In recent years Jason has focused on more intimate chamber musical settings, including collaborations with solo musicians such as trumpeter Kate Amrine , Cellist Carolyn Regula (The Cello Doll) and vocalist Michaela Catapano, as well as chamber groups across the US (Chicago Brass Choir), while continuing expand his sizable catalog of works for larger instrumental forces.

Jason is well known for his work as an educator, dedicated to providing young promising musicians with the foundational experiences on which a lifetime of music-making can be built, and is pursuing research into the ways that music students process their experiences as learners and performers.

Combining his long career in music with a deep love of science fiction and a natural talent for storytelling, Jason recently launched his first podcast, “Beyond the Belt: Adventures from the Outer Rim.” “Beyond the Belt” is a collection of 8 original dramatic science fiction episodes for which he served as writer, producer, and composer. It tells the story of a scientific research experiment gone horribly wrong. With Zombies (of course!).

Jason has released three digital albums in recent years, including the Season One Soundtrack from the Beyond the Belt podcast, “1000 Steps to Nowhere", a collection of chamber music compositions, and most recently “The Dead Teach the Living,” featuring nine vocal collaborations ranging from solo works to Orchestral compositions. The title track was named a finalist for the 2025 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, earning an Honorable Mention.

Jason is a lover of dogs, video games, and all things Star Wars (yes, even the prequels). He is also a husband, father of two budding musicians, and a patron of art forms that stretch traditional boundaries.

He currently lives in Waxhachie, TX with his family. He can occasionally be sighted lurking at select music conferences.

www.jasonnitsch.com

https://www.beand.com

Combining multi-disciplinary art forms and collaborating with various artistic mediums, Paula’s shows are a transporting, mesmerizing experience for the eyes, ears, and heart. Frequent collaborator and award-winning choreographer Kevin Jenkins says this: “Paula infuses her music with perfectly phrased emotion that makes my mind explode with movement concepts. The only challenge is keeping up with her brilliance.”

Kevin has choreographed her compositions and recordings with Jacob’s Pillow featuring dancers from Boston Ballet, as well as St. Louis Ballet, Ballet 5:8 in Chicago, and various dance conservatories. San Francisco-based artist Adrian Arias has created paintings inspired directly by her music, many of which will be featured in her concerts.

An avid performer, Paula has played at world-class venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Green Music Center, and with the Santa Rosa and Monterey Symphonies. Paula was a band member for the legendary show Beach Blanket Babylon, which the New York Times calls “a treasured San Francisco staple.”

She was the winner of the Montréal Classical Music Festival and was a chamber music semi-finalist in the Concert Artist Guild Competition at New York’s Merkin Hall. She was the recipient of the full scholarship Poné Award during her master’s degree in Chamber Music Performance in San Francisco. She also holds music degrees from McGill University in Montréal and Interlochen Arts Academy and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

She completed an artist residency at Obras in Portugal, where she composed much of the music for her Little Gems for Piano books. The books have sold thousands of copies worldwide and were recently published in China. Paula is also a well-respected educator and directs a private teaching studio in addition to presenting internationally to piano teachers and adjudicating various festivals.

In her debut original solo album Central Star, Paula uses music as a soul awakening, energy shifting experience. During these tumultuous times when we can feel disconnected and distracted, she seeks to alter the vibration of the room- providing fuel for the soul through the unifying force of music. Central Star tells a personal story about the powers of imagination, intuition, and creative expression during challenging times of transition, as well as offering a therapeutic medium during everyday life. This spellbinding album speaks to the triumphant yet calming creative spirit and evokes feelings from the universal human experience. Prepare to elevate your spirit and embark on a sonic and visual journey like no other.

Paula currently spearheads her concert series Piano Flow Live and her improv program Piano Flow. Piano Flow Live combines live music, outdoor adventure and visual arts. She gathers local creatives such as musicians, artists, photographers, and filmmakers to create unique events under the umbrella of the Bend Creative Music Project. You can find her performing innovative shows in ski lodges and along the Deschutes River.

She recently completed a tour of China. She was invited to present her Little Gems books and perform candlelit concerts in eight cities across China.

A dynamic pianist, composer, and educator, Paula captivates global audiences through her Little Gems for Piano books, albums, concerts, and the transformative Piano Flow improvisation program, fostering inspiration and connection worldwide.

Paula lives in the mountain town of Bend, Oregon with her husband and their two daughters.

https://pauladreyer.com

Actor has received commissions from the Palo Alto Philharmonic, the Redwood Symphony, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, the Silicon Valley Symphony, the Saratoga Symphony, the University of South Dakota, the Skaneateles Festival, the South Bay Guitar Society, the Peninsula Symphony Orchestra, and pianist Benny Gambino. His works have been performed by more than 90 orchestras and bands in the U.S. and around the world. His first CD of orchestral works was released by MMC Recordings in June 2005, which Records International called “...one of the best new symphonic discs to have come our way.” A second CD was released by Albany Records in April 2008, featuring Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, which was nominated for 2008 “Best of the Year” classical CD by Classical 94.5/WNED in Buffalo, NY. A third CD of orchestral music, featuring Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra and Dance Rhapsody, was released in April 2011 by Navona Records, and subsequently named to Audiophile Audition’s list of “Best of the Year Discs for 2011”. Navona Records released Actor's fourth solo CD in February 2015, featuring Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Symphony No. 3.

Actor’s orchestral music is characterized by its dramatic impact and emotional expressivity, featuring a striking use of harmony, counterpoint, motivic development, and lyricism with a fresh, modern flavor. These attributes are most prominent in his large-scale dramatic works. Conductor Jason Klein has written of Symphony No. 1: “Lee Actor ... is a composer of remarkable skill whose 3-movement symphony has strength, character, and generous helpings of brilliance and humor”, and described Symphony No. 2 as “… energetic, intense, and highly polished.” In a review of Concerto for Violin and Orchestrafor the San Mateo County Times, Keith Kreitman wrote: “This is a major work deserving of national attention. … This concerto verges on masterpiece”. In July 2008, Concerto for Horn and Orchestra was performed at the 40th International Horn Symposium by the Colorado Symphony and soloist Bernhard Scully, principal horn of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The piece has subsequently received numerous performances, and is quickly becoming a favorite of horn players around the world. His work has been characterized by conductor Kirk Trevor as “… music of the highest quality in craftsmanship, inventiveness, and imagination.”

A former violinist with the Albany (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, Actor has advanced degrees in both engineering, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and music composition, from San Jose State University. He has studied composition with Donald Sur, Brent Heisinger, Charles Jones, and Andrew Imbrie, and conducting with Angelo Frascarelli, David Epstein and Higo Harada. Actor was named Composer-in-Residence of the Palo Alto Philharmonic in 2002, following his appointment as Assistant Conductor in 2001, and was Assistant Conductor of the Nova Vista Symphony from 2008 to 2010. He is a member of ASCAP®, who recently named Actor the recipient of an ASCAPlus award for the 17th time. He has received awards and grants from ASCAP, the American Music Center, the International Horn Society, the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra, and The American Prize in Composition.

https://www.leeactor.com

Her music reflects humanity’s relationship with the natural world, both as part of it and in conflict with it. She has been praised for the sophistication and intricacy of her work, as well as her ability to write gracefully and melodically, especially for the human voice.

Dr. Saxon lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, two daughters, and cat. In between writing music and parenting, she teaches piano lessons on her back porch, conducts the Santa Barbara Treble Clef Chorus, and directs the Santa Barbara Community Early Music Ensemble. Her hobbies include; defending her garden from rabbits, quilting, playing the lute badly, and endless crafting with her children.

https://www.katherinesaxon.com

The 2025–26 concert season includes the completion of Eating the Underworld, a pop-song cycle for Bergamot Quartet and the composer as vocalist; the release of Misfit Toys, a grade 5 work for concert band; and her participation in the 2025 Midwest Clinic in Chicago.

Kirsten’s previous season featured the premiere of Infernal Angel, an opera created with the Curtis Opera Theatre and baritone Ty Boque, inspired by the life of Gilles de Rais and his relationship with Joan of Arc. Earlier evening-length works include Savior (2018), a mystical re-telling of the story of Joan of Arc commissioned for the 20th anniversary of Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW and named to the Chicago Tribune’s “10 Best Classical Concerts of 2018”; QUIXOTE (2017), a 90-minute theatrical piece created during a residency at Montclair State University; and Colombine’s Paradise Theatre (2014), commissioned and produced by the multi-Grammy-winning eighth blackbird, praised by The Washington Post as a “tour de force” and by The New York Times as “dark, wild, and engrossing.” She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2014 with strange pilgrims, a multimedia work for chorus, orchestra, and film.

In addition to her musical work, Kirsten is also a writer whose poetry has appeared in several journals. Writing as Aster Isler, she recently completed her full manuscript, Giving Up—the beginning of a parallel literary journey that threads through her compositional voice. Her poetry can be found in Oberon (2024), Sol Magazine (2010), Avatar Review (2009), and Red Wheelbarrow (2008).

Kirsten is also dedicated to mentoring the next generation of performing and creative artists. At The Juilliard School, she mentors composers and interdisciplinary creators through her composition studio and teaches two courses — Theatre Études and OperaCOMP. At The Curtis Institute of Music, she teaches individual composition lessons. Previous faculty posts include Oberlin College and Conservatory, the Peabody Institute, and Longy School of Music.

She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her beloved doodle-hound, Roux-ga-Roux and her slow-wandering orange cat, Higgs-B.

https://www.amybethkirsten.com

As a fierce advocate for new music, they love working with composers, and have conducted over 30 premieres of new works. She is especially passionate about giving voice and space to gender marginalized musicians and poets through choral and vocal music.

Laura is the Founder & Artistic Director of Lilith Vocal Ensemble, Children’s Chorus and Chamber Choir Director at New England Conservatory Prep, a Teaching Artist with Boston Lyric Opera and Handel & Haydn Society, and Music Director at First Parish UU in Needham, MA, where she is also Artistic Director of the newly formed “To The Fore” Concert Series, focused on bringing historically marginalized voices to the forefront. She is a Founding Member and Former Co-Artistic Director of Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, and former Associate Conductor at Voices Boston Children’s Choir.

Their compositions are frequently performed by musicians across the country, some highlights being the Handel & Haydn Society Youth Choruses, Choral Arts Initiative, the Evelyn Duo, Voices Boston Children’s Choir, Boston Conservatory Choir, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, Lilith Vocal Ensemble, BRACE New Music Choir, the UofSC Concert Choir, sparks & wiry cries’ songSLAM, Source Song Festival, Quorum, Opera on Tap Boston, Una Voce (Community Music Center of Boston), the East Central College Choir in Missouri, First Parish UU in Needham, and the Choir of Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cambridge, First Presbyterian Church (Columbia, SC) Children’s Choirs, Greater Columbia Children’s Choir, and the First Presbyterian Church Chamber Choir during the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC.

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At First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC, she directed the Primary and Junior Choirs, supervised the Children’s Music Program, and was a section leader in their Chancel and Chamber Choir. In Columbia, she kept a private studio of guitar and voice students, and was the chorus teacher at CrossRoads Intermediate School in Irmo, SC. During her time as a choral director in South Carolina, Nevitt’s ensembles consistently earned superior ratings at the Carowinds Festival of Music in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Music USA Festival in Orlando, Florida.

As a soprano, she has performed Reich’s Drumming with New York based ensemble So Percussion.

https://www.lauranevitt.com

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A recipient of prizes and grants from American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), ASCAP, the Barlow Endowment, and Chamber Music America, Trumbore has also been awarded artist residencies at Copland House, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Tusen Takk, and Ucross. Her music is available through Boosey & Hawkes, G. Schirmer,Murphy Music Press, and Graphite Marketplace.

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Trumbore's first book, Staying Composed: Overcoming Anxiety and Self-Doubt Within a Creative Life, was hailed as a "treasure trove of practical strategies for moving your artistic career forward" (Angela Myles Beeching, author of Beyond Talent). Her second book, Composing a Living: a Music Creator's Guide to Money, Relationships and Business, is newly available from Oxford University Press and was co-written with Dr. Brandon Elliott.

Trumbore has also written extensively about working through creative blocks and establishing a career in music in essays for Cantate Magazine, the Center for New Music, and NewMusicBox. Her poetry and short fiction have been featured in Southern Indiana Review, PRISM International, New Delta Review, and Pacifica Literary Review.

Trumbore holds degrees in Music Composition and English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, as well as a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the University of Southern California. Originally from New Jersey, Trumbore currently lives in Southern California with her spouse and cats.

https://www.daletrumbore.com

Jinosko’s Three Sketches of Unblemished Earth, as recorded on the album Advent of the Symphonina (featuring the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, and Budapest Scoring Orchestra), topped Billboard’s chart of Best-selling Classical Albums in August 2024. Her orchestral piece Tales from the Aviary is scheduled for a European tour in summer 2026 under the Conductor Yun Song Tay. Jinosko’s music has also been performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (Grammy-winning), conductors Péter Illényi (“Squid Game,” “M3GAN”), Ronnie Sanders, Ward Stare, Jonathan Glawe, double bassist Jory Herman (LA Phil), concertmaster David Halen (Saint Louis Symphony), violinist Yibin Li (The Juilliard School), and many other distinguished musicians.

Jinosko scored Trajectories (2022), a film by Japanese filmmaker Shun Shigeta, which won the Grand Prix of SONY’s Xperia U25 Film Competition. She also composed the score for UNFOUND (2023), a film directed by Australian filmmaker Poom Ariyakusonsuthi, which was nominated for Best International Thriller at Toronto’s Alternative Film Festival. Jinosko’s haunting score for UNFOUND also won the Afterlife Best Film Score Award in 2023.

Jordan Jinosko’s work has garnered other accolades. Besides topping Billboard’s Best-selling Classical Album, Best Symphonina of the Year (2025), Golden State Emerging Composers’ Competition, QUO Vanguard Composer Competition, New Conductors Orchestra Composer Competition, Green Dot Composers Competition, Brazosport Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition, and the Arts Midwest GIG Fund Grant. Additionally, Her music has also been honored by The American Prize, Global Music Awards, Music International Grand Prix, and Howard Hanson Young Composers Competition. During her time at Eastman Community Music School, she received the Molly Mulligan Award and John A. Wollaver Award. She has been commissioned by organizations including Strathmore in D.C. and County Hall Arts in London.

Jinosko studied music composition and music theory at the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music’s pre-collegiate division (ECMS). Her composition mentors have included Michael Daugherty (Grammy winner), Bright Sheng (MacArthur Genius), Evan Chambers, Kristen Kuster, Margaret Henry, and others. She took lessons in NYC with Juilliard professor, Samuel Adler. She has attended masterclasses with Grammy-winning composers (Gabrielle Lena Frank, William Bolcom, Christopher Rouse), Pulitzer Prize-winning composers (John Luther Adams and Shulamit Ran) and renowned film composers Paul Chihara (“The Karate Kid 2,” “The Green Berets,” “The Killing Fields”) and Conrad Pope (“Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” “Jurassic Park,” “Pirates of the Caribbean”). Jinosko also has participated in symposia led by faculty at Juilliard, Yale, Princeton, and Eastman.

Jinosko’s music draws inspiration from her experiences around gender. Her piece, Regeneration, chronicles the struggle of her own transition, ultimately presenting a triumphant celebration of queer identity. During the summer of 2025 and with the generous support of the Arts Midwest GIG Fund Grant, Jinosko completed an artist residency in Indianapolis, providing free music lessons to LGBTQ+ young adults at Trinity Haven, a 501(c)(3) LGBTQ non-profit organization. A member of her local chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, Jordan volunteers her time to fight climate change and, through works like Three Sketches of Unblemished Earth and Tales from the Aviary, highlights the importance of preserving the natural world for future generations.

Jinosko studied music composition and music theory at the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music’s pre-collegiate division (ECMS). Her composition mentors have included Michael Daugherty (Grammy winner), Bright Sheng (MacArthur Genius), Evan Chambers, Kristen Kuster, Margaret Henry, and others. She took lessons in NYC with Juilliard professor, Samuel Adler. She has attended masterclasses with Grammy-winning composers (Gabrielle Lena Frank, William Bolcom, Christopher Rouse), Pulitzer Prize-winning composers (John Luther Adams and Shulamit Ran) and renowned film composers Paul Chihara (“The Karate Kid 2,” “The Green Berets,” “The Killing Fields”) and Conrad Pope (“Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” “Jurassic Park,” “Pirates of the Caribbean”). Jinosko also has participated in symposia led by faculty at Juilliard, Yale, Princeton, and Eastman.

https://www.jordanjinosko.com

Noah premiered Fanfare and Flight at the 2023 College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) Conference with the Vanderbilt Wind Symphony. He also was a finalist for the Austin Symphonic Band’s Young Composer Competition and a winner of Vanderbilt University’s Wind Symphony Call For Scores with his piece Quiet Storm.

Sharing his own excitement and joy for what music making and appreciation can bring he considers not just a goal, but a responsibility. Deeply valuing education, Noah is a two time teaching fellow for the North Carolina Governor’s School’s instrumental music program and aims to be a collegiate educator in the future. 

Noah graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2024 with a Bachelor of Musical Arts in Composition with a minor in Computer Science, and thanks his teachers Michael Slayton, Stan Link, Michael Alec Rose, and Molly Herron for their guidance. He is pursuing his Master of Music at The University of Texas Austin studying composition.

https://www.hudsoncamackmusic.com/

Dr. Gibson has taught at the UMKC Conservatory as Associate Professor where she was the founder of the UMKC Composition Workshop and co-director/founder of ArtSounds. Starting fall 2017, she joined the faculty of Louisiana State University where she is currently Associate Professor of Composition and Area Head with tenure. Mara released her first compilation album ArtIfacts May 2015 with her second, Skyborn released in November 2017 and in 2020, she was selected through PARMA Recordings for their recording project with the Athens Philharmonic Orchestra with Secret Sky (Prisma V). In 2024, she released her third portrait album, Unseen World, GRAMMY eligible. Her compositions span numerous media, from chamber and solo works to electroacoustic music and a collection of works that combine video, electronic music and live performance. In her most recent work she incorporates extra-musical materials into vocal and instrumental performance, and integrates increasingly challenging subject matter with effective (and often unusual) instrumental and vocal delivery styles; these techniques extend performance practice and portray strong emotional content that defines the heart of her overall concept — the arc of the musical and theatrical development. 

Recently, she completed her bassoon concerto, Escher Keys (2021) which garnered recognition by the American Prize in two categories, funded through a Louisiana Board of Regents (ATLAS grant). During her sabbatical (fall 2023) she began working on her first opera at the prestigious Moulin a Nef in Auvillar, France. Her opera, The Devil’s Dream (libretto by Ann McCutchan based on the novel by Lee Smith) will premiere spring 2026.

https://maragibson.com/

A fifth-generation educator, Young has received awards from the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (Wisconsin Professor of the Year), the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents (Regents Teaching Excellence Award—their highest honor), the University Continuing Education Association (National First Prize for Innovative Programming), Wisconsin School Music Association (Creative Sparks Award), and the College Music Society (Robby D. Gunstream Education in Music Award).

As an artist, Dr. Young has received composition and performance awards from ASCAP, Meet the Composer, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Fischoff National Chamber Music competition, the National Association of Composers USA, the National Band Association, the National Flute Association, and the British and International Bassists Federation. His original works are widely published, recorded, and performed.

Currently, Dr. Young serves as the Chair of the Nominations Committee for the National Association of Schools of Music. Young has previously served the College Music Society as a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors, as treasurer, and as board liaison for the Presidential Task Force on Leading Change. Previously, he served in leadership capacities with the North American Saxophone Alliance, the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, and the Wisconsin Music Educators Association.

Prior to Baldwin Wallace University, Young taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Central Connecticut State University, and Interlochen Arts Camp. He earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) and Master’s in Music (MM) degrees from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Music Education (BME) degree from Baylor University.

