Shining a Light

Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon

Errollyn Wallen

H. Leslie Adams

H. Leslie Adams (b. 12/30/32, Cleveland, Ohio) composer of the music drama Blake, has worked in all media, including symphony, ballet, choral, vocal solo and keyboard. Adams’ works have been performed by the Prague Radio Symphony, Iceland Symphony, Bufalo Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony and New York City Opera. He has been commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and Cleveland Chamber Symphony, among others. Metropolitan Opera artists have performed his vocal works internationally. Adams earned degrees from Oberlin College (Conservatory of Music), Long Beach State University and Ohio State University. He is listed in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., International Who’s Who in Music and Musicians; Who’s Who in American Music Classical, and Who’s Who in America. Adams is winner of the “Life Achievement Award” of the Cleveland Arts Prize; “For his career as musician and composer”.

Earl Louis Stewart

Earl Louis Stewart was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1950. His musical studies began with the piano when he was six. At twelve, he added trumpet and won numerous honors for his playing ability. His skill with the trumpet and his ear for music allowed him, in his teens and early 20s, to play with and do musical arrangements for pick-up bands with visiting entertainers to the area - such as Percy Sledge, Syl Johnson, King Floyd and Garland Green. He received his BS in Secondary Education from Southern University, Baton Rouge, studying under Walter Craig and the late jazz great Alvin Batiste in its Jazz Institute. He then received his MM and DMA in Composition from The University of Texas at Austin, studying with such luminaries as ethnomusicologist Gerard Behague, composers Karl Korte and Joseph Schwantner, and world-renowned orchestrator and author of Counterpoint (the late) Kent Kennan. Composer and Conductor... Dr. Stewart was greatly influenced by the Modern Jazz Quartet. For the past 40 years, he has been concerned with the application of advanced counterpoint to jazz and jazz derived styles. This group was significant to him because they combined jazz with baroque music. Dr. Stewart stated that the art of counterpoint is the combining of melodies into a higher unit, creating a harmony between them. Europeans were masters of that technique and early European music was based on it. The music was principally polyphonic. As quietly is it’s kept, much African-derived music that we enjoy as a staple of our popular culture is also, fundamentally polyphonic. The rhythmic nature of it makes it so. By combining rhythm and melody in certain ways in the vernacular, one finds that baroque music is compatible. Understanding this principle has resulted in his creation of literally dozens of jazz fugues, inventions, and other contrapuntal creations in the style of African and African-derived music. Dr. Stewart’s works have been performed in venues in Louisiana, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, Alabama, North Carolina, California and Africa. The Second Annual Louisiana Composers’ Symposium, presented by The New Orleans Public Schools Jazz Artist In Residence Program, presented Stewart’s "An Appropriate Title" (Identity 6) in 1975 performed by jazz great Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley, along with the Southern University Percussion Ensemble. In addition to conducting, Dr. Stewart’s compositions have been performed by soloists Brenda Wimberly and Carolyn Sebron; and jazz artists Jullian 'Cannonball' Adderly, Alvin Batiste and Kent Jordan. Ensembles who have performed his music include the Southern University Chorus (Baton Rouge, Louisiana); the Southern University Jazz Orchestra; the Boston Orchestra and Choral (Massachusetts); the Scott Joplin Orchestra of Houston (Texas); the University of California Jazz Orchestra; the Mobile Symphony Orchestra (Alabama); and members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. The 1984 premier of his oratorio Al-Inkishafi (Identity 14) (The Soul’s Awakening), a choral symphonic setting of an East African (Kiswahili) poem, was performed in Austin, Texas. It featured the Austin Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Sung