47th Annual New Music Festival

Samuel Adler taught at the Eastman School of Music from 1966 to 1995 and served as chair of the composition department from 1974 until his retirement. In 1989, he received the Eastman School’s Eisenhart Award for distinguished teaching. Adler was educated at Boston University and Harvard University, and holds several honorary doctorates. His major teachers in composition were Herbert Fromm, Walter Piston, Randall Thompson, Paul Hindemith, and Aaron Copland. Samuel Adler is the composer of more than 400 published works, which have been performed all over the world. He is also the author of four books: Choral Conducting; Sight Singing; The Study of Orchestration; and a memoir, Building Bridges with Music. Samuel Adler’s many prizes include a 1990 award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Charles Ives Award, the University of Rochester’s Lillian Fairchild Award, the Deems Taylor Award for The Study of Orchestration, and more. In 1999, Adler was elected to the Germany’s Akademie der Künste for distinguished service to music, and in 2003 was awarded the Aaron Copland Award by ASCAP for lifetime achievement in composition and teaching. 

Gulli Bjornsson (b. 1991) is an Icelandic guitarist, composer, and programmer whose work combines electronics, acoustic instruments, and visual media to create immersive, nature-inspired experiences. His music has received critical acclaim for its virtuosic and accessible qualities, and his compositions have been performed by ensembles including the New Jersey Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, Sō Percussion, and Aizuri Quartet. His work has been featured at major venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, Caramoor, Le Poisson Rouge, San Francisco Performances, and the Guitar Foundation of America. Bjornsson has received numerous international composition awards and grants, while also earning recognition as a guitarist through competitions and honors including the Eliot Fisk Prize and Andrés Segovia Award. He currently teaches composition and music technology at Bowling Green State University, holds a PhD in music composition from Princeton University, and is an Augustine Artist who performs exclusively on Augustine Strings.

Szu-An Chen is a Taiwanese composer with a keen ability for observation and a vivid imagination. Drawing inspiration from her Taiwanese heritage and reflections on social and environmental issues, she enjoys imagining new possibilities, exploring cross-cultural perspectives, and creating her own magical worlds through music. Her works include a wide range of instrumentation, from solo and ensemble pieces to orchestral, theatrical, and electronic music. Szu-An’s music has received various awards and commissions globally, and she has collaborated with and been commissioned by distinguished performers and organizations, including SPLICE Ensemble, Stuttgart Philharmonic (under Mario Venzago), Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra (under Jun Märkl), Taiwan National Center for Traditional Arts, and Bratsche Camerata Taiwan. Notably, her orchestral work, Resilience, won the 2025 BGSU Concerto Competition (composition division). Szu-An is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of North Texas. She holds a Master of Music in Composition from Bowling Green State University and Bachelor of Music in Composition from Taipei National University of the Arts.

John Eagle is a composer and musician whose interdisciplinary work spans performance, installation, and experimental music that explores ecological frameworks, extended instrumental systems, tuning, microtonal just intonation, and physical movement. His work has been presented throughout the United States and internationally at festivals and events like the LA Phil’s Noon to Midnight, EMPAC, the Sound/Image Festival in London, and Göteborg Art Sounds. Eagle has collaborated extensively with conceptual artist Charles Gaines as a music director and arranger for the Manifestos series, conducting premieres and performances at venues including MoMA, Times Square, REDCAT, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His other projects include the performance installation Sound House, collaborative sound films, and the solo work erosion and growth. Eagle holds degrees from Bennington College, California Institute of the Arts, and Cornell University, and currently teaches composition and music technology at Bowling Green State University. He is also an active French hornist, performing his own music and other works of experimental music.

Reena Esmail is a composer whose music brings together the traditions of Hindustani and Western classical music, creating collaborative spaces for musicians from diverse backgrounds. Her work spans orchestral, chamber, and choral music, with commissions from major ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. Her music has received broad recognition, with recordings featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums. Esmail has held prestigious residencies with organizations including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival, and Marlboro Music Festival. She holds composition degrees from Juilliard and Yale and received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India.

