Robbie Lee

Robbie Lee is a New York City based pianist, vocalist, composer and educator whose spectacular ability to merge his equal talents make him one of the most exciting emerging artists to date. Growing up in Tucson, AZ Lee was encouraged by his mother to find music he enjoyed. Falling in love with earlier blues and rock and roll music, Robbie eventually found jazz as a new way to express himself. Through joining the Tucson Jazz Institute, Lee was exposed to a broad range of jazz from Traditional to Post-Bop styles. Eagerly gathering information from the plethora of this music, Lee was encouraged to develop his own voice and keep an open mind.

---

Gelsey Bell

Gelsey Bell is a singer, songwriter, and scholar - a composer-performer, teacher, and sound artist. She has been described by the New York Times as “one of New York’s most adventurous musicians” and the “future of experimental vocalism.” She performs regularly as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, culling from a wide range of techniques and styles to create her own performance works, to literally voice those of contemporary composers, and to explore improvisation.

---

Keir GoGwilt

Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, composer, and musicologist who was born in Edinburgh and grew up in New York City. His work combines historical research and collaborative experimentation. As a violinist he has been described as a "formidable performer" (New York Times) with an "evocative sound" (London Jazz News) and "finger-busting virtuosity" (San Diego Union Tribune). In past seasons he has soloed with groups including the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Chinese National Symphony, Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the La Jolla Symphony. A founding member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), he has performed original, collaboratively-devised music, dance, and theater works at 92NY, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Luminato Festival, PS 122 COIL, Stanford Live, American Repertory Theater, Carolina Performing Arts, Momentary, Monday Evening Concerts, and the Ojai Music Festival.

---

Coleman Itzkoff

Hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for his “flawless technique and keen musicality,” cellist Coleman Itzkoff enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. Recent season highlights include solo performances with the Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, American Youth Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and chamber music performances at Caramoor, YellowBarn, Union College, and Marlboro Music Festival. Coleman demonstrates versatility and command of a wide variety of musical styles, equally comfortable with Renaissance and Baroque music played on period instruments as he is with the eclectic and evermore technically challenging music of today.

---

Keita Ogawa

Hailing originally from Sasebo city, Nagasaki, Japan, Keita Ogawa is 5 times Grammy nominees and 3 times Grammy Award winner and one of the most versatile and sought-after percussionist and drummer in New York City.

He started his music career on drum set at the age of 15.

After performing regularly in Tokyo for several years, Keita decided to pursue his musical studies overseas. He was accepted into the prestigious Berklee College of Music in fall of 2005 where he studied with legendary musicians and educators Manuel “Egui” Castrillo, Jamey Haddad, Tito De Gracia, David Rosado, and Mark Walker. Seeking full immersion into the world of Brazilian percussion, Keita relocated to Rio de Janeiro for 3 months and studied with the some of the country’s most respected musicians- Jorginho do Pandeiro, Celsinho Silva, Kiko Freitas, and Marcio Bahia among others.

---

Ariel Horowitz

Hailed by The Washington Post as “Sweetly Lyrical,” violinist, composer/songwriter, and community organizer Ariel Horowitz cannot remember life before loving music.

In 2020, Ariel joined the Concert Artists Guild roster for North American management, and enjoys an active touring schedule as a soloist and as one-half of Vision Duo, an ensemble formed with fellow CAG artist Britton-René Collins in 2021.

As a composer, songwriter, and avid improviser, Ariel's original music centers themes of healing, community, and liberation. They have performed their compositions and songs around the world, including at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.

---

James Moore

James Moore is a composer, guitarist, and bandleader who has earned the titles of “local electric guitar hero" by Time Out New York and "model new music citizen" by The New York Times. He enjoys an active career writing, performing, and collaborating with an eclectic community of artists, bringing in influences from classical, folk, jazz, indie rock, and experimental music.

Moore’s concerto for electric guitar and orchestra, Sleep is Shattered, which he premiered as composer and soloist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, was praised by the Chicago Tribune as “… a highlight among highlights, not only for Moore’s sharp-eared handling of the solo guitar lines and loop pedals but his remarkable orchestral writing.” In this piece–originally written for the influential guitarist Marc Ribot–as in many of his projects, Moore enjoys bringing together unique entities and developing a collective language.