Jessie Cox makes music about the universe and our future in it. Through avant-garde classical, experimental jazz, and sound art, he has devised his own strand of musical science fiction, one that asks where we go next. Cox’s music goes forward. When he describes it, he compares it to time travel and space exploration, likening the role of a composer to that of a rocket ship traversing undiscovered galaxies. He is influenced by a vast array of artists who have used their music to imagine futures, and takes Afrofuturism as a core inspiration, asking questions about existence, and the ways we make spaces habitable. Known for its disquieting tone and unexpected structural changes, his music steps into the unknown, and has been referred to by the New Yorker (Alex Ross) as an example of “dynamic pointillism,” a nebulous and ever-expanding sound world that includes “breathy instrumental noises, mournfully wailing glissandi, and climactic stampedes of frantic figuration.”

A dedicated collaborator, Cox has worked as a composer and drummer with ensembles and institutions such as the Sun Ra Arkestra, LA Phil, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, and the International Contemporary Ensemble; at Festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, MaerzMusik, and Opera Omaha. For his work as a composer, he has been recognized with a Fromm Foundation commission, the ASCAP Fred Ho Award, and his commissions have been funded by the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, Pro Helvetia, New Music USA, and others.

Cox’ scholarly writing asks new questions about our world through music. Recently, he has published in and co-translated the book Composing While Black, published as a bilingual edition in German and English by Wolke Verlag in 2023. Further texts appear in liquid blackness, Critical Studies in Improvisation, Positionen Texte zur Aktuellen Musik, Sound American, the American Music Review, and others.

https://www.jessiecoxmusic.com/

An award-winning composer, Dr. Zare has had his music performed on six continents and has won multiple accolades, including the ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize, three BMI Student Composer Awards, a Copland House Residency Award, and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His works, such as “The Other Rainbow” and “Green Flash,” have been performed at prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall. His piece "Aerodynamics" was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra.

He has partnered with CERN for performances of his particle physics inspired music at the Montreux Jazz Festival and Sofia Science Festival, and in 2023 he was selected as the FRA Guest Composer at Fermilab, the United States’ national particle physics laboratory. In 2021, he collaborated with clarinetist Andy Hudson to write "Elements of Contemporary Clarinet Technique" and "SPACE BASS," etude books on modern clarinet techniques.

Dr. Zare has served as composer in residence at music festivals including the Salt Bay Chamberfest and Chesapeake Music Festival, and his compositions are published by Theodore Presser Inc., FJH Music Company, Murphy Music Press, and Manhattan Beach Music. He is a founding member of the Blue Dot Collective.

Zare holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, a Master of Music from Peabody Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California.

Cameron composed the score for the Hulu original limited series Washington Black. The show, which was created by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, led by showrunner Kimberly Ann Harrison, and stars Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Sterling K. Brown, premiered on Hulu on July 23rd. At 22 years old, he has made history as the youngest person to ever score a 20th Century Television series.

He wrote the score to the eight-part documentary series Kennedy, which chronicles the life and legacy of the 35th President John F. Kennedy. It aired on the History Channel in November of 2023, opening to rave reviews and becoming one of the History Channel’s flagship programs for 2023. In the summer of 2024, he completed Patrick Green’s documentary feature film Sincerely, Los Angeles, a love letter to the late Oscar-winning basketball legend Kobe Bryant.

Cameron was also a frequent collaborator of Emmy-nominated and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels, composing additional music on scores such as Disney’s Star Wars: The Acolyte—for which he also served as a conductor—Kobi Libii’s The American Society of Magical Negroes, David Yarovesky’s Nightbooks, the Emmy-nominated documentary series Allen v. Farrow, and Jordan Peele’s Nope.

As an arranger, he contributed orchestrations and arrangements to the Disney+ anthology series Zootopia+ (score by Curtis Green and Mick Giacchino) a collection of short vignettes based on the 2016 hit film.

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Cameron studied at New York University, majoring in Music Composition and Screen Scoring. In 2019, he was awarded a Marvin Hamlisch International Music Award for Best Composition by an Emerging Composer. In 2021, at age 18, he made history by becoming the youngest winner of ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Music Fellowship Award. In 2024, he also became the youngest composer (21) to ever be selected as a fellow in the highly coveted NBC/Universal Composers Initiative.

A devoted champion of symphonic music, Cameron has added his voice to the ongoing struggle to keep postproduction work—specifically orchestral recording sessions—in Los Angeles. He hopes to be a guiding light in the current generation of film composers to return scoring back to the sound stages of Hollywood.

https://www.cameronmoodymusic.com/

Salvador has also been the guest conductor for various public school bands such as the Portales Junior High Band, the Portales High School Band, and the 30th Biennial Eastern New Mexico University Alumni Band. 

When leisure outweighs his typical obligations of composition, Salvador invests his time chronically online watching CaseOh or playing Mortal Kombat.

Salvador is also a brother of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity (Theta-Zeta Chapter).

https://www.musicjacobo.com/

Throughout his years of composing, he has been awarded the Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition, NBA/Alfred Young Band Composition Contest, two NEC Honors Ensemble Composition Competitions, and a Finalist of the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composers Awards Competition. Minoo’s pieces also have been performed at locations such as Carnegie Hall, Busan Cultural Center, Jordan Hall, and the Midwest Clinic.

Minoo earned his Bachelor of Music in Composition from New England Conservatory, where he studied under the tutelage of Michael Gandolfi.  He also earned his Master in Music in composition at University of Texas at Austin’s Butler School of Music where he was under the tutelage of Omar Thomas.

https://www.minoodixon.com/

Dr. Santos has proudly implemented a yearly wind band conducting workshop at La Sierra University and has worked alongside H. Robert Reynolds, Thomas Lee, Larry Livingston, Travis Cross and Allan McMurray, helping some of the brightest young music educators in the United States. Santos also organizes yearly workshops. clinics and conversations with conductors and composers, such as Frank Ticheli, Mallory Thompson, and most recently, Maestro Leonard Slatkin. A strong advocate for music education, Santos frequently presents at conferences, school in-service days, classrooms, and as clinician for young ensembles across the United States, Mexico, and Europe. Most recently, Dr. Santos presented at the Midwest Clinic’s High School Leadership Institute, California All-State Music Education Conference (CASMEC), for the California Music Educators Association’s ‘Casting a Wider in Net’ at Azusa Pacific University, for the North American Division National Teachers Convention, the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference in Chicago, CBDNA National Convention in Arizona, for the 2019 SCSBOA Professional Development Conference, and for the World Association of Symphonic Band and Ensemble International Conference (WASBE) in Prague. Santos also maintains a busy guest conducting/clinician schedule, with recent residencies at the Manhattan School of Music, University of the Pacific, Cal State University (Fullerton), University of Illinois (Chicago), the University of Connecticut and for the Association of Concert Bands conference in Orlando.

As a composer, Santos has premiered his works across the United States, Asia and Europe, including a premiere with the United States Naval Academy Band Brass Ensemble at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. under his baton. His works have received premieres and performances by ensembles at the University of Michigan, University of Illinois, Michigan State University, University of North Texas, Florida State University, University of Florida, Yale, Ball State University, Oklahoma State University, UCLA, Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble, Illinois State University, Tanglewood Young Artist Wind Ensemble, Interlochen World Youth Wind Symphony and many more. His works for wind ensemble, orchestra, chamber music, and solo wind instruments are published exclusively by Murphy Music Press, LLC. His compositions and passion for music education have received many recognitions, including a Meritorious Achievement Award by the Minority Band Directors National Association for “exceptional contributions to the wind band repertory.”

Dr. Santos earned graduate degrees from the University of Southern California (MM) and Florida State University (PhD).

https://giosantosmusic.com/

https://www.jackcurtisdubowsky.com/index.html

Wurman composed the majestic, ethereal score for the Oscar®-winning film March of the Penguins, as well as the vastly different, '70s-inspired comedy Anchorman. His signature scores include eerie piano melodies for Confessions of A Dangerous Mind, contemporary minimalist music for his Emmy award-winning score for Temple Grandin, and French impressionist interpretations for Thirteen Conversations About One Thing.

Born into a musical family, Wurman's father, Hans Wurman, was a classically trained composer and a pioneer in electronic music. His mother was a beloved violin teacher, and his older siblings are all musicians in their own right. Alex credits his musical understanding and approach to both nature and nurture. His passion led him to the Academy of Performing Arts High School in Chicago, followed by studies at the University of Miami and back to Chicago at the American Conservatory of Music. Moving to Los Angeles at the age of 22, he began his career by scoring student films at the American Film Institute, which eventually led to over 100 film credits in the highly competitive Hollywood movie business.

Recently, after completing two albums, The Classical Synthesizer (a tribute to his fathers pioneering of the Moog Synthesizer), and Pianos (a celebration of multi-piano approaches), Alex continues to expand his love for musical exploration with livestream concerts showcasing his dynamic playing and improvising abilities. These concerts have received significant positive reception, connecting with audiences worldwide. Alex continues to create new content with diverse artistic collaborations. His goal is to provide art that enhances his audiences' personal journeys.

https://www.alexwurman.com/

A composer known for his imagination and colorful voice, Cuong strives to blend the whimsical with the profound, often finding new expressive possibilities through unexpected instrumental pairings and textures. His works thus include concerti for tuba and dueling oboes, percussion quartets utilizing wine glasses and sandpaper, and pieces for double reed sextet, cello octet, and solo snare drum. This eclecticism extends to the variety of musical groups he writes for, and he has worked closely with ensembles ranging from middle school bands to Grammy-winning orchestras and chamber ensembles. His wind ensemble works are widely performed, having been programmed by the world’s preeminent wind bands such as the Dallas Winds and military bands including the United States Navy Band, “President’s Own” Marine Band, “Pershing’s Own” Army Band, Army Field Band, Coast Guard Band, and Air Force Band. These works have also been performed by the top wind ensembles at academic institutions such as the University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of North Texas, Louisiana State University, University of Miami, and Michigan State University. Passionate about bringing all these different facets of the contemporary music community together, his notable works include Vital Sines, a concerto for Eighth Blackbird and the United States Navy Band; Re(new)al, a concerto for percussion quartet with a variety of ensemble accompaniments; and a saxophone quartet concerto entitled Second Nature.

Currently the Pacific Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence, Cuong was also the California Symphony’s Young American Composer-in-Residence from 2020-23. He has held artist residencies at Copland House, Yaddo, Ucross, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and at Dumbarton Oaks, where he served as the 2020 Early-Career Musician-in-Residence. His music has been awarded the Barlow Prize, William D. Revelli Prize, Frederick Fennell Prize, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, Barlow Endowment Commission, ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Award, Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Cortona Prize, New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, and Boston GuitarFest Composition Prize. 

Cuong serves as Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he teaches composition, orchestration, and music theory. He has also served on the faculties of the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab and Juilliard Summer Composition. He holds degrees in music composition from Princeton University (MFA/PhD), the Curtis Institute of Music (Artist Diploma), and the Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM). His mentors include Jennifer Higdon, David Serkin Ludwig, Donnacha Dennehy, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Kevin Puts, and Oscar Bettison. 

William is a 1985 graduate of Chicago's VanderCook College of Music and the recipient of numerous awards and grants for composition. Principal commissions include those from the South Plains College (TX) Department of Fine Arts, Phi Beta Mu International, and the American Bandmasters Association. Professional memberships include the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA), the Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB), and Phi Beta Mu International Bandmasters Fraternity. He is recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by his alma mater and a recipient of the Texas Bandmasters Association’s Meritorious Achievement Award.

In 2014, William formally retired from duty as band director in Texas after 30 years of service. His spare time interests include traveling, U.S. Presidential history, and being a proud Chevrolet Corvette owner/enthusiast. William resides in Fort Worth, TX, with his wife and best friend, Georgia.

Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has completed a diverse array of projects ranging from experimental short films to large-scale orchestral commissions. Recent highlights include a symphony for the Albany Symphony, a saxophone concerto for the US Navy Band, a song for soprano, ensemble, and electronics premiered by Mind on Fire, and a keyboard/percussion piece featuring live video and electronics for the icarus Quartet.

The coming 2025-26 season sees several notable premieres, including a violin concerto for Keila Wakao and the Albany Symphony, a mixed sextet commissioned by saxophonist Shivam Patel, and an electroacoustic work for Alarm Will Sound. Ge additionally serves as the Sound Investment Composer for the Reno Chamber Orchestra for the year, developing a new work for them over multiple workshops. Other engagements include performances with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, the US Army Band, Modern Medieval Voices, Third Angle New Music, Mycelium New Music, and the Aruna Quartet. 

In previous years, Ge has received fellowships from the MATA Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program. He was named the Composer of the Year by the Sioux City Symphony, the grand prize winner of the New York Youth Symphony’s Jon Deak First Music Award, and a winner of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s call for scores. Ge has received further award recognition from ASCAP, the Society of Composers, Inc., and New Music USA. He was the recipient of a Copland House Residency Award and has held additional residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Millay Arts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Ge is an avid collaborator and has had the good fortune of sharing his work with a growing list of presenters that ranges from the unorthodox - the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NJ Audubon - to the cutting edge of new music, including Beth Morrison Projects, the Attacca Quartet, Music from Copland House, Khemia Ensemble, Tesla Quartet, Blackbox Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and So Percussion. His experimental short film You Have Entered the Public Domain has screened at film festivals including the Festival L'Europe autour de l'Europe, Focus Wales, Golden State Film Festival, and the Short. Sweet. Film Festival. A dedicated educator, Ge believes firmly in the value of the arts as an expressive and uniting force, and he has collaborated with numerous educational ensembles including the New York Youth Symphony, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Bobby Ge* (b. 1996) is an American-born, Shanghai-raised composer and media artist whose work engages with themes of communication, home, and hybridity. Described as “expressive and gripping” (Financial Times) and “exciting, frenzied, unpredictable” (CityNews CBR), his work is filled with shimmering textures and restless motion, often undergirded by a wry sense of humor. 

Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has completed a diverse array of projects ranging from experimental short films to large-scale orchestral commissions. Recent highlights include a symphony for the Albany Symphony, a saxophone concerto for the US Navy Band, a song for soprano, ensemble, and electronics premiered by Mind on Fire, and a keyboard/percussion piece featuring live video and electronics for the icarus Quartet.

The coming 2025-26 season sees several notable premieres, including a violin concerto for Keila Wakao and the Albany Symphony, a mixed sextet commissioned by saxophonist Shivam Patel, and an electroacoustic work for Alarm Will Sound. Ge additionally serves as the Sound Investment Composer for the Reno Chamber Orchestra for the year, developing a new work for them over multiple workshops. Other engagements include performances with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, the US Army Band, Modern Medieval Voices, Third Angle New Music, Mycelium New Music, and the Aruna Quartet. 

In previous years, Ge has received fellowships from the MATA Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program. He was named the Composer of the Year by the Sioux City Symphony, the grand prize winner of the New York Youth Symphony’s Jon Deak First Music Award, and a winner of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s call for scores. Ge has received further award recognition from ASCAP, the Society of Composers, Inc., and New Music USA. He was the recipient of a Copland House Residency Award and has held additional residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Millay Arts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Ge is an avid collaborator and has had the good fortune of sharing his work with a growing list of presenters that ranges from the unorthodox - the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NJ Audubon - to the cutting edge of new music, including Beth Morrison Projects, the Attacca Quartet, Music from Copland House, Khemia Ensemble, Tesla Quartet, Blackbox Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and So Percussion. His experimental short film You Have Entered the Public Domain has screened at film festivals including the Festival L'Europe autour de l'Europe, Focus Wales, Golden State Film Festival, and the Short. Sweet. Film Festival. A dedicated educator, Ge believes firmly in the value of the arts as an expressive and uniting force, and he has collaborated with numerous educational ensembles including the New York Youth Symphony, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Westside Chamber Players, and the St. Olaf Band.

He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (M.M.) and the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.). His primary teachers include Donnacha Dennehy, Nathalie Joachim, Juri Seo, Dan Trueman, Tyondai Braxton, Kevin Puts, Harold Meltzer, and Cindy Cox.

https://www.bobbygemusic.com/

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https://www.shruthirajasekar.com/

https://dennistobenski.com/

Daniel was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Prize in 2013 and in 2016 received a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. He received an honorary doctorate from Coventry University in 2022 and is currently a Visiting Tutor in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music and Cambridge University. 

Daniel began his musical education at the age of eight when he started playing the violin. He first received composition lessons at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and then went on to study privately in St Petersburg, receiving lessons in composition from Sergey Slonimsky. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the RNCM under the tutelage of Gary Carpenter and David Horne. 

His orchestral works include Woke, which was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Sakari Oramo at the Last Night of the Proms in September 2019; Zulu premiered by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Breakbeat written for the CBSO Youth Orchestra, and inspired by Grime music; and Sirens, written for the BBC Philharmonic orchestra, motivated by the eclectic musical nightlife in Manchester.

Other commissions include Tourbillon for Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) and Michala Petri (recorder) premiered at WIgmore Hall and released on CD; Jungle, a piano duo written for the Cheltenham Festival which draws inspiration from Jungle music and a new type of vernacular; Songs of Illumination, a song cycle commissioned by Leeds Lieder and setting setting the poetry of William Blake; and a setting of the words of Martin Luther King for orchestra and chorus entitled Dream Song premiered by baritone Roderick Williams and the Chineke! Orchestra which was played at the reopening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2018 (a US premiere of the work is planned by the Seattle Symphony, postponed from Spring 2020).

As a member of the London Symphony Orchestra's Jerwood and Panufnik Composers Schemes he has written several works for members of the LSO, which have focused on multiculturalism. 

Works premiered during the Covid-19 lockdowns include The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash for Huddersfield Choral Society with text by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage; Dappled Light for violinists Maxine Kwok and Julian Gil Rodriguez for the London Symphony Orchestra's Summer Shorts series; Christus factus est for Merton College Choir recorded for Delphian; and Be Still for the Manchester Camerata, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and received further international premieres by the San Francisco Symphony, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. His most recent work Revel, inspired by Manchester Carnival, was commissioned by the BBC Proms for the Kanneh-Mason family, and premiered in August 2021.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of Sun Poem, premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2022, subsequently performered at Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Grafenegg Festival and the Sydney Opera House, receiving 5-star reviews. The piece was co-commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, with the US premiere conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in October 2022 at Mondavi Center for Performing Arts and Davies Symphony Hall.

https://markortonmusic.com/

Composer, Conductor, Orchestrator, Producer

• 20+ Yrs Music for Film, Stage & TV • Producer Of Musical Productions • Versatile Across All Musical Genres • Orchestrator • Conductor • 20+ Years of DAWs - Digital Performer, ProTools etc. • Proven Natural Leader, Dependable & Reliable • Self-starter, Fast Turn Around Times • Experienced Producer of Scoring / Recording Sessions - respected among musicians, expertly managing time-frames & budgets • Great team player, calm with sense of humor!!! • Clients include: Disney, Sony Pictures, Epcot, Netflix, Amazon & many Independent Production Companies.

A Little History

A few highlights along the journey of musical creativity

My magnificent musical journey has taken me from being a Smurf (my first professional recording at age 11 for the UK album Underland) through the realms of Award-Winning children’s stage productions, writing & producing musical theater (George Orwell’s, ‘Animal Farm’), TV Theme Tunes (ITV Telethon), commercial & jingle writing (Wiskas, Cadbury, Marmite), song writing (”I Hate This Job” Muppets), children’s television series (Mystery Of Black Rose Castle), family episodic programming (Monkey Life), feature film scoring (The King’s Daughter, Sleeping Beauty) and composing for Disney & EPCOT (short films & theme-parks). In the immersive world I have designed and built a range of experiences from haunted houses to Winter Wonderland Walkthroughs, designing interactive attractions under the magic of enchanting light displays. In every arena my greatest joy is knowing that my work has awoken, enlightened and fueled the minds of those who experience it. And this is exactly what I do for the every audience for whom I write.