Katia Geha is an Australian-Lebanese composer based in Basel, Switzerland, where she is pursuing a Masters degree in Composition at the Musik-Akademie Basel. Katia’s practice centres on experimental performance art music, exploring conceptually-grounded political frameworks that encourage performers and audiences to rethink social and political paradigms. A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium with first-class honours, Katia was selected for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s 21st Cybec Century Composer Commission, Ensemble Offspring’s Hatched Academy and Omega Ensemble’s CoLab Commission. Her work has been performed in Aarhus (DE), Buffalo (NY), Bled (SI), Tempe (AZ), New Orleans (LA), and Gothenburg (SE). In 2025, Katia won first prize in the Engine Room International Sound Art Competition with her installation being shown at the Morley Gallery in London. Throughout the year, she will have her work performed in Rheinsberg (DE), in Beirut (LB) and in Milan (IT). She was also named Emerging Artist of the Year at the Australian Women in Music Awards in October.

Michael Gordon is known for his monumental and immersive works. Decasia, for 55 retuned spatially positioned instruments (with Bill Morrison’s accompanying cult-classic film) has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Minimalist Jukebox Festival and at the Southbank Centre. Timber, a tour-de-force for percussion sextet played on amplified microtonal simantras has been performed on every continent, including by Slagwerk Den Haag at the Musikgebouw and Mantra Percussion at BAM. Natural History, a collaboration with the Steiger Butte Drum of the Klamath tribe, was premiered by the Britt Festival Orchestra and Chorus on the rim of Crater Lake (Oregon) by conductor Teddy Abrams and is the subject of the PBS documentary Symphony for Nature. Gordon’s vocal works include Travel Guide to Nicaragua, an autobiographical choral work for The Crossing; the opera What to wear with the legendary director Richard Foreman; and the film-opera Acquanetta with director Daniel Fish. Recent recordings include Clouded Yellow, Gordon’s complete string quartets performed by the Kronos Quartet.

The music of Margi Griebling-Haigh has been characterized as haunting, charismatic, yearning, wistful, lyrical, colorful, and insoucient! She is concerned with conveying emotions and moods, but firmly believes in the powers of memorable melodies and rhythms and strong formal structure. Ms. Griebling-Haigh has been Composer in Residence at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival since 2011 and her music has been repeatedly featured on American Public Media's "Performance Today". Ms. Griebling-Haigh has received commissions from International Society of Bassists, Cleveland Orchestra Principal Hornist Richard King and Assistant Principal Bassoonist Barrick Stees, Cleveland Orchestra (deceased) Principal Oboist John Mack, renowned organist Karel Paukert, the Schenectady Symphony, the Cleveland and Kulas Foundations, The Cleveland Institute of Music Cello Ensemble, among others. Ms. Griebling-Haigh's music is published by Jeanne, Inc., Trevco, Inc., and her own company, Musicalligraphics. Her music is featured on 17 CD recordings, on the Centaur, Capstone, and Jeanné labels, as well as on independently released projects. Majoring in oboe performance, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music with Robert Sprenkle and a Masters degree from the San Francisco Conservatory with Marc Lifschey. 

Winner of the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Stephen Hartke is widely recognized as one of the leading composers of his generation. His work has been recognized for both its singularity of voice and the inclusive breadth of its inspiration. Born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1952, Hartke grew up in Manhattan, where he began his musical career as a professional boy chorister, performing with such organizations as the New York Pro Musica, the New York Philharmonic, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera. He studied at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, then worked as advertising manager for several major music publishers. He was a Fulbright Professor at the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil before joining the University of Southern California faculty in 1987.

Celebrated for his “waves of colorful sounds” (New York Times) and “smart, appealing works” (The New Yorker), Robert Honstein (b. 1980) is a New York-based composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and film music. His music has been performed by the Albany Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Argus Quartet, New Morse Code, Colin Currie, Theo Bleckmann, Doug Perkins, Michael Burritt, Karl Larson, and Ashley Bathgate, among others. Interdisciplinary collaborators include photographer Chris McCaw, projection designer Hannash Wasileski, graphic designer Laura Grey, and director Daniel Fish. His music has been released by New Amsterdam Records, New Focus Recordings, Soundspells Productions, Cedille Records, and Other Minds Records. His debut film score, The Real Charlie Chaplin, was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy in Outstanding Music Composition. Robert is a founding member of the New York-based composer collective Sleeping Giant and co-founder of Fast Forward Austin. He is Program Director of Concert Composition and Composition Faculty at NYU, Steinhardt.