---

Conner Simmons

Conner Simmons is a double bassist, composer, and computer musician from Denton, Texas, living in NYC. Described by composer and vocalist Annika Socolofsky as “the perfect blend of soup and stew,” their music sifts through quiet sounds and fragile textures to conjure sparse, atmospheric, improvisational chamber music. Performance engagements of theirs include seasons with the Shreveport Symphony, the NY debut of Chris Cerrone’s opera In a Grove, where they performed live electronics with Metropolis Ensemble, and a run of shows as principal bassist for the Martha Graham Dance Company production of Rite of Spring. Recordings of their playing can be heard on Texas-based experimental music labels Sawyer Editions and Full Spectrum and on the world premiere recording of Julius Eastman’s Symphony No. 2 (forthcoming).

---

RAJAS Ensemble

Founded in 2013 and taking on various configurations over the years, RAJAS brings together stellar improvisers at the confluence of multiple musical approaches. "Rajas" is a Sanskrit word for the human quality that compels us toward action, creation, and change.

Described as “unlike any other on the scene” (New York Times), and having “wedded beauty by courting chaos, with the methods of loose-knit latter-day jazz at the service of a recognizably South-Asian melody and pulse” (Financial Times), the ensemble explores expansive resonances among South Asian music, jazz and creative music, and other improvisational forms.

While primarily working with Rajna's original compositions as points of departure, the music is born from a collaborative process centering mutuality and multiplicity. The ensemble's debut album, Of Agency and Abstraction (Biophilia Records, 2019), received much critical acclaim, and their newest album, Apertures, is out now (Ropeadope, 2023).

RAJAS has performed in prominent New York venues such as the Jazz Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center Atrium, and Roulette Intermedium.

---

Horacio Fernández

Horacio Fernández composes classical music by day and writes pop songs by night. He is a Mexican artist that engages diverse audiences in both the concert stage and online, where he makes music for an audience of thousands. He is currently completing his master's degree at The Juilliard School. He has received commissions by Albany Symphony, the New Juilliard Ensemble, collaborated with esteemed artists such as Zlatomir Fung, the Oregon Symphony, David Allan Miller, Tony Glausi and is currently producing music for several promising young artists in the Latin music scene.

---

Nina Young

Nina Young

Composer and sonic artist Nina C. Young (b.1984) creates works, ranging from acoustic concert pieces to interactive installations, that explore aural architectures, resonance, timbre, and the ephemeral. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aizuri Quartet, Sixtrum, the JACK Quartet, and wild Up. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize, Nina has received recognition from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri, Fromm, the Montalvo Arts Center, and BMI. Recent commissions include Tread softly for the NYPhil's Project 19, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and a multimedia performative installation piece for the American Brass Quintet and EMPAC’s EMPAC’s High-Resolution Wave Field Synthesis Loudspeaker Array. Young holds degrees from MIT, McGill, and Columbia, and is an Assistant Professor of Composition at USC's Thornton School of Music. She serves as Co-Artistic Director of NY-based new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical.

---

Xinyang Wang

Xinyang Wang

Born in Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province, China, Wang Xinyang is a composer of classical music, currently based in Pittsburgh. He holds a bachelor's degree from Sichuan Conservatory of Music and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music both in music composition and theory.

Xinyang takes inspiration from a broad spectrum of influences, such as traditional Chinese arts and its Western concert music. He’s been awarded numerous prizes in composition and has worked with many eminent interpreters. Recently he was announced as a first prize winner in the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award for his orchestral piece Boréas. The piece was performed on January 19 2021 at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall in a performance by conductor Yasuo Shinozaki and the Tokyo Philharmonic.