The Power Of Collaboration

A Synergy That Thrives

Besides being a composer, conductor, orchestrator, producer and creator, I am a team leader who sets my own high standards that motivates the very best in the talent that surrounds me. As original founder of Sum Of All Music & The Budapest Scoring Orchestra I am quick to recognize talent and attract musicians at the very top of their game. I regularly lead music collaborative teams and training including other musical directors and respected musicians (such as Benny Rietveld - Santana’s MD & Bassist, Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens - Paul McCartney’s MD & Keyboardist, Steve Shepherd - Kenny G’s engineer, Rafael Gayol - Lenny Cohen & A-ha drummer... to name but a few) and have produced several albums, music libraries & music videos. My network of composer’s, songwriters and musicians has been built on a reputation of the non-competitive, pro-collaborative approach that I instill in my teams.

https://www.josephmetcalfe.com/

This year he is thrilled to be collaborating with the LYNX project for their amplify series, creating a song cycle with living neurodiverse poets. He will also be featured on the DeCameron Opera Coalition's holiday project series, representing the Chicago Fringe Opera for a video song project. This spring, he will collaborate with Hana Cai and the Ithaca College Treble choir on a new choral work with poetry by Stephanie Fleischmann. Recio will be featured on tenor Ryan Townsend Strand's song cycle project, Letters to Jackie, a CD project featuring many prominent, living art song composers of our time. He is a resident artist with the West Edge Opera Aperture Program developing his new opera with Stephanie Fleischmann, L'autre Moi. 

Most recently, he collaborated with Chicago-based choir Stare at the Sun on an immersive choral cantata, The Hollow, performed at the Linne Woods forest preserve that explores themes of isolation, depression, emergence, and renewal with a libretti by Alejandra Villareal Martinez. This past spring, he was thrilled to present Touch the Water with the Chicago Fringe Opera Series "A City of Works," which featured text by Chicago-based writer Anna Gatdula. This collaboration was written for Chicago-based artists Keanon Kyles and David Sands. As a performer/composer, his collaboration on How We Hush (poetry by Jenna Lanzaro) with tenor Michael Day earned him a winning prize with Fourth Coast Ensemble's 2021 Chicago SongSlam. 

He looks forward to a new collaboration with Chicago-based librettist Jerre Dye on a new song that will be produced on a new album, 40x40 by Grammy-nominated soprano Laura Strickling, featuring the work of 40 different leading composers of the art song genre. This fall, he will be collaborating on a unique project by Queer In(n) to create a vocal work inspired by the life of trans-Chicago icon Mama Gloria. This project will feature an adaptive libretto by Dr. Marquese Carter and feature the talents of upcoming trans singer Jalissa Spell. 

In addition to his work with COT and West Edge Opera, he was selected as the first commissioned composer for the Cincinnati Song Initiative 2018-2019 season. He is a published artist under the Dale Warland Series and the Craig Hella Johnson Series under G. Schirmer/Hal Leonard. As the 2018 Georgina Joshi vocal prize commission winner, Recio received a premiere of his work "In the Desert" for mezzo-soprano and sinfonietta with the Indiana University New Music Ensemble. 

Recio was recently named the 2017 American Prize winner in choral composition and was a featured composer with Beth Morrison Projects as an operatic composer at the National Sawdust theatre in Brooklyn, New York. The New Voices Opera Company commissioned him for his one-act opera, "In Memoriam," in 2017 (Libretto: Molly Korroch). Recio is a humble winner of the Cincinnati Camerata Competition, a two-time winner of the NOTUS Composition Competition, a finalist in the Young New Yorker's Choral Competition, and a finalist in the Morton Gould Awards and BMI Awards. William Stowman's CD, A Timeless Place (Klavier Records Label), features Recio's song cycle Chronology of Storms, with poetry written by Jenna Lanzaro.  

With an equal passion for instrumental composition, Recio has been represented at the Midwest Composer Symposium, the UNK Music Festival, and the Hammer and Nail Dance collaboration. His chamber works received recognition at the IMTA young artist composition competition and the Quartet Nouveau Competition. Recio is a proud alumnus of the IMANI Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, the Valencia International Performing Arts Program, the Norfolk Chamber Series, and Donald Nally's Grammy award-winning choir, "The Crossing."  

A summa cum laude graduate and Charles F. Hockett Scholarship winner of Ithaca College (B.M. Composition), Recio received his doctorate in music composition at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music as a Jacobs fellowship recipient and associate instructor in aural skills. His principal teachers include Dana Wilson, Claude Baker, Aaron Travers, Don Freund, David Dzubay, Eric Ewazen, P.Q. Phan, and Sven-David Sandström. 

For more information visit: www.matthewrecio.com 

conductor. His music has been praised for its "dreamlike" quality (Boston Globe) and 

"delightfully cruel" edge (Operawire). Jarrar's compositions have been noted to "flow 

from him in the most natural and lively way" (Tom Cipullo). 

Jarrar has had the privilege of collaborating with numerous esteemed organizations, 

including Santa Fe Opera, St. Petersburg Opera, OPERA San Antonio, The New 

School, Opera Naples, Opera North, Opera Ithaca, Penn Square Opera, Hogfish, 

University of Memphis and the iconic Apollo Theater. For the 2024/2025 season, he 

serves as Assistant Conductor with Florida Grand Opera, working on productions of Die 

Zauberflöte, L’elisir d’amore, and Carmen. 

Jarrar's impressive compositional catalog comprises 275 works, including 235 art 

songs, 14 operas, 2 string quartets, and a symphony. He has received notable 

commissions from and been underwritten by the New England Repertory Orchestra, 

University of Missouri Kansas City, Prismatic Arts Ensemble, Off the Chamber, Spark 

Duo, Idaho Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His 

operas have been produced by Landlocked Opera, Chicago Fringe Opera, /kor/ 

productions, Killer Queen Opera, Opera Elect, and New Wave Opera, amongst others. 

His song "Sun of the Sleepless" was featured on the 2024 GRAMMY-nominated album 

40@40 by Laura Strickling and Daniel Schlosberg. 

Felix Jarrar holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Marlboro College, where he graduated 

with highest honors in music composition and piano performance. He earned his Master 

of Music degree from Brooklyn College, receiving the Graduate Dean's Award in Music 

Composition. Jarrar's musical training was influenced by his studies with Jason Eckardt, 

Stanley Charkey, Tania León, and Robert Merfeld, as well as mentorship from piano 

pedagogue Burton Hatheway. 

https://www.felixjarrarmusic.com

Ms. Goble collaborates regularly in recital with bass-baritone Simon Estes, both locally and across the United States, and is his official collaborator for the Iowa Roots and Wings Community Concerts, as well as the pianist and artistic director for the Simon Estes Young Artist Concert Series. She has been the official pianist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in Iowa since 2009, and is a frequent recitalist with artists associated with Des Moines Metro Opera; recent collaborative partners include tenor Taylor Stayton, baritone Michael Maves, and sopranos Sarah Jane McMahon and Sydney Mansacola.

Ms. Goble’s compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally and featured on National Public Radio. Her awards include the 2013 Commission Competition of the Iowa Music Teachers Association and selection as a finalist entry in the 2008 NATS Art Song Competition. Her choral cantata True Witness was premiered and recorded in November 2013 by the Claremont College Choirs, the Chamber Singers of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, and soloists Gwendolyn Lytle and Simon Estes. Other recent commissions include works for Voices of the Pearl, the UNCC Operatecture Project, the P.A.L.S. Girlchoir in Boston, and Omaha-based chamber trio I, the Siren. Her works have recently received performances at Beijing Central Conservatory, Boston University, Iowa State University, Hunan Women’s College, Scripps College, Curry College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Iowa Composers’ Forum, the University of Northern Iowa, the Art Song Preservation Society of New York, the Ames Town and Gown Musicale, the Le Ran Arts Festival in Shanghai, and the ASEAN International Festival of Contemporary Music.

https://www.jodigoble.com

His Mass for the Oppressed was written to support the Fairbanks Four, Alaskan Natives from the composer’s hometown who were wrongfully imprisoned for over sixteen years. His cantata “…from which your laughter rises” was written for the mothers of the Fairbanks Four. His opera, The Princess Sophia, premiered in Juneau, Alaska, on October 25th, 2018, to a rave review in Opera magazine. Recent work includes A Prairie Cantata and Black Wolf: A Passion Cantata. Emerson studied choral conducting with Carmen-Helena Téllez at the University of Notre Dame, working with eminent choral conductors, including Joseph Flummerfelt, Stephen Cleobury, Ann Howard Jones, and Peter Phillips. Before his graduate work, he studied composition with Alaskan composer John Luther Adams.   

https://emersoneads.com

Leonard-Morgan is one of the most notable contemporary soundtrack composers, in demand for his seamless use of the orchestra with electronics. Writing music for a variety of visual media, his credits include his collaborations with Philip Glass for series The Green Veil, Tales from the Loop, and The Pigeon Tunnel; the feature films Limitless, Best Sellers, Dredd, and The Tomorrow Man; Errol Morris’ series Wormwood and the documentary American Dharma; and the video game Cyberpunk 2077. He has garnered a BAFTA award for his first film score, Reflections Upon the Origin of the Pineapple, and Emmy, Ivor Novello, and World Soundtrack Award nominations.

His expertise extends to the recording studio, where has worked with such leading artists as Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol, No Doubt, and Isobel Campbell.

Scottish by birth and upbringing, Leonard-Morgan’s classical works are steeped in the musical and poetic traditions of his home. With a mother who was a music teacher, Leonard-Morgan learned numerous instruments as a child, and went on to earn a degree at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

His composing for the stage includes a commission from the National Theatre to score new adaptations of Rona Munro’s history plays James I, II & IV, which opened at the Edinburgh International Festival.

His concert music includes the Celtic Concerto for violin, harp, soprano, whistles, and pipes, which was commissioned for the Inter-Celtic Festival in Lorient. A suite from his original score for the BBCSSO’s A History of Scotland toured Scotland and was performed at Proms in The Park.

His pieces for commemorative events include “Glory of Pursuit,” the official anthem of the US Olympic Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games, and the orchestral anthem for the Queen’s Baton Relay of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Currently, Leonard-Morgan is developing new works, including a song cycle for L'Orchestre National de Bretagne, for ensemble and a vocalist singing poems by Scots language poet Lennie, and is preparing to release an album of new Etudes for Piano and Cello, featuring cellist and interdisciplinary artist Suuvi.

https://www.paulleonardmorgan.com/about

Erickson’s Seventeen Minutes and Twenty-Two Seconds for solo piano commemorates the 300th Anniversary of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier and the memory of jazz great Chick Corea. The work was created from a 2020-2023 commissioning consortium led by the San Francisco International Piano Festival, including a consortium of 20 pianists performing the work over North and South America. 

His 2018-2020 Here, Bullet song set achieved global success as work that was written for a global consortium of 30 singers from three different continents, won First Prize in the 2020 NATS Art Song competition, and was the subject of a published doctoral dissertation. In a version of the piece written for Sybarite5, Here, Bullet will be turned into a short film by Tonynominated actor/director Will Chase. The film and the new version of the piece will be toured during the 2024-2025 season, screened at international film festivals, presented in performances by military performing ensembles, and presented at veteran’s organizations and other civic events. 

Erickson currently serves as Composer-in-Residence with San Francisco’s LIEDER ALIVE!, writing and premiering new commissioned works on their subscription concert series. He has been called “a composer at the height of his powers” and his music has been described as “haunting and poetic”, “gripping”, “genuinely moving”; with one author writing that a performance “moved this reviewer to tears”. 

Noteworthy performances and commissions include those by the Minnesota Orchestra, Grammy Award winning San Francisco Girls Chorus at Davies Symphony Hall, violist Paul Yarbrough of the Alexander String Quartet, performances and radio interviews at the American Guild of Organists National Convention, and a commissioned work for soprano and orchestra celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra. His vocal music and song sets are performed on recitals across the United States. 

Erickson’s association with the late countertenor Brian Asawa led to premiere performances in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Beach, and Seattle with critical acclaim in The Huffington “Erickson’s settings are simply gorgeous: the recording of the Los Angeles premiere (Here, Bullet)…moved this reviewer to tears.” Kathleen Roland Silverstein, Journal of Singing Post and San Francisco Classical Voice. Erickson has worked extensively with San Francisco Opera Ballet Master Lawrence Pech on a number of dance commission projects and festival teaching engagements. 

Considered an entrepreneurial artist and thought leader, Erickson has implemented and designed over ten years of innovative multi-year composer residencies with performing arts organizations, cathedrals, dance companies, and national shrines. He is a frequent podcast guest and host, interviewing artists including soprano Karen Slack and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Anthony Davis. He designed the weekly CRC Music: In The Studio series at Sacramento’s Cosumnes River College, and frequently serves as a guest artist at colleges and universities across the country. 

While in his twenties, Mr. Erickson created a series of unique sacred music residencies: a 1999-2000 Three Church Residency at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, St. Mary the Virgin, and Berkeley’s St. Mark’s Episcopal Church; then later a 2001-2003 composer residency at The National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi. Erickson’s choral works appear on the professional choral ensemble Schola Cantorum’s release This Christmas Night. 

A new music advocate, Mr. Erickson has premiered new compositions and commissioned 20 prominent composers as part of the Neue Lieder Commissioning Program, a biennial project on the LIEDER ALIVE! concert series. He Directed the Composers Workshop at the Napa Music Festival, mentoring young composers while arranging public performances of original compositions. 

As a young composer Erickson participated in Yale University’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Banff Centre for the Arts, as well as festivals hosted by Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Brandeis University, and The University of Notre Dame. 

Erickson is a frequent performer with his wife, acclaimed soprano/pedagogue/voice scientist Heidi Moss Erickson. Together they collaborate on new works and speak on topics ranging from composer-singer best practices to assorted pedagogy issues in educational and classical music forums. They are in demand as speakers at colleges, on recital series, and with podcasts.

Mr. Jones studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and has been a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and Allentown Symphony. He has also been an assistant or apprentice conductor with the New York Youth Symphony, National Music Festival, and Gulf Coast Symphony. He’s guest conducted the Color of Music Festival orchestra and with the Trilogy Opera Company. In 2015 he founded Orchestra Amadeus, a New York City based project whose mission is to promote social justice through classical music.

As a composer, Mr. Jones’ works have been performed in the United States and Europe. He has written a wide variety of music including art song, solo instrumental, chamber music, choral, concertante, chamber, string, and full orchestra, oratorio, and opera. Most recently he was the first prize-winner in the call for scores held by Music Of the Unsung America in Miami, giving the premiere of his Second Symphony for String Orchestra in April, 2021.

Mr. Jones has studied violin, viola, percussion, and voice and has performed as an orchestral and chamber musician, chorister, and soloist. He studied composition with Nicholas Maw at Peabody and Dr. Samuel Adler at the Bowdoin Festival.

Mr. Jones is a native of Rhode Island, where he was raised on a farm in a small town. He currently lives in New York City.

https://joachimamadeus.wixsite.com/josephjones

Marti was a fellow in composition at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1986 and 1988 and worked with Oliver Knussen and Hans Werner Henze. As a result of her association with Henze, she was invited by the City of Munich to compose her puppet opera, Hero und Leander, for the 1992 Munich Biennale for New Music Theater. She was on the jury for the 1994 Biennale.

Marti has received commissions from the Paul Jacobs Memorial Commissioning Fund, the CORE Ensemble, ALEA III, Sequitur New Music Ensemble, the Fromm Foundation, guitarist David Tanenbaum, the American Dance Festival, the A*DEvant-garde Festival of Munich, tubist Samuel Pilafian, flutist Marianne Gedigian, the New England Brass Quintet, the Iowa Brass Quintet, Boston Conservatory, Boston University Marsh Chapel Choir, pianist Kathleen Supové, the CrossSound New Music Festival of Juneau Alaska, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Radius Ensemble, the Ludovico Ensemble, and the Callithumpian consort. The Longy School of Music commissioned her to compose Quartet for BSO English horn soloist Robert Sheena to be played at the Inauguration of Karen Zorn, their new president. Marti’s music has been performed all over the world by ensembles, which include the San Francisco Symphony, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, and Ensemble Modern.

https://www.martiepstein.com

Jessica’s works have been performed by groups such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Cadillac Moon Ensemble, The Omaha Symphony’s Chamber Orchestra, the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, and the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra. She has received awards from SCI/ASCAP, Boston Metro Opera, the College Music Society, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and others. Jessica is a 2019 Connecticut Artist Fellow, with support from the Connecticut Office of the Arts. 

Jessica recently joined the faculty at University of Utah as an Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory. Learn more about her here.

https://www.jessicarudman.com/

In 2024, Dunphy was awarded an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts. She received a 2020 Opera America Discovery Grant for Alice Tierney, a commission for Oberlin Opera Theater that premiered in 2023 and received its professional debut at Opera Columbus. She has been composer-in-residence for the Immaculata Symphony Orchestra, Volti, and the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, and her commissions include works for the BBC Singers, VOCES8, Cantus, Mendelssohn Chorus, Seattle Pro Musica, Chor Leoni, La Caccina, Skylark, Experiments in Opera, and the Kennett Symphony. Dunphy is also a Barrymore Award-nominated theater composer and sound designer, and served from 2014-2024 as Director of Music Composition for the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.

Dunphy has a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.M. from West Chester University and is on faculty at Rutgers University. She is president of the boards of directors for Wildflower Composers and Lyric Fest. Melissa and her husband Matt are also avid citizen archaeologists and co-hosts of the popular podcast The Boghouse about their adventures in Philadelphia colonial archaeology; they are currently developing the Necessary Museum, which they hope to open in 2026 to showcase their local discoveries.

https://www.melissadunphy.com

Mr. Booker has over 100 compositions published by Alfred, Kendor, Southern Music Company, Wingert-Jones, Potenza Music, Print Music Source, and Lecta Music. Mr. Booker’s music has been performed internationally by schools, universities, community bands and professional bands and orchestras that include the Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra, The U.S. Army Band and Orchestra ("Pershing’s Own"), the U.S. Army Field Band, the U.S. Military Academy Band (West Point), the U.S. Air Force Band of Mid-America and the U.S. Air Force Academy Band. Mr. Booker’s 21 year career in the U.S. Army included service in the Fifth Army Band in San Antonio, Texas, staff arranger for the Army Field Band, conductor of Army Bands in Louisiana, Germany, New York City, and director of the Jazz Ambassadors in Washington, D.C. As a trumpeter with the Fifth Army Band, Mr. Booker performed for the funerals of Presidents Truman and Johnson. In 1981, as the conductor of the 3rd Armored Division Band in Germany, Mr. Booker conducted ceremonies at Rhein Main Air Force Base for the returning American hostages from Iran. In New York City, he conducted the Army Band of New York City at ceremonies for head of states of the United States, Germany, France, Netherlands, Portugal and China, and his band performed at the centennial activities of the Statue of Liberty. While an associate conductor of the Army Field Band and director of the Jazz Ambassadors, Mr. Booker performed at the Kennedy Center, in 48 states, India, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and marched in the inauguration parades of Presidents George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton.

He was Interim Director of Bands at Trinity University from 1996 to 1997 and assistant editor at Southern Music Company from 1994 to 1997. Charles Booker has been recognized by the Mayor of Fort Smith (the 2006 "Mayor’s Honors to the Visual and performing Arts"), the North Side Independent School District of San Antonio, Texas (the 2008 "Pillars of Character Award") and received the Arkansas Arts Council Award in music composition for 2009. He is past president of the Arkansas Chapter of the College Band Directors National Association, past president of the Arkansas Chapter of the International Association of Jazz Educators, current member of the Texas Bandmaster Association, the Association of Concert Bands and is a past president (2010) of the Arkansas Bandmaster Association. Mr. Booker is also a retired member of the Texas Chapter of Phi Beta Mu.

