Electronic Composer-Improviser
(He/They)

Alex Bernhardt is a circuit-bent keyboardist, percussionist, and tinkerer. He uses a modified Casiotone keyboard as a playground of sounds and limitations that guide his compositional process. His music attempts to explore textural families while embracing the inherent elements of chance. Alex spends much of his time mining his instrument for sounds he hasn't heard before.   

Sound artist, composer, singer/songwriter
(She/her)

Sara Bouchard is a multidisciplinary artist and composer working at the intersection of song and the landscape. Through site-specific installation, performance, music composition, sound and video, she brings into focus local ecologies through the lens of song. Born in Stockton, CA, she received her BA in painting from Yale University in 2003. She was subsequently based in Brooklyn, NY, for 13 years where she embedded herself in her local community through socially engaged art practices and American roots music. In 2017 she relocated to Richmond, VA, to study with sound artist Stephen Vitiello, receiving her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, CT), The Center for Book Arts (NYC), The American Folk Art Museum (NYC) and Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival (Richmond, VA). She is currently an Adjunct Professor in VCU’s Kinetic Imaging & Sound program.

Composer, Flutist, Audio Engineer
(she/her)

Aleyna Brown is a contemporary American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and audio engineer based in Denton, TX.  In her role as an artist and entrepreneur in the music industry, Aleyna is an advocate of inclusive concert programming and the exploration of feminism in art.

As a composer, Aleyna writes and codes electroacoustic and mixed-media solo and chamber music. Much of her music serves to both celebrate and recontextualize ideas of beauty and femininity. Aleyna is also an active contemporary music flutist specializing in electroacoustic performance. She performs with the NOVA new music ensemble at the University of North Texas where she currently attends as a dual-masters student. She also works as a recording, mixing, and mastering studio engineer and as the Assistant for the Music Business & Entrepreneurship program. Aleyna earned her three bachelors degrees from the Florida State University College of Music. In 2019, Aleyna released her debut independent album, “EXHALE.”

Composer, Improviser, Pianist
(He/Him)

Stefan Brown is a late-bloomer composer/improviser/pianist.  In music, he is substantively without history, connections, or a pedigree. One could be forgiven if one were to conclude, without further reference, that he is an imposter. Ha ha ha! During the recent Afro-Diasporic Opera Forum, Stefan mused aloud whether he has been intentional enough in defending and supporting Black art and institutions that have come under assault or that have otherwise not been allowed to flourish. Since he was born Black—and there would never be an escape—he’s been inclined to take such things for granted. He dwells in the crevices of the double consciousness. But for the sake of this program he is starting in the posture of an un-Blacked.  He otherwise has no shame in drawing from the credibility of others:  “Pooling Light”…and just how did she build those exquisite harmonies, anyway?

Composer
(he/him)

Busevín is a composer interested in developing new forms of computer creativity based on collaborative intelligence. In these works, he explores different ways in which technology can be used inclusively and critically. Creating hybrid inclusive networks where everybody can join and participate in a collaborative and creative way. Machines and humans are inclusively integrated into collaborative networks to resolve creative problems. His works have been premiered mainly in computer music conferences and electroacoustic music festivals such as the New York City electroacoustic music festival or the Seoul International Computer Music Festival.

Composer-Improviser, Electroacoustic Musician, Koto Player
(she/her)

Marie Carroll is an American composer-improviser, electroacoustic musician, and koto player. Her work is influenced by natural phenomena and explores themes of liminality and transience. She enjoys using analog synthesizers and effects units. Marie’s work has been performed by Hub New Music, the Schallfeld Ensemble, the Parker Quartet, Transient Canvas, NEC Wind Ensemble, Philipp Stäudlin, and Rane Moore. In 2020, Marie completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard, where she studied composition under Claire Chase, Chaya Czernowin, Felipe Lara, and Hans Tutschku. She is currently a graduate student at the New England Conservatory, studying composition under John Mallia and Stratis Minakakis.

Cellist, Singer
(she/her)

NYC-based cellist, singer, and improviser Iva Casian-Lakoš (she/her) performs across the US and Europe with interdisciplinary, genre-bending ensembles Synesthetic Project, hear|say, and Ensemble Illyrica. Iva’s versatile repertoire ranges from classical cello to boundary-stretching new works, involving choreography, singing, acting, and improvisation. Iva enjoys performing commissioned pieces by composers such as Joan La Barbara, Wang Lu, David Crowell, Erika Dohi, and Mak Murtic. She also collaborates with visual artists, videographers, and dancers in interdisciplinary projects, often via the Vienna-based artist collective Synesthetic Project. Recent performance highlights include giving the world premiere of a piece written for Iva by Joan La Barbara at Bang on a Can Marathon, Ensemble Illyrica’s debut at Scena Amadeo (Zagreb), and choreographed productions by Synesthetic Project as singer and cellist at Hidalgo Festival (Munich).

