Composers

2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning and Emmy- and Grammy-nominated composer Michael Abels is best known for his genre-defying scores for the Jordan Peele films GET OUT, US and NOPE. The score for US won a World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, multiple critics awards, and was named “Score of the Decade” by The Wrap. Both US and NOPE were shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Original Score. In 2022, Abels’ music was honored by the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Middleburg Film Festival, and the Museum of the Moving Image. NOPE was awarded Best Score for a Studio Film by the Society of Composers & Lyricists. Other recent projects include the films BAD EDUCATION, NIGHTBOOKS, and the docu-series ALLEN v. FARROW. Current releases include CHEVALIER (Toronto Intl Film Festival) and LANDSCAPE WITH INVISIBLE HAND (Sundance 2022), his second collaboration with director Cory Finley. Upcoming projects include THE BURIAL (Amazon), and a series for Disney Plus. Abels’ creative output also includes many concert works, including the choral song cycle AT WAR WITH OURSELVES for the Kronos Quartet, the Grammy-nominated ISOLATION VARIATION for Hilary Hahn, and OMAR, an opera co-composed with Grammy-winning recording artist Rhiannon Giddens. The New York Times named OMAR one of the 10 Best Classical Performances of 2022 and said, “What Giddens and Abels created is an ideal of American sound, an inheritor of the Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” but more honest to its subject matter, conjuring folk music, spirituals, Islamic prayer and more, woven together with a compelling true story that transcends documentary.” Abels other concert works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and many others. Some of these pieces are available on the Cedille label, including DELIGHTS & DANCES, GLOBAL WARMING and WINGED CREATURES. Recent commissions include EMERGE for the National Symphony and Detroit Symphony, and a guitar concerto BORDERS for Grammy-nominated artist Mak Grgic. Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, gaming and streaming media.

Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art. As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.” Forher highly anticipated third solo studio album, You're The One, out August 18 on Nonesuch Records, she recruited producer Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Alicia Keys, Valerie June, Tank and the Bangas) to help her bring this collection of songs that she'd written over the course of her career—her first album of all originals—to life at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami last November. Together with a band composed of Giddens’s closest musical collaborators from the past decade alongside Miami-based musicians from Splash’s own Rolodex, and topped off with a horn section making an impressive ten- to twelve-person ensemble, they drew from the folk music that Giddens knows so deeply and its pop descendants. You’re The One features electric and upright bass, conga, Cajun and piano accordions, guitars, a Western string section, and Miami horns, among other instruments. "I hope that people just hear American music," Giddens says. "Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock—it's all there. I like to be where it meets organically." The album is in line with her previous work, as she explains, because it's yet another kind of project she's never done before. "I just wanted to expand my sound palette," Giddens says. "I feel like I've done lots in the acoustic realm, and I certainly will again. But these songs really needed a larger field." Her song-writing range is audible on You're The One, from the groovy funk of "Hen In The Foxhouse" to the vintage AM radio-ready ballad "Who Are You Dreaming Of" and the string- band dance music of "Way Over Yonder"—likely the most familiar sound to Giddens’ fans. Her voice, though, is instantly recognizable throughout, even as the sounds around Giddens shift; she owns all of it with ease. The album opens with "Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad," an R&B blast (complete with background "shoops" and a horn section) that takes a titan for inspiration. "I listened to a bunch of Aretha Franklin, and then turned to fellow Aretha-nut Dirk Powell and said, ‘Let’s write a song she might have sung!'" Giddens recalls. Her danceable, vivacious tribute to Franklin's sound is a vocal showcase, spotlighting her soaring high notes and nearly-growling low ones. Another of the album's highlights, "If You Don't Know How Sweet It Is," intentionally puts an edgier spin on the sass of Dolly Parton's early work, which Giddens channeled in the midst of some real life frustration. "I was like, 'I'm giving you everything, why are you leaving?'" she recalls of writing the song, which started as a poem. Jason Isbell joins Giddens on "Yet To Be" as her duet partner and the album's only featured artist. "He's been such an ally in the industry to black women," Giddens says. "He's a great singer, and he's uncompromisingly himself—also just a really good person." "Yet To Be," the story of a black woman and an Irish man falling in love in America, is meant to channel some of the optimistic flip side of the brutal, real, and undertold history that Giddens has so effectively brought to the forefront with her work. "Here's a place, with all its warts, where you and I could meet from different parts of the world and start a family, which is the true future," Giddens explains. "I think so much about all of the terrible things in our past and present—but things are better than they have been in a lot of ways, and this is a song thinking about that." One of the album's more sentimental songs, "You're The One," was inspired by a moment Giddens had with her son not long after he was born (he's now ten years old, and she has a fourteen-year-old daughter as well). "Your life has changed forever, and you don't know it until you're in the middle of it and it hits you," Giddens says. "I held his little cheek up to my face, and was just reminded, 'Oh my God, my children—they have every bit of my heart.'" "You Louisiana Man" blends Giddens' banjo acumen with accordion, organ, and fiddle to create a Zydeco-funk classic. About a feeling that Giddens "turned up to eleven" during the songwriting process, the song shows the power of framing a record around banjo instead of guitar: "It just gives you a bit of a different vibe," as she puts it. Perhaps most potent is the song "Another Wasted Life," Giddens' composition inspired by Kalief Browder, the New York man who was incarcerated without trial on Rikers Island for three years. "People are making so much money off prison systems," Giddens, who has performed for incarcerated people, says. "They just don't want anyone to remember that that's happening." Inspired sonically by another musical icon—Nina Simone—the forceful, anthemic song channels Giddens' rage at the broken system. "Doesn't matter what the crime, if indeed there was this time," she sings. "It's a torture of the soul." The album teems with Giddens' breadth of knowledge of, curiosity about, and experience with American vernacular musics. Though it might be filtered through a slightly more familiar blend of sounds, You're The One never forsakes depth and groundedness for its listenability. "They're fun songs, and I wanted them to have as much of a chance as they could to reach people who might dig them but don't know anything about, you know, what I do," Giddens says. "If they're introduced to me through this record, they might go listen to other music I've made with a different set of ears." Giddens also is exploring other mediums and creative possibilities just as actively as she has American musical history. With 1858 replica minstrel banjo in hand, she wrote the opera Omar with film composer Michael Abels (Get Out, Us, Nope) which received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and, with her partner Francesco Turrisi, she wrote and performed the music for Black Lucy and the Bard, which was recorded for PBS’ Great Performances; she has appeared on the ABC hit drama Nashville and throughout Ken Burns’ Country Music series, also on PBS. Giddens has published children's books and written and performed music for the soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption II, one of the best-selling video games of all time. She sang for the Obamas at the White House; is a three-time NPR Tiny Desk Concert alum; and hosts her own show on PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, as well as the Aria Code podcast, which is produced by New York City’s NPR affiliate station WQXR. "I've been able to create a lot of different things around stories that are difficult to tell, and managed to get them done in a way that's gotten noticed," as Giddens puts it. "I know who to collaborate with, and it has gotten me into all sorts of corners that I would have never expected when I started doing this."

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 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...

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.

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 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 is best-known for his scores for the Oscar-winning film GET OUT, and for Jordan Peele’s US, for which Abels won the World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, an Image Award nomination, and multiple critics awards. The hip-hop influenced score for US was short-listed for the Oscar, and was even named “Score of the Decade” by online publication The Wrap. As a concert composer, Abels has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer, and the Sphinx Organization, among others. His orchestral works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many more. As guest conductor of GET OUT IN CONCERT, Abels has led orchestras like the National Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Several of his orchestral works have been recorded by the Chicago Sinfonietta on the Cedille label, including Delights & Dances and Global Warming. Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, game and streaming media. Upcoming projects include the ballet for concert band FALLING SKY for Butler University, AT WAR WITH OURSELVES for the Kronos Quartet, and the Hugh Jackman film BAD EDUCATION for HBO.

