist). In 2018, her orchestra piece "Heritage of Hakka" was selected and premiered at the grand opening ceremony of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying. Her compositions have been published globally through companies such as Mahin Media (USA), Mark Custom Recording, PARMA Recordings, Ablaze, and Phasma-Music. Her music scores have been published by Golden Hearts Publications and Universal Edition. In recent years, Huang's works have been increasingly performed throughout the European, Asian, and American continents. She is currently the resident composer of Hotshot Cello Choir.

Stephen Yip (b. 1971)

Born in Hong Kong and now living in U.S.A. He received his doctor of musical arts (D.M.A.) at Rice University and bachelor of fine arts (B.F.A.) at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. He has attended major music festivals including: Wellesley Composers Conference, Aspen Music Festival, International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt, Asian Composers’ League, ISCM World Music Days, Chinese Composers’ Festival, Music X, June in Buffalo, IMPULS Ensemble Akademie, California E.A.R. Unit Composer Seminar, the 13th International Summer Program, Czech Republic, International Composers’ Workshop, Luxembourg, the International Summer Course for New Music, Darmstadt, Germany, Wellesley Composers’ Conference. Residencies include: the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts , Yaddo Colony, NY and the MacDowell Colony, NH.   

Yip’s works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Israel, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Philippines. He has received several composition prizes, included “Earplay”, “Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award”, “Taiwan Music Center International Composition Prize”, “Robert Avalon Interantional Prize”, “Singapore International Composition Competition for Chinese Orchestra”, “Haifa International Composition Prize”, First International EPICMUSIC Composition Prize, Italy, International Biennial composition competition, the Debussy Trio Music Foundation, Molinari Quartet’s Third International Composition Competition, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Emerging, the ALEA III composition Competition, the fourth NACUSA Texas Composition Competition, the International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition 2010, by the National Academy of Music, Thessaloniki, Greece, and the 2010 Alvarez Chamber Orchestra Freestyle Composition Competition, London, England . 

His works have been performed by major ensembles and players such as Alarm Will Sound, Earplay New Music, Mivos String Quartet, New York New Music Ensemble, Great Noise Ensemble, North South Consonance, Brno Philharmonc Orchestra, inFLUX Duo, Windpipe Chinese Orchestra, Little Giant Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, St. Paul Chambr Orchestra, Curious Chamber Players, TIMF Ensemble, Ensemble El Perro Andaluz, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Avanti, Ensemble Kochi, Moscow New Music Ensemble, etc.

Yip’s works are recorded in the Kairos, Albany, ERM-Media, PARMA, Capstone, North South recording, Ablaze records, ATMA Classique, and Beauport Classical labels. Yip is a member of the SCI, NACUSA, and ASCAP. Currently, he is on the music faculty at Houston Community College and works as a freelance composer.

Steve Swell has been a leading figure in the improvisation arena since the 1980s, creating a unique space for his chosen instrument and his compositions on the International scene which have garnered him many awards and recording commissions throughout the world of improvised and new music. He appears regularly on the Downbeat Critics Poll and the El Intruso International poll. He has been nominated three times by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2008, 2011 and 2020. His CD “Suite For Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers” (CIMP) ranked number 2 in the 2004 Cadence Readers Poll. He received a Creative Engagement grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2020 and was received a City Artists Corps Grant (NYC) in 2021. He has over 75 recordings as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artist on more than 140 other releases. He runs workshops around the world and is a teaching artist in the New York City public schools system focusing on special needs children.

Hailed as a “Modern Day Maestro”, William Garfield Walker is a quickly rising young American conductor and composer based in Vienna, Austria.

Since he began to compose at the age of 8, Walker's original compositions and arrangements have been broadcast on National Public Radio (USA) and Public Broadcasting Stations across the USA. Walker's music has had recent performances at the Wiener Musikverein, Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Ballet Fest Sarajevo, and other places across the United States and Europe.

