Artists

Dr. Beth Mehocic was the Composer-in-Residence, Music Director, and Full-Professor for the Dance Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and wrote over 100 works for orchestra, concert band, chamber music, dance ensembles, theater, and film. Her works have been performed throughout the United States, Japan, China, Korea, and Europe, and she had works performed in several Las Vegas Hotels including The Mirage, Caesar’s Palace, and the Las Vegas Hilton. Several of her works have been recorded for PARMA Recordings.

Australian composer and classically trained pianist Mark John McEncroe writes for solo piano and orchestras of all sizes. His compositions have been performed throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States, with the biggest highlight to date being a concert at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium in February 2020.

A composer equally accustomed to writing for orchestra, opera, film, theater, chorus, piano, and chamber ensembles, Brian Wilbur Grundstrom’s voice includes a strong affinity for long melodic lines, distinctive tonal harmonic vocabulary, engaging rhythms, skillfully executed counterpoint, and dramatic imagery.

Sergio Cervetti left his native Uruguay in 1962 to study composition in the United States. In 1966 he attracted international attention when he won the chamber music prize at the Caracas, Venezuela Music Festival. After studying with Ernst Krenek and Stefan Grové and graduating from Peabody Conservatory, he was subsequently invited to be Composer-in-Residence in Berlin, Germany in 1969-70.

Composer Gregory W. Brown’s works have been performed across the United States and Europe — most notably in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Cadogan Hall in London, and the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. His commissions for vocal ensemble New York Polyphony have been heard on American Public Media’s Performance Today, BBC Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Kansas Public Radio, and Danish National Radio; his Missa Charles Darwin received its European debut in March 2013 at the Dinosaur Hall of Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde.

After he finished his studies piano, church organ, and choral conducting at the Dutch Institute for Church Music in Utrecht, Hans Bakker (b. 1945) worked as a teacher at two music schools in the Netherlands. He also conducted two choirs and was active in the improvisational music scene. His career in music was followed by the study of Sanskrit. After obtaining his master's degree at the University of Amsterdam, he returned to music, becoming completely occupied by teaching at Globe Center for Art and Culture in the city of Hilversum.

Since retiring from a full-time career in higher education in July 2021, Don Bowyer (b. 1958) continues to be active internationally, currently as a Visiting Professor in the College of Music at the University of the Philippines. Bowyer's pursuits include composing and performing, presenting master classes and recitals, and serving as a consultant on matters from accreditation to curricular development to higher ed administration. His last full-time position was as Professor of Music and Dean of the School of Arts at Sunway University (Malaysia), having previously served as Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Arkansas State University and Chair of the Department of Music at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Bowyer has taught at every level from pre-kindergarten through doctoral programmes in the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Sweden, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Based in New Jersey, Eric Klein is an internationally-performed composer of concert music with chamber, electroacoustic, and orchestral works performed in the United States and Europe. Klein studied classical guitar with Norbert Kraft and attended the University of Toronto and Royal Conservatory of Music. Equally versed in writing orchestral, chamber, and electronic music, he is a versatile composer for film and new media. In addition to scoring for independent feature film, his chamber music album The Myth of Tomorrow, performed by the New York contemporary music ensemble Contemporaneous, won the 2019 Independent Music Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Music Album.

Lee Bradshaw is a Melbourne-born Australian composer, who’s music reveals an explicit and emotionally-charged truth. His works exhibit a profound intimacy with the craft of composition, compelling the performer to delve deeply into their own artistic and creative reservoirs. His sensuous yet muscular writing redefines the possibilities of expression for the modern musician, whilst the music — rare, uncompromising and arresting in its beauty — offers solace to the listener.

Born in Caen in 1968, Éric Tanguy is to this day one of the most performed French composers in the world. Named “Composer of the Year'” by the Victoires de la musique classique in 2004 and 2008, Tanguy studied under Horatiu Radulescu, Ivo Malec, Gérard Grisey, and Betsy Jolas at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris.

Benjamin C.S. Boyle is an American composer, pianist, and theorist. His works have been commissioned and premiered by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Lyric Opera, Montreal Chamber Orchestra, the Kobe City Orchestra, the Crossing Choir, Lyric Fest, and many others. The Crossing Choir’s recording of his Cantata No. 2: Voyages was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2020 for Best Choral Performance. In 2008, at the piano, he gave the U.S. premiere of his Sonata-Fantasy with violinist Tim Fain at the Kennedy Center in Washington and Merkin Hall in New York. In 2005, Bacchanalia Orchestra premiered the Cantata No.1: To One in Paradise for string orchestra and four vocal soloists in New York. He was composer-in-residence with Young Concert Artists from 2005-2007 and received representation from them for many years.