Composer and pianist. Zygmunt Krauze divides his work into four categories: the first is unitary music inspired by the paintings of Władysław Strzemiński; the second – spatial compositions performed in specially constructed interiors; the third – “music about music”, characterized by the presence of allusions and quotes; the fourth is subjective, deeply expressive “music of returning to the roots”. He is the author of 10 operas and over 100 orchestral, chamber and solo compositions. In 1967 he founded the band Warsztat Muzyczny, which he managed for 25 years and for which over 120 works were written by leading composers from around the world. He sat as a juror in over 50 international composers’ competitions. At the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he became an artistic advisor at IRCAM. In 1987–90 he was the president of the International Society for Contemporary Music, for two decades he was the chairman of the Polish section of this organization. He was awarded, among others, the French National Order of the Legion of Honor (2007) and the title Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1984), and in Poland the Knight’s Cross – The Order of Polonia Restituta (2014) and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (2010).

David Lang is one of the most highly esteemed and performed American composers writing today. His works have been performed around the world in most of the great concert halls. Lang’s the little match girl passion, commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, was recently listed by The Guardian as “one of the top 25 works of classical music written in the 21st Century.” His opera prisoner of the state (with libretto by Lang) was co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Rotterdam’s De Doelen Concert Hall, London’s Barbican Centre, Barcelona’s l’Auditori, Bochum Symphony Orchestra, and Bruges’s Concertgebouw, and premiered June 2019 in New York (conducted by Jaap van Zweden). Lang is a Professor of Music Composition at the Yale School of Music. He is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can. His music is published by Red Poppy Music and G. Ricordi & Co., New York (ASCAP) and is is distributed worldwide by the Universal Music Publishing Group.

Michael Laurello's music explores time, energy, and emotion, earning praise for its intricate structures and energetic qualities. His compositions have been performed by ensembles and artists including Sō Percussion, the Nashville Symphony, the U.S. Marine Band, the U.S. Army Band, and icarus Quartet. His music has been performed at major venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Bang on a Can Summer Festival. He studied composition at Yale School of Music and Tufts University and music synthesis at Berklee College of Music, working with mentors including David Lang, Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, and John McDonald. He's attended fellowships, residencies, and composer-development opportunities with organizations such as the Nashville Symphony, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and Avaloch Farm Music Institute. In addition to composing, Laurello works as a recording engineer and multimedia producer. He currently serves as Manager of Recording Services and Technical Engineer for the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University.

George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist. He serves as the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, the Area Chair in Composition at Columbia University, and the Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. Lewis is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in computer programs that improvise alongside human musicians. His scholarship focuses on experimental/computer music, interactive media, improvisation, and the intersectionality of music, race, gender, and decolonization. His acclaimed book A Power Stronger Than Itself received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. He has co-edited major works on contemporary and critical improvisation studies. Lewis has received several honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Artist Award, and honorary doctorates from leading academic and cultural institutions worldwide.

Liza Lim is an Australian composer, educator, and researcher whose music thinks with ritual, material agency, and environmental philosophy across the cultural lands of a more‑than‑human world. Her practice articulates relations rather than objects, braiding beauty and rage with female spiritual lineages into emergent ecologies of sound. Her large-scale cycle Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus has resonated globally for its urgent call to ecological listening. Lim’s music—spanning chamber and orchestral works and five operas—is published by Ricordi Berlin and widely commissioned by leading orchestras and ensembles. She holds the Sculthorpe Chair of Australian Music at the Sydney Conservatorium. In 2026, Lim received the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for her cello concerto A Sutured World, affirming her place as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary music.

