Artists

Michael Glenn Williams' music and piano performance is featured on productions such as the "Chicago Hope;" "Wicker Park," "The Limey," "King of the Hill," "Younger and Younger," "House of Yes," "Through the Door" and "Wonderland." His concert transcriptions of video game music are featured in the game "Crabs and Penguins" from Coke, and performed by the Video Games Live orchestra.

Called “a fresh, bold, and individual creative force” (Los Angeles’ Canyon News), and “a very talented young composer with much to look forward to in the future” (Paula Brusky, 2010 Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition), Kyle Peter Rotolo (b. 1986) is a multi-faceted musician who has worked in a variety of mediums including contemporary classical, film/television/radio, and pop/rock. He grew up on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, just across from the City That Never Sleeps. 2012 was an exciting year for Kyle; it saw the premiere of Marilyn’s Room, a mini-opera on his own story and libretto, by the Peabody opera company, as well as the album release of his piece for solo guitar Le crâne a lá cigarette qui fume on the album Epitaphios by the lauded guitarist Anastasios Comanescu. He is an alumnus of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (M.M. ’13), the Brevard Music Center, and a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society. His primary teachers have been Kevin Puts, Liviu Marinescu, and N. Lincoln Hanks. He has also studied with Robert Aldridge and David Dzubay.

A native of New York City, pianist Robert DeGaetano (1946 – 2015) enjoyed a widely esteemed career as both a virtuoso interpreter of the great keyboard repertoire and a composer of striking originality and communicative intensity.

Alexandra Ottaway has worked in different styles of music, from teaching with her NY State (K-12 Vocal) public school license to folk-rock recording, and from singing in A Capella choruses to accompanying bigger ones (adult and student). Her first instrument is piano. Ottaway started composing in 1980 and since 2007 has been revisiting the atonal universe in addition to songwriting. She got her BA in music from The Columbia School of General Studies and an MA in Music Education from NYU. She lives in Western MA with her husband and her cat.

Gráinne Mulvey was born in Dublin. She studied under Professor Nicola LeFanu and gained a D.Phil. in Composition at the University of York in 1999. She also holds an M.A. in Composition from Queens University, Belfast and a B.A. (Hons) Degree from Waterford Institute of Technology, under Dr. Eric Sweeney. She was appointed Head of Composition at Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2001.

Just as the English language makes use of foreign words to augment its own expressive power, Los Angeles-based composer Jonathan Sacks (b. 1950) draws from a wide range of styles and techniques to create music in an idiom that's entirely his own.

Roger Bourland (b. December 13, 1952, Evanston IL) received his education from the University of Wisconsin/Madison (B.Mus.),the New England Conservatory of Music (M.M.), and Harvard University (A.M., Ph.D.). His teachers have included Leon Kirchner, Gunther Schuller, Donald Martino, John Harbison, and Randall Thompson. He received the Koussevitzky Prize in Composition at Tanglewood, the John Knowles Paine Fellowship at Harvard, two ASCAP Grants to Young Composers, numerous Meet the Composers grants, and was a co-founder of the Boston-based consortium Composers in Red Sneakers.

Vera Ivanova (b. 1977, Moscow, Russia) graduated from the Moscow Conservatory (Honours Diploma), Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London (M.M. with distinction), and the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D. in Composition). Her works have been performed in Russia, Europe and the United States. Her teaching positions include Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at the Setnor School of Music of Syracuse University, Assistant Professor of Music in the College of Performing Arts at Chapman University (current).

Timothy Dwight Edwards (b. 1962) was born in Ferndale, Michigan. His solo, choral and chamber music combines rhythmic, avant-garde, jazz and contrapuntal elements that cross boundaries between musical genres, often including electronic elements to explore and extend the sound palette of the other instruments. His works have been performed by numerous ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, Dal Niente, the Lincoln Trio, Pinotage, New York Virtuoso Singers, Cube Ensemble, The Contemporary Chamber Players and many others.

