Composer Paola Prestini has cultivated a uniquely expansive and humanistic musical voice, through pieces that transcend genre and discipline, and projects whose global impact reverberates beyond the walls of the concert hall. Far more than just notes on a page, Prestini's works give voice to those whom society has silenced, and offer a platform for the causes that are most vital to us all. Prestini has been named one of the Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music by the Washington Post, one of the top 100 Composers in the World by National Public Radio, and one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Year by Musical America. As Co-Founder of National Sawdust, she has collaborated with luminaries like poet Robin Coste Lewis, visual artists Julie Mehretu and Nick Cave, and musical legends David Byrne, Philip Glass and Renée Fleming, and her works have been performed throughout the world with leading institutions like the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Dallas Opera, London's Barbican Center, Mexico's Bellas Artes, and many more.

Praised for its “intricate structure” with “hints of thrashing and angularity” (The Wall Street Journal), Michael Laurello’s compositional work reflects his fascination with temporal dissonance and emotional immediacy. It has been presented at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, MATA, PASIC, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, North American Saxophone Alliance, National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc., and other venues and festivals. His music has been featured by ensembles such as icarus Quartet, Bluecoats, "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, The U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own," Nashville Symphony, Sō Percussion, HOCKET, Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, Yale Percussion Group, and Ensemble Repercussion featuring the Duisburger Philharmoniker and Deutschen Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz. 

His recording and mixing work is focused on contemporary classical music and can be heard on labels such as Furious Artisans, Albany, Equilibrium, New Focus, Red Piano Records, and MSR Classics featuring collaborative partners including Vic Firth/Zildjian, icarus Quartet, Quince Ensemble, Hypercube, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Bowling Green Philharmonia, Dan Piccolo, Yevgeny Yontov, Solungga Liu, Cole Burger, and many others. He believes deeply in the capacity of the production approach to accentuate the conceptual framework of a musical composition or interpretation.

Laurello studied composition at Yale School of Music and Tufts University, and music synthesis at Berklee College of Music. His mentors include David Lang, Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, and John McDonald. Honors include a residency at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, a commission from the American Composers Forum, a Nashville Symphony Composer Lab Fellowship, selection for the EarShot Berkeley Symphony Readings, and a Baumgardner Fellowship and Commission from the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He has attended the highSCORE and Etchings composition festivals, and was a fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival.

Laurello works as a freelance composer and engineer, and as Manager of Recording Services and Technical Engineer for the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University.

Elliot Carter (December 11, 1908 - November 5, 2012) is internationally recognized as one of the most influential American voices in classical music, and a leading figure of modernism in the 20th and 21st centuries. He was hailed as “America’s great musical poet” by Andrew Porter and noted as “one of America’s most distinguished creative artists in any field” by his friend Aaron Copland. Carter’s prolific career spanned over 75 years, with more than 150 pieces, ranging from chamber music to orchestral works to opera, often marked with a sense of wit and humor. He received numerous honors and accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize on two occasions: in 1960 for his String Quartet No. 2 and in 1973 for his String Quartet No. 3. Other awards include Germany’s Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize and the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award. Carter was the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, and is one of a handful of composers inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. He was recognized twice by the Government of France: being named Commander of the “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” and receiving the insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor in September 2012.

Born in New York City, Elliott Carter was encouraged towards a career in classical music by his friend and mentor Charles Ives. He studied under composers Walter Piston and Gustav Holst while attending Harvard University, and later traveled to Paris, studying with Nadia Boulanger. Following his studies in France, he returned to New York and devoted his time to composing and teaching, holding posts over the years at St. John’s College, the Peabody Conservatory, Yale University, Cornell University, and The Juilliard School, among others.

Carter’s early works, such as his Symphony No. 1 (1942) and Holiday Overture (1944), are written in a neoclassical style — influenced by his contemporaries Copland, Hindemith, and Stravinsky. After the Second World War, in works such as his Cello Sonata (1948) and String Quartet No. 1 (1950-51) he began to develop a signature rhythmic and harmonic language, which he continued to refine to the very end of his life. Igor Stravinsky hailed his Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto (1965) as “masterpieces.”

Carter wrote many pieces based on literature throughout his career, setting texts by acclaimed American poets such as John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, John Hollander, Robert Lowell, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. A creative burst of imagination began in earnest during the 1980s with works such as Night Fantasies (1980), Triple Duo (1982-83), Penthode (1985), and major orchestral essays such as his Oboe Concerto (1986–87), Three Occasions for Orchestra (1989), Violin Concerto (1990), and Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–96). Carter’s only opera, What Next? (1997–98), with a libretto by Paul Griffiths, was introduced by Daniel Barenboim, a champion of the composer’s music, in Berlin in 1999, and has since been produced at Tanglewood, in Munich, New York, Vienna, Melbourne, Montpellier, and Duisburg. Carter’s remarkable late-career creative burst continued at an astonishing rate, encouraged by commissions from Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Oliver Knussen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, James Levine and the Boston Symphony, the Aldeburgh, Lucerne, and Tanglewood Festivals, and ensembles from Boston to Seattle, and London to Ljubljana. Carter composed more than sixty works after the age of ninety including his Cello Concerto (2000), Of Rewaking (2002), Dialogues (2003), Three Illusions for Orchestra (2004), Mosaic (2004), and In the Distances of Sleep (2006).

In his final years, Carter continued to complete works with astounding frequency, including Interventions for piano and orchestra (2007), Flute Concerto (2008), What are Years (2009), Concertino for Bass Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra (2009), and The American Sublime (2011). Carter’s last completed orchestral work, Instances (2012), was premiered by the Seattle Symphony in February 2013. His final work, Epigrams (2012) for piano trio, was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2013.

Adam Har-zvi is a composer and double bassist whose music focuses on rich counterpoint and the intersection between patient lyricism and rhythmic drive. His pieces have been performed by groups such as The Toledo Symphony, The Lansing Symphony, The 21st Century Consort, the Mivos Quartet, and The Wind Ensemble Society of New York City. His music has received awards from the National Federation of Music Clubs, The Ohio Federation of Music Clubs, the International Horn Society and the NJ Arts Collective. He holds degrees from The Cleveland Institute of Music, UMass Amherst, and Bowling Green State University.  His compositional catalog includes works for orchestra, wind ensemble, vocal, chamber, solo, and electroacoustic works.

As a bassist, Har-zvi is a member of the chamber quintet, Newphonia, which commissions several pieces annually and gives numerous performances throughout the United States. As part of Newphonia's Newfound Works Initiative, Newphonia collaborates with high school and college composition departments to foster educational opportunities and the creation of new compositions. Newphonia has performed recitals and/or residencies at Western Illinois University, Louisiana State University, Interlochen School for the Arts, and Bowling Green State University. Har-zvi is a section member of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, and performs regularly with the Adrian, Ashland, Mansfield, and Toledo Symphony Orchestras. He additionally works as a recording engineer, photographer, videographer, and soccer referee.

He has studied composition under Jeremy Allen, Christopher Dietz, Mikel Kuehn, Elainie Lillios, Salvatore Macchia, Marilyn Shrude and Kate Soper, and double bass under Salvatore Macchia, Bob Rohwer, and Derek Zadinsky. Har-zvi is currently finishing his doctoral dissertation, entitled A Goat, a Dog, and a Turkey Walk Into a Cantata: Text Setting in Charles Wuorinen’s It Happens Like This.