Kwak; distinguished Mezzo-Soprano Barbara Conrad with the Metropolitan Opera; internationally known choreographer and master of African dance Chuck Davis; the Southern University Chorus of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; English narrator the nationally renowned actor Moses Gunn; and Kiswahili narrator John “Mtembezi” Inniss, along with local dancers. He served as conductor and artistic director of the Boston Orchestra and Chorale from 1987-1991 and as guest conductor with the Scott Joplin Orchestra of Houston, Texas. In addition, he had conductorial performances with the UCSB Jazz Orchestra. In 1991, Dr. Stewart was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the Republic of Ghana in West Africa, where he served as conductor and composer in residence with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana. He conducted Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana and composed several works during his tenure there, including "Tribute to Juneteenth" [renamed Juneteenth Symphony (Identity 34:1)], "Fruits of Austerity" (Identity 34:2), and "Afterthought" (Identity 34:3). “Come Kiss Me Sweet and Twenty" (Identity 33a) the first movement of Three Jazz Songs (Identity 33) based on the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, had its premiere performance by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana. It featured soloists Margaret Ferguson and Theodora Mensah of the National Academy of Music, Winneba, on April 25, 1992, at the Accra International Conference Centre. Dr. Stewart arranged and conducted his American Independence Day Suite (Identity 34:4), which was performed at the American Independence Celebration on July 4, 1992, held at Bud Field, Accra, Ghana and sponsored by the American Embassy in Ghana. This work is an arrangement of traditional American patriotic and popular songs for symphony orchestra. New York soprano Carolyn Sebron commissioned "Amina" (Identity 25:1), a work using English and Swahili texts, for a special concert of contemporary music. The concert was held in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and was sponsored by the ISCM of New York in collaboration with pianist Eliza Garth. “An Evening of Chamber Music,” in affiliation with North Carolina A & T State University and the North Carolina Music Academy of Greensboro, 2001, saw the performance of Stewart’s "Nakupenda" (Identity 19:2), which is a Kiswahili word meaning 'I love you.' It was originally written as a jazz ballad and was originally premiered at Dillard University in 1997 by flutist Kent Jordan. Concerts named after Stewart’s work "Nakupenda" have been given on Valentine’s Day 2002, 2004 and 2006 at the University of California Santa Barbara. The 3rd Annual Nakupenda Concert: Eclectic Musings, featured original compositions by Dr. Stewart, along with his poetry and a short story. Jazz pianist Richard Thompson (San Diego University), pianist Jeremy Haladyna (College of Creative Studies, UCSB) and author/poet Donald Bakeer performed. The 4th Annual Nakupenda Concert: Bach in the Hood, features his afro-inventions, fugues, and more. Both concerts are currently being aired on UCTV. See: http://www.uctv.ucsb.edu/series/sound.html Pianist Erin Bronski performed Stewart’s "Afro Inventions" (Identity 38.1) at the Concert with Emma Lou Diemer held September 23, 2012, at the Valley of the Flowers United Church of Christ, Lompoc, California. In addition, his "Blues Fugue in A Minor" [Identity 162b (previously incorrectly identified as Identity 34.1)] was included in The DaPonte String Quartet’s “Made in America Series,” which toured select cities in Maine, Summer 2014. Works have also been performed at such venues as the Heineken Jazz Festival in Tel Avid, Israel; Milsaps College; Dillard University (New Orleans); Saenger Theatre (Mobile, Alabama); Brooklyn Conservatory of Music (New York); The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Louisiana); the Sixth Annual Biennial International and Symposium Festival on New Intercultural Music, University of London, Institute of Education (England); the University of New Orleans Performing Arts Center Recital Hall (Louisiana); and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York. Dr. Stewart is a prolific composer. having written more than 150 major and minor works. More to come...