The music of Christopher Dietz (b. 1977) has been recognized by honors and awards from Copland House, Canada's Banff Centre and National Arts Centre, the Camargo Foundation, ASCAP's Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions and Composer Institute, the League of Composers/ISCM Orchestral Competition, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, the Riverside Symphony Composer Reading Project (NYC), North/South Consonance (NYC), the Chicago Ensemble's Discover America competition, the Utah Arts Festival's Orchestral Commission Prize, the NewMusic@ECU festival, as well as numerous academic scholarships and fellowships.

Musician and composer Kjell Magne Andersen, was born in 1954. At the age of ten he began to play guitar and later he was presented with the clarinet. He received his musical education from Barratt Due's Music Institute in Oslo, with clarinet as his primary instrument.

Howard Quilling (b. 1935) was born in Enid, Oklahoma and grew up in Napa CA. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music from the University of Southern California and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He studied music composition with Ingolf Dahl, Robert Linn, David Raksin, Ernst Kanitz, Emma Lou Diemer, Edward Applebaum, and Peter Racine Fricker.

The music of Phillip Schroeder (b. 1956, Rancho Cordova CA) for soloists, chamber ensembles, live electronics, orchestra, band, and choir has been described by critics as "wonderfully evocative," "ethereal," "rich in subtle detail," and "full of elegant nuance." He has appeared as a guest composer, lecturer, and performer at venues throughout the United States and Europe and has been very active and dedicated New Music advocate as performer, producer, and festival/conference host.

Leonard Mark Lewis (b. 1973, Great Yarmouth, England) holds a D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Texas, an M.M. in Composition from the University of Houston. He is also a conductor and pianist specializing in new music. Lewis, a member of BMI, is the recipient of awards from ASCAP (Morton Gould Young Composer Award), BMI, Columbia University (Bearns Prize), Voices of Change (Russell Horn Young Composers Award), and MACRO.

Chan Ji Kim (b. 1974, Dae-gu, South Korea) composes for dance, chamber ensembles, orchestra, multimedia performances and electroacoustic music. Most recently, her music was performed by the internationally known Bartók Trio ensemble in Malaga, Spain.

Mark Engebretson (b 1964, Modesto CA), is Associate Professor of Composition and Electronic Music, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Alan Chan (b. 1978, Hong Kong, China) is a multi-faceted composer in both classical and jazz genres whose music has been recognized by ArtEZ (Netherlands), ASCAP, American Composers Forum, Los Angeles County Arts Commission and Percussive Arts Society, among others.

European composer Erik Lotichius (1929 – 2015) began his compositional studies and high school, in addition to studying both the piano and violin. Influenced early on by Bach and Bartok, he studied under virtuoso Ernest W. Mulder before launching into a highly active career as a composer, writing symphonies, ballets, and myriad chamber works. Lotichius eventually found himself unhappy with the direction classical music was taking and even less able to appreciate the sounds being made by the avant-garde, so he turned to jazz and popular music, which gave him a new lease on his musical life.

Ronald Keith Parks (b. 1960) is an active composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. His diverse output includes orchestral works, instrumental and vocal chamber music, choral music, electroacoustic music, and interactive computer music. Recent commissions include Elements for the Blue Ridge Chamber Players, Fierce Winds for the Charlotte Symphony Flutes, I thought I'd better let you know for the Charlotte Symphony's Orchestra on Campus Composers Project, Things Get Out of Hand... and Alhambra Tiles for the Out of Bounds Ensemble, A Matter of Perspective for Duo XXI, Off on a Tangent... for the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, Torque, Wavelength and Afterimage 8 for the Charlotte Civic Orchestra, Afterimage 7 for the NeXT Ens, and ...drift... for the Force of Nature artist exchange program.

Thomas L. Read, composer and violinist, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Vermont. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1938, he studied violin, composition and conducting at the Oberlin, Mozarteum, New England and Peabody Conservatories with such noted musicians as Andor Toth Sr., Richard Burgin, Bernhard Paumgartner, Leon Fleisher, and Benjamin Lees. As violinist he has been a member of the Erie Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Festival Arts (under Harold Farberman), Vermont Symphony and the Saratoga Festival of Baroque Music.