In 2007, the New Mexico State University Symphonic Winds released their CD entitled "Centra-fuge: The Music of Charles L. Booker, Jr.”, and in 2008, Mr. Booker released his second CD "American Jubilee”. Booker’s CD "Time Remembered” was released in 2009, and his CD "Radiant Blues” was released in 2011. In 2013 Mr. Booker and fellow composer Roger Cichy released a compilation of their latest original music on their CD “Glorious Journey”.

Mr. Booker is married to his wife of 49 years, trumpeter and quilter, Claudette [DeRocher] Booker of San Antonio, Texas. They have three children: Major Erik Booker, U. S. Army (Retired) and Maryland public school teacher; Dr. Adam Booker, Assistant Professor of Double Bass at Appalachian State University, and Dr. Colleen Booker Halverson of Richland Center, Wisconsin, author, English professor and mentor at Western Governors University. Mr. Booker and Claudette have nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

http://charlesbooker.com/

Catherine holds a bachelor's degree in jazz piano from Kyiv Glière Music College and a five-year post-graduate degree in composition from the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv Conservatory). She is currently [2018] pursuing a Ph.D. in composition at the University of Queensland. 

Her music exhibits high emotional charge, programmatic nature and rhythmic complexity. Catherine's works have been performed throughout North America, Europe and Australia by many prominent soloists and ensembles, such as Paul Dean, Peter Luff, The Australian Voices, U.S. Army Field Band Horns, Cornell University Wind Ensemble and Wind Symphony, Queensland Conservatorium Wind Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the National Radio of Ukraine. Her pieces have been played at several international events, including two international horn symposia and the World Saxophone Congress. Her concertino for five horns entitled Hard to Argue became the winner of the International Horn Society Composition Contest, virtuoso division.

www.catherinelikhuta.com

​Jennifer holds a Professional Artist Certificate in Composition and Master’s degree in Composition & Technology from the North Carolina School of the Arts as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the University of Arkansas. 

www.composerose.com

Her works have been performed across the United States, as well as in Italy, Singapore, and Canada.

She has been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Central Ohio Symphony, the Johnstone Fund for New Music, and numerous artists & performing ensembles. She arranged Orphée+ with Opera Columbus.

Spavelko has won multiple awards, including the 2017 Gian Carlo Menotti Young Composers Prize in Spoleto, Italy (Baby Book) and the Ruth Anderson Commission Prize from IAWM (Black Box 2.0). 

She has been a finalist for the NATS Art Song Composition Award (Baby Book) and for the American Prize in Vocal Chamber Music (Baby Book and From Edna, With Love) and Orchestral Music. (Kéyah)

In addition to composing, Spavelko is a gifted educator. 

She operates Musical Life, where she offers lessons in voice, piano, violin, & composition. She is a part-time professor at Otterbein University, where she teaches theory & piano skills for musical theater.

She also presents as a guest composer in K-12 classrooms, designs youth composition workshops, composes for youth ensembles, and delivers lectures on solo entrepreneurship for college students.

Lauren Spavelko performs as a vocalist, violinist, and pianist in both classical and commercial productions. She enjoys collaborating with artists and organizations in Columbus and the greater region. She has performed with opera workshops, professional choirs, chambers orchestras, and as a soloist.

(Learn more and see her work on her performance page.)​

From 2012-2014, Lauren toured with internationally-renowned artist Tajci and manager/producer Matthew Cameron, performing in 100+ concerts as a violinist and vocalist, and learning about concert production, sales, and logistics.

She is a co-coordinator of the Institute for Composer Diversity's chamber music database and a board member of Converging Arts Columbus and the Central Ohio Hot Jazz Society.

Spavelko is a graduate of the University of Louisville (M.M. Composition) and Ohio Wesleyan University (B.M. Music Education). She has studied composition with Steve Rouse, Clint Needham, and Jason Bahr. 

She values a balanced life rich in creative work, friendship, self-exploration, and play, and she desires the same for other artists. 

You can hear her laughing through Columbus while swing dancing, singing and fiddling, practicing yoga, painting, and making a joyful raucous with her circle

Her musical talent, coupled with her entrepreneurial skills has already left her with an array of awards. Jenkins’ most recent accolades include winning the Grand Prize in the International Women’s Brass Festival: WCFT Competition, the EXPO: New Works Competition, the Composer’s Cordance Generations XI: New Music for Jazz Septet, the LunArt Festival and the New York Federation of Music Prize. Her music has been used by many filmmakers, including festival success at the Berlin Film Festival and New York International Film Awards. Her original score, written in collaboration with Shelbie Rassler, for the docu-series ‘Wright of Passage’ premiered at NASA, The Kennedy Space Center, June 2023. She has been commissioned by numerous ensembles and individuals such as Ensemble Intencomperain, the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of the New York City Ballet and more recently fashion designer Terrence Zhou (Bad Binch Tong Tong); creating original music for New York Fashion Week shows in the fall of both 2022 and 2023. Her music has been performed across the world including venues such as National Sawdust, where she held a fellowship, The Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute of Music, BBC Hoddinott Hall, The DiMenna Center and music festivals in Barcelona, Serbia, Bulgaria and more! Katie enjoys working with a broad spectrum of creative talent. She has composed and produced music for the United Nations, The Female Quotient, The Girls Day School Trust, and Joy of Mom.

She is a 2022 graduate of the Juilliard School where she held the Henry Mancini Fellowship. She has returned to Juilliard where she is currently completing her Masters degree as well as coaching film scoring and music production in the Center for Innovation in The Arts. Katie recently joined the composition faculty at The Juilliard Pre-College where she teaches Music Technology and Screen Scoring.

www.katiejenkinscomposer.com

Mr. Hervey grew up in Arlington, Texas. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from UT Arlington and his Master of Music in trombone performance from University of North Texas. He currently serves as band director at Arlington High School and also teaches beginners at Bailey Junior High in Arlington. 

Mr. Hervey currently serves a band director at Arlington (Tx.) High School. In that role he conducts the jazz ensembles as well as the concert band and assists with the marching band. Other duties include teaching beginner musicians at Bailey Junior High. 

Composition has long been one of Mr. Hervey’s passions, and it has grown out of a desire to provide beautiful music for young musicians. His earliest compositions were quartets and piano pieces. He has also done a lot of transcriptions/arrangements for jazz bands that he has conducted over the years. Throughout his teaching career, he began getting ideas for music that he could write for his own ensembles. It started with arranging chorales, warm-ups, etc., and then moved into original music for them to perform. As time went on, his strong desire to write for young ensembles simply grew and students also encouraged me to keep writing.

David's proficiency in multiples genres has allowed him to work at prestigious venues, in various guises, all over the world. He gave his Carnegie Hall début in 2014 when he conducted (from the piano) his own orchestra/big band in front of a sold out house. David's Jazz @ Lincoln Center début was at The Rose Theater as jazz pianist in 2008, and two years later he gave his classical piano début at Lincoln Center's Rubenstein Atrium performing Schumann and Chopin as part of the 200th year anniversary celebrations of these two composers. In 2012 David arranged, orchestrated, conducted, and played solo violin and piano for a Lincoln Center-commissioned work to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. As a violinist, David has performed frequently as a soloist with leading orchestras and as a recitalist. As a jazz pianist he continues to perform frequently at jazz clubs and larger venues in the USA.

David is one third of the popular musical group Empire Trio that he founded with his wife, soprano Erin Shields. Empire Trio was commissioned by Lincoln Center to create a new show (to premiere at Lincoln Center) about the history of Italian popular music. Empire Trio tours extensively in the US, Canada and Europe.

In 2013 David began a close working relationship with lyricist Martin Charnin (creator and lyricist of, among many others, Annie). David has co-created more than a dozen reviews/shows with Mr. Charnin which have been performed frequently by Broadway stars including Charnin's wife Shelly Burch, John Treacy Egan, Alton Fitzgerald White, Robi Hager, and many others.

A prolific arranger, David has worked for Abbey Road & CTS Studios (London), on Hollywood movies, West End & Broadway shows. He arranged/orchestrated the music for Howard Blake's The Snowman, which has run in the West End since 1998, and has orchestrated several shows in Germany, as well as the newest musical by the 'Annie' team, Robin Hood' The Untold Story. In August 2013 David created and orchestrated the original arrangements for a new and exciting group, Opus X, whose début album featured special guest, trumpeter Chris Botti.

David began writing music at the age of 9 and has written hundreds of pieces including a symphony, 2 piano concertos, 2 violin concertos and 2 string quartets all composed before the age of 11. Recent works include a double jazz violin concerto, several songs, and 5 musicals, all of which have premiered in New York.

David’s CDs are widely available and his solo piano CD, Sunnyside Blues, has won high acclaim as well as several awards. David’s ballet, Ascension, was commissioned by The Pendulum Aerial Dance Company in Portland (OR), who performs this work frequently. David wrote his first film score for Franc Reyes' drama, Beauty, which was screened in Hollywood, Miami and New York.

David teaches extensively and, as a coach, accompanist and teaching professor, has been on the faculties of NYU, The New School, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, was visiting professor of violin and piano at St. Thomas Choir School for 4 years, and is entering his sixth year as the Music Director at Grace Church School in Manhattan. He is also a composer in residence in the advanced class of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop.

Born in Rotherham (South Yorkshire), England, David studied violin and piano at The Royal College of Music, London from where he graduated with the highest honours.

https://www.shentonmusic.com/

His orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by over 170 professional, regional, community and youth orchestras in the US and Europe, including the San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, ​Kansas City Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, The Syracuse Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony, National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO-USA), New World Symphony, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Experiential Orchestra, Mesquite Symphony Orchestra, Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, Wichita Symphony Orchestra, South Carolina Philharmonic, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Canton Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, Symphony San Jose, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, the River Oaks, Reno, Mission and Lowell chamber orchestras, youth orchestras of Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Central Kentucky, Vermont, Rhode Island, Memphis, East Texas, Omaha, Seattle and Dallas, Scotland's West of Scotland Schools Symphony Orchestra, Italy's Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, UK's Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra and numerous others.

​As a conductor, Quinn has guest conducted numerous orchestras, including the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, The Syracuse Orchestra, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, Harmonia Orchestra, MusicaNova Orchestra and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. In April 2023, he debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and he also served as the Houston Ballet Orchestra's youngest ever guest conductor. Quinn studied conducting at the National Orchestral Institute with Marin Alsop and James Ross, at the Eastern Music Festival with Gerard Schwarz, José-Luis Novoand Grant Cooper and has worked with Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Edwin Outwater, Carl Topilow, Christopher Zimmerman and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. 

His chamber music has been performed and presented by celebrated organizations such as Voices of Change, Midsummer's Music, The Cliburn, One Found Sound, loadbang, MAKE trio, Atlantic Brass Quintet, Axiom Brass, and the Cézanne, Julius, Invoke and Baumer string quartets. His solo music has been championed by distinguished soloists such as David Cooper (associate principal horn, Los Angeles Philharmonic), Lara Downes (pianist), Mark Davidson (principal trombone, Utah Symphony), Holly Mulcahy(concertmaster, Wichita Symphony) and Jordan Bak and Michael Hall (viola soloists).

​His compositions for winds have been performed by renowned bands of Southern Methodist University, University of Texas, University of North Texas, University of Michigan, University of Maryland, Texas Christian University, Penn State, University of Toronto, University of Georgia, Purdue University, University of Minnesota, and Northern Illinois University, as well as the Dallas Winds, Encore Wind Ensemble, Metropolitan Winds and others throughout the United States and Canada.

​His music has also received significant radio play. He served as KMFA 89.5's inaugural composer in residence and has had his music broadcast on NPR in the US, CBC in Canada, BBC in London, ORF in Vienna, RAI in Italy, in countries such as Switzerland, Hungary, Latvia, Israel and many others.  

​A multiple prize winner in composition, he has received numerous awards and honors from such organizations as the American Composers Forum, Voices of Change, Texas A&M University, ASCAP, the Dallas Foundation, Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble, National Flute Association, International Clarinet Association, the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, the Heartland Symphony Orchestra and the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Quinn was honored by the Dallas Morning News as a finalist for 'Texan of the Year'.​

Quinn has studied composition at the SMU Meadows School of the Arts, with Dr. Winston Stone at University of Texas at Dallas and has also worked closely with renowned composers David Maslanka, Jake Heggie, Christopher Theofanidis, Libby Larsen, David Dzubay and Robert X. Rodriguez.

https://www.masonianmusic.com

Rachel’s musicals include Only Children with Michael R. Jackson (NYU Tisch, Lincoln Center Directors Lab), Tiny Feats of Cowardice with Susan Bernfield (NYC Fringe Festival), Write Left with John Walch (Playwrights Horizons Theatre School), Tomato Red (UC Irvine), and Octopus Heart (NYU Steinhardt). Her score for Danielle Durchslag’s film musical, Good Shabbos, is currently in development. Scores for plays include the critically acclaimed Stretch (a fantasia) (New Georges) and Tania in the Getaway Van (Flea Theater) by Susan Bernfield, Transatlantic by John Walch (Arkansas Rep), The Bacchae (Asolo Rep Conservatory), and several works by Stan Richardson. 

Concert works include mini-monodrama Ethel Smyth Plays Golf in Limbo (Semperoper Dresden, Resonance Works Pittsburgh), If You Can Prove That I Should Set You Free (Albany Symphony), Jack's Vocabulary (Hartt SPASM), I Live Here (Galapagos Art Space), Canon I (Two Sides Sounding), And Then (BayPath College), and Fronds: The Wisdom of Fanny Fern (Walt Whitman Project). Rachel’s extensive catalogue of songs has been performed at Lincoln Center, Second Stage, National Opera Center, Symphony Space, New York Festival of Song, National Sawdust, Ars Nova, Joe's Pub, and cabarets and theatres nationwide. Rachel contributed to the new generation of The AIDS Quilt Songbook and to Michael R. Jackson’s Dirty Laundry and Zachary James’s CALL OUT albums.

Rachel has held residencies as composer and/or librettist at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Yaddo, Brush Creek Arts, Millay Arts, and Soaring Gardens. She has received Anna Sosenko Assist Trust and multiple ASCAPlus awards. OPERA America awarded her a Female Composers Discovery Grant to write Manor of Speaking…with Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr., the first wholly original work for Stephanie Blythe’s alter ego, Blythely Oratonio; other such grants went to Sarasota Opera for Rootabaga Country and to collaborator Leanna Kirchoff for their opera Friday After Friday. Rachel is a proud alumna of New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, The American Opera Project’s Composers and the Voice, and the John Duffy Institute for New Opera. She holds a double B.A. summa cum laude from Brandeis University and an MFA from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. She serves on committees for the Dramatists Guild and National Opera Association, and is a member of the inaugural Jewish Composers Working Group of Asylum Arts/The Neighborhood. Rachel is currently Manager of Programs and Initatives for Composers Now and Visiting Lecturer at the Princeton Lewis Center for the Arts Atelier.

Rachel originally hails from St. Louis, where she grew up singing in children’s choruses at the MUNY, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. She has settled in Brooklyn, a borough with an exceptionally high concentration of opera composers. Much to her bewilderment, she is still mistaken for this woman online.

https://www.racheljpeters.com

Mr. Standridge's music is performed internationally. He has had numerous works selected for the J.W. Pepper's editor's choice. His compositions Snake Charmer, Gently Blows the Summer Wind, and Angelic Celebrations have been included in the "Teaching Music Through Performance in Band" series. He has had numerous works performed at the prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago, Illinois. The Arkansas State University Wind Ensemble premiered his work Art(isms) at the 2010 CBDNA conference in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and his work Stonewall: 1969 was premiered at the National LGBA conference in 2019. His Symphony no.1: A Ghost Story was premiered in 2023. In addition, Mr. Standridge's "unBroken Project," a musical initiative about mental health, has received widespread acclaim for its musical content and for providing opportunities to normalize discussions about mental health for music students and audiences.

In addition to his career as a composer, Mr. Standridge is the owner and editor of Randall Standridge Music, LLC and Grand Mesa Marching. He is in demand as an arranger/designer for the marching arts. He lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas, with his husband, Steven, and their very, very spoiled pets.

Serving as Director of Upper School Bands at The Northwest School, Erin is currently in her 16th year of teaching. She is a multi-year nominee ​for Teacher of the Year and has been awarded the Sigma Alpha Iota Leadership Award. In 2020 her wind ensemble at Inglewood Middle School was selected to perform at the National Association for Music Education Northwest Region conference. While teaching, Erin maintains an active role in community music. She is a director and founder of Formation Wind Band, Seattle’s all-women wind ensemble. Formation has the honor of performing at the upcoming 2024 Washington Music Educators Association conference. Previous community music involvement includes directing the North Seattle Symphonic Band and Modern Jazz Ensemble at North Seattle College, serving on the artistic staff of Rainbow City Performing Arts, and co-founding the Give Back Brass Band. 

 Erin discovered composing during the pandemic. She enjoys writing music for all levels but is particularly passionate about writing quality music for student musicians to nurture developing skills and specific idiosyncrasies for each instrument. Erin is actively commissioned to write music for ensembles all over the country. Her works include compositions for concert, jazz, pep, and brass bands as well as various chamber ensembles. Erin’s music is published with Murphy Music Press, Carl Fischer, and Randall Standridge Music Publications. To view her catalog, click HERE.

Erin graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri (B.S. in music education) and the University of Washington (M.A. in music education, emphasis instrumental conducting). She has studied conducting with Tim Salzman, Dr. Mallory Thompson, Dr. Chris Bianco, Dr. Tony Maiello, Dr. Emily Moss, and Dr. Steven Davis. Erin is a member of the National Association for Music Education, National Band Association, World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. Washington Music Educators Association, and Sigma Alpha Iota International Women’s Music Fraternity. 

In addition to her musical pursuits, Erin is passionate about travel, cooking, the PNW coast, and sudoku. Erin resides in Mountlake Terrace, WA with her wife Felicia.

​

A recipient of the National Band Association’s Citation of Excellence, Estes’ bands consistently earned Superior ratings at performance evaluations throughout her career, and middle and high school bands under her direction were selected as guest performers at clinics and conventions in the Southeast. Estes has also presented at state conventions, on college campuses, and at the Midwest Clinic.

A South Florida native, Estes earned her bachelor’s degree in music education from The Florida State University, and her master’s degree in music education from Georgia State University. In addition to composing, she continues to serve as an adjudicator, guest conductor, clinician, and mentor. Estes and her husband Gil reside in Marietta, GA, and have 5 amazing children, along with a host of equally amazing grandchildren.

In 1997, he was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to Australia, which led to a teaching position at the University of Wollongong in 1998. Currently, he teaches at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and director of the AURA Contemporary Ensemble. From 2003-2014 he served as one of the artistic directors of Musiqa, a Houston-based contemporary chamber ensemble.

Commercial recordings of his music are available by the Society for New Music (Syracuse, NY), the University of Houston and Rutgers University Wind Ensembles, saxophonist Jeremy Justeson, Austrian toy pianist Isabel Ettenauer, and the University of Houston and Texas Christian University Percussion Ensembles. Boosey & Hawkes, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, C-Alan Publications, TRN and Skitter Music Publications publish his music.

His music is some of the most popular and most performed by concert bands and string orchestras of all ability levels. Larry is equally adept at writing music for beginners as he is for high school and college ensembles. His music is characterized by rhythmic verve, tuneful melodies, contains a fresh harmonic perspective, is well scored and stretches the musicianship of the performers. He prides himself on producing music that is not only intriguing to performers and audiences alike but that contains a playability that comes from a keen understanding of the technical difficulties inherent in all instruments. His pieces have been performed internationally and appear on numerous contest/festival performance required music lists. He is an ASCAP award-winning composer, has over 400 publications in print and is in demand to write commissions for bands and orchestras across the country.