Jennifer Higdon

Molly Joyce

Jennifer Higdon

Molly Joyce

Molly Joyce

Quinn Mason

Quinn Mason (b. 1996) is a composer and conductor based in Dallas, Texas. He currently serves as Artist in Residence of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He also recently served as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Classical Roots composer in residence for 2022 (the youngest composer appointed to that role) and as KMFA's inaugural composer in residence. Quinn has been described as “a brilliant composer just barely in his 20s who seems to make waves wherever he goes.” (Theater Jones) and "One of the most sought after young composers in the country" (Texas Monthly). His orchestral music has received performances by many renowned orchestras in the US, including the San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony, Utah Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO-USA), New World Symphony, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Experiential Orchestra, Mesquite Symphony Orchestra, Wichita Symphony Orchestra, South Carolina Philharmonic, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Canton Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, Symphony San Jose, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, the River Oaks, Reno, Mission and Lowell chamber orchestras, youth orchestras of Los Angeles, Central Kentucky, Vermont, Rhode Island, Memphis, East Texas, Omaha, Seattle and Dallas, Scotland's Nevis Ensemble, Italy's Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, UK's Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra and numerous others. As a conductor, Quinn has guest conducted numerous orchestras, including the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, Harmonia Orchestra, MusicaNova Orchestra and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. In April 2023, he debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and he also recently served as the Houston Ballet Orchestra's youngest ever guest conductor. Quinn studied conducting at the National Orchestral Institute with Marin Alsop and James Ross, and with Christopher Zimmerman (Fargo-Moorhead Symphony), Kevin Sütterlin (Fox Valley Symphony), Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra) and Will White (Harmonia Orchestra). He also counts Richard Giangiulio (Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra), Edwin Outwater (San Francisco Conservatory) and John Axelrod (City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra) as mentors. His chamber music has been performed and presented by celebrated organizations such as Voices of Change, Midsummer's Music, The Cliburn, One Found Sound, loadbang, MAKE trio, Atlantic Brass Quintet, Axiom Brass, and the Cézanne, Julius, Invoke and Baumer string quartets. His solo music has been championed by distinguished soloists such as David Cooper (principal horn, Chicago Symphony), Lara Downes (pianist), Holly Mulcahy (concertmaster, Wichita Symphony) and Jordan Bak and Michael Hall (viola soloists). His compositions for winds have been performed by the Cobb Wind Symphony, Encore Wind Ensemble, Metropolitan Winds, and bands of Southern Methodist University, University of Texas, University of North Texas, Texas Christian University, Penn State, University of Toronto, University of West Georgia, Purdue University, University of Minnesota, and Northern Illinois University, as well as others throughout the United States and Canada. ​A multiple prize winner in composition, he has received numerous awards and honors from such organizations as the American Composers Forum, Voices of Change, Texas A&M University, ASCAP, the Dallas Foundation, Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble, National Flute Association, International Clarinet Association, the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, the Heartland Symphony Orchestra and the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Quinn was honored by the Dallas Morning News as a finalist for 'Texan of the Year'. Quinn has studied composition at the SMU Meadows School of the Arts, with Dr. Winston Stone at University of Texas at Dallas and has also worked closely with renowned composers David Maslanka, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, David Dzubay and Robert X. Rodriguez. Quinn is a member of ASCAP. He is professionally represented by Cadenza Artists.