A multifaceted musician, he is also an active conductor. As a conductor, he currently serves as the Chief Conductor of the Nova Orchester Wien(NOW!)- Vienna’s newest professional orchestra. He also serves as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the “Master Camerata Orchestra”- the professional orchestra of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra’s International summer music festival, “Premier Orchestral Institute”. Previously he served as Principal Conductor of the Royal College of Music Oratorio Society.

Walker is the Third Prize Winner of the Only Stage International conducting Competition and a recipient of the 2022 Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award. In 2020 Walker was selected by the American Austrian Foundation and members of the Vienna Philharmonic for the prestigious AAF Ansbacher/Farber Conducting Fellowship (formerly known as the Karajan Conducting Fellowship). Other honors include Conducting Fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. In March 2020 a Resolution “Commending the Musical Genius of Mr. William Garfield Walker and congratulating him as an accomplished Orchestral Conductor” was passed by the Mississippi House of Representatives in a unanimous bipartisan vote. He is a 2017 recipient of the Bruno Walter Memorial Conducting Scholarship.

Walker is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, London, the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, and took additional courses at Harvard.

American composer William Susman has created a distinctively expressive voice in contemporary classical music, with a catalog that includes orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, as well as numerous film scores. In addition to his work as a composer, he spearheads the contemporary ensemble OCTET and Belarca Records. AllMusic calls him an exemplar of "the next developments in the sphere . . . [of] minimalism," and textura describes him as “not averse to letting his affection for Afro-Cuban, jazz, and other forms seep into his creative output.” His music has earned praise from The New York Times for being “vivid, turbulent, and rich-textured,” from Gramophone as “texturally shimmering and harmonically ravishing,” and from Fanfare for being "crystalline . . . and gloriously lyrical."

William Wang is a composer, pianist, and violinist, as well as the founder of the Society for Sonic Horizons (SSH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering innovation in music. 

Wang’s compositions have won numerous awards in prestigious competitions. In 2021, he earned second place in the JSFest Competition and third place in the Academia Music European Composer Competition in Vienna. He placed second in the XIX International Composition Competition. Additionally, he was a finalist in the "Carlo Sanvitale" Composition Competition and had his work performed in Italy. His piano solo, The Wind from the Sea, was selected for the 18th Donne in Musica International Festival and the XIX Festival Zene U Musica 2022 International Concert, among other international performances.

Wang's violin solo, Beyond Unmarked, was featured at the Atlantic Music Festival in August 2023. His violin and cello duo, Fugue, was performed at The DiMenna Center in New York, and his duet for piano and violin, Nostalgia, was presented at Steinway Hall. 

In 2024, Wang’s string quartet, Where the Shadow Falls, was showcased at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp Benefit Concert – “Harmonies of Hope” at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall in New York. The performance received concert review from New York Concert Review, Inc., which described his work as “truly astounding.”

Wang's mentors include Meng Wang (composition), Yangwei Xu (piano), and Michelle Lau (violin). His compositions are published by Universal Edition.

William Toutant was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received his BA and MA from The George Washington University and his Ph.D. in music theory and composition from Michigan State University. He studied with Robert Parris, H.Owen Reed, and Jere Hutcheson. He joined the music faculty of California State University, Northridge in 1975. During the next 38 years he not only taught in the Department of Music, but he also served in a variety of administrative positions including Dean of the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication. For eighteen years wrote and hosted the weekly radio program, “The KCSN Opera House.” He became Professor Emeritus in May 2013. His music is available on North/South, Capstone, Centaur, Phasma, Ariel and Navona records. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Ligia Toutant.

Zvony (Zvonimir) Nagy is a Croatian-born, American composer, performer, scholar, and educator. His creative and research work extends into interdisciplinary contexts and perspectives on music, forging connections between creativity and composition, technology and performance, psychology and philosophy. His compositions are informed by cognitive and computer sciences of music and are shaped by technology, spirituality, and social issues. As a composer-performer, he specializes in contemporary music and improvisation. He draws from experimental and historical improvisation practices, as well as interactive media technologies and interdisciplinary collaborations.