Larry's music has been influenced by a variety of composers and teachers. He credits his father, a long time band director in Florida, for teaching him the joy of music. He was influenced early in his writing career by composer Robert W. Smith. His decision to pursue composition and arranging was influenced further by Dr. John Hillard, composition professor at James Madison University. Dr. Pat Rooney, director of bands at James Madison University, gave Larry his first performance opportunities by performing his arrangements with the popular Marching Royal Dukes. Larry considers himself to be a product of the school band movement. His works are highly influenced by the standard band repertoire of composers such as Holst, Grainger, Schuman and Persichetti.

Larry is in demand as a clinician and guest conductor around the country. He has presented clinics recently at the Midwest Clinic, the New York State School Music Association conference, the Texas Music Educators Association conference, the Ohio Music Educators Association conference, the Florida Music Educators Association conference and the Wisconsin Music Educators Association conference as well as numerous guest-conducting appearances internationally.

He is co-author with Sandy Feldstein of the innovative band method The Yamaha Advantage. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Music Education from Florida State University and Masters Degrees in Conducting and Composition from James Madison University in Virginia.

Randall is the founder/conductor of The New American Voices, a professional recording/performing ensemble based in Dallas/Fort Worth. This ensemble will be touring northern Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands in the summer of 2024.

All of the major marketing/social media platforms feature Randall’s music, including his own website, www.zrstroope.com. He has created 95 videos for YouTube and his music can be live-streamed through Spotify.  His composition teacher-mentors were Normand Lockwood and Cecil Effinger, both students of the famous French teacher, Nadia Boulanger.  Seven companies publish his works, which have sold over four million copies.   The Conversion of Saul,  Lamentations of Jeremiah,  Amor de mi alma, Christi Mutter, We Beheld Once Again the Stars, The Pasture, Revelation, Homeland, I Am Not Yours, Dies Irae, Hodie! (This Day), Song to the Moon,  and In Paradisum are among those on his best-seller list.

Randall holds a Bachelor of Music Education in Voice and Piano, a Master of Music in Voice Performance, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting.  He did post-graduate work with Margaret Hillis, Chorus Master of the Chicago Symphony.

When not on the road, Randall, Cheryl, and their Sheltie (Haddie) spend time at their home/studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Merritt Island, Florida.

https://www.zrstroope.com/

An internationally recognized clinician, his music is performed around the world and frequently appears on many international concert and contest lists. Sheldon has conducted Regional and All-State Honor Bands throughout the United States and abroad. He often appears as a Music Education clinician and has presented sessions and seminars at numerous colleges and universities as well as state Music Education Association conferences. He has served as a conductor and clinician throughout the United States, as well as Japan, Canada, Italy, Taiwan, Germany, Australia and China, and has conducted performances of his works in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Taipei’s National Concert Hall, Matsumoto’s Seiji Ozawa Performing Arts Center, Hamamatsu’s ACT City Concert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. His teaching career included 28 years in the public schools as well as at the University of Florida, Florida State University, Illinois Central College and Bradley University. He also held positions as conductor of the Alachua County Youth Orchestra in Gainesville, Florida and the Prairie Wind Ensemble in East Peoria, Illinois. He maintains membership in several organizations that promote music and music education, and is lead author for SOUND INNOVATIONS FOR BAND, serving as co-author for MEASURES OF SUCCESS, SOUND INNOVATIONS FOR STRINGS, SOUND SIGHT-READING FOR BAND and MUSIC FUNDATIONS.

His compositions embody a level of expression that resonates with ensembles and audiences alike, and he produces numerous publications for concert band each year. The American School Band Directors Association has honored him with the Volkwein Award for composition and the Stanbury Award for teaching, the International Assembly of Phi Beta Mu honored him with the International Outstanding Bandmaster Award, and he has been awarded membership in the American Bandmasters Association.  With over three million copies of his compositions and books sold, he is one of the most performed composers of wind band music today. A twenty-eight-time recipient of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publisher’s Standard Award for his compositions in the concert band and orchestral repertoire, Mr. Sheldon has been the topic of articles published in The Instrumentalist, Teaching Music and School Band and Orchestra Magazine, The World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) World Magazine, and is one of eleven American wind band composers featured in Volume I of Composers on Composing Music for Band.

Tyler's music can currently be found published through Excelcia Music Publishing, Wingert-Jones Publications, Kendor Music Publishing and Carl Fischer Music. His original works have been featured across the globe, appear on numerous state contest lists and events such as the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference. As an arranger and commissioned composer, Tyler has worked with many high school, university, and community groups as well as professionals such as Carl Hilding “Doc” Severinsen and vocalist Holly Shelton. As a Clinician, Tyler regularly appears as composer in residence as well as guest clinician for honor bands and festivals.

Currently, Tyler serves as the Director of Music Production and Editing at Excelcia Music Publishing LLC, Wingert-jones Publications, Kendor Music Publishing and RBC Publications. In his spare time, Tyler enjoys playing fantasy-world video games and building his own computers. He is an avid animal lover and lives in Lakeland with his wife Heather, their two rabbits named Maximus and Marshmallow, their peach cat named Otis, and dog named Hilda.

For more information about the music of Tyler Arcari, visit his website www.tylerarcari.com

Brooke’s music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad by groups such as the West Point Band, the Dallas Winds, the Appalachian Wind Ensemble, and the Banda Musicale Città di Seriate, as well as renowned solo and chamber musicians including Craig Knox (Pittsburgh Symphony). In 2018 his piece for brass ensemble “Rise Up” was selected as a winner of the Dallas Winds fanfare competition. Since 2019, his music has been regularly featured at regional and national conferences, contests, and festivals. In 2020, his work "The Lighthouse Keeps Watch" was selected as winner of the NBA/Alfred Composition Contest. In 2021, he was commissioned by the West Point Academy Band/US Army to write his Symphony No. 2 "West Point", the first piece of this scope commissioned by the academy band since 1952. Brooke regularly serves as a guest and resident composer to institutions.

Brooke holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Michigan State University and is currently Chair of the Music Department at the Washtenaw International High School and Middle Academy, (Ypsilanti, Michigan), teaching Orchestra, Band, Music History, Music Culture, and Music Composition, where he has held this position since the school's inception in 2011. He also served as the music director of Grace Lutheran Church (Howell, MI) for 8 years as organist and musician. 

Brooke is a member of ASCAP and his music can be found with Alfred Music, Excelcia Music Publishing, C. Alan Publications, and his own publishing company Taurus Music Publishing. 

www.brookepierson.com

At ten he started taking lessons, having already taught himself a variety of music in those two years, including various movie score themes and ragtime pieces. He gradually discovered that he enjoyed composing and playing his own music more than playing what was assigned to him by his piano teacher.

From the start, his compositions were very affected by the music in movies and on television. It is not in jest that he points to the music performed on such television shows as “Sesame Street”, “The Electric Company”, and “The Muppet Show”—not to mention the superb songs of “School House Rock”—as sources of inspiration. Further, many excellent scores for movies of that time, such as Escape to Witch Mountain, Close Encounters, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek, and others, fascinated him and formed his ideas on how music should “work”—with accessible, easily remembered themes that can be associated with specific things, people, or feelings. His music was also heavily influenced by an excellent music program at his childhood church.

By that time he had been studying piano for eight years, he had composed more than a dozen pieces, and had taken a college-level music theory course. He studied piano performance and composition and got his Bachelor of Music degree from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. His college piano instructor worked with his desire to compose by assigning him works by composers that inspired him. Works by Prokofiev and Ravel in particular influenced his compositional tone considerably. Around this time, Danny Elfman’s film music also came to his attention and provided yet another dimension of sound to pursue.

In the early 1990s, he collaborated with lyricist, comedian, and singer, Cristopher Blake. Between them they wrote more than twenty songs, many of which were performed live at various Los Angeles cabarets and open-mic nights.

Over the more than 35 years he has been composing, he has written more than 120 individual pieces, including works for five weddings, two Christmas revues, numerous videos, and one short film, Leah (2008), directed by Neil H. Weiss.

Arthur Breur currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his husband, Brian, whom he met in 1996.

www.arthurbreur.com

Theisen's compositions encompass a wide array of genres and instrumentation including chamber music, art song, solo piano, concerti, jazz, pop song, musical theatre, symphonies, improvisational music, and more. Praised as coming from “an extraordinarily talented and prolific composer,” his works are frequently commissioned/performed by musicians around the world to audience acclaim. Though Theisen's official catalogue of over seventy pieces is stylistically diverse, his compositions typically feature memorable melodic ideas, emotional sincerity, complex yet sensuous harmony, and dramatic formal designs. A fundamental characteristic of his music is the hybridization of genres. For example, it is common to hear twelve-tone rows in a new jack swing tune, Medieval organum weaved into improvisational music, film noir score tropes in a band piece, and jazz fusion chord progressions underpinning a string quartet. He regards his aesthetic as “Re-Modernist” – rooted in Modernist classical music from the early and middle 20th century yet also informed by contemporary jazz, hip hop, New Wave, and Motown. (Think Miles Davis meets Lutoslawski, Stravinsky meets Stevie Wonder.) The artistic goal is not ironic quotation and juxtaposition but an earnest desire to create surprising yet coherent musical communication between composer, performer, and audience.

Theisen is a collaborative composer, easily incorporating input from the performers for whom he is writing. His music is often inspired by ritual, history, myth, virtuosity, visual art, place, phantasmagoria, and the uncanny. Some recent premieres of Theisen's music have occurred at National Sawdust (Brooklyn), New Music Gathering, and the World Saxophone Congress (Strasbourg, France), and the North American Saxophone Alliance biennial conference.

An active saxophonist, Theisen concertizes in classical recitals, gigs with jazz bands and musical theater productions, directs multiple ensembles, and premieres/records the music of fellow contemporary composers. National appearances as a classical saxophonist include performances at Scorca Hall in OPERA America’s National Opera Center, at the 39th Festival of New American Music, at the U.S. Navy International Saxophone Symposium, and as guest recitalist at the Wichita State University New Voices Festival. His acclaimed voice/saxophone avant-pop band, MIATp, combines experimental music, multiple pop genres, and theatre in live performances across the United States. To extend his mission as a collaborative performer, he also founded the Resonance Saxophone Orchestra. Theisen’s curated NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music for Alto Saxophone, Vol. 1 was published in January 2020.

Theisen is an author whose writings about music and the arts take several forms and cover a variety of subjects. As a music theorist, he specializes in the analysis and pedagogy of post-1900 classical music, presenting award-winning research on these topics at national and regional academic conferences. Theisen has served on the executive and editorial boards of the South Central Society for Music Theory, Music Theory Southeast, and the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy (online division). For the past decade, he has worked on a book analyzing the later music of Dutch composer Tristan Keuris. He runs The Theisen Journal, an online periodical exploring both his creative work as composer/saxophonist and happenings in the broader New Music community. Additionally, Theisen writes reviews, liner notes for professionally released albums, and program notes for concerts.

An energetic educator, he offers impactful professional development experiences (masterclasses, workshops, and lectures) for students and musically engaged audiences of all experience levels. Theisen has brought these educational programs to UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, State University of New York at Fredonia, Louisiana State University, and more. Theisen was a tenured Associate Professor of Music at Mars Hill University (North Carolina) where he coordinated the music theory/composition curriculum from 2011 to 2021 before he resigned to devote more time to composition and performance. Prior to his decade at Mars Hill University, he was Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Theisen received his Ph.D. in music theory and composition from Florida State University and degrees (B.M. Music History and M.M. Music Theory) from the University of Southern Mississippi.

A native of Michigan, he has spent the majority of his life in the Deep South of the United States. He currently resides in New Orleans and is a full-time Lecturer of Music at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Ryan received a master's degree in composition from the State University of New York at Potsdam, and a bachelor's degree in music theory and composition from Ball State University.

https://ryanfraley.com/

​Katherine holds a master’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa School of Music, where she studied composition with Jonathan Schwabe and Alan Schmitz. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota with composition instructors including Michele Gillman and Steve Wright. She has studied extensively with Mary Ellen Childs, and has received individual instruction from Samuel Adler.

Katherine’s work is published under Katherine Bergman Music, and her works for large ensemble are distributed by Murphy Music Press. Recent and upcoming projects include new works for 10th Wave Chamber Collective, Duo Leon, Nautilus Music-Theater, Isle Royale National Park, and a concerto for trombone and symphony orchestra commissioned by the Oneota Valley Community Orchestra. 

Katherine is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Spitting Image, a composer collective that brings together composers, listeners, and performers to strengthen the Twin Cities contemporary music community. 

https://www.katherinebergman.net/

After a few years of writing for marching band, he decided to take a chance and submit a string orchestra arrengement of Cielito Lindo to Grand Mesa Music. The arrangenmet was published and is on the J W Pepper  Editor's choice list.   In  2018, Red Giant, his first composition published by Alfred music was released. Since then, Jorge has released several band works published by Alfred Music, Randall Standridge Music, Wingert-Jones Music, and Excelcia Music. Several of his band compositions have been added to the Editor's Choice list, and his band compositions, and some of his peces have also been played at Midwest.

His education includes a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from The University Of Texas-San Antonio, and a Master’s degree in Education from  from  Lamar University

https://jvargasmusic.com/

​

Emily has contributed music and/or orchestration to major Hollywood productions such as "Phoenix Rising" (HBO's documentary mini-series featuring Evan Rachel Wood), "Tomb Raider", "Alita: Battle Angel", "The Mummy", "Altered Carbon" and "Star Trek: Discovery". An alumna of the prestigious Sundance Institute Film Music & Sound Design Lab, Emily began her musical life as a cellist playing in orchestras and rock bands. Her debut instrumental album "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner" was released in 2021 and is available on streaming platforms worldwide.

Since beginning teaching in 2013, John has directed band, Orchestra, and choir grades five through twelve. He has also taught fifth and eighth-grade general music. His roles have included assisting with marching band, concert band, middle school, and beginning band programs.

John is an experienced composer with works published by RWS Music Company, Carl Fischer Music, Bandworks Publications, Grand Mesa Music Publishers, Excelcia Music Publishing, and Wingert-Jones Publications. His “Intrepid Fanfare”, “Excel” March and arrangements of the “Heart of America” March and “National Defense” March were selected as one of the Top 100 works by Bandworld Magazine.  

In addition to his numerous concert works, John composed music for several films, including the Audio Technica video "How To Mic A Zombie." He has written for several Coaster Studios documentaries, beginning with “Save My Park” and most recently “This is How We Roll.” He is currently working on music for the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) documentary “The Legacy of Schwarzkopf” which will be released in the Fall of 2024.

Mr. Pasternak is in demand as a composer and guest clinician for his concert work and teaching experience across musical genres. He is an active Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) member and attends the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic annually. 

https://www.johnpasternak.com/

His bands have performed in a variety of venues across the southeast, most notably the Thompson High School Wind  Ensemble performed for the Music for All National Concert Band Festival in 2011 and again in 2015. The Thompson High School “Marching Southern Sounds” performed in the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2017. The Thompson Wind Ensemble was also selected to perform at the Alabama Music Educators Association In Service Conference (1997, 2009, 2014, 2019), the Alabama Honor Band (2010, 2018), the University of Georgia JanFest (2013), the University of Alabama at Birmingham Honor Band (2016) and the CBDNA / NBA Southern Division Conference (2012). Mr. Bubbett is a seven time recipient of the National Band Association “Citation of Excellence,” as well as a recipient of the NBA Programs of Excellence “Blue Ribbon” Award in 2014. Additionally he received the Phi Beta Mu, Rho Chapter (Alabama) “Bandmaster of the Year” Award for 2015. 

Numerous times Mr. Bubbett has served as a guest clinician and adjudicator  in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. He has served as a clinician participant for both the Alabama Music Educators Association In-Service Conference,  Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic and has served as the rehearsal assistant for the Music for All Honor Band of America since 2016.

https://www.jonbubbettmusic.com/

Murat's most recent project is the highly anticipated upcoming Netflix series 'Dead Boy Detectives’ co-composed with Blake Neely.

In his music, he experiments with orchestral and electronic instruments to create unique textures and compelling sonic worlds. 

Growing up in Istanbul, Turkey, Murat developed a very eclectic taste and sensibility towards music and film. Influenced by the electronic music scene of the 80’s and 90’s, he started producing music on his first synthesizer as a teenager. During the same time, his love for classical music led him to study classical clarinet at Istanbul University State Conservatory. As a clarinetist, he performed with Istanbul’s leading orchestras both nationally and internationally. 

After graduation, he moved to France to study composition at Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régionale d’Annecy, where he collaborated with directors from Cinédoc Paris Films, and wrote music for animation projects from ArtFx Studios, École Pivaut and Gobelins.

Murat obtained his Master’s degree in film scoring from the University of Southern California in 2014, where he was mentored by James Newton Howard.

His additional writing credits include the football drama series 'All American' and 'All American: Homecoming’, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Batwoman.

https://www.murat-selcuk.com/

JaRod is a tuba and trombone player by trade and has been a part of many esteemed ensembles such as the North Texas Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band, 3 O’ Clock Lab Band, Carrollton Wind Symphony, and Metropolitan Winds. During his time in high school, JaRod made the Texas All-State Band for all four years of his eligibility - the first 3 years of which were on tuba, eventually earning 1st chair Jazz Bass Trombone in the state his fourth and final year. He served as drum major for the 2013 Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps, and was a member of the 2014 Disneyland All-American College Band.

As a composer, JaRod's compositions appear on the Texas Prescribed Music List, The J.W. Pepper "Editor's Choice" list, and the Bandworld Top 100 list. His composition Lost Woods Fantasy was showcased at the 73rd annual Midwest Clinic in Chicago by the Berkner High School Band composed of the first students JaRod taught as a band director in Richardson ISD. His composition "Silver Fanfare" was selected as a winner of the Dallas Winds Call for Fanfares and "Through the Storm" was selected as the 2021 Barbara Buehlman Prize winner for middle school band - commissioned by David Puckett and the Keller Middle School Band, premiered for Midwest by Robert Herrings the Artie Henry Middle School Band. Additionally, JaRod is a nationwide marching band and WGI arranger and consultant.

JaRod is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in Composition at Texas State University. He resides in San Antonio, Texas with his wife, Rachel (the smart one in the family) who is a medical student at the University of Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Their works for wind ensemble, orchestra, and chamber ensembles are published by Murphy Music Press, C. Alan Publications, and more, and have been performed across the United States and internationally. They are a winner of numerous composition competitions, including the Sinta Quartet Composition Competition, the Dallas Winds Fanfare Competition, and the National Young Composers Challenge. Harrison is a proud representative and board member for the Millennium Composers Initiative, through which he seeks to provide opportunities for other composers to grow and reach new heights. In 2022, they founded the Aurora Tapestry Collective with their friends Kevin Day, Josh Trentadue, and Katahj Copley.

Harrison spent several years at Illinois State University, where he studied composition with Dr. Roy Magnuson and Dr. Roger Zare. Harrison currently studies at Texas Christian University with Dr. Neil Anderson-Himmelspach and Dr. Martin Blessinger, where he is seeking a degree in music composition.

https://harrisonjcollins.squarespace.com/

The 1980s were a renaissance for documentary film in the San Francisco Bay Area and Mark was soon scoring many of those projects. During this time, he also worked briefly as a music editor for such directors as Milos Forman, David Lynch, and Francis Ford Coppola. (His music editing credits include "Amadeus," "Blue Velvet," and "Godfather III").

Mark's feature film scores include the Oscar-nominated "Food, Inc.," directed by Robert Kenner, its sequel "Food, Inc. 2," directed by Kenner and Melissa Robledo, and "Bottle Shock," starring Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, and Bill Pullman. He has been a regular at the Sundance Film Festival, having scored ten Sundance films over the years. These include the Audience Award-winning Miramax film "Picture Bride." His soundtrack for that film was released by Virgin Records and the Main Title was featured in the soundtrack compilation, "Miramax Films Greatest Hits." Other credits include Paramount Classics' "Focus," based on the novel by Arthur Miller and starring William H. Macy and Laura Dern, with the soundtrack released by Milan Records; the Wayne Wang films "Eat A Bowl of Tea" and "Life Is Cheap"; numerous National Geographic Specials; and four Oscar-nominated feature documentaries.