For Edie Hill, writing music is an opportunity to research, learn, muse, reach down deep, and allow inspiration to come from the stuff of life. Her compositions are fueled by her experiences, passions, and curiosities.

The works of Michael Gilbertson have been described as “elegant” and “particularly beautiful” by The New York Times, “vivid, tightly woven” and “delectably subtle” by the Baltimore Sun, “genuinely moving” by the Washington Post, and “a compelling fusion of new and ancient” by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Gilbertson is the BMI Composer in Residence with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and is a professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Quartet.

Dr. Sang-Hie Lee, Professor of Music at the University of South Florida, is an active teacher, pianist, researcher, author, and cross-disciplinary administrator. As the founder of Ars Nostra, she performs piano duo music by significant living composers: her music is featured in six albums by Ravello, Centaur, Capstone, and Albany labels. Lee is the principal author of Scholarly Research for Musicians: A Comprehensive Strategy (Learning Solutions Division, The McGraw-Hill, 2012, 2013 and Routledge 2017), and Scholarly Research in Music: Shared and Disciplinary-Specific Practices, 2nd Edition (Routledge 2022). She is the primary editor of Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Springer 2020) and was the founding editor of the Cultural Expressions in Music Monographs Series (College Music Society 2008-2014).

The Lowell Chamber Orchestra is Lowell’s first and only professional orchestra, providing the area with an ensemble that presents music at a very high level, of all styles and time periods, entirely free to the general population. Now in its third season, the LCO has presented concerts that encompass established orchestral repertoire as well as multimedia works, stage works, lecture-presentations, and chamber music. As part of its mission of promoting, preserving, and educating, the repertoire includes works from the Baroque to current commissions.

Bruce Reiprich's music has been described as having "unapologetic lushness" (New Music Box), "post-romantic radiance" (Danbury News-Times), and "a contemplative mood, its sedate pace subtly dilating the flow of time" (Eagle Rock Patch). It has also been characterized as "a deeply personal mediation on the poet's feelings" (San Francisco Classical Voice), "very powerful" (All Music Guide), "lovely and evocative" (Guitar Review-New York), "very impressive" (Cumhuriyet-Turkey), and "of special interest" (Guitar International-England). Praise for the Navona Records recording of his Lullaby for violin and orchestra highlights “what would make for a really gorgeous encore number” (Cinemusical), and “emotional effects so powerfully instantiated” (Textura).

Michael Wittgraf (b. 1962) is an electronic music composer whose recent work explores live manipulation of feedback, interactive improvisation, and video. His music has been performed around the world, and is available on the Ravello, New Ariel, Eroica, and SEAMUS recording labels, and through iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, and other platforms. He has awards, commissions, and recognition from ASCAP, Modern Chamber Players, National Symphony Orchestra, Tempus Fugit, Louisiana State University, University of Minnesota, University of North Dakota, Florida State University, PiKappa Lambda, Zeitgeist, Chiara String Quartet, Bush Foundation, North Dakota Museum of Art, North Dakota Council on the Arts, and more. He was awarded a North Dakota Individual Artist Fellowship in 2007, and in 2011 he was named the North Valley Arts Council Artist of the Year.

The conductor, composer, and pianist Jan Kučera is one of the most versatile Czech artists. At the National Theatre in Prague, he has conducted the productions of Lukáš Hurník’s opera The Angels, Shostakovich’s Antiformalist Rayok / Orango, Rossini´s La Cenerentola, and of his own comic opera Red Mary.

The Fischer Duo has performed on five continents in its over-50-year history. Founded in 1971 while students at Oberlin College, the Duo has developed a wide-ranging repertoire covering the “canon” plus many forgotten or unknown works of the past. In addition, the Fischers have been very active with music of our own time, commissioning over 30 works and recording even more. The Duo’s extensive discography includes 18 albums from Beethoven, Brahms, 20th Century French Masters, Chopin and Liszt to generations of American composers similar to this recording’s compendium. These recordings have garnered rave reviews from The Strad, Gramophone, Strings Magazine, and BBC Music Magazine.

Composer Dawn Sonntag translates the experience of being human into music that has been called “hauntingly lyrical” (Schaumburg-Lippe Landeszeitung), “visceral,” and “freshly relevant.” Her operas have been featured at the Cleveland Opera Theater’s New Opera Works festival, the Hartford Women’s Composers Festival, the Hartford Opera Theater’s New in November festival, and the Opera from Scratch festival in Halifax. Based on the true story of World War II refugees, her first opera, Verlorene Heimat, for which she wrote the libretto and music, won Honorable Mention in the 2021 American Prize for composition. Her settings of Sara Teasdale’s poetry are included in the new Modern Music for New Singers: 21st Century American Art Song.