GILDA LYONS, (b. 1975), composer, vocalist, and visual artist, combines elements of renaissance, neo-baroque, spectral, folk, agitprop Music Theater, and extended vocalism to create works of uncompromising emotional honesty and melodic beauty. The premiere of A New Kind of Fallout—Lyons’ mainstage opera inspired by the life and work of environmentalist Rachel Carson, written with librettist Tammy Ryan, and commissioned by Opera Theater of Pittsburgh—was described as “powerfully effective” (Pittsburgh Stage Magazine), “haunting” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and “spot-on at re-creating the atmosphere of the early '60s” (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). As composer and vocalist Lyons’ works and performances are available on the Clarion, GPR, Naxos, New Dynamic, New Focus, Roven Records, and Yarlung Records labels. Laura Strickling’s Grammy-nominated 2021 release of Lyons’ Songs of Lament and Praise (Yarlung) was described by Opera News as “plaintive… florid… quietly devastating.” Other recent recording projects as composer include the release of Lyons’ works by Quince (Motherland); and entelechron (The Folk Tune Project); Lindsey Goodman's tour de force performance of Lyons' Chrysalis (reach through the sky); and Sing for Hope’s release of Lyons' Hold On (An AIDS Quilt Songbook). An active vocalist and fierce advocate of contemporary music, Lyons has commissioned, premiered, and workshopped new vocal works by dozens of composers; this season she appears on the rosters of Brooklyn Art Song Society, Lyric Fest, and New Mercury Collective. As vocalist, her collaboration with Laura Ward (Naxos), was described by Opera News as “winning delivery, full of character.” “Gilda Lyons's clear soprano compels admiration” writes David Shengold of Opera, UK of her performance in Hagen’s “Shining Brow” (Buffalo Philharmonic/Falletta/Naxos). Current projects as composer include new works for soprano Caitlin Lynch, Lyric Fest, Musica Viva NY, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Quince, Wintergreen Music Festival, soprano Laura Strickling, and pianist Nic Gerpe. Recent premieres include Lyons’ to know about space, commissioned by Trio Triumphatrix, presented on Voices of Ascension’s ‘Voices of the New’ series; and Sourdough: Rise Up, a chamber opera commissioned by Resonance Works Pittsburgh released on Decameron Opera Coalition’s ‘Tales from a Safe Distance.’ Recent projects include performances by Quince on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, curated by Missy Mazzoli; Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek on the Locrian Chamber Players series; Mirror Visions Ensemble on the Bargemusic Masterworks series; and Chautauqua Opera; Chautauqua Symphony, Stuart Chafetz, conductor. Lyons currently serves as Co-Chair of the Composition Program at Wintergreen Music Academy and as Assistant Professor of Composition at The Hartt School. She is the Executive Director of the Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series, Founding Director of The Phoenix Concerts, New York's "intrepid Upper West Side new-music series" (The New Yorker), and serves on the Board of Advisors of Composers Now, the Steven R. Gerber Trust, and Sparks & Wiry Cries. Lyons served as Composer-in-Residence of Chautauqua Opera in the 2019 season. In 2021, she returns as composition faculty for Connecticut Summerfest. Past commissions include works for The ASCAP Foundation / Charles Kingsford Fund, American Opera Projects, Amy Pivar Dances, Beijing New Music Ensemble, Carrie Koffman, Chautauqua Opera, ComposersCollaborative Inc., Lyric Fest, entelechron, Fort Greene Park Conservancy, Yumi Korosawa, Kyo-Shin-An Arts, Mirror Visions Ensemble, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Panic Duo, Paul Sperry, Seraphim, Resonance Works Pittsburgh, Trio Triumphatrix, The Walt Whitman Project, Wintergreen Music, and 5 Borough Music Festival, among many others. “Lyons’ command of varied musical textures is masterly.” — Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Lyons’ music is published by Schott, E.C. Schirmer, and Burning Sled. She received her Ph.D. in Music Composition from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and Bard College. Lyons made her professional debut as composer and vocalist with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra in 1997, performing the world premiere of her orchestral song cycle Feis.