---

Meng Wang

Meng Wang

Wang Meng (王萌）is a Chinese composer currently based in Cincinnati. Her music has been performed internationally by notable orchestras and ensembles, including Brussels Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Columbus Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, MSM Composer's Orchestra, China Youth Symphony; Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Longleash Trio, F- Plus Ensemble, among others. Wang was a composer fellow at Aspen Music Festival, Cabrillo Music Festival, and was selected to participate in 2019 ['tactus] Young Composers Forum with Brussels Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra EarShot readings in 2018. Recent commissions include a percussion ensemble piece for Shanghai Symphony in Chamber Concert series and a piano concerto for CCM Concert Orchestra, which will get its premiere in spring 2022.

Wang is currently pursuing her DMA in composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of music under the guidance of Prof. Douglas Knehans. She earned her Master's degree at Manhattan School of Music. Her primary instructors include composers Wenchen Qin, Reiko Füting, and Andreia Pinto Correia.

---

Sugar Vendil

Sugar Vendil

Sugar Vendil is a composer, pianist, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking, known as Brooklyn. She started her artistic life as a classical pianist, and after spending nearly a decade searching for her own voice, her practice evolved into performances that integrates sound, movement, and unconventional approaches to the piano. She writes and performs her own solo music for piano and electronics and has a keyboard/synth duo, Vanity Project, with composer Trevor Gureckis. Vendil is a proud second generation Filipinx American.

Vendil was awarded a 2021 MAPFund grant to support Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia. Recent commissions include Chamber Music America to write a new work for her ensemble, The Nouveau Classical Project, which she founded in 2008; ETHEL’s Homebaked 2019 for Unsacred Geometry, and ACF | Create to write for Box Not Found.

Vendil loves dancing and collaborating with other makers. In September 2020, she danced in choreographer Emily Johnson/CATALYST’s The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better – Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s) at Socrates Sculpture Park. She is part of Johnson’s Being Future Being process, which showed at Bates Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow in July 2021. Vendil took part in premiering composer-saxophonist Darius Jones’ LawNOrder at The Stone and Being Caged in ICE (2018) at Roulette.

She has performed at a variety of venues, ranging from arts spaces such as BAM Fisher, Dixon Place, Knockdown Center’s Ready Room, MoMa PS1, National Sawdust, the New School’s Glassbox Theater, The Stone, and Roulette; to galleries and spaces such as The Development Gallery, Milk Studios, and Spring Studios.

Vendil is an advocate of the oxford comma, is obsessed with her cat Coco, and has an excellent memory.

---

Tengku Irfan

Tengku Irfan

Malaysian-born Tengku Irfan has appeared around the world as a pianist, composer, and conductor, and has been praised by The New York Times as “eminently cultured” and possessing “sheer incisiveness and power”. Irfan has performed with orchestras worldwide with conductors Claus Peter Flor, Neeme Järvi, Kristjan Järvi, David Robertson, Robert Spano, Osmo Vänskä, George Stelluto, Jeffrey Milarsky, among others. His compositions have been premiered by highly-acclaimed orchestras and ensembles, and have won international awards including three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards in 2012, 2014, and 2017.

Irfan started his piano lessons at age 7 and developed an interest in composing shortly after. His major debut performance was at age 11, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto in E flat (Wo04) with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Claus Peter Flor, where he improvised his own cadenzas for all three movements.

Other performance highlights include the Juilliard Orchestra, AXIOM, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Sao Paulo State Youth Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Peoria Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, and a solo recital at the la Virée classique Festival Montréal, on invitation from Kent Nagano. Irfan also won the Aspen Music Festival Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.2 Competition in 2013, and was resident pianist for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble for four consecutive years since 2014.

Irfan’s career as a composer has garnered three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards and a Charlotte Bergen Award with performances and premieres by orchestras such as the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Peoria Symphony Orchestra and the MDR Simfonieorchester. His orchestral composition titled Keraian, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, with Case Scaglione conducting.

Irfan was a double major in piano & composition in the Juilliard Pre-College program (under Yoheved Kaplinsky & Ira Taxin). He currently studies at the Juilliard School as a double major in piano & composition under Yoheved Kaplinsky and Robert Beaser respectively, and also studies conducting with Jeffrey Milarsky and George Stelluto. Irfan served as Teaching Artist Intern for the New York Philharmonic Composer’s Bridge Program, and is a proud recipient of the Juilliard School Kovner Fellowship Award.