Performer, Improviser, Soundmaker
(she/her/hers) 

Dorothy is a performer, improviser, and soundmaker. A new-music advocate, she enjoys exploring experimental repertoire and new sounds on the piano, prepared piano and toy piano, and integrating them with electronics and visual reactive elements. She is the founding member of the award winning toy piano electronic ensemble Chromic Duo, and chamber collective ensemble mise-en, and has dedicated her time in premiering, performing and recording new works. Dorothy values promoting and collaborating with multidisciplinary artists and composers for new projects and premieres, to create programs that are responsive yet intimately reflective.

Violinist
(she/her)

Hannah Christiansen (she/her) is the violinist and artistic director for the Zafa Collective, a Chicago-based new music ensemble. With Zafa, Hannah has been a Sponsored Artist of High Concept Labs and an Artist in Residence at Northwestern University. Also an active teacher, she has been a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago and for the past three years has been awarded grants from the Negaunee Music Institute to lead long term composition workshops in Chicago Public Schools and with the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiatives. Hannah recently completed her tenure as a Fellow with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory and Northwestern University, where she studied with Milan Vitek and Gerardo Ribeiro.

composer, arranger, keyboardist, bandurria player
(he/him)

Jimuel Dave T. Dagta is a composer, arranger, keyboardist, and bandurria player. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Composition at the University of the Philippines, graduating class valedictorian of the College of Music in 2016. He studied composition under the tutelage of Professor Josefino “Chino” Toledo. In February 2013, he was one of the top 15 finalists from 637 entries when he joined the International Federation for Choral Music Choral Composition Competition. In March 2015, his composition “Pulso” for Flute and Orchestra was featured in the Musik Underkonstruktion of the Metro Manila Concert Orchestra. In November 2015, the same piece was performed by the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, where it won the Yoshiro Irino Composers Prize as a featured work in the 33rd Asian Composers League Festival. In 2018 he was a finalist for the Banaue International Music Composition Competition. Currently, he is taking his master’s degree in music composition at Michigan State University College of Music under Alexis Bacon and Ricardo Lorenz.

Bassoonist
(he/him/his)

Alexander Davis (He/His/Him) is a New York City based freelance bassoonist. He has performed with orchestras and series such as Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, and CityMusic Cleveland to name a few. He has attended summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Banff Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Maine Chamber Music Seminar, and Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. In addition to performing, Alexander is the founder and artistic director of the Sugar Hill Salon Chamber Music series based in the rich and vibrant black community of Harlem, NY. An advocate of creating cross-cultural influences in the arts, Alexander founded this series to create more space to highlight underrepresented black and brown woodwind players. Alexander is on the bassoon faculty at the Maine Chamber Music Intensive and Usdan Summer Arts, Administrative Manager of Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and a teaching artist at the Park Avenue Armory.

Flutist
(she/her)

Teresa Díaz de Cossio is a flutist, improviser and teacher. Currently a DMA student at UC San Diego, flute teacher at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. From the beginning of her musical endeavors, she was inclined to reach out for meaningful engagements with communities through her creative practice, an iteration is her work as co-organizer/founder of the Festival de Música Nueva, Ensenda. Currently, her research examines the life and work of the composer, teacher and pianist Alida Vázquez Ayala (1931-2016) and explores how Vázquez navigated race, gender and transnational networks in her teaching, performance and compositional work between Mexico and New York.

Accordionist
(She/Her/Hers)

Manca Dornik is a Slovenian accordionist, who graduated with honours in 2021 at the Sibelius Academy (class of Matti Rantanen), and also as minor subjects conducting, pedagogy and composition. She has performed in Slovenia, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Finland and participated at many international competitions where she won several first and second places and prizes. She has played as soloist with many orchestras, including Jeaner Philharmonie, RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, and Slovak Sinfonietta Žilina, among others. She has performed at various festivals as both soloist and chamber musiciansincluding Imago Sloveniae, Jeunesses Musicales Slovenia, Linea concerts in Strasbourg, and Darmstadter Ferienkurse, among others. Manca is also a performer of Nyky ensemble of Sibelius Academy, ensemble UMUU, duo km². Manca's endeavours have been granted and supported by numerous foundations, such as Ministry for Culture Slovenia, Kone Foundation Finland, Sibelius Academy Foundation, MES Finland etc.

Cellist, Composer, Improviser 
(they/them or she/her)

India Gailey (she/they) is a cellist, composer, and improviser who crosses many eras and genres. She is most often encountered performing in the realms of classical and experimental music, though she is also known to sing, make visual art, and write poems. Pinned as a “young musician to watch” (Scotia Festival), she has performed across Canada, the USA, and Germany as a soloist and collaborator. She has worked with several much-admired composers of our time, including Philip Glass, Michael Harrison, Yaz Lancaster, Anne Lanzilotti, and Nicole Lizée. She is also a member of the environmental quartet New Hermitage, which recently released their fifth album, Unearth, to critical acclaim. Following her 2017 solo album Lucid, India will release a new album of contemporary cello music in 2022. She holds numerous honours, including awards from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, the Canada Council for the Arts, and McGill University. 