Yaz Lancaster (they/them) is a Black transdisciplinary artist. They are most interested in practices aligned with relational aesthetics & the everyday; fragments & collage; and liberatory politics. Yaz performs as a violinist, vocalist & steel-pannist in a wide variety of settings; and their work is presented in many mediums & collaborative projects. It often reckons with specific influences ranging from politics of liberation and identity to natural phenomena and poetics. Their ongoing independent studies navigates prison-industrial-complex abolition, Marxist theory, and internet/social media cultures. Their writing appears in various online & in-print publications including I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, Afternoon Visitor, the tiny, and Underblong, where their poem “Ratios” was awarded the 2021 Blongprize, as well as a Pushcart nomination. Yaz has had the privilege & opportunity to build community & create with artists like A Far Cry, Andy Akiho, ContaQt (with Evan Ziporyn), Contemporaneous, Freddie June, George Lewis, Hypercube, JACK Quartet, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Skiffle Steel Orchestra, and Wadada Leo Smith. Most recently, they have been developing the post-genre duo laydøwn with Canadian guitarist-producer Andrew Noseworthy; and working on new music for Beth Morrison Projects, BRKFST Dance Company, and Bearthoven. Yaz has recording credits on recent/upcoming projects with BAKUDI SCREAM, Massa Nera, Miss Grit, Nyokabi Kariũki & Ted Hearne. Their debut album of commissioned music for violin/voice & electronics with video AmethYst is forthcoming on people | places | records in early fall 2022. Yaz holds degrees in violin and poetry from New York University where they studied with Cyrus Beroukhim, Robert Honstein, Joan La Barbara & Terrance Hayes (among others). They currently live in Lenapehoking (NYC) with their bassador puppy Nori; and they enjoy chess, horror movies, and taking boxing lessons.

Raven Chacon is a Pulitzer Prize–winning composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, collaborator, and a member of Postcommodity from 2009 to 2018, Chacon has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; San Francisco Electronic Music Festival; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Vancouver Art Gallery; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Borealis Festival, Seattle; SITE Santa Fe; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; Ende Tymes Festival, New York; The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Biennial, New York; documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; Carnegie International, and Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Since 2004, he has mentored more than three hundred Native high school composers in writing new string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP). Chacon is the recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship, the American Academy’s Berlin Prize, the Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award, and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage’s Fellowship-in-Residence.

Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (Chickasaw) is a dedicated American Indian classical composer and pianist who expresses his native culture in symphonic music, ballet and opera. All of his compositions have been commissioned by major North American orchestras, ensembles and organizations and his works are performed throughout the world.

Composer, lyricist, pianist, and teacher, Eugenie Rocherolle began an early career in publishing with choral and band music. In 1978, with the success of her first piano solo collection, she soon established herself as one of the leading American composers of piano repertoire. Her music is widely distributed throughout the United States and abroad. A native of New Orleans, she graduated from Newcomb College of Tulane University with a BA in music. Her junior year was spent in Paris where she had a class with the late Nadia Boulanger. She was honored as the 1995 outstanding Newcomb alumna. A "Commissioned by Clavier" composer, she was also one of seven composer members of the National League of American Pen Women whose works were chosen to be presented in a concert at the Terrace Theater of the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. Awards from the Pen Women include a first place for both piano and choral in biennial national competitions. Mrs. Rocherolle's creative output also includes works for solo voice, chorus, and orchestra; musical theater; and chamber music for a variety of mediums. She is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); Connecticut Composers Inc.; and the National Federation of Music Clubs. Her biographical profile appears in the International Who's Who in Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Classical Musicians, International Encyclopedia of Women Composers, Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in the East. Mrs. Rocherolle has released recordings of her piano music, Spinning Gold and Romancing the Piano, and her Christmas arrangements, Tidings of Joy, on an independent label, Aureus Recordings. She maintains a private music studio where she teaches piano and composition.