Anthony T. Marasco is a composer, sound artist, and instrument designer who takes influence from the aesthetics of today’s Digimodernist culture. An avid builder and programmer, he creates electronic and augmented instruments as well as reactive and generative audiovisual software. His music and installations have been presented internationally at major electroacoustic and new-media festivals like the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) conference, the Networked Music Festival, the MoxSonic Festival, the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium and more. He’s received commissions from WIRED Magazine, the Elm Trio, smol ensemble, Phyllis Chen, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Toy Piano Composers, and Maureen Batt. He holds a Ph.D. in experimental music and digital media from Louisiana State University, and composition degrees from Towson University and Lebanon Valley College. Marasco is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Technology at Michigan State University.

Tanawat Naruepai, ZIa, (b.2004) is a Thai composer, graduated from Mahidol college of music, in

composition, under Dr. Tyler Capp, having previously studied under Dr. Narong Prangcharoen. His music focuses on an exploration of physical sound production often by means of modifying or extending the possibilities of an existing instrument or by discovering and utilising instruments from an overlooked source. His works focuses on “Destabilization” in any form possible. His composition has been performed in multiple festivals such as Int-Act, June in Buffalo, TICF, SPCCF and most recently the Suena festival in Vienna, premiering his piece “Los tres músicos” by Ensemble N. He is currently the director of Triphens Ensemble, curating multiple concerts focusing on contemporary music.

Shara Nova is a composer, vocalist, and producer currently creating from Detroit, Michigan. Shara has released six albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and has composed works for The Crossing, Conspirare, American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the Detroit Opera Educational touring company, among others. Many artists have sought out Nova’s unique vocal work, including David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Bocanegra, The Decemberists, Steve Mackey, David Lang, So Percussion, Justin Vernon, Sufjan Stevens, and Tunde Olaniran, as well as Matthew Barney with Jonathan Bepler. Her singing and compositions are featured on “The Blue Hour” via Nonesuch Records with the string orchestra A Far Cry and co-composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Caroline Shaw. Nova has been a guest teacher in composition and performance at Princeton, University of Michigan, Columbus State University Schwob School of Music, NYU, University of North Carolina, University of North Texas and University of Texas in Austin among others. Nova is a 2023 Opera America Discovery Grant awardee, Kresge Arts fellow, a Carolina Performing Arts Creative Futures fellow, a Knights Grant recipient, a United States Artists fellow, and a New Music USA recipient. 

Composer and writer Gemma Peacocke’s music blurs genres, weaving together chamber music, art-pop, electronic soundscapes, and orchestral power into something altogether her own. Her work often explores identity, haunting, folklore, and feminism, bringing together contemporary classical language with electronics and experimental textures. Peacocke’s music has been championed by Third Coast Percussion, ~Nois, eighth blackbird, Bang on a Can, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Auckland Philharmonia, among others. Peacocke’s major works include Waves & Lines, a song cycle based on Afghan landays for soprano Eliza Bagg, White Horses, co-commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony; The Threshold We Cross with Closed Eyes, commissioned and premiered by Third Coast Percussion at the Library of Congress; and Don’t You Trust Me?, written for brass and percussion and commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonia. Peacocke holds degrees from NYU Steinhardt, Victoria University of Wellington, and the New Zealand School of Music, and received a Ph.D. in composition and interdisciplinary humanities from Princeton University.

Cole Reyes (b. 1998) is a composer, educator, and arts administrator whose creative exploration delves into the intersection of individual human experiences and the broader world. His musical output is distinguished by a fusion of lyricism and rhythmic propulsion. Recent and upcoming performances include the JACK Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the United States Marine Band, Contemporaneous, Del Sol Quartet, the Lake George Music Festival, among others. Recent commissions include the National Orchestral Institute and Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Victory Players, and ARTZenter. Reyes has taught at the University of Michigan in the Composition and Music Theory Departments. His primary composition teachers include Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, Robert Honstein, Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng, Roshanne Etezady, Kristin Kuster, Evan Chambers, Christopher Stark, and LJ White. He is co-founder of Telos Consort, a professional chamber ensemble based in New York City dedicated to the performance and curation of new music that features saxophones, strings, and piano. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Michigan.