---

Tom Morrison

Tom Morrison

New York native Tom Morrison (b. 1992) is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Morrison draws his inspiration from the experience of place. Recent projects include new works for leading new music groups, including the Aizuri Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Latitude49, Sö Percussion, and Contemporaneous. Upcoming Projects include new works for the New Jersey Symphony; Albany Symphony’s new music chamber orchestra, Dogs of Desire; and new electroacoustic works for Theo Van Dyck and Parker Ramsay. Recently, his work has been released on Eric Huckin’s album, Drifter. He was the winner of the 2016 Thailand International Composition Festival Competition judged by Mark Adamo, Aaron Jay Kernis, and John Corigliano. More recently, he won first place in the 2021 Symphonia Caritas Competition. Morrison is a graduate of the Juilliard School (MM) where he studied with Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Christopher Rouse. He is also a graduate of the University of Montana (BM), in Missoula, where he cultivated his love for nature and the environment. He holds an MFA from Princeton University, and is currently a PhD fellow at Princeton.

---

Jared Miller

Jared Miller

Described as a “rising star” by MusicWorks magazine, JUNO-Nominated composer Jared Miller has collaborated with the American Composers Orchestra, the Victoria and Nashville Symphonies, the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Toronto, Detroit and Edmonton, The Attacca Quartet, Latitude 49, the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, the Emily Carr String Quartet and Standing Wave. His music has been featured and recognized in the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial (2014), the ISCM World Music Days (2017 & 2019), Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival (2010, 2015 & 2019), and the Festival Internacional de Jóvenes Orquestas (2019.)

Recent accolades include SOCAN’s Jan V. Matejcek Award, young composer prizes from the SOCAN and ASCAP Foundations, and a nomination for the 2020 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. He has also held residencies at the Banff Centre, I-Park’s International Artist-in-Residence Program, and with the Victoria Symphony from 2014-2017.

An advocate for musical education and outreach, Miller has taught and performed in several initiatives including The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Connects Program, BC’s Health Arts Society, Vancouver’s Opera in the Schools, and New York’s Opportunity Music Project.

Miller holds Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Juilliard School where he studied with Samuel Adler and John Corigliano. He has also studied at the University of British Columbia with Stephen Chatman, Dorothy Chang, Sara Davis Buechner, and Corey Hamm. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Dalhousie University.

---

Jihyun Kim

Jihyun Kim

Jihyun Kim's music has appeared in the prestigious venues around the world, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Harris Hall in Aspen, DiMenna Center, Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence Italy, and Seoul Arts Center in Korea.

Jihyun’s works were performed by eminent ensembles such as the American Composers Orchestra, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Cornell Symphony Orchestra, Cornell Festival Orchestra, Tanglewood New Fromm Players, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, JACK Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Society for New Music, Asciano Quartet, Switch Ensemble, Karien Ensemble, and Chanticleer LAB Choir, and were featured in the Underwood New Music Reading, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Mayfest, USF New Music Festival, Midwest Composers Symposium and Korean Music Expo.

Jihyun was selected as the winner of the Consortium Commission from American Composers Orchestra/Alabama Symphony/American Youth Symphony, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, the League of Composers/ISCM Composers Competition, the American Prize in Orchestral music, the Libby Larsen Prize, PUBLIQ Access, Florence String Quartet Call for Scores, the 32nd Chang-ak Composition Competition, the Otto R. Stahl Memorial Award/ Russell Distinguished Teaching Award from Cornell University, and received honorable mentions from Red Note New Music Composition Competition, TEMPO New Music Ensemble Call for Scores, among many others.

Jihyun is currently a doctoral candidate in Composition at Cornell University. Jihyun previously earned MM degree in Composition from Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University while serving as an Associate Instructor in Music Theory, and BM degree in Composition from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

Jihyun recently joined the Oberlin Conservatory as Visiting Assistant Professor in Composition. She previously taught at the Washington State University as Lecturer in Composition.

---