Tania León

Molly Joyce

Composer and performer Molly Joyce has been deemed one of the “most versatile, prolific and intriguing composers working under the vast new-music dome” by The Washington Post. Her music has additionally been described as “serene power” (New York Times), and “unwavering…enveloping” (Vulture). Her work is concerned with disability as a creative source. She has an impaired left hand from a previous car accident, and seeks to explore disability through composition, performance, collaboration, community engagement, and further mediums. Her most recent album, Perspective, featuring forty-seven disabled interviewees responding to what access, care, interdependence, and more mean to them, was released on October 2022 on New Amsterdam Records. The record has been praised by Pitchfork as “a powerful work of love and empathy that underscores the poison of ableism in American culture” and The Wire as a “powerful ongoing project…charged by an intense composer/performer relationship.” The primary vehicle in her pursuit is her electric vintage toy organ, an instrument she bought on eBay that suits her body and engages her disability on a compositional and performative level. Her debut full-length album, Breaking and Entering, featuring toy organ, voice, and electronic sampling of both sources was released in June 2020 on New Amsterdam Records, and has been praised by New Sounds as “a powerful response to something (namely, physical disability of any kind) that is still too often stigmatized, but that Joyce has used as a creative prompt.” Molly’s creative projects have been presented and commissioned by Carnegie Hall, TEDxMidAtlantic, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Bang on a Can Marathon, Danspace Project, deSingel, Americans for the Arts, National Sawdust, Music Academy of the West, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, National Gallery of Art, Classical:NEXT, and featured in outlets such as Pitchfork, eBay, Red Bull Radio, WNYC’s New Sounds, and I Care If You Listen. Her compositional works have been commissioned and performed by ensembles including the Vermont, New World, New York Youth, Pittsburgh, Albany, and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras, as well as the New Juilliard, Decoda, Contemporaneous ensembles, and Harvard Glee Club. She has also written for publications 21CM, Disability Arts Online, Women in Foreign Policy, and is a member of the Americans for the Arts’ Artists Committee. Her debut EP, Lean Back and Release, was released in January 2017 on New Amsterdam Records to much acclaim. Featuring violinists Monica Germino and Adrianna Mateo, the EP was praised as “energetic, heady and blisteringly emotive” by Paste Magazine and “arresting” by Textura. Additionally, Molly’s music has been released on thirteen commercial albums, including from pianist Vicky Chow, cellist Nick Photinos, and vocalist Bec Plexus (all on New Amsterdam Records), Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble (on Innova Recordings), NakedEye Ensemble (on New Focus Recordings), cellist Alistair Sung (on 7 Mountain Records), percussionist Ralph Sorrentino (on Ravello Records), and on releases from VONK Ensemble, Party of One, clarinetist Lucy Abrams-Husso, saxophonist Don-Paul Kahl, percussionist Evan Chapman, pianist Brianna Matzke and violinist Hajnal Pivnick’s duo album On Behalf. As a collaborator, Molly has worked across disciplines including with media artist Andy Slater, visual artists Lex Brown, Leo Castaneda, Alteronce Gumby, Maya Smira, Julianne Swartz, choreographers Melissa Barak, Kelsey Connolly, Carlye Eckert, Jerron Herman, director Austin Regan, and writers Marco Grosse, James Kennedy, Christopher Oscar Peña, and Jacqueline Suskin. She has also assisted Shara Nova of My Brightest Diamond, including orchestral arrangements for American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and Glenn Kotche of Wilco. Molly is a recipient of ASCAP’s Leo Kaplan Award, as part of the Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, grants from New Music USA, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Jerome Fund / American Composers Forum, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and residencies at AIR Krems an Der Donau, ArtCenter/ South Florida, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, De Link Tilburg, Embassy of Foreign Artists, Grace Farms, Halcyon Arts Lab, Headlands Center for the Arts, Villa Sträuli, Titanik, Surel’s Place, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, The Watermill Center, and Willapa Bay AiR. Molly is a graduate of The Juilliard School (graduating with scholastic distinction), Royal Conservatory in The Hague (recipient of the Frank Huntington Beebe Fund Grant), and Yale School of Music. She holds an Advanced Certificate and Master of Arts in Disability Studies from CUNY School of Professional Studies, has done doctoral studies in artistic research as part of the Dr. Artium program between Graz and Zurich Universities of the Arts, and is an alumnus of the National YoungArts Foundation. She has studied with Samuel Adler, Martin Bresnick, Guus Janssen, David Lang, Missy Mazzoli, Martijn Padding, Christopher Theofanidis, and has served on the composition faculty of New York University, Wagner College, and Berklee Online, teaching subjects including Disability and the Arts, Music Technology, Music Theory, and Orchestration. She is currently a Dean’s Doctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia, focusing on Composition and Computer Technologies.