He won a Primetime Emmy for his work on HBO's "The Rat Pack," which featured Ray Liotta, Joe Mantegna and Don Cheadle. Other TV movie scores include Hallmark Entertainment's "Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone," starring Aidan Quinn and Nigel Hawthorne (for which he received a Primetime Emmy nomination), "Flowers For Algernon" starring Mathew Modine, and four Hallmark Hall of Fame productions.

He wrote and produced source music for the Philip Kaufman films, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Henry and June," and was involved as a producer in the recreation of indigenous Brazilian music for the Saul Zaentz production "At Play in the Fields of the Lord." He composed original music for "The Road To Memphis," directed by Richard Pearce, as part of the Martin Scorsese-produced series, "The Blues." This range of experience has resulted in an eclectic musical style, often drawing on jazz, folk, world music, and traditional orchestral idioms.

Mark is a former vice-president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists. He has served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and is a member of The Academy or Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As a performer, he can be heard playing piano on his scores for "Eat A Bowl of Tea," "Picture Bride," "Focus," "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School," and "The Lost Valentine."

www.markadler.com

Also active as composers for video games and film, they were awarded the Special Jury Award for Musical Score at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival for their work on the film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. 

Their most recent scoring work includes Damsel (starring Robert Pattinson, dir. by Zellner Bros.), 2021's The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood (dir. by Joe Ahern), the Reading Rainbowdocumentary, Butterfly In the Sky (starring LeVar Burton, dir. by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb), & the upcoming Zellner Bros. film, Sasquatch Sunset (starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg), which will premiere at Sundance 2024.

www.theoctopusproject.com

Dominik first won the prestigious British Ivor Novello Award and received a Royal Television Society (RTS) nomination for his riveting score on Ripper Street. He earned two additional Ivor Novello nominations for Amazon’s The Collection and the British crime series Agatha Christie’s Marple.

Dominik recently reunited with the Williams brothers to score Amazon’s thriller series The Widow, starring Kate Beckinsale. He also scored the landmark dramas An Inspector Calls and Monroe.

Equally accomplished in film scoring, Dominik’s credits include The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz for which Dominik won the Best Music Award at Spain’s Estapona Film Festival; Alice Through The Looking Glass starring Kate Beckinsale; Alina Marazzi’s Tutto Parla Di Te (All About You); and Scenes of a Sexual Nature starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Bonneville. He scored Appetite starring Ute Lemper, and wrote the film’s title song which reached No. 2 on the UK classical charts.

Dominik also created, directed and composed the kinetic opera Hell for Leather, which premiered at Sundance and won 10 awards on the festival circuit. 

In addition to scoring film and TV, he produces sound design and composes for fine art installations - most notably for artist Suki Chan - and creates performance music for theatre.

Dominik is a British-Swiss composer and works from his studio in London.

https://jefftoyne.com

www.stevedanyew.com

teve Danyew’s music has been hailed as “startlingly beautiful” and “undeniably well crafted and communicative” by the Miami Herald, and has been praised as possessing “sensitivity, skill and tremendous sophistication” by the Kansas City Independent.

Danyew (b. 1983) is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for his work, and his compositions have been performed throughout the world in venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the steps of the US Capitol. Danyew’s recent work Into the Silent Land was named the winner of the 2019 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize. Three of his compositions for wind band are featured in Volume 11 of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band (GIA).

In addition to composing, Danyew is a passionate educator who teaches composition lessons through his own private studio. He also teaches courses focused on helping young musicians craft their own creative careers at the Eastman School of Music’s Institute for Music Leadership. He is the contributing author for the 2nd edition of Ramon Ricker’s book Lessons from a Street-Wise Professor: What You Won’t Learn at Most Music Schools (Soundown, 2018). He is also a frequent guest composer and lecturer at schools throughout the United States.

In 2020, Danyew and his wife Ashley created Musician & Co., a new resource that equips 21st-century musicians to be both artists and business owners. The mission of Musician & Co. is to provide an innovative model for bridging the gap between the practice room and a profitable business.

Danyew grew up in New England, playing the saxophone and improvising music on the piano. After a performance of his own work, the South Florida Sun Sentinel proclaimed him a “saxophone virtuoso par excellence, making the instrument sing as well as shout.” Danyew performed as a saxophonist in the University of Miami Wind Ensemble under the direction of Gary Green, and this formative experience led him to begin composing works for wind band.

Danyew received a B.M. in Composition from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where his primary composition teachers were Scott Stinson and Dennis Kam. He also holds an M.M. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music. Additionally, Danyew has served as a Composer Fellow at the Yale Summer Music School with Martin Bresnick, and as a Composer Fellow at the Composers Conference with Mario Davidovsky.

Atlanta bred composer Marie A. Douglas mixes and layers genres and textures as a means to inject unprecedented relate-ability and excitement into pieces intended for concert stages. Her compositional choices portray her varied experiences creating a product that is highly artistic, gorgeous yet gritty, robust with innovation and familiarity. Marie’s compositions and arrangements have been performed throughout the United States and Canada, she as been noted for the memorable melodies, multi faceted rhythms, compelling textures, and the complimentary orchestrations present within her works.

Marie got her start in the artistic and culturally rich streets in the inner city of Atlanta. Her style reflects that relationship and proximity to “The Culture” and the unique perspective that it affords her. After high school she attended the Historically Black institution Florida A&M University and participated in the famed Marching “100” band. This period further inspired Marie to infuse attributes of her favorite musical genres and cultural staples into her creations intended for concert ensembles.

Douglas’ compositions have included spirituals, body percussion, spoken word, electronic samples and tons of other elements of sound often comprising the sonic phenomena of the African Diaspora in conjunction with winds and or strings and percussion. Lately she has explored the fusion of Hip-Hop and its sub-genre “Trap Music”, a genre that has its roots in Atlanta, with western art music idioms.

A variety of well-known ensembles have worked with Marie and performed her music; The Albany Symphony-Dogs of Desire, University of Central Florida Symphonic Band, University of Alabama-Birmingham Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band, California All-State Wind Symphony, University of the Pacific Conservatory, and many others. In addition to symphonic and chamber works, her catalogue also includes music for film as well as hip-hop and r&b instrumentals.

Recent projects include: serving as arranger, composer, conductor and musical director of the Live Nation/Big Femme Energy Live Experience tour featuring Ambre, Baby Rose, SayGrace and Teyana Taylor; premieres for her new flute concerto in collaboration with conductor, Erin Bodnar and flautist Sarah Jane Young which was selected to be included on a compilation CD released by the University of North Florida Wind Symphony in 2022, her work for symphonic band centering teen mental health entitled I am Enough was premiered by the California All - State Wind Ensemble in Fresno, California. Additionally, Marie completed the 2023 Jemison Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Composer in Residence at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and arranged on 2022 Grammy Award-Nominated album “Full Circle”.

Among the upcoming performances of her works for the 23’-24' season are world premieres with the University of Georgia Wind Ensemble and the United States Navy Band in Washington D.C. for “SOUL Suite No. 1”, a new piece for wind ensemble as well as a collaboration with the United States Army Soldiers’ Chorus of Washington, DC on a work tilted “Umoja in America”.

Marie serves as an adjunct professor within the Master of Music Technology Program at Southern Utah University where she was awarded the 2022 Influencer Award by the Division of Student Affairs and Professional Development Center. She is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition and conducting from the University of Memphis, where she studies with Kamran Ince, Mahir Cetiz, and Albert Nguyen.

RYAN GEORGE currently resides in Austin, Texas where he is active as an arranger and composer. His work, ranging from music for the concert stage to music for marching ensembles is performed regularly throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. 

Ryan completed his first work for concert band in 2007 and since then his works have received performances at the American Bandmasters Association Convention, the MidWest Band and Orchestra Clinic (Chicago), W.A.S.B.E., the Music For All (Bands of America) Concert Band Festival, P.A.S.I.C., Carnegie Hall, the National CBDNA Conference, the CBDNA/NBA Southern Division Conference, The Western Band & Orchestra Clinic (Seattle), and the MidEurope Festival in Schladming Austria. Many of his works, which are aimed at developing performers, have frequented the repertoires of All-State, Region, Inter-Collegiate, and Honor's ensembles throughout the U.S. and Canada. Recent notable performances of Ryan's music have included The "Presidents Own" United States Marine Band (National Tour), the Hiroshima Wind Orchestra (Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic), The Texas Christian University Percussion Orchestra (PASIC National Convention), The United States Air Force Band (A.B.A. Convention), The Lone Star Wind Orchestra (WASBE), and the Finnish Navy Band. He has received commissions for various ensembles including works for the T.C.U. Percussion Orchestra, The Consortium for the Advancement of Wind Band Literature, The Lone Star Wind Orchestra, and the Wan Quan School in Beijing China. 

As a specialist in music design for marching ensembles Ryan's work has been performed by some of the nation's elite programs at state, region, and national venues. His roster of clients include perennial Bands of America (Music for All) regional champions, regional finalist, and Grand National finalist. Some of his clients have included Leander HS (Leander TX), James Bowie HS (Austin TX), Round Rock HS (Round Rock TX), Cedar Ridge HS (Round Rock TX), and the 2018 UIL 6A State Champion Vista Ridge HS (Cedar Park TX). Within the realm of drum corps Ryan is returning for his 8th year as the brass arranger/composer of the Boston Crusaders from Boston, MA. He held the same role with the Academy from Tempe, AZ from 2011-2013. 

Ryan is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. He is an ASCAP artist, a member of TMEA, and the American Composer's Forum. His wife Sarah is a producer and talent buyer for internationally recognized music festivals and they are the proud parents of Sophia, Nyla, and Teller. 

Quincy C. Hilliard’s compositions for wind band are published by several major music publishers, and are performed throughout the world where there are wind bands of British-American instrumentation. His stature as an outstanding composer is apparent as conductors frequently commission him for new compositions.

Dr. Hilliard has been a recipient several times of the distinguished American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) award recognizing the numerous performances of his works and was chosen as one of a select group of composers to write a piece for the 1996 Olympics. He has also written the music score for a film documentary entitled “The Texas Rangers” for public television. In addition to composing, Dr. Hilliard is invited to all parts of the world to conduct, adjudicate festivals, and demonstrate effective teaching techniques and has written extensively on pedagogical topics in journals and publications.

In the spring of 1997, Dr. Hilliard was appointed by the Governor of Louisiana to the Louisiana Arts Council. Dr. Hilliard is also the president of Hilliard Music Enterprises, Inc., a personal consulting firm that has a corporate board of distinguished music educators. He is currently composer in residence and professor of music theory and composition, and holds the Heymann Endowed Professorship of Music at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.

Nicole Piunno (b. 1985) is a composer who views music as a vehicle for seeing and experiencing the realities of life. Her music often reflects the paradoxes in life and how these seeming opposites are connected as they often weave together. Her harmonic language and use of counterpoint mirrors the complexity of our world by acknowledging light and dark, past and present, beauty and brokenness, confinement and freedom, chaos and order, spiritual and physical, life and death. 

Nicole holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition and a Master of Music degree in theory pedagogy from Michigan State University. Her composition teacher was Ricardo Lorenz. She earned a Master of Music degree in composition at Central Michigan University, studying with David Gillingham. Nicole earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and her emphasis was on trumpet.  Her music has been performed by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the Principal Brass Quintet of the New York Philharmonic, the United States Coast Guard Band, and at many universities and conservatories around the country. Her large ensemble music has also been featured at multiple regional CBDNA conferences, the Midwest Clinic, and numerous all-state concerts.

Dara Taylor is an American composer for film and television scores. An HMMA-nominated composer, she has composed music for a number of Independent films including thrillers, dramas, and comedies. She has contributed additional music to ABC's Agent Carter,  Galavant and Lifetime’s Child Genius as well as arrangements and score production for studio productions like Bad Moms, Baywatch, Smurfs The Lost Village, Sausage Party, and more. In 2015, she was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award for her score for the Together Magic film Undetectable. In 2016, she was one of the composers asked to take part in Women in Film’s Women Composers in Media concert.

Taylor was born in Poughkeepsie, New York but spent most of her childhood in Lockport, New York. She studied as a mezzo-soprano under Judith Kellock at Cornell University and sang in the Cornell University Chorus. Also at Cornell, she studied composition independently with Zachary Wadsworth and Steven Stucky. In 2009, she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor's in Music and Psychology. Taylor then received a Masters of Music from New York University in 2011 where she studied Film Music Composition with Mark Suozzo.

Taylor is currently based in Los Angeles, CA.

David Biedenbender (b. 1984, Waukesha, Wisconsin) is a composer, conductor, performer, educator, and interdisciplinary collaborator. David’s music has been described as “simply beautiful” (twincities.com), “striking” and “brilliantly crafted” (Times Argus) and is noted for its “rhythmic intensity” (NewMusicBox) and “stirring harmonies.” (Boston Classical Review) “Modern, venturesome, and inexorable…The excitement, intensity, and freshness that characterizes Biedenbender’s music hung in the [air] long after the last note was played.” (Examiner.com) “Clearly, this is a composer to watch out for.” (Fanfare Magazine) He has written music for the concert stage as well as for dance and multimedia collaborations, and his work is often influenced by his diverse musical experiences in rock and jazz bands as an electric bassist, in wind, jazz, and New Orleans-style brass bands as a euphonium, bass trombone, and tuba player, and by his study of Indian Carnatic music. His creative interests include working with everyone from classically trained musicians to improvisers, acoustic chamber music to large ensembles, and interactive electronic interfaces to live brain data.

David has had the privilege of collaborating with many renowned performers and ensembles, including Alarm Will Sound, the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, the Stenhammar String Quartet (Sweden), the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the United States Navy Band, the Philharmonie Baden-Baden(Germany), VocalEssence, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the Music from Copland House Ensemble, Detroit Symphony Orchestra bass trombonist Randall Hawes and pianist Kathryn Goodson, the Juventas New Music Ensemble, the Washington Kantorei, the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, the Boston New Music Initiative, Ann Arbor Dance Works, Composer’s Inc. (San Francisco), and the Grand Valley State New Music Ensemble.

Recent recognition for David’s work includes the 2018 Rudolf Nissim Prize for Cyclotron, the 2019 Sousa/Ostwald Award, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (2011, 2012) and the 2012 Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award. His music has been heard in many diverse venues, including Carnegie Hall, Gaudeamus Muziekweek/TivoliVredenberg (Netherlands), Symphony Space (New YorkCity), the Smithsonian Museum, the German Embassy (Washington, DC), the Antonín Dvořák Museum (Prague), the Old First Church (San Francisco), Harris Hall (Aspen Music Festival), the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Hill Auditorium (Ann Arbor, MI), as well as at numerous universities and conservatories, and it has been broadcast on NPR stations around the country, including on WNYC’s Soundcheck with John Schaefer and on Center Stage from Wolf Trap. David’s music can also be heard on many commercially available recordings, including on Naxos, XAS, Summit, Cobra, GIA, Centaur, Bright Shiny Things, and Innova record labels, among others. Recent and upcoming commissions and projects include works for yMusic, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, San Francisco Symphony principal trombonist Tim Higgins, the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra, the Edge Ensemble, the Sinta Saxophone Quartet, the Akropolis Reed Quintet, Kevin Sedatole and the Michigan State University Wind Symphony, and the Garth Newel Piano Quartet.

In addition to composing, David is a dedicated teacher. He is Associate Professor of Composition in the College of Music at Michigan State University,  and he previously taught composition and theory at Boise State University, Eastern Michigan University, Oakland University, Madonna University, the Music in the Mountains Conservatory, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. He has also taught an interdisciplinary course in creativity and collaboration in the Living Arts program at the University of Michigan. His composition students have achieved regional and national recognition for their creative work, including numerous awards and acceptance into renowned summer music festivals and undergraduate and graduate composition programs.

He received the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in composition from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the Bachelor of Music degree in composition and theory from Central Michigan University. His primary musical mentors include Evan Chambers, Kristin Kuster, Stephen Rush,Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, Christopher Lees, David R. Gillingham, José Luis-Maurtúa, and John Williamson. He has also studied at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala, Sweden with Anders Hillborg and Steven Stucky, the Aspen Music Festival and School with Syd Hodkinson, and in Mysore, India where he studied South Indian Carnatic music, focusing on the mridangam with Vidwan G.S. Ramanujan.

Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: A 2006 GRAMMY Award for his Instrumental Arrangement of “Incredits” from the Pixar film The Incredibles, three Emmy Awards, and thirteen GRAMMY nominations.

Here’s another impressive number to add to the list: eighteen. As in the number of musicians in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, one of the most exciting large jazz ensembles on the planet. Populated by L.A.’s finest players, the Big Phat Band takes the big band tradition into the new millennium with a contemporary, highly original sound featuring Goodwin’s witty, intricate, and hard-swinging compositions in a veritable grab bag of styles: swing, Latin, blues, classical, rock and more.

A steady, persistent audio diet of the giants of jazz, pop, rock and funk has nourished Goodwin’s being since childhood. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Tower of Power, among many others, filled the well for the music his band makes today. And like those other bands, Goodwin’s music is nothing less than astonishing when experienced live.

Goodwin’s ability to combine jazz excellence with any musical style makes his writing appealing to fans across the spectrum. That’s why both beboppers and headbangers dig Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band.

Established in 2000, the Big Phat Band’s debut recording, Swingin’ For The Fences (Silverline Records), featured guest artists Arturo Sandoval and Eddie Daniels. It made history as the first commercially available DVD-Audio title ever released and the first DVD-Audio title to receive two GRAMMY nominations.

The band’s second album, XXL (Silverline Records), was released on DVD-Audio and compact disc in 2003. Charting its first week, XXL garnered three GRAMMY nominations for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Best Instrumental Composition (“Hunting Wabbits”) and Best Instrumental Arrangement with Vocals (“Comes Love” with Brian McKnight and Take 6), while winning the Surround Sound Award for “Best Made for Surround Sound Title.” The list of guest artists matched the high quality of the first release and featured, among others, Johnny Mathis and the incomparable Michael Brecker.

The Big Phat Band’s third album, The Phat Pack (immergent Records), with guest stars Dianne Reeves, David Sanborn, Eddie Daniels and Take 6, received a GRAMMY nomination and spent 31 weeks on the Billboard jazz charts.

Released in September 2008, the Big Phat Band’s fourth recording, Act Your Age, far outsold every other big band record in its path. Produced by acclaimed guitarist Lee Ritenour, it featured a host of terrific guests including Patti Austin, Chick Corea, Dave Grusin and even Ritenour himself, plus a special appearance by the late pianist Art Tatum on a stunning performance that had jaws dropping right and left. The critically acclaimed Act Your Age garnered three GRAMMY nominations.

A keyboardist and woodwind player, Goodwin has built a larger-than-life reputation throughout the music industry for his composing, arranging and playing skills. Ray Charles, Christina Aguilera, Johnny Mathis, Toni Braxton, John Williams, Natalie Cole, David Foster, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, Brian McKnight and Quincy Jones are just a few of the artists with whom he has worked. Goodwin has also conducted world-renowned symphony orchestras in Atlanta, Dallas, Utah, Seattle, Toronto and London.

Goodwin’s cinematic scoring and orchestration craft can be heard on such films as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Escape to Witch Mountain, Get Smart, Glory Road, National Treasure, The Incredibles, Remember The Titans, Armageddon, The Majestic, Con Air, Gone In 60 Seconds, Enemy of the State, Star Trek Nemesis and even the classic cult film Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. Goodwin’s soundtrack to Looney Tunes’ Bah HumDuck! – a wacky Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck riff on the classic A Christmas Carol – also features the Big Phat Band’s patented sound.

Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band joins Telarc International, a division of Concord Music Group, with the April 12, 2011 release of That’s How We Roll. The band’s first CD in over two and a half years features 10 new Goodwin originals and the Gershwin classic “Rhapsody in Blue.” Special guests include Gerald Albright, Dave Koz, Marcus Miller and Take 6.

Daniel Montoya Jr. is a proud and rare native of Austin, an ’80s, ’90s, & ’00s music aficionado, and fully embraces his unstoppable rise to “zaddy” status. He also, occasionally, writes music (since being musically moved by his first viewing of the James Cameron film Titanic and wanting to write the music to the sequel, Titanic 2: Jack of Spades: Jack Dawson’s Revenge: This Time It’s Personal). His oeuvre spans several genres, including original pieces and arrangements for wind band, percussion ensemble, and the marching arts. His works, which resound with bristling energy and color, have won numerous awards from national organizations. His education includes a master’s degree in wind conducting from Texas State University where he studied with Dr. Caroline Beatty, a master’s degree in music composition from Central Michigan University where he studied with David R. Gillingham, and a baccalaureate degree in music composition from Texas State University (he fully expects to be called Grand Master Montoya, or “Montstro“). He has also studied and participated in masterclasses with such composers as Kevin Beavers, William Bolcom, Michael Ippolito, Cindy McTee, Kevin Puts, Russell Riepe, and Roberto Sierra.

While not tending to Mont Shoemore, his outlandish and somewhat offensive collection of sneakers, Montoya travels around the country as an adjudicator, keynote speaker, clinician, and guest conductor. His music has been performed by ensembles and institutions across the United States, including Baylor University, Brigham Young University, Central Michigan University, Indiana University, Michigan State University, Purdue University, Temple University, Texas State University, Texas Tech University, University of Alabama, University of Central Florida, University of Houston, University of Illinois, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at El Paso, and The United States Army Field Band. Performances of his music have included concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Percussive Arts Society International Conference, the Texas Music Educators Association Conference, the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, and the Texas Bandmasters Association Conference, among others. When in attendance at these events, he can usually be identified by his sneakers and/or his man purse (or “murse”).

Although the closest he’s been to being a man in uniform was as a member of “The Pride of the Hill Country” and possibly some ill-advised Halloween costumes, he served as the arranger for the U.S. Army All-American Marching Band in 2012 & 2013. His involvement with marching bands engages him throughout the nation. Among the organizations that have used his compositions and arrangements on the field are champions and finalists at various state- and national-level competitions, and major Division I intercollegiate bands. Montoya has written and designed for the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps (Madison, WI), Colts Drum & Bugle Corps (Dubuque, IA), Spirit of Atlanta (Atlanta, GA), Guardians Drum & Bugle Corps (Dallas/Fort Worth, TX), and Revolution Drum & Bugle Corps (San Antonio, TX). His innovative approach to field arrangement involves imbuing new vitality and dramatic elements into his charts creating a new and vibrant musical object rather than a mere transcription of the original.

When not reviewing sneakers on his YouTube channel, The Shoemmelier, Montoya enjoys engaging in the indigenous Austinite culture where till his dying day he will constantly correct and promote the difference between Austin and Austin-area. He is constantly mistaken for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony Stark, and Jeff Goldblum. His sidekicks in life are his better half, known to the Twittersphere simply as “The Girl,” their daughter, known to the world as “The Heir,” and a slightly overweight puggle named Mahler. He has coined the term “portmonto” as a portmanteau of his name with the word “portmanteau” to refer to his love of making up senselessly long words (partially inspired by his love of mash-ups) and he was a fan of using hashtags on the Facebook way before it was cool.

Montoya’s music is published by C-Alan Publications, Row-Loff Productions, Tapspace Publications, and his publishing company, Underwater Theme Productions/Montoya Music. He is an Artist/Educator for Innovative Percussion, Inc. and is a member of ASCAP and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Praised as “highly lyrical and provocative of thought” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “mesmerizing” (The New York Times), the music of composer Alexandra Gardner is thrilling audiences and performers alike with a “particular alchemy of craft, whimsy, and sensual appeal” (The New Yorker). She composes for varied instrumentations and often mixes acoustic instruments with electronic music and field recordings, drawing inspiration from mythology, the natural sciences, and contemporary literature.

Alexandra’s compositions are regularly featured at festivals and venues around the world, including the Aspen Music Festival, Beijing Modern Festival, Centro de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Festival Cervantino, Grand Teton Music Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Library of Congress, Merkin Hall, Strathmore Music Center, Symphony Space, and the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Her music has been commissioned and presented by leading organizations and ensembles such as the National Flute Association, the American Harp Society, Astral Artists, Boulanger Initiative, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, SOLI Chamber Ensemble, Strathmore Music Center, Tesla Quartet, and the United States Navy Band.

Recent works include the string quartet Watershed, commissioned by Tesla Quartet, ImmerSphere, and The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center; Lantana for Seattle Symphony principal oboist Mary Lynch VanderKolk; and Sanctuary of Joy for organist Joy-Leilani Garbutt and violinist Laura Colgate, co-founders of Boulanger Initiative. Upcoming projects include a concerto for alto saxophone and wind ensemble inspired by the recent discoveries of the James Webb Telescope and a collaboration with New Music Detroit exploring the local history of a major medical invention from the 1950s. 

Among Alexandra’s honors and awards are recognitions from American Composers Forum, ASCAP, Maryland State Arts Council, Mid-America Arts Alliance, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Netherland-America Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. She is a recipient of the Vassar College W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts and a Rubys Artist Project Grant from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. She has conducted residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, MacDowell, and Willapa Bay AiR. She spent two years as a visiting composer at the Institut Universitari de l’Audiovisual in Barcelona, Spain, and served as Composer-In-Residence for the Seattle Symphony during the 2017-2018 concert season. Her music is recorded on the Innova, Ars Harmonica, Naxos, and Neuma labels.

Committed to nurturing the creative advancement of sound-makers of various ages and backgrounds, Alexandra maintains a consulting practice and teaching studio. She helps artists lead creative and fruitful lives through consulting, mentoring, and dialog facilitation related to artistic career development and the nature of creativity. Her teaching and training experience spans instrumental and electronic composition, audio production, and practical business skills for artists. She has worked for organizations such as National Public Radio and New Music USA and has served as Director of the Seattle Symphony Merriman-Ross Family Young Composers Workshop.

Alexandra holds degrees from The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and Vassar College. She lives in Baltimore, MD.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Rossano Galante received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Trumpet Performance from SUNY Buffalo in 1992. That same year he was one of nineteen people from around the world to be accepted to the University of Southern California’s Film Scoring Program. He studied with the late Jerry Goldsmith, who won an Academy Award for his film score for The Omen. In 1999, Mr. Galante moved to California to pursue a career in composition and film orchestration. Since then he has worked with two-time Oscar nominated composer Marco Beltrami, Christophe Beck,

Brian Tyler, Christopher Lennertz and Wolfram de Marco.

Mr. Galante has served as orchestrator for over seventy-five studio films including, Venom: Let There be Carnage, Rambo: Last Blood, Charlie’s Angles, Ready or Not, A Quiet Place, A Quiet Place 2, The Mummy, Logan, Sausage Party, Smurfs: The Lost Village, First They Killed My Father, Ben Hur, The Shallows, Fantastic 4, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Gods of Egypt, Prisoners, The Wolverine, 3:10 to Yuma, A Good Day to Die Hard, Trouble with the Curve, The Thing, Final Destination 5, The Homesman, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Knowing, Max Payne, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Live Free or Die Hard, Red Eye, Die Bluthochzeit, The Tuxedo, Tuesdays with Morrie, among many others.

For his large-scale Wind Ensemble compositions, he has been commissioned by the Federation of Gay Games-Paris 2018, Atlanta Freedom Band, Lake Braddock High School Band, Hofstra University Symphonic Band, Nebraska Wind Symphony, the Amherst Chamber Orchestra, Trenton State College, SUNY Buffalo, Grand Island Middle School, Syracuse Youth Symphony, Point Pleasant Borough High School, North Tonawanda High School, Lockport City School District, Edward Town Middle School, Duxbury High School Wind Ensemble, Allegro: The Chamber Orchestra of Lancaster, Franklin & Marshall College, West Genesee High School Wind Ensemble, East Stroudsburg High School, Grissom High School, Hafabra Publishing, Desert Winds Freedom Band, Starpoint High School Band, Francis T. Maloney High School Band, The Erie County Wind Ensemble, The Solano County Honor Band, The Buffalo Niagara Concert Band and many others in the works.

www.robbieteehan.com

Robbie (Rob) Teehan is a JUNO-award nominated Canadian composer, known for his nuanced and melodic scores to film, TV, and video games, and broad musical experience. He scored the critically-acclaimed Canadian film SCARBOROUGH, hailed by NOW Magazine as “A New Canadian Cinema”, and winner of 8 Canadian Screen Awards including “Best Motion Picture”; BELOW THE BELT, which recently premiered in New York City with Executive Producer Hillary Rodham Clinton in attendance; and BOTTLE CONDITIONED directed by Academy Award nominee Jerry Franck. 

Robbie’s scoring credits include additional music on three seasons of hit TV series ELEMENTARY and two seasons of JESSICA JONES alongside his mentor, 4-time Emmy Award-winning composer Sean Callery (24, HOMELAND, BONES, THE MEDIUM, HALO, etc.), with whom he apprenticed for five years in Los Angeles.  Robbie created a heartfelt orchestral score for the animated short LOVE LETTERS FROM EVEREST, which received two Canadian Screen Award nominations, and a Ukrainian-folk inspired score for the feature documentary THE BABUSHKAS OF CHERNOBYL, lauded by the Chicago Tribune as “provocative, powerful, poignant, and frankly, unforgettable” and award-winner at nine film festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival. 

Classically-trained, Robbie has composed and arranged for artists and ensembles across North America including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Toronto, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.  His orchestral composition, “Dreams of Flying,” was hailed as “fresh and tuneful” by MacLean’s Magazine and nominated for a JUNO award for “Classical Composition of the Year.”  Robbie has performed thousands of shows around the world with a diverse array of musical projects, and his work as a composer, arranger, band member, session musician, and record producer has earned him four JUNO and eight Canadian Folk Music Award nominations.  He is currently active with his indie folk singer-songwriter project, Gentle Sparrow, releasing two EPs on streaming platforms and performing throughout his home province of Ontario, Canada.

Robbie is also the founder and CEO of The Pro Composer, a boutique career coaching firm and online community serving and supporting thousands of professional media composers around the world.

Dr. Erika Svanoe (b. 1976) is a conductor and composer for wind band, known for her lyrical melodies, nods to classic literature, musical deconstruction, humor, and pastiche. Her works have been performed by "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, the United States Navy Band, the National Concert Band of America, featured at the Midwest Clinic, the American Bandmasters Association National Conference, and the Boston New Music Festival, and on Wisconsin Public Radio, in Bandworld's Top 100, and the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series. Her first major work, The Haunted Carousel, won the 2014 NBA Young Band Composition Contest. Her first album, "The Music of Erika Svanoe," was recorded by Andrew Boysen, Jr. and the University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony, and released in 2022.

As a conductor, Dr. Svanoe has held residencies with the USAF Heritage of America Band, the Atlanta Freedom Bands, and numerous universities. She has held collegiate appointments at Augsburg University, Bemidji State University, and the University of New Hampshire. She remains active as a guest conductor and clinician, appearing with high school, university, and All-State and festival ensembles across the United States.

She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from The Ohio State University under Russel C. Mikkelson, where she served as conductor of the OSU Collegiate Winds, assistant conductor of the OSU Wind Symphony, and taught undergraduate conducting classes. Her DMA dissertation included a critical edition of Aaron Copland's El Salón México for wind ensemble. She holds a Master of Music in Wind Conducting from Oklahoma State University and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. 

Her music is published through Alfred Music, G.Schirmer/AMP, and self-published through Swan Maiden Press. She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). She is also the creator and publisher of Marrying Mr. Darcy, the Pride & Prejudice card game, ​and occasionally advocates and speaks on the topic of arts entrepreneurship, with appearances at the XOXO Festival and in a variety of gaming-related media. Originally from Whitewater, Wisconsin, she currently lives in Menomonie, WI with her husband, designer and graphic novelist Erik Evensen.

Adam Gorb was born in 1958 and started composing at the age of ten. At fifteen he wrote a set of piano pieces – A Pianist’s Alphabet – of which a selection was performed by Susan Bradshaw on BBC Radio 3. In 1977 he went to Cambridge University to study music, where his teachers included Hugh Wood and Robin Holloway. After graduating in 1980 he divided his time between composition and working as a musician in the theatre. In 1987 he started studying privately with Paul Patterson, and then, from 1991 at the Royal, Academy of Music where he gained an MMus degree and graduated with the highest honours, including the Principal’s Prize in 1993.

His works have been performed, broadcast and recorded worldwide. Notable pieces include Metropolis for Wind Band (1992), which has won several prizes including the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize in the USA in 1994. Prelude, Interlude and Postlude for piano, won the Purcell Composition Prize in 1995. Kol Simcha, a ballet given over fifty performances by the Rambert Dance Company and Awayday (1996) for Wind Band which, along with Yiddish Dances, (1998) also for Wind Band have had thousands of performances world-wide, and many commercial recordings. Yiddish Dances also exists in arrangements for piano duet and guitar quartet. A Violin Sonata was premiered at the Spitalfields Festival in London in 1996. Reconciliation for Clarinet and Piano was commissioned for the Park Lane Young Artists New Year series in 1998, and Elements, a Percussion Concerto written for Evelyn Glennie and the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Ensemble in 1998 was released on CD in 2001.

In 1999 his Clarinet Concerto for Nicholas Cox was premiered with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2000 A Distant Mirror for Brass Band at the Cheltenham festival, Weimar for chamber ensemble, 2000 and Downtown Diversions, a trombone concerto, in Texas in February 2001. Other works include String quartet no. 1 for the Maggini Quartet, which was premiered at Bromsgrove music club in February 2002, and Towards Nirvana, which received its first performance by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Ensemble in October 2002, winning a British Composer award in the Wind and Brass ensemble category in 2004. Diaspora for eleven strings was given its premiere by the Goldberg Ensemble in February 2003, and November 2003 saw the first performance of Dances From Crete at the Royal College of Music in London.

2004 saw the premieres of French Dances Revisited in Minnesota, USA, and La Cloche Felee for soprano and piano in the Purcell Room. Burlesque for clarinet ensemble, was first played in the USA in 2005. 2006 was notable for the first performance of Awakening for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Adrenaline City for the USA Air Force Academy Band. This work went on to win another British Composer Award in 2008. Fasolt’s Revenge for the Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble and A Better Place for the Zephyr Ensemble of Great Britain were also premiered in 2006.

In 2007/8 a cantata Thoughts Scribbled on a Blank wall (based on the experiences of the political prisoner John McCarthy who co-wrote the libretto with Ben Kaye) received several performances in prestigious venues including Canterbury Cathedral and Kings College Cambridge. Two more Wind Band works: Midnight in Buenos Aires and Farewell (winner of a third British Composer Award in 2009) have seen the light of day along with Serenade for Spring (2008) for small orchestra which had its premiere at the Hampstead and Highgate Festival. Later that year Into The Light for eight cellos was premiered at the RNCM, and String Quartet no. 2 was played by the Tippett Quartet.

2010 saw the premieres of Absinthe for piano and Eternal Voices; a large-scale choral work with words by Ben Kaye which was premiered at Exeter cathedral in November 2010 with the Exeter Festival Chorus and the Band of the Royal Marines. Another Wind Ensemble work: Repercussions was premiered in Colorado in August 2011. Love Transforming which was written for Timothy Reynish’s 75th birthday in March 2013.

He has collaborated for a third time with Ben Kaye on an opera Anya 17 which was premiered by singers from the RNCM with the RLPO 10/10 ensemble Liverpool and Manchester in March 2012. – there have subsequently been productions in Germany in and the USA.

Works from 2013-15 include a cello concerto, A Celebration for the Northern Chamber Orchestra and Velocity for the pianist Clare Hammond. Recent wind ensemble works, all USA commissions include Spring into Action (2014), Boat Trip (2016) and Pike’s Peak (2017). In 2016 In Solitude, For Company, an extensive revision of Awakening was played by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and Melange a Trois was premiered by the Pleyel ensemble. Adam Gorb spent much of 2017 writing a second opera The Path to Heaven (libretto by Ben Kaye) which received its premiere in Leeds and Manchester in 2018, with productions in the USA in 2019 and 2020. A Saxophone Quartet Let Them Play was also performed at the World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb in 2018.

A CD of piano music: 24 Preludes (composed 2019 – 20) and Velocity with the pianist Clare Hammond was released on Toccata classics in 2022.

Recent works include a song cycle: Beggars Belief, his fifth collaboration with librettist Ben Kaye, Long Distance Call for the Australian saxophonist Katia Beaugeais and a concerto for violin, viola and Wind Ensemble premiered in the USA in 2022. During the Covid pandemic in 2020-21 he adapted several of his wind band works, including Yiddish Dances and Bohemian Revelry for smaller ensembles.

Professor Adam Gorb is Head of School of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He has a PhD in Composition from the University of Birmingham and has taught at universities in the USA, Canada, Japan and many European countries.

Dutch composer and conductor Johan de Meij (Voorburg, 1953) received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, where he studied trombone and conducting. His award-winning oeuvre of original compositions, symphonic transcriptions and film score arrangements has garnered him international acclaim and have become permanent fixtures in the repertoire of renowned ensembles throughout the world. His Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings was awarded the prestigious Sudler Composition Prize and has been recorded by myriad ensembles including The London Symphony Orchestra, The North Netherlands Orchestra, The Nagoya Philharmonic and The Amsterdam Wind Orchestra. His Symphony No. 2 The Big Apple, Symphony No. 3 Planet Earth, Symphony No. 4 Sinfonie der Lieder as well as his solo concertos, T-Bone Concerto (trombone), UFO Concerto (euphonium) and Casanova (cello) have been enthusiastically received at many of the world’s finest venues.

Before devoting his time exclusively to composing and conducting, Johan de Meij enjoyed a successful professional career as a trombone and euphonium player, performing with major orchestras and ensembles in The Netherlands. He is in high demand as a guest conductor and lecturer, frequently invited to speak about and perform his own works. In 2010, he was appointed regular guest conductor of the Simón Bolívar Youth Wind Orchestra in Caracas, Venezuela – part of the celebrated Venezuelan educational system El Sistema. He currently maintains posts with both the New York Wind Symphony and the Kyushu Wind Orchestra in Fukuoka, Japan as their principal guest conductor. Johan is founder and CEO of his own publishing company Amstel Music, established in 1989.

When not traveling, Johan divides his time between his Hudson Valley home and Manhattan- and Amsterdam apartments with his wife and muse Dyan, cats Lenny, Gustavo, Tosca & Lulu and doggy Lucy.

Two-time GRAMMY® award nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for Confessions (2022) and 40@40 (2024) – Laura Strickling’s recordings make, “a strong statement about the status of contemporary art songs and her commitment to them,” (Schmopera). Recognized by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence,” she is celebrated for her work performing and promoting art song, with an emphasis on new additions to the canon. She curated The New Music Shelf Anthology of contemporary art songs for soprano and recently announced The 40@40 Project – a personal initiative to commission 40 new art songs from 40 composers. Featured in the May 2021 issue of Classical Singer Magazine for her advocacy work in commissioning and recording new music, she has appeared with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Mexicoliederfest, Calliope’s Call, Liederfest in Suzhou (China), the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Lyric Fest, Chiarina Chamber Players, Joy in Singing, Trinity Concerts at One, the American Liszt Society, Baltimore Lieder Weekend, Concerts on the Slope, National Sawdust, Art Song at the Old Stone House, the Brooklyn New Music Collective, SongFusion, has been a featured performer at the New Music Gathering, and presented a radio broadcast recital of American songs on “Live from WFMT” in Chicago with pianist Daniel Schlosberg. Laura and pianist Liza Stepanova were 2017 Artists in Residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, where they presented a program of Granados and modern songs in Spanish, including the world-premiere of Ciudades del Porvenir by Reinaldo Moya. She has presented guest artist recitals and lectures at the University of Georgia, Mercer University, College of William and Mary, Mercer University, University of Notre Dame, New World School of the Arts, Notre Dame University of Maryland, Pittsburg State University, McDaniel College, St. Mary’s College, and University of Richmond. She is on the New Music Advisory Board of the Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Artistic Advisory Boards of Cincinnati Song Initiative and Calliope’s Call.