Composer, cellist, vocalist
(she/her/hers)

April Dawn Guthrie (she/her/hers) is an LA based composer/cellist/vocalist originally from Kansas City. Guthrie’s creative practice strives to highlight injustices, and to reflect upon and pay homage to dissenters. Through performing and recording cello she has worked with Björk, The Industry, WildUp, Angel Olsen, Amanda Palmer, Blue Planet II, BBC's Big Cats, the Alan Parsons Project and more. In 2019 her composition and collaboration with Matthew Paul Olmos of so go the ghosts of méxico, part three was recognized for Best Original Music/Songs of 2019 by Theatre Jones. “Music is an integral part of Olmos’ trilogy, and Guthrie’s score somehow manages to ground the story while also giving flight to the characters.” Residencies/Fellowships: Composer in Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Nautilus/New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Hammer Museum LA Artists Residency, Center Theater Group Playwright Workshop (collaboration), The Assembly’s Deceleration Lab, Westben's 2021 Performer/Composer Residency.

Clarinetist
(she/her)

Michelle Hromin is a New York based Croatian-American clarinetist specializing in contemporary music. She recently collaborated with the Metropolitan Opera and countertenor Anthony Roth Constanzo to give a preview performance of Philip Glass’s opera Ahknaten at the Brooklyn Museum and with Lisa Bielawa in her Broadcast From Home series. To promote her Croatian heritage, Michelle recently launched Kalendar: 12 Miniatures for Solo Clarinet, a year-long project that aims to bring attention to the South Slavic region of Europe. Through her collaboration with Macedonian-Canadian composer Michael Spiroff, Michelle will premiere 12 new miniatures based on the 12 months of the Slavic Calendar over the course of 2021. She is passionate about teaching, commissioning new works, improvising, and interconnecting her work as a clarinetist with different artistic disciplines.

Pianist, composer, creator
(She/her/hers)

Hanna Inui is an early career Japanese musician, residing in Brooklyn, NY. Making one moment of note last forever is the aim of Hanna’s music.  She approaches as a sound designer would, creating what she thinks the space needs.  Her established skill in creative composition and arrangement led her to collaborating with Maya Milenovic Workman and Reggie Workman for their Guggenheim Fellowship Awarded theatre project, Ophelia’s Ocean, contributing as a performing pianist and arranger. Double Features (formally known as Hanna Inui Quiet Quartet) is one of her newest works, which experiments with acoustic and electronic composition bind together with bluetooth headphones. Hanna’s music and videos are influenced by sounds of nature, language, and what she thinks the space needs. Hanna has a bachelors from The School of Jazz at The New School and Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. In her non-musical life, she predominantly explores contemporary dance and movement.

Violinist, Performer, Creator
(she/her/hers)

Anna Jalving (1991) is a danish violinist, performer and creator currently based in Aarhus, Denmark. An active performer of new music, Anna has premiered works and toured throughout Europe with national and international ensembles and with her own creative projects DUO and Toile. With an innovative approach to sound and instruments - originating from Anna's work with her main instrument, the violin - her work unfolds in the field between tradition and renewal, virtuosity, intuition, the score and the improvisational.

Violinist, Writer, Composer
(he/they)

Fiercely committed to the music of our time, violinist, writer, and composer Giancarlo Latta is interested in the intersection and convergence of music old and new, a passion he explores principally as a member of the acclaimed New York-based Argus Quartet. He has performed in venues as diverse as the Rothko Chapel (Houston), Royal Albert Hall (London) for the BBC Proms, and Neubad (Lucerne, Switzerland), a converted swimming pool. Recent highlights include Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series with Argus, duo performances with flutist Claire Chase in Houston, Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain and the U.S. premiere of Liza Lim’s opera Tree of Codes at the Spoleto Festival USA, and residencies at Yellow Barn and Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation. Giancarlo studied with Paul Kantor at Rice University and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago. He loves books, birds, and coffee.

Jazz keyboardist
(he/him/his)

Hyo-Sung Lee is a Brooklyn based jazz keyboardist/pianist from Seoul, South Korea.

His music is based on contemporary jazz and electronic. He had many experiences as a band member and a solo musician. He is currently playing live clubs, restaurants, cafes, and bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Currently, he is studying at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music at The New School (major), and Mannes School of Music (minor).

Composer, Improviser, Creator 
(She/Her/Hers)

Yiseul LeMieux is an NYC-based multidisciplinary artist originally from South Korea. Her work is based around musical elements, text, sound, pictures, and moving images used to create an experience of collaboration and engagement. Since 2017, she has been creating multidisciplinary programs for children, adults, and animals. Fish Bar Over 21, a large-scale installation/performance piece designed and curated by LeMieux has been performed in multiple locations in the U.S. including Louisiana State University. In 2019 her Distance, Relationship and Response involved a collaboration with the McNeese State University’s Agriculture Department. Recently, she designed an interactive application for mobile devices called Index of Heartbreak using mixed mediums. As a pianist, she has performed in Romania, Ireland, South Korea, and the United States, and her music compositions and other visual works have been played throughout the United States. In 2021, Amplify Theatre Collective premiered The Ultimate Manual, her first work as a playwright. She holds a BA and MA in piano performance.