Adam Roberts writes viscerally compelling music with a vivid array of sonic resources. Roberts’ music has been performed by ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, the JACK Quartet, le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, andPlay, Transient Canvas, Ums ‘n Jip, Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble, violist Garth Knox, and at festivals such as Wien Modern (Vienna), Tanglewood, the Biennale Musique en Scene (Lyons), and the 2009 ISCM World Music Days (Sweden). Roberts is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Fromm Foundation Commission, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and other awards. Commissions have come from the Callithumpian Consort, the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble, pianist Nolan Pearson, the Tanglewood Music Center, Guerilla Opera, and others. Roberts holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (B.M.) and Harvard University (Ph.D), having studied with David Liptak, Augusta Read Thomas, Martin Bresnick, Steven Stucky, Bernard Rands, Julian Anderson, and Chaya Czernowin. He is currently Associate Professor of Composition at Kent State University.

Considered “one of the best of the younger American composers” (Chicago Tribune), EMMY®-winning and GRAMMY®-nominated composer and conductor Jake Runestad has received commissions and performances from ensembles and organizations such as VOCES8, Washington National Opera, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, the Pacific Symphony & Chorale, and many more. "The Hope of Loving,” the first album dedicated to Jake’s choral music, recorded by professional American choir Conspirare, received a GRAMMY® nomination. In 2019, Jake became one of the youngest composers ever awarded the prestigious Raymond C. Brock commission by the American Choral Directors Association. “Earth Symphony,” Jake’s ground-breaking choral symphony written with librettist Todd Boss, earned a 2022 EMMY® Award for musical composition. Jake Runestad holds a Master’s degree in composition from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts.

Born in Westfield, Massachusetts in 1938, Frederic Rzewski studied music with Charles Mackey of Springfield, and subsequently with Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, and Milton Babbitt. In 1960 he studied with Luigi Dallapiccola and met Severino Gazzelloni, with whom he performed in a number of concerts, thus beginning a career as a performer of new piano music. In Rome in the mid 1960s, together with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum, he founded the Musica Elettronica Viva group, which quickly became known for its pioneering work in live electronics and improvisation. Rzewski's largest-scale work to date is The Triumph of Death (1987-8), a two-hour oratorio based on texts adapted from Peter Weiss's 1995 play Die Ermittlung (The Investigation). From 1977 until his death in 2021, Rzewski was Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium. He also taught at the Yale School of Music, the University of Cincinnati, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California at San Diego, Mills College, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, and the Hochschule fur Musik in Karlsruhe. -Nonesuch Records

Erik Santos is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer and teacher, He is the Chair of the Composition Department at University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. Santos has received commissions, prizes, fellowships, and other recognitions for his concert music, including the prestigious 2020 Sousa-ABA-Ostwald Prize from the American Bandmasters Association, the Charles Ives Scholarship, awards from Broadcast Music Incorporated, and many more. Santos has become increasingly preoccupied with presenting music in venues other than the classical concert hall — dance clubs, street corners, theaters, churches, Internet, etc. — where there is more emphasis given to the interaction of music with other spontaneous sensory elements, involving listeners at the hub of a transdimensional experience. Santos completed 5 albums, music videos, and documentaries with his band, October Babies; He then became interested in filmmaking, and this led to the full-length movie Threshold: Whispers of Fukushima in 2015. These days, he's possessed by a fresh passion for practicing - learning unlearning, all day every day - memorizing poetry, investigating inventions of Bach and Bruce Lee, and Vince Gilligan, enjoying sound.