Zhu Jie, composer and conductress of Guangdong Song and Dance Theater; Member of International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM); Council Member of Chinese Woman Composers' Association; Studied composition and conducting at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China, and was a student of Huang Xiaotong. In 1998, attended Vienna Conservatory of Music for advanced studies in conducting, and awarded a diploma. Composer for many grand ceremonies in Guangdong as well as being awarded prizes. Conducted many grand ceremonies. Many of her works were awarded prizes in international contests, and her works have been performed by orchestras in China and overseas. In 1995, "Zhu Jie's Composition Concert" was sponsored by Guangdong Musicians Association, Music Channel of Radio Guangdong, and Guangdong Song and Dance Theater. In 1995, Guangdong TB televised Zhu Jie's compositions on the channel "Ether of Arts." The "2008 Beijing International Conference on Female Musicians Programme" refers Zhu Jie as a female composer in the late 20th century with achievements and contributions. Other Achievements: Received award from Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture. Being honoured as "Guangdong Province's Excellent Musician" for ten consecutive years. Ten of Zhu Jie's works were collected in Zhu Jie Vocal and Symphony Album—Series of the Best Works of Guangdong Musicians. Zhu Jie's original composition—Three Orchestral Pieces was published by Shanghai Conservatory Publishing House.

Zhang Ning graduated from the Composition Department of Wuhan Conservatory of Music in 2003 and got the Master Degree from the Composition Department of Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2007.Her some works were published or subsumed for the teaching materials, played in CCTV-3.Some works won the prizes in China. She teached the Music Analysis in Beijing Normal University and Piano, the History of Western Music in other universities. Now she is an Executive Director of Chinese Women Composers’ Association and member of International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM).

Wang Qiang began her study of composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1955. As a third-year student she won first prize in the 1959 World Youth Music Composition Competition with the choral piece River of Fortune. After graduating in 1960, she took a position teaching composition at the same school. She continued to work at the Conservatory until 1991, when she moved to live and work in Hong Kong.

Associate Professor of the National Hsin-Chu University of Education, National Taiwan Arts University and Fu-Jen University. Professor Su acts as Vice President of Chinese Woman Composers’ Association now. Doctor of Musical Arts (composition) of Taipei National University of the Arts, study with Professor Hwang-Long Pan; MA (in music composition) of National Taiwan Normal University; graduated with an excellent degree in musical theory composition from the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien; also graduated from the Hochschule fuer Musik und darstellende Kunst in Wien for Electro-acoustic Music. Many works have been honored and performed in several countries. Among them “Himmel-Erde-Mensch” gained an honorary diploma at the “9th International Competition for Female Composers” in Mannheim, Germany in 1989 and “Ba-Gua” won first prize in a composition competition held by Komponisten Bund Austria & the Konservatorim der Stadt Wien in 1992.

A native of Shenyang, China, Fuhong has been appointed to the faculty of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing right after she received the Doctoral degree in composition at the University of Toronto since fall 2009. She received a Bachelor’s degree in composition at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2000 and earned a Master’s degree in composition at the University of Victoria in 2005. She has studied with a number of world renowned composers and composition professors, such as Gary Kulesha, Chen Yi, Guo Wenjing, Su Xia, Chou Wen-Chung, Chen Qigang, James MacMillan, Salvatore Sciarrino, Michel Gonneville, Steve Reich, Murray Schafer, Gilles Tremblay, Roger Reynold, Brian Cherney and so on. She was the recipient of a number of awards in China from 1997 to 2002 and was awarded Women Composers Scholarship by the International Composition Workshop of the Canadian National Arts Centre. She was a finalist in 2006 Tsang-Houei HSU International Music Composition Award, the winner of 2007 Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music, and the Generation 2008 Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal+ Composer’s Competition. She was also awarded the scholarship from Acanthes International Composition Workshop in France in 2008. Fuhong has collaborated with numerous prominent orchestras and ensembles, and her compositions have been performed and broadcasted all over the world.

Wen Tze Grace Lu, born in Taipei in 1962, Lu Wen Tze graduated from Soochaw University with a B.A. in Music in 1985. Lu was the winner of 1989 Alec Templeton Award and she gained a scholarship at Yale University, where she received an M.A. with distinction in 1991. Her works are frequently performed in China and, from time to time in countries such as the United States, Japan, Sweden, Korea, Poland, Thailand, France and Italy. She is currently Professor and Chairman of Music Department of Chinese Culture University in Taiwan; she is also Chairman of Asian Composers' League-Taiwan National Committee and Chairman of Taiwan Composers' Association.