Vocalist, Songwriter & Theatre Maker 
(she/her/hers) 

Laura Lizcano is a Colombian-born vocalist, songwriter, and theatre maker based in Philadelphia. Influenced by artists like Norah Jones and Natalia Lafourcade, Lizcano combines her formal training as a jazz vocalist with her love for folk and pop music. She follows her self-released debut EP, Chance on Me (2018), with her first full-length studio album, Heart (2020). Her first original theatre piece, Rhopalocera, will premiere as an independent show at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in the fall 2021.

Composer, Performer
(she/her) 

Luo, Jing Jing a native of Beijing, China, is a prolific composer and performer who was described as one of “the first generation of avant-garde composers... whose music muses over the remote past and then depicts the results of her cultural wealth of reflections...” by the music critic from the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Recently, New York Times critic Steven Smith wrote that her new work “Tsao Shu” was “suspended stark, deliberate daubs, fidgets and jolts against copious silence...” Luo’s musical language connects East and West and transcends traditional boundaries. She has received a commissioning award from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, three times of artistic fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and dozens of other awards. Luo is celebrated in both her homeland and the West for her distinctive and original musical language. The American Academy of Arts and Letters praised her as “...expressive, a fascinating mixture of sources, and exciting virtuosity. ...refining her special language with each new score...” Ms. Luo was a composer-in-residence with the American League Orchestras and Music Alive with the Princeton Symphony (2015-16), and a recipient of Discovery Grant Award for Female Composers supported by The Virginia Toulmin Foundation from The National Opera Center America (2015-16). Her music can be heard in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Germany, France, England, Greece, Israel, Japan, Mexico, and Hong Kong. The China National Publishing House, New World Records, INNOVA, CRI, Innocent Eyes & Lenses, Subito Music Corp, Ravello Records LLC and the C.F. Peters Publisher. Luo was a Visiting Professor in Music Composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2001-04. She has served on the panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music of America, Ohio Arts Council. In addition, she has taught and lectured throughout the United States and around the world. She resides in Brunswick, Maine.

Cellist and interdisciplinary artist
(he/his)

René (1993) is a cellist, composer, songwriter and poet from México. He studied cello in Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia (México), and a Master in Contemporary music performance in the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem (Israel), under the guidance of the Meitar Ensemble. He has performed in festivals such as Festival Internacional Cervantino, Festival Internacional de Música de Morelia, Festival Alfonso Ortiz Tirado, Fiestas del Pitic, CEME Festival (Tel Aviv), Summit Music Festival (New York), Mixtur (Barcelona) and International Conference of Live Coding. He has performed with contemporary ensembles such as Academia Cervantina, Tedarim Ensemble, Meitar Ensemble, and created Ensemble de la Raza; with classical groups such as Trío London, Camerata de Morelia and Stretto; and with interdisciplinary groups as Grupo de la Calle. He has won some poetry slam events and published some of his poetry in different magazines.

Composer, Flutist, Choreographer, Dancer, Improviser
(She/Her/Hers)

Annie Nikunen is a NYC-based composer, flutist, choreographer, dancer and broadcaster. An active improviser and collaborator, she performs in various styles, and is a founding member of BlackBox Ensemble. Her work ranges from concert music and field recordings to dance and film, exploring connections between composition and choreography as well as physicality of sound in relation to movement and space. Nikunen composes and choreographs about collective human experiences that are paradoxically individualized, striving to make her work broadly relatable yet deeply personal. Choreography is vital to her compositional process, where she utilizes ballet, modern and contact improvisation. She is a company member of Periapsis Music and Dance, and has produced work in spaces from the stage to galleries to Central Park. Nikunen will be pursuing an MM in Composition at NYU, and holds a BA in Music from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she studied composition with Georg Friedrich Haas, Seth Cluett, Ellie Hisama and Mahir Cetiz, and flute at Manhattan School of Music with Tara O’Connor. She is also a DJ at WKCR.

Cellist
(she/her/hers)

Isidora Nojkovic is a Serbian-Canadian cellist who performs internationally as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has a passion for contemporary music, having premiered over 50 works, and is active in commissioning and working with living composers. She has appeared at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, Harpa Music Festival in Iceland, Ottawa Chamberfest, Belgrade International Cello Festival, the Scotia Festival of Music with Lynn Harrell in Canada, and Spoleto Festival USA. She has also completed two tours with Lincoln Center Stage, performing in twenty-two countries as part of a piano quintet.