Dr. Matthew C. Saunders (born 1976) is a Northeast Ohio composer, conductor, trombonist, husband, and father. Dr. Saunders’ compositions have been performed across the country, including conference like the National Flute Association, the International Horn Society, and the Society of Composers. He has presented his research at conferences of the College Music Society and the Society of Composers, and at the Oklahoma Music Theory Roundtable and the Aspen Composers Conference. He received the 2007 Ruth Friscoe Prize for composition, the 2011 Oklahoma Music Teachers Association Commissioned Composer, and six ASCAP Plus Awards. Dr. Saunders is Professor of Music and the music and theater department chair at Lakeland Community College, where he also directs the Lakeland Civic Orchestra. He received degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and The Ohio State University. Dr. Saunders studied composition with Donald Harris, Thomas Wells, Jan Radzynski, and Wes Flinn, and trombone with Joseph Duchi and Tony Chipurn. Dr. Saunders’ music is published by Imagine Music and online at www.martiandances.com.

The music of composer Marilyn Shrude is characterized by its warmth and lyricism, rich timbre, multi-layered constructions, and complex blend of tonality and atonality. Shrude earned degrees from Alverno College and Northwestern University, and has served on the faculty of Bowling Green State University since 1977. Her prestigious honors are those from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Rockefeller Foundation, Chamber Music America/ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Sorel Foundation (Medallion Winner for Choral Music 2011), and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is also the first woman to receive the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for Orchestral Music and the Cleveland Arts Prize for Music. Active as a composer, pianist, teacher, and contemporary music advocate, Shrude has consistently promoted American music through her many years as founder and director of the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music (1987-99), as chair of the Department of Musicology/Composition/Theory at BGSU (1998-2011) and as coordinator of the doctoral program in contemporary music (2006-2024). Together with saxophonist, John Sampen, she has premiered, recorded and presented hundreds of works by living composers both in the United States and abroad. Guest appearances as a pianist and composer include tours to the Soviet Union, China, Japan, Belgium, South America, the Netherlands, France, and Armenia, as well as numerous performances in the United States.

Shelley Washington (b. 1991) writes music to fulfill one calling- to move. With an eclectic palette, Washington tells stories focusing on exploring emotions and intentions by finding their root cause. Using driving, rhythmic riffs paired with indelible melodies, she creates a sound dialogue for the public and personal discourse. Shelley performs regularly as a vocalist and saxophonist, primarily on baritone saxophone, and has performed and recorded throughout the Midwest and East Coast- anything from Baroque to Screamo. She holds degrees from Truman State University; a BA in Music focusing on saxophone, and a Masters of Arts in Education. She also holds a Masters of Theory and Composition from NYU Steinhardt, where she studied with Dr. Joseph Church, Dr. Julia Wolfe, and Caroline Shaw. As an educator, she taught for the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program, and was acting Artistic Director for the Noel Pointer Foundation, located in Brooklyn, NY. In the Fall of 2018 she began studies at Princeton University in pursuit of the PhD of Music Composition. Shelley is a founding member of the composer collective, Kinds of Kings.

Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor, Eric Whitacre, is among today’s most popular musicians. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his works are performed worldwide, and his ground-breaking Virtual Choirs have united well over 100,000 singers from more than 145 countries. Among his recent accolades and awards, Eric received the Richard D. Colburn Award from the Colburn School and an Honorary Doctor of Arts from Chapman University (CA). Eric served consecutive terms as Artist in Residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and currently holds the position of Visiting Composer at Pembroke College. He’s also an Ambassador for the Royal College of Music in London and is proud to be a Yamaha artist. A widely respected conductor, Eric has worked with the world’s leading choirs and orchestras including the Minnesota Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A charismatic speaker, Eric Whitacre has given keynote addresses for many Fortune 500 companies, in education and global institutions from Apple and Google to the World Economic Forum in Davos and the United Nations Speaker’s Program. 

Hao Zhen is a composer, pianist, and filmmaker. Her work explores sound as a material and relational process of transmission, engaging touch, distance, and sympathetic resonance across acoustic and multimedia contexts. Her chamber opera The Lullaby, created in collaboration with Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and director Lindy Hume, received four performances in Sydney in 2024 and was featured in Limelight. Her work has been presented at the Klangspuren Creators Lab, Critical Sounds Festival, and Sydney Art Song Festival, and has been performed by artists and ensembles including the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, ~Nois Quartet, Flinders Quartet, and Heather Roche. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition and Sound Practices at the University of Chicago.