Liu Qing, Composer, Associate Professor of composition department of China Conservatory of Music, Committee Member of Chinese Woman Composers’ Association. She studied with professor Wang Ning, Zhang Yun-xuan, Jin Xiang and Yu Su-xian, received her Ph.D from China Central Conservatory of Music in 2009. Dr. Liu Qing’s music pursues exquisite style, distinguished by a profound traditional Chinese music background and modern compositional theory and technique of Western music. Her works are strikingly innovative, yet moving and emotional. Her major works include: Cocoon, music for violoncello and piano, published by People’s Music Publishing House ; Sequence, music for woodwind quintet; Prelude and Fugue, music made for seven Chinese and Western instruments; Story, orchestral music; Sha Wei, for Chinese Chamber; The Song of Happy Moon>, for Chinese traditional instruments; The Song of Grasslands, for Matouqin and Chinese traditional strings, commissioned by 10th anniversary concert of Chinese Youth National Orchestra; Ru Man, for Gu Zheng and Orchestra, commissioned by 2008 ICWM; Fantasia of Chinese Ancient Dance , for two pianos, commissioned by “Yu two pianos”. Her works were premiered in U.S.A, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia. In 2012, her work Feng· Huang premiered in Lincoln Center, and earned the first place in 2012 Princeton International Composition Prizes.

Vice-President of the Chinese Woman Composers' Association , a member of Hong Kong Composers' Guild and is a member of the International Alliance for Women in Music , graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She studied composition, western orchestration and piano with Mr. Law Wing-fai, Dr. Chan Wing-wah and Miss Eleanor Wong respectively. She won the Exxon scholarship and the Ben van Zuiden Music Fund. Her works including both Chinese and western Chamber instrumentations' work, Orchestral, dance music, Opera, hymns, songs and musical for children, solo and duo piano works etc. Her compositions had been performed by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, the Japan's Ensemble Kochi, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Chinese Virtuosi(HK), Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, Guangdong National Orchestra, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Dun Huang Chinese Ensemble(Shanghai) and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra . Her compositions had been presented in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Italy and Paris respectively. LAM is now working as a composer, piano teacher and accompanist respectively.

Li Yiding has worked as the senior composer in China Central Television (CCTV). Shi is the IAWM Advisor and the CWCA Vice President. She is an excellent composer for both the serious concert music and the film – teleplay music. Her works include the symphonic poems Angels in Hoh-Xil and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Orchestral Music Olunchun in Xiaoxing’anling Mountain, Chinese Orchestral Music Blue Mask Drama, chamber music and piano works Zhaxi Island Rhapsody, Gu’erlu Singing and Talking, Cliff Paintings in the Baicha River Valley, Pakistan Sketch and Tibet Scene, etc. Her music has been performed in London, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Brussels, Seoul, Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing and Malaysia, Indonesia, Pennsylvania, etc. Her chamber music Burned Eden has been selected by the 23rd Search for New Music of IAWM in 2004. She was awarded by Civitella Ranieri Foundation. She was permitted to take part in the period of June 2009 and composed in the 15 century’s Civitella Ranieri Castle in Italy. Her chamber music Guge Kingdom Ruins was awarded the “Festival Score Winner” by the Ninth International Festival of Women Composers on the Indiana University of Pennsylvania in March, 2010. She has already composed for 14 films and more than 80 Teleplays. She was awarded various kinds of prizes for 17 films or Teleplays. The main compositions are: the 84-part serial teleplay The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (cooperated with others. Flying in the Sky, Golden Eagle and Golden Dragon Prizes were won for it), the 20-part serial teleplay Heavy Snow Has Disappeared without Any Trace (The 19th China Golden Eagle Prize for the Favorite Song of TV Play), the 20-part serial teleplay Wen Cheng Princess, the teleplay Wen Yiduo; the film A Beijing Little Girl; the film Singing Deer in Golden Autumn (The Prize of the Third Suss International Teenage Film Festival, the Golden Prize of the Long Feature film, and the Prize of Child Adjudicator in the 7th Cairo International Film Festival) and the teleplay Macao Anecdotes.