Producer, Composer, Live Performance Artist
(she/her)

Trovarsi is an LA based music composer/producer, live electronic artist, educator, and streaming YouTube host. Over the past decade, Trovarsi has released her music on a wide variety of notable electronic music labels. Her work transcends genres, cultures, and boundaries, yet also authentically and reverentially embraces many creative traditions. With a hybrid blend of modular and analogue synthesizers, drum machines and Ableton, Trovarsi embraces Afrofuturistic electronic expression while remaining firmly planted by her musical roots. Trovarsi is co-founder of the Southern California Synth Society, whose purpose is to educate and facilitate interest in electronic music through synthesizers, modular DIY builds and community events. She also founded the international streaming festival Frequency Shift, featuring female and gender expansive electronic artists.  Additionally, Trovarsi produces Faders Up, an online monthly interview/performance show highlighting unique artists in electronic music.  Whether performing in the LA underground or on global streaming platforms, Trovarsi continues to push the boundaries of electronic music.

Multidisciplinary Artist, Improvisor
(she/her/hers)

Bonita Oliverutilizes multiple mediums as a performance artist and improviser. Her work is about transitions – the process of moving through. Bonita creates deeply emotional, body-in-space, concept art through voice, music, environmental soundscapes, and movement with a motivation to heal personal and ancestral trauma and make way for discovery and connection. Her mission is to engage the community through ritual, co-creation, education, and activism. Bonita’s process is in the moment and responds to stimuli – be it internal or external – through embodiment and interaction. Her live works exhibit this process in real time. Bonita (who also performs under the name French Leave) is originally from Springfield, Massachusetts. She is an actress, playwright, multi award winning filmmaker, member of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA), New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT), Women of Color Unite (WOCU), and a 2021 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council/Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation (LMCC/UMEZ) grants recipient for Seeking Truth - a virtual interactive experience examining the real and imagined voices of Sojourner Truth.

Beatboxer, Co-creator of ?this is my Body

Nicole Paris, Beat-box Artist, Music Composer, Chef, Actress & Public Figure, gained notoriety and millions of fans when a YouTube battle against her Mentor and Father, Ed Cage, went viral within hours of its release. Mixing vibrantly energetic unique beats, Nicole’s freestyle compositions instantly gained worldwide acclaim. Born and raised in Missouri, Nicole’s appreciation of beatboxing and developing her own unique sounds began at an early age. After graduating from Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina she returned home to be acclaimed as “The Best Female Beatboxer in Saint Louis “, she quickly gained a strong local and regional following. 

Today, she is recognized among a new crop of artists revitalizing and changing the face of Hip Hop. Sparring live on ABC’ s Good Morning America and CBS Late Late Show with James Corden, she was crowned the new face of beatbox by popular vote with Doug E. Fresh, Rahzel and other well-known beatboxers hailing her natural talent. Nicole’s copulated revitalizing beats landed her a spot in the first ever BeatBox cypher for the BET 2015 Hip Hop Awards, a starring role in Dance Camp, a musical composer for various commercials and the new rebrand face for TV One. In 2016 the viral video continued to flow in the social media atmosphere to help pivot Nicole to a higher level in the entertainment industry. She will soon become an author with the publishing of her first children’s book, continue to tour, hold beatboxing performances/workshops with her pops and release the 1st ever BeatBox Album.

Composer, electric guitar improviser
(she/her)

Guadalupe Perales (1992) is a Mexican composer, currently focused in sound improvisation using the electric guitar and effects pedals as her main tool. Also, having mixed-media music as one of her biggest interests, she's currently collaborating with performers Eva Zöllner (accordion; Germany), Sylvia Hinz (recorder; Germany) and Alma A. Rodríguez Romero (saxophone, Mexico) in the creation of solo works with electronics. She's a member of Las Montoneras collective, along with 11 fellow women composers and performers, aiming for the collaborative creation and promotion of works by Mexican women musicians; as well as New Composers of Mexico, also looking for the promotion of works by young Mexican composers. She's the coordinator for female composers, performers, sound artists and interdisciplinary artists at Festival Expresiones Contemporáneas. Guadalupe has also been particularly drawn towards Chinese culture and music, and continues her Composition studies with Chinese pipa player and composer Gao Hong.

Bassist, Improviser, Sound Artist, Researcher, Interdisciplinary Collaborator
(she/her)

Sadie Powers is a bassist, an improviser, a sound artist, a researcher, and an interdisciplinary collaborator living on the unceded land of the Osage people (Pittsburgh, PA). She is a founding member of Triptychs, a musique concrète ambient duo, and Eko Chamber Collective, an improvisational electroacoustic ensemble. She has been the touring bassist for Shearwater (Sub Pop) since 2015. Her composition, Wick (for French horn, water glasses, and electronics), which explores the nature of gaslighting by intentionally creating and requiring that the performers respond to an exploited unequal power dynamic, was recorded in Spring 2018 by the avant-garde trio How Things Are Made and appears on the trio’s album, HTAM S3E09. In 2019, Powers collaborated with PearlArts Studios, sound artist Bonnie Jones, and visual artist Barbara Weissberger on sound design for sym., a dance piece inspired by Octavia Butler’s vampire novel, Fledgling, and she composed and performed the score for Linkt, a dance film by Joy-Marie Thompson and Sherah Shipman, about the complicated relationship between a Black woman and a white woman. She has performed with members of Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Thor & Friends, Lucy Dacus, Battle Trance, Shadow Age, How Things Are Made, and The Real Sea, and serves on the board of directors for Girls Rock! Pittsburgh. Powers is currently researching, writing, and recording her first solo record, entitled Spolia, a meditation upon the nuances of queer rage and desire, inspired by and in conversation with the works of Elizabeth Grosz and Louise Bourgeois, as well as with her 100-year-old house, which she is slowly renovating.