Errollyn Wallen

Chinary Ung

Betsy Jolas

Errollyn Wallen is a multi award-winning Belize-born British composer and performer. Her prolific output includes twenty-two operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works which are performed and broadcast throughout the world. She was the first black woman to have a work featured in the Proms and the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello award for Classical Music for her body of work. Errollyn composed for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games 2012, for the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, a specially commissioned song for the climate change conference, COP 26, 2021, and a re-imagining of Jerusalem for BBC’s Last Night of the Proms 2020. She is one of the top 20 most performed living composers of classical music in the world. BBC Radio 3 featured her music across the first week of 2022 for its flagship programme, Composer of the Week and she has made several radio documentaries including Classical Commonwealth, nominated for the Prix Europa, which explored the impact of colonialism on music in the Commonwealth. Her carol, Peace on Earth was part of the Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast from King’s College, Cambridge at Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2022. Errollyn Wallen founded her own group, Ensemble X whose motto is “we don’t break down barriers in music…we don’t see any”. Their orchestral album PHOTOGRAPHY on the NMC label was voted a Top Ten Classical Album by USA’s National Public Radio. Orchestra X performed Errollyn’s composition Mighty River, which was featured in PRSF’s New Music Biennial 2017 and which was performed at this year’s PRSF Biennial by National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain Inspire at Coventry Cathedral and the Southbank, London. Errollyn Wallen collaborated with artist Sonia Boyce on her installation, Feeling Her Way, for the British Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale which won the Golden Lion prize for Best National Participation. Errollyn’s albums have travelled 7.84 million kilometres in space, completing 186 orbits around the Earth on NASA’s STS115 mission. Her critically acclaimed opera, Dido’s Ghost (commissioned by the Barbican Centre, Dunedin Consort, Mahogany Opera, Buxton Festival, Edinburgh Festival and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale) premiered at the Barbican, London, in June 2021 and will receive its US premiere in November 2023 in San Francisco by Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale. New works for 2023 include a violin concerto, Dances for Orchestra for Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and song cycle, JOY, for Erin Wagner. Her 40 part work for unaccompanied voices was released in February by National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and her piano concerto is released in March on the Resonus label. Resonus will be recording several of her orchestral works later in the year. In October Errollyn will give her Wigmore Hall debut performing the songs from The Errollyn Wallen Songbook. Errollyn’s book, Becoming a Composer will be published by Faber this year. Errollyn was awarded an MBE in 2007 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and a CBE in 2020 in the New Year Honours, for services to music. Errollyn lives and composes in a Scottish lighthouse.

Kaori Okatani began to learn music at the age of 4. When 6 years old, she began to play the piano. At the age of 13, she played F.J.Haydn's Piano Concerto with Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (Dir. Kazuhiko Komatsu). She is one student of Pianist Yoriko Takahashi in Tokyo. She obtained a Bachelor of Music (Composition major) at Kobe Jogakuin University in Japan. Kaori Okatani obtained the "Diplome Superieur de Composition" (in a graduate Master's course) in Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. After graduating, she had studied the composition in the class of Perfectionnement (correspond to Doctoral course in Japan) of the same Ecole. She is one student of Composers Yoshihisa Taira and Allain Gaussin in Paris. She obtained the 1st medal of the piano with one assent of judges in Conservatoire International de Paris. She is one student of Pianist Laurence Allix in Paris and Pianist Michael Krist in Wien. In addition to composition, she also studied orchestration, solfege, analysis, accompaniment, composition of movie music and direction in Paris. The great composers in France commented that her piece was raffine(refined). Its refined elegant style is appreciated worldwide. Her piece of movie music was performed by Octuor de France at the special class in Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. She is one student of Composer Bruno Coulais at the special class in Paris. Kaori Okatani 's works (including commissioned ones) were first performed by Orchestre de Flutes Francais, Ensemble Octandre, Ensemble EAR, Marcel Worms, Shinobu Fukumoto, Jean Geoffroy, Eleonore Pameijer, etc. in Paris, Belgrade, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Barcelona, Bologna, Dublin, the United States of America(Ohio, Connecticut, New York, Wisconsin) and so on. Her piece "Three Colors for Marimba solo" has been being published by C.F.Peters and its CD released by Bridge Records in New York, the United States. As a pianist, she has developed concerts of classic music and her own compositions in Paris and Kyoto so far. 2003, Selected as Postmistress of a Day, Wakayama Central Post Office

Michael Abels