Equally acclaimed for her work on the concert stage, she has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, Trinity Church on Wall Street, Washington National Cathedral, and the Opera America Center. Her, “powerful and expressive voice across a large range, her variety of timbre and character,” (Classical Scene), make her a welcome guest soloist for a range of oratorio and concert works, from Handel to Britten. These include Messiah (Handel)with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony, Gloria (Poulenc) with the Asheville Symphony, Mass in c minor (Mozart) with the Richmond Symphony, Cathedral Choral Society, and Berkshire Choral International, Stabat Mater (Dvorak) and Elijah (Mendelssohn) with Berkshire Choral International, Ein Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) with the Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee and Chorosynthesis, Luonnotar (Sibelius) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Barber) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with Mexicoliederfest, Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) and Carmina Burana(Orff) with Choralis, as well as Requiem (Mozart), Credo Mass (Mozart), Dixit Dominus (Handel), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), and Mass in C (Beethoven). Her performance of Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Exsultate jubilate with the Cathedral Choral Society was broadcast by WETA, and her performance of Poulenc’s Gloria with the Asheville Symphony was broadcast by Blue Ridge Public Radio.

On the opera stage, Ms. Strickling created the role of Fanni Radnòti in the world premiere of Tom Cipullo’s opera The Parting with Music of Remembrance in Seattle and San Francisco in 2019 and revisited the role with Chelsea Opera in Syracuse in Spring 2022 and New York City in Fall 2022. She created the role of Dr. Slade in the nine-episode TV-opera film, Everything for Dawn with Experiments in Opera, which received its broadcast premiere in 2022. An alumna of the Berkshire Opera Company resident artist program, her performance of the Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel was praised by Opera News: "Laura Strickling offered the creamy, clear, younger-sister-of-Eva-Pogner instrument ideal for singing the role over full orchestration." She appeared as Pamina in the Metropolitan Opera Guild's touring outreach production of The Magic Flute. Ms. Strickling’s operatic roles also include Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Cleopatra (Julius Caesar), Mimi (La boheme), Dinorah (Dinorah), Elvira (L’Italiana in Algeri), Josephine (H.M.S. Pinafore), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), and Micaëla (Carmen). She created the role of Muriel in the world premiere of Thomas Benjamin's The Alien Corn with the Peabody Opera Theater. 

Ms. Strickling received a 66th Annual GRAMMY® Awards nomination for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for 40@40 - her sophomore solo album. She also received a 64th Annual GRAMMY® Awards nomination for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for her debut recording, Confessions: “…a compellingly honest performer, whose rich, expressive soprano conveys vulnerability with a balance of shimmering tone and unaffected diction,” (Opera News Magazine), “This extraordinarily expressive and versatile singer…performs with an intelligent combination of restraint and letting go. Her voice is full and lustrous and then bright and nimble…” (Schmopera), "Strickling fulfills and FILLS this role, her voice as a siren-chameleon, changing shape and color and nature with total control as contexts switch and emotions bend ever so slightly from word to word,” (American Record Guide). She was also praised for the Naxos Opera Classics recording of The Parting by Tom Cipullo, “…deeply expressive, secure voice. Her exposed highs are managed wonderfully, with notable beauty,” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her discography also includes Times Alone (James Matheson), The Vineyard Songs (Glen Roven), Edna St. Vincent Millay (Jake Heggie), and Of a Certain Age (Tom Cipullo). 

A Chicago native, Ms. Strickling is an avid traveler, having lived in Morocco, where she studied classical Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute of Fez, and Kabul (Afghanistan) where her husband was the founding chair of the Department of Law at the American University of Afghanistan. After 9 years in US Virgin Islands, she recently relocated to Wisconsin where she is learning to endure "cold".

With a passion for music and collaboration, Catherine Joy is a composer for film, media and live performance. She recently won Best Documentary Score for the uplifting feature documentary Gold Balls, and in 2014 won the Independent Music Vox Pop Award for her soundtrack for the film All Things Hidden. Catherine is the Executive Director for the Alliance for Women Film Composers. She plays many instruments including violin, piano, and guitar.

Catherine has scored award-winning films, including the feature documentary Gold Balls which won Best Documentary at Southampton International Film Festival. She composed the music for the integral song in Ellen Gerstein's short film Come Away With Me which has won many awards including Best Sound and Music at Australia's Connect Film Festival. Catherine also scored the video game The Hole Story which won the 2016 ID@Xbox Rising Star Award.

Catherine was recently part of the music teams for four documentary projects premiering at Sundance 2018. She arranged and orchestrated on the Netflix doc series Wild Wild Country, music edited the Joan Jett: Band Reputation feature and and was both orchestrator and score supervisor on the documentaries RBG and Dark Money. Catherine also scored the popular web series Capitol Hill which is now televised through Europe and Canada. Catherine is currently scoring the video game The Endless Mission, the documentary Naughty Books and the horror film The Parish.

Catherine is originally from Tasmania, Australia and moved to the States to pursue a career in music. She lives in Los Angeles with her two cats Bondi and Bronte.

Anne McGinty is known throughout the world as the most prolific woman composer in the field of concert band literature, having written more than 225 pieces, with more than 50 of those commissioned by bands across the United States. Thousands of people have played her music and discovered the joy and beauty of playing music that is both educational (helping instrumentalists learn basic musical skills) and also musical, engaging their imagination and encouraging them to stay in the instrumental music program. In addition to concert band, she has written for solo flute with band, solo clarinet with band, brass band, string orchestra, solo flute, flute with piano accompaniment, and music for flute duet, trio, quartet and choir. All of her compositions and arrangements have been published. Her publishers include Queenwood Publications (now Queenwood/Kjos), C. L. Barnhouse Co., Boosey & Hawkes, Hal Leonard Corporation, Kendor Music, Kjos Publications and Southern Music Company.

After a successful career spanning 30+ years as both a composer and publisher of educational music, Anne is now writing chamber music for brass and woodwinds, all published by McGinty Music. An expert in writing for wind instruments, Anne is also composing for diverse instrumental combinations to showcase their varied timbral possibilities in modern, tonal music.

She began her higher education at The Ohio State University, where Donald McGinnis was her mentor, band director and flute teacher. She left OSU to pursue a career in flute performance, and played principal flute with the Tucson (Arizona) Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Pops Orchestra, and in the TSO Woodwind Quintet, which toured Arizona under the auspices of a government grant. When she returned to college, she received her Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, and Master of Music from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she concentrated on flute performance, music theory and composition. She studied flute and chamber music with Bernard Goldberg and composition with Joseph Willcox Jenkins.

Ms McGinty is a life member of the National Flute Association and served on its Board of Directors. She taught flute at several colleges in the Mid-West, taught flute and chamber music to underprivileged children, and was leader of a Royal American Regiment Fife and Drum Corps. She performed professionally in orchestras, chamber groups and as a flute clinician for a major manufacturer. She also was the editor of a flute column for a music magazine and co-founder of the NFA Newsletter, now known as “The Flutists Quarterly.” Although no longer performing as a flutist, she remains well known as a flute choir specialist and was the first person to convince two major educational music publishers to publish a series for flute choir. As the flute editor at Hansen Publications in Miami Beach, Florida, she arranged and produced the first such flute choir series.

She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and has received annual composition award since 1986. She received the Golden Rose Award from the Women Band Directors National Association and the Outstanding Service to Music Award from Tau Beta Sigma, a national honorary band sorority.

Highlights of her career include being the first woman composer commissioned to write for the United States Army Band. That composition, entitled Hall Of Heroes and premiered in March, 2000, with the composer conducting, featured the U.S. Army Band & Chorus and honored the recipients of the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor, with words based on a poem by Audie Murphy. She was commissioned to write an original composition (To Keep Thine Honor Bright) for the Bicentennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point and another (Victorious) for the United States Continental Army (now TRADOC) Band. Another very special commission (‘Tis A Gift) was for victims of TWA Flight 800 and to help heal the community of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, with music.

Music is the most important thing she has ever done or will ever do in her life – composing, conducting, performing and speaking at a wide variety of musical events. Her enthusiasm and passion for music is evident in everything she writes.

Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) is a composer, conductor, and professor person. Her work is founded on the belief that the pleasures and excesses of music have the unique potential to engage political and provocative subjects. Addressing a range of topics such as climate change, #MeToo, feminist history, and the abuses of the Putin regime, Jennifer strives to write pieces that are equally enjoyable and meaningful.

Jennifer’s works have been performed by ensembles worldwide. She has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Quince Ensemble, and many others.

Jennifer received degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She is now an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition in the Department of Music at Lehman College in the Bronx and was a Fulbright Scholar to Egypt in 2023. She has been a composition faculty member at Interlochen Arts Camp since 2015.

Leading American orchestras, instrumentalists, and wind ensembles around the world have performed the music of Chicago based composer James M. Stephenson, both to critical acclaim and the delight of audiences. The Boston Herald raved about “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds,” suggesting “Stephenson deserves to be heard again and again!” A formal sense of melody and tonality characterize his music, each embedded in a contemporary soundscape. These qualities, coupled with the composer’s keen ability to write to each occasion, have led to a steady stream of commissions and ongoing projects.

Most recently, Charles Vernon, Chicago Symphony bass trombonist, asked Stephenson to write a new concerto, a work to be premiered in their 2018/2019 season under the direction of Riccardo Muti. A second bass trombone concerto will receive its orchestral premiere with the St. Louis Symphony and soloist Gerry Pagano, in 2017. “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band commissioned a symphony (the composer’s second in this genre) and gave the work its premiere in 2016 at the prestigious Midwest Clinic, and subsequently recorded the work. Additionally, Compose Yourself!, Stephenson’s landmark young-audience work has now been performed over 300 times since its creation in 2002, engaging children in New Zealand and Canada and across the U.S. Additional premieres include Carnegie Hall in May, 2017 (Chamber Music Charleston) and in the summer, 2017, a Music Academy of the West premiere of “Martha Uncaged” – with the composer conducting – and a west-coast premiere of his violin concerto at the famed Cabrillo Music Festival. The 2017-18 season will see a new “Low brass concerto” with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä.

The Devil’s Tale (2013), a sequel to Stravinsky’s famous “Soldier’s Tale” has become a highlight of Stephenson’s extensive chamber music output, having already garnered much critical praise for its recent recording (“a most remarkable work” – Fanfare Magazine) and numerous performances at noteworthy venues such as Ravinia and Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center.

James M. Stephenson came late to his full-time composing career, having performed 17 seasons as a trumpeter in the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. As such, the composer is largely self-taught, making his voice truly individual and his life’s work all the more remarkable. Colleagues and friends encouraged his earliest efforts and enthusiasm followed from all directions. As his catalog grew, so did his reputation. That catalog now boasts concertos and sonatas for nearly every instrument, earning him the moniker “The Concerto King” from Chicago Symphony clarinetist John Yeh. The vast majority of those compositions came through commissions by and for major symphony principal players, in Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Washington DC, St. Louis, Oregon, Milwaukee, and Dallas, among others. A major break came from the Minnesota Commissioning Club, which led to two works (violin concertos) receiving premieres in 2012—by Jennifer Frautschi with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä and by Alex Kerr with the Rhode Island Philharmonic under Larry Rachleff. Other international soloists for whom Stephenson has composed include saxophonist Branford Marsalis and trumpeter Rex Richardson, whose concerto has been performed on five continents. With such prolific output, Stephenson’s music is well represented in recordings. Nearly all of his solo brass works (over 50) have been professionally recorded, and in total, his extensive catalog for all instruments can be heard on over 30 CDs.

James Stephenson is also a highly sought-after arranger and conductor, rounding out his constantly busy schedule. His arrangements have been performed/recorded/broadcast by virtually every major orchestra in the country, including the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, New York Pops and more. On the podium, Stephenson has led orchestras in Bozeman, Charleston, Ft. Myers, Modesto, and Wyoming, in addition to numerous concert bands. With the Lake Forest Symphony, near his Illinois home, he has not only conducted but also has served for six years as Composer-in-Residence. His conducting debut with the Chattanooga Symphony comes at their 2016 Holiday Concert.

Jim originally hails from the Greater Chicago area, as does his wife Sally. In 2007 the couple, along with their four children, returned to the region to pursue the life they now share.

aul Dooley is one of the most prolific and performed composers in America today. His path has embraced not only his Western Classical heritage, but also a cross-cultural range of contemporary music, dance, art, technology and the interactions between the human and natural worlds. His music has been described as "impressive and beautiful" by American composer Steve Reich.

Dooley’s orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by, among many others, the Nashville Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Macau Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, United Nations Chamber Music Society, Omaha Symphony, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, Beethoven Academy Orchestra, Radom Chamber Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Nu Deco Ensemble and Alarm Will Sound, in addition to wind ensembles such as “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, The United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” and the United States Navy Band.

Recent works include Circuits and Skins (2017), an EDM-inspired electronic percussion concerto for Lisa Pegher and the Lansing Symphony, Mondrian’s Studio (2019), for horn and wind ensemble, for Adam Unsworth and the University of Michigan Symphony Band, Manifestos (2019) for the universities of the Big 12 Conference and The Conductor’s Spellbook (2016), an educational, interactive and entertaining work for young audiences, which has received more than 100 performances since its 2016 premiere, originally commissioned by the Naples Philharmonic.

Born in Santa Rosa, California in 1983, Dooley began his musical life listening to Beethoven, Bruce Hornsby, Nirvana and Rush. At the age of 13, Dooley began a long mentorship with singer, songwriter, improvisor and gifted counselor Gary “Doc” Collins. In high school Dooley also studied composition with Charles Sepos, before earning bachelor degrees in mathematics and music composition at the University of Southern California (2002-2007) with Frank Ticheli and Stephen Hartke, and a master and doctorate degree at the University of Michigan (2007-2013) with Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng and Evan Chambers. A key moment occured for Dooley in 2010, with his participation in the inagural Mizzou International Composers Festival. The festival commissioned Dooley's breakout work Point Blank, which was premiered by the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound.

In 2013 Dooley joined the music faculty at the University of Michigan. He created and directs the Performing Arts Technology department’s annual Computer Music Showcase. He also co-directed the Midwest Composers Symposium and was coordinator of the “ONCE. MORE.” festival, a celebration of the 50 year anniversary of the ONCE Festival of Contemporary Music, and was co-awarded a grant from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching.

Dooley’s music is the subject of several doctoral dissertations including: “Paul Dooley’s Masks and Machines: A Formal Analysis and Instructional Guide” by Kevin M. Callihan, University of Kentucky; “MANIFESTOS for Wind Ensemble by Paul Dooley: A Critical Analysis” by Eddie W. Airheart, Texas Christian University; “A Conductor’s Guide and Analysis of Selected Works by Paul Dooley” by Jason Gardner, University of Illinois.

Dooley is a frequent guest of professional orchestras, university wind ensembles and festivals in the United States and around the world. His works have been performed in significant venues including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Royce Hall, Hill Auditorium, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, Sala Filharmonia Warszawa, Singapore’s Victoria Concert Hall and Chicago’s Symphony Center, and featured on several episodes of NPR’s “Performance Today” with Fred Child.

Dr. Dooley has received a wide range of awards for his work, including both the 2016 Sousa/ABA/Ostwald Award and the 2015 William D. Revelli Prize for Masks and Machines (2015), the 2013 Jacob Druckman Award for orchestral composition from the Aspen Music Festival for Point Blank (2011) and young composer awards from Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) for Dani’s Dance (2007) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for Gradus (2009).

Dooley’s recordings can be heard on, among others, Naxos, Equilibrium, Soundset, Mark Records, GIA Wind Works and Block M Records.

Dooley’s music is published by Paul Dooley Music. For more information on his music, visit www.pauldooley.net and www.conductorsspellbook.com

The works of Dana Wilson have been commissioned and performed by such diverse ensembles as the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Formosa Quartet, Xaimen Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Memphis Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony, Voices of Change, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Syracuse Symphony, Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, the trio STRATA, and Canadian Brass. Many college ensembles and faculty members have performed and recorded his music.

Solo works have been written for such renowned artists as hornists Gail Williams (international soloist, formerly with the Chicago Symphony) and Adam Unsworth (international soloist, formerly with the Philadelphia Orchestra); clarinetist Larry Combs (international soloist, formerly with the Chicago Symphony); trumpeters James Thompson (formerly with the Atlanta Symphony), Rex Richardson (international jazz soloist), and Frank Campos; oboists David Weiss (international soloist, formerly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) and Michael Henoch (principal with the Chicago Symphony); saxophonist Steven Mauk; bassoonists Michael Krroth and Kristin Schillinger; flutists Wendy Mehne, Alison Parramore, and Kate Steinbeck; violinists James Stern and Susan Waterbury; trombonist Thomas Ashworth; tubist Aaron Tindall; soprano Rachel Schutz; cellist Deborah Pae; jazz pianist Nicholas Weiser, drum set player Greg Evans; and contrabassist Nicholas Walker.

He has received grants from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Arts Midwest, and Meet the Composer. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and East Asia. They have received several prizes, including the Sudler International Composition Prize and the Ostwald Composition Prize, as well as awards from the International Trumpet Guild, the Flute New Music Consortium, and the International Horn Society; are published by Boosey and Hawkes, Alfred Music Publishers, the American Composers Forum, and Ludwig Music Publishers; and can be heard on over twenty recording labels, as well as on national radio broadcasts such as "Performance Today".

Dana Wilson holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and is Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus at the Ithaca College School of Music. He is co-author of Contemporary Choral Arranging, published by Prentice Hall/Simon and Schuster, and has written articles on diverse musical subjects. He has been a Yaddo Fellow (at Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York), a Wye Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a Charles A. Dana Fellow, and a Fellow at the Society for Humanities, Cornell University.

Find Alex on the web at https://www.alexshapiro.org

Composer Alex Shapiro aligns note after note with the hope that at least a few of them will actually sound good next to each other. Her persistence at this activity, as well as non-fiction music writing, arts advocacy, public speaking, wildlife photography, and the shameless instigation of insufferable puns on Facebook, has led to a happy life. Ever-boastful of her terminal degree of a high school diploma (an impressive feat having failed 8th grade algebra), Alex lives in the middle of nowhere on a small rock between the coasts of Washington State and British Columbia, and draws from a broad musical palette that giddily ignores genre. 

Her acoustic and electroacoustic works are published by her company Activist Music LLC, have won almost no awards, are performed and broadcast daily, have rarely been reviewed, and can be found on over thirty commercial releases from record labels around the world. No musician or audience member has yet to contact Alex to request their money back. Emphasis on yet.

In addition to lavish customer refund policies, Ms. Shapiro is noted for her seamless melding of live and recorded sounds, and for her innovative uses of multimedia in performance and music education. A widely published advocate on topics ranging from technology, copyright, diversity, and the music business, and a likable person from whom you can learn details about python breeding, Alex is the Symphonic and Concert writer member of the Board of Directors of ASCAP, and serves on the Board of Directors of the ASCAP Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Music Publishers Association of the United States, representing her company Activist Music LLC. Alex's music as well as her other, sometimes unusual pursuits, can be experienced throughout this slightly-overwhelming-but-at-least-it's-well-organized website.

This pretty much sums things up.