Violinist, improviser, composer
(he/him)

Fabián Rangel, mexican violinist, a constant student and practitioner on concert music, free improvisation and experimental music. He studied classical violin with Dr. Elwira Krengiel at the Escuela Superior de Música, INBAL. CDMX, as well as Musical Analysis with composer Jorge Torres Sáenz and Contemporary and Experimental Music with Alexander Bruck and Wilfredo Terrazas. Creator and director of the “Shilti” project, from 2012 to the present, a project dedicated to the production and diffusion of improvisational practices, experimental music and reflection on these practices. As an interpreter, he has premiered several pieces by local composers, either for solo violin or in ensemble, trying to assist composition students during the writing process in modern and contemporary violin techniques. As an improviser, he has played with musicians / improvisers from the national and foreign scene to generate works of collective creation or simply casual sound encounters. His interests in musical composition are based on the interaction processes with other musicians / improvisers through different communication mechanisms, to obtain a result based on the horizontality of the sound organization, thus creating scores or compositions of collective creation, in order to put the role of the composer in another place where he is more of an “organizer” and / or “spectator without expectations.”

Cellist, Composer, Musical Storyteller (The Cello Doll)
(She/Her/Hers)

Carolyn’s calling to music began with the cello at age 8, and accelerated to a principal chair at age 11 and a concerto competition prize at age 15. She earned a Dual Bachelor’s in Performance and Composition, and a Master’s in Performance from Boston University. Carolyn has soloed with the New England Repertory Orchestra, Nashua Chamber Orchestra and has appeared at Tanglewood, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Recently, Carolyn graduated with her Performance Diploma from Mannes, studying with Yehuda Hanani. In addition to live performance, Carolyn has an online presence as “The Cello Doll.” Her Instagram reached 12K followers within one year, and her YouTube channel has surpassed 115K views. She produces music videos that give classical works a visual narrative, or combine complementary pieces of popular & classical music. Through her multimedia, arrangements, and compositions, Carolyn uses the power of context to translate classical music for modern audiences.

Composer, Sound Artist, Pianist
(he/him)

Jeremy Rosenstock is a composer, sound artist, and pianist based in Los Angeles, California. His principal teachers and mentors include Michael Pisaro, Wolfgang Von Schweinitz, Tim Feeney, Clay Chaplin, Jonathan Dettling, Stan Link, Michael Slayton, Michael Alec Rose, Craig Nies, and Gabriela Lena Frank. His music has been read, recorded, and/or performed by the Isaura Quartet, Nathalie Joachim, Duo Cortona, Lucia Mense, and So Percussion. Jeremy received his MFA in Experimental Sound Practices from CalArts and his BM in Piano Performance (with a concentration in composition) from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. His artistic interests include composing and improvising with natural objects, field recording, feedback systems, and just intonation.

Flutist, Composer
(she/her/hers)

Originally from Colorado, Jessica Shand (she/her) is a performer-composer and rising senior at Harvard and the New England Conservatory, where she studies mathematics, computer science, and music. Most recently, she worked as a research analyst for the Artistic Freedom Initiative and the Advisory Board for the Arts, and served as the 2020-21 President of Harvard College Opera. Her current research interests include low-dimensional topology, artificial creativity, and the intersection of digital technology and cultural production. As a classically trained flutist, she has premiered dozens of works and has been fortunate to be mentored by such flutists as Paula Robison, Claire Chase, and Brook Ferguson; other creative influences include Vijay Iyer and Yvette Jackson. She is a Wm. S. Haynes Co. International Young Artist.

Period and Modern Hornist, Researcher, Composer
(He/Him/His)

Hailing from New Zealand, London-based musician Isaac Shieh has truly made Europe his own, with an extensive list of performances across the vast continent. Regarded as one of his generation’s leading exponents on period horn playing and an ‘era-defining’ musician, his work takes him around the globe; exploring repertoire and instruments from early 18th Century through to the present day. In 2018, Isaac was on trial with Paris-based contemporary ensemble Le Concert Impromptu, regarded by the Washington Post as ‘the finest French wind quintet’, before becoming a member of Haydn Philharmonie and Paraorchestra. In addition, Isaac works regularly with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie and Chineke! Orchestra amongst others, and has also performed as a soloist at the British Horn Society Festival Gala Concert and in front of HRH Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall at Llwynywermod. Isaac is currently pursuing a PhD at Royal Academy of Music, London, in which he aims to extend the hand horn playing tradition by commissioning 12 new works by 12 composers that reflect the capabilities and aesthetics of our time.

Kamancheh Player, Composer
(she/her)

Niloufar Shiri is a kamancheh player and composer from Tehran, Iran, trained in Iranian classical music. Niloufar is a graduate in kamâncheh performance of the Tehran Music Conservatory and received her bachelor degree with honors in composition from UC San Diego. She is an imaginative interpreter of Iranian music and uses story-telling and poetry as a source of inspiration for her deeply textural and often ghostly music. Her compositions use aspects of contemporary Iranian poetry to incorporate the enigmatic complexity of Iranian literature and culture. As a kamancheh player and composer, she has received commissions and collaborated with numerous ensembles and festivals inside and outside of the United States including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Mostly Mozart, Tehran Contemporary Music Festival, Atlas Ensemble among others. In conjunction with her studies at UC San Diego, she has also been directly studying and researching Iranian classical music with the research team of maestro Hossein Omoumi at UC Irvine and in 2012, the research received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology at UC Irvine.

Mezzo-soprano, Co-creator of ?this is my Body
(she/her)

Katherine Skovira, mezzo-soprano, is Artistic Director of SoundLAB, the contemporary music ensemble (previously the Barnes Ensemble), and Zeller Chair of Opera at Willamette University. She has performed masterworks of 21st- and 20th-century works under the artistic direction of Sir Simon Rattle, Maestro Lorin Maazel, and Barbara Hannigan and with the Lucerne Festival Academy, Bard Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival. Her focus is thoughtful performance and curation of instrumental, chamber, operatic and lyric theatre performance as a collaborative and reflective living art form. Skovira has collaborated with numerous composers and institutional partners, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, American Philosophical Society, American Composers Forum, University of Pennsylvania, and the Barnes Foundation. Skovira holds degrees in vocal performance and pedagogy from Cornell University, Westminster Choir College, and the University of Minnesota.

Skovira co-directs SoundLAB with Music Director Robert Whalen. The Philadelphia Inquirer says of the pair: “The diabolical enthusiasm of Katherine Skovira and Robert Whalen left me nearly begging for mercy...the artistic equivalent of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.” Whalen and Skovira have collaborated on multiple projects since the early 2000s, most recently in Philadelphia to launch the Barnes Ensemble in 2017 and SoundLAB in 2018, and ?this is my Body since 2020.

Singer
(she/her)

Singer of beautiful and wild sounds. Working for equity in the arts and beyond.

One of CBC's 2017 "30 Young Hot Classical Musicians under 30," Canadian soprano Alexandra Smither is an adventurous performer and committed advocate for equity in classical music and beyond. Especially at home in contemporary repertoire, her 2018 New York debut at the Baryshnikov Arts Center of Luciano Berio’s “Sequenza III” saw her called “an extraordinarily adept soprano, one who can shriek, gurgle, cackle, mutter, gesture, and declaim as well as sing beautifully." Select collaborations include the Boston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, the Banff Center, Against the Grain Theatre, and the Tanglewood Center. When not singing, she works for West Street Recovery, a non-profit in Houston focused on building community power and disaster relief. She is also an organizer with Stop TxDOT I-45, a group opposing the expansion of the I-45 freeway into Houston's historic communities of color. She is represented by Justin Werner at Stratagem Artists.

violinist, sound artist, teacher, researcher
(she/her)

Leslee Smucker is committed to inter-media project performances, sound experimentation, creative academic research writing, teaching, and artistic collaboration. As a violinist, sound artist, teacher, and researcher, her projects have been presented at venues including Association Philomuses in Paris, Auditorium Clarisse in Italy for the International Pound and T.S. Eliot Conference, Center for New Music in San Francisco, and The Scottish Library (presented by University of Edinburgh’s Cantos Project). Her work has been featured in Project Audire, New Music Gathering, and Interference Series. She is Lecturer in Music at University of Colorado Boulder and will be in a one-year course at the Institute of Sonology in the Hague during 2021-22.

Violinist
(she/her)

American-born violinist Sophia Stoyanovich (1996) has captivated audiences since her premiere at age ten with the Bremerton Symphony. She has soloed with numerous orchestras and has performed across North America, Europe, Russia, China, and Vietnam. Upcoming engagements for the 2021-2022 season include debuts with the Santa Monica College Symphony performing Beethoven Violin Concerto, appearances on the Crocker Art Museum, Southern California Consortium of Chamber Music, and Dame Myra Hess Memorial concert series, and the release of her debut album, American Elegy, with Orpheus Classical in January of 2022, featuring the Serbian-American compositions of her father Patrick Stoyanovich. This summer she will perform at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Four Seasons Chamber Residency, and Zermatt Music Festival, as well as join the rosters for the International Contemporary Ensemble Evolution and The Next Festival of Emerging Artists. At the heart of her current projects, Stoyanovich co-hosts the podcast series American Stories with pianist Derek Wang. American Stories examines and celebrates American identity through music in performance, illuminated by personal histories and reflections from featured guests of all walks of life. American Stories is currently supported through Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant and the New York Community Trust. Stoyanovich received both her Bachelor and Masters of Music from The Juilliard School and has studied under the tutelage of Li Lin, Mark Steinberg, and Sylvia Rosenberg. Ms. Stoyanovich is an active educator in the New York area and performs on a 1930 Berger violin made in New York City.

Digital/Analog workstation artist
(he/him)

I’m interested in the proximity of repetition and trance. For me, these elements are like droplets on a surface: one slight change in the balance renders them as one. Or as another.  That moment of fusion produces a chaos where bars and notes mean less than the music being made. I like to live in that space.

The pandemic has reoriented my compositional practice to extend towards the production techniques involved in making a work for the internet. Microphone technique, latency, video-taking (framing, lighting, costume), headphones (what and how the player ensembles with playback), file exchange and assembly, etc. are all, for me, deep sources of expressive materials. I find the challenge presented by engaging with more of the medium’s elements an extremely effective way to avoid the sometimes perfunctory nature of the audio/visual “concert,” a way to escape the stale smell of mere documentation. 

Multi-Instrumentalist, Educator, Composer
(he/him/his)

Elijah J. Thomas (he/him/his, M.M. Music Education, B.M. Jazz Arranging/Composition) is a Black Philadelphia-born, Harlem-based multi-instrumentalist, educator and composer. He has studied performance/improvisation with Dick Oatts, Tim Warfield, Jr. and Walter Bell, and composition/arranging with Dr. Cynthia Folio, Kevin Rodgers, and Dr. Maurice Wright. Elijah creates “enuff music”: music for Black healing, spiritual awareness, and community. Elijah has held numerous teaching positions and has led four recorded projects: enuff music, vol. i (EP, released with Off Latch Press), Our Search (LP), and Diversity (EP) & The Unity of Sound (LP) with The NeW Quintet.

composer, performer, interdisciplinary artist and collaborator
(SHE/THEY)

C. Olivia Valenza is a composer, clarinetist/performer, interdisciplinary artist and collaborator from Milwaukee, WI. Her work includes improvisation, installation, sound design for dance, and the development of electroacoustic and acoustic concert music. In addition to the clarinet Valenza has developed and performed works for turntable, electronics, and various materials recently including leaf blowers, maps, and walkie-talkies. She has also composed site specific works for electric guitar, clarinet, cello, and metal sculpture. Valenza is currently based in Vancouver, BC, expanding her research/practice as an MFA candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Composer/conductor, Co-creator of ?this is my Body
(he/him)

Whalen was personally selected by Lorin Maazel to serve as his Conducting Fellow at the Castleton Festival and has worked as Assistant Conductor at the WDR in Cologne. Whalen has previously served as the Director of the Chamber Orchestra at the University of Chicago.  As Conductor of the Contemporary Music Workshop at the University of Minnesota, Whalen led numerous regional and world premieres including Grisey’s Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil and Helmut Lachenmann’s Zwei gefühle…Musik mit Leonardo. Whalen began his collaboration with Opera Philadelphia in 2019 as Assistant Chorus Master, and prepared the choruses for mainstage productions of The Love for Three Oranges, Semele, and Verdi’s Requiem. A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Whalen has collaborated with many leading composers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky and Grammy-winning composer Augusta Read Thomas, Chaya Czernowin, Zosha di Castri, Clara Iannotta and many others. 

A native of New York, Whalen earned a BA cum laude from Cornell University, a master’s degree from the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota.

Interdisciplinary Artist, Composer/Performer
(he/him/his)

Chris Ryan Williams is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based between NYC and LA often found collaborating with contemporary improvisers and experimentalists. His work explores the dyad of ancestral trauma and power existing in all Black Americans. Investigating this has led to the creation of the modular piece I Ain’t Got No Spare (2019) which interweaves performance, homemade electronics, sound and projection; shown at Clockshop and Shatto Gallery through CultureHub’s Refest 2019. Selected projects include: mehahn (2018) a theatrical meditation on grief and hereditary dissonance created alongside director Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Sans Soleil a duo with Patrick Shiroishi on Astral Spirits (2021), On The Platform (2020) a collaboration with percussionist Booker Stardrum and animator Miranda Javid which premiered in the Netherlands at West Den Haag and Of Yours (2021) a modular collage piece recontextualizing Black voices. Williams has received grants and/or been in residence with BANFF Centre for the Arts, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, CultureHub, Atlantic Center for the Arts, WasteLAnd, and others.

Violinist, Improviser
(He/him/his)

Adam Woodward is a passionate advocate for contemporary music. He recently produced a microballet, Alternate Voices, with Neil Thornock, and with a Barlow Endowment commission collaborates with Craig Woodward on a concerto for violin and electronics. He has performed for Loop38, Hear&Now, the Lucerne Festival Academy, the Shepherd Contemporary Ensemble, and Composer’s Conference CPI. Adam studies with Paul Kantor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Former teachers include Monte Belknap, Alex Woods, and Erin Keefe. An experienced chamber musician, Adam was an Artist Resident in Minneapolis with a Madeline Island Chamber Music quartet in 2018. Besides music, he enjoys studying languages and reading.