Composers

One of the most acclaimed composers writing in Canada today, Hong Kong-born Alice Ping Yee Ho has written in many musical genres and received numerous national and international awards, including the 2022 Nova Scotia Symphony’s Maria Anna Mozart Award, 2019 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, 2016 Louis Applebaum Composers Award, 2014 Prince Edward Island Symphony Composers Competition, 2014 Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Friendship Orchestral Composition Competition, 2013 Dora Mavor Moore Award “Outstanding Original Opera” for her opera The Lesson of Da Ji, 2013 Boston Metro Opera International Composition Competition, K.M. Hunter Artist Award, du Maurier Arts Ltd. Canadian Composers Competition, MACRO International Composition Competition, Luxembourg Sinfonietta International Composition Prize, and International League of Women Composers Competition. Critics have called her music dramatic and graceful, while praising its “organic flow of imagination,” “distinctly individual” style", "colourful orchestration", and "emotive qualities". Influences evident in her proudly eclectic approach include Chinese folk and operatic idioms, Japanese Taiko , jazz, pop culture, and other contemporary art forms. Her ongoing goal is to explore new musical styles that are provocative to the ears. “Colors and tonality are two attractive resources to me: they form certain mental images that connect to audiences in a very basic way.” [AH] Often featured at national and international new music festivals such as ISCM World Music Days, Ottawa Chamberfest, Denmark’s CRUSH New Music Festival, and Asian Music Week in Japan, etc. Her works have also been performed by major ensembles and soloists including Finnish Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, the Florida Orchestra, China National Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish Radio Choir, Estonia's Ellerhein Girls' Choir, the Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Victoria, Nova Scotia, Hamilton, Kitchener Waterloo, and Windsor Symphonies, the Luxembourg Sinfonietta, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, New Music Concerts, Penderecki String Quartet, TorQ percussion quartet, Duo Concertante, violist Rivka Golani, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico, percussionists Sumire Yoshihara, Evelyn Glennie, and Beverley Johnston, flutist Robert Aitken, Patrick Gallois, and Susan Hoeppner. A twice JUNO Award Nominee (2015 and 2018), she has an impressive discography released on the Centrediscs, Naxos, Marquis Classics, Blue Griffin, Electra, Leaf Music, and Phoenix labels. She has six solo discs and two new recordings devoted to music written for different genres: " Ming " for percussion, "Glistening Pianos" for two pianos, "The Lesson of Da Di" features her Dora award winning opera The Lesson of Da Ji, "Mysterious Boot" for flute, cello, and piano, "The Monkiest King" features her children's opera with the Canadian Children's Opera Company, and "Venom of Love" presents a full length recording of her electronic ballet music. She is currently working on two new solo albums "A Woman's Voice" for female voices and piano on Leaf Music label, and a full length recording of her solo piano music featuring acclaimed Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico on Centrediscs label. Her upcoming projects includes a new opera CHINATOWN commissioned by City Opera Vancouver, with renowned Canadian writer/librettist Madeleine Thien and Hoisanese co-writer Paul Yee, opening September 13-17 of 2022 at the Vancouver Playhouse. Ms. Ho holds a Bachelor of Music degree in composition with high distinction from Indiana University and a Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Toronto. Her teachers have included John Eaton (USA), Brian Ferneyhough(Germany), and John Beckwith (Canada). ​She is a noted classical pianist and an active advocate of contemporary music. She had performed in many new music festivals, including a solo piano recital recorded by CBC Radio 2 in which she premiered Tan Dun’s solo piano work “Traces II”. She now makes her home in Toronto.

Gao Yuan, the composer Gao Yuan is a winner of Xinyi Young Composers Award and Composition Competitions Award of the Ministry of Culture. Gao was admitted to the Music High School of China Conservatory in Beijing when she was fifteen. She later studied at China Conservatory of Music and Central Conservatory of Music, majoring in composition. Her main works include Fei Tian (Flying in Sky) for septet, Like Dreaming for Chinese ensemble, Lightning for string quartet, Meditating in Autumn, Capriccio for Youths, Emotional Telling in Kroraina for orchestra, Piano Concerto Homesick, children choral works That Day, Song of Horse Herding, as well as Free Returning, Free Departure and Free Flying II for music media. She was sponsored by the special fund of Beijing Government for Talented Young Persons in 2011. Gao is frequently invited to participate in international cultural exchange activities throughout Europe. Many of her works are published by national publishing companies. Her collection Children's Ballet Piano Pieces was published in January 2011.

Described in publications such as Washington Post, Gramophone, San Francisco Examiner, Charleston Post and Courier, and The Boston Intelligencer as “ceaselessly compelling”, “exceptional beauty and imagination”, “a hybrid sonic labyrinth”, and “beautiful and haunting and thought-provoking,” and praised for its “21st century sensibilities,” Kui Dong‘s music has been performed and commissioned by numerous ensembles and has received honors and prizes from a wide spectrum of prestigious institutions, including the Central Ballet Group of China, The Orchestra and Chorus of the National Performing Art Center of China, Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, Japan’s Public Interest Incorporated Foundation and Fukuyama Arts Foundation, Spain’s Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, Austria’s Ars Electronica, The Tanglewood Music Center and Festival, Nancy Karp Dance company, the Arditti Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Volti, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Melody of China, the USA Commissioning Award, The IDEA Grants from the National Opera Center, The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Meet the Composer, ISCM, and ASCAP. Dong’s compositions span diverse genres and styles and include ballet, orchestral and chamber works, chorus, electro-acoustic music, film scores, multi-media art, and free improvisation. Her works written in the United States increasingly show a unique synthesis of influences from avant-garde experimental, jazz, and other ethnic music, and at the same time maintain a profound respect to Western classical music and a deep cultural connection with her roots. She sometimes incorporates theatre, as well as Chinese and non-western instruments and musical concepts into contemporary settings. Her music can be found on three full-length albums: Pangu’s Song (New World Records 2004) and Hands Like Waves Unfold (Other Minds Records 2008), and Since When Has The Bright Moon Existed (Other Minds Records 2011), as well as included in compilation albums on a variety of labels. A collection of her chamber works was published in 2015 and a collection of her large choral music was published in 2021 by Central Conservatory of Music Press in China. Her two large choral works, Shui Diao Ge To & Song and Painted Lights are featured in the documentary film Su Tong Po which aired on China’s Central Television Channel 9 in July 2017. Her most recent work Spring, for orchestra, chorus, and organ (Commissioned by Phoenix Television) opened The Spring Festival Musical Gala for Chinese Around the World 2019; the concert was subsequently broadcast throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. Kui Dong is a professor of Music Composition and served as Music department Chair (2018-2020) at Dartmouth College. When she is not writing music, she occasionally performs free improvisation on piano and also writes prose fiction. Her first novel The Story of a Little Soldier will be available through Knowledge Press under the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House later this year.

Born in 1981, Helen studied oboe with John Anderson and composition with Julian Anderson and Edwin Roxburgh at the Royal College of Music. In 2003 she won a British Composer Award for her Oboe Concerto, and was awarded the intercollegiate Theodore Holland Composition Prize in 2003 as well as all the major composition prizes in the RCM. In 2008 she was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center where she studied with John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Shulamit Ran and Augusta Read Thomas. Grime was a Legal and General Junior Fellow at the Royal College of Music from 2007 to 2009. She became a lecturer in composition at the Department of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, in January 2010. Helen has had works commissioned by some of the most established performers including London Symphony Orchestra, BCMG, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center. Conductors who have performed her work include Daniel Harding, Pierre Boulez, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Sir Mark Elder. Her work Night Songs was commissioned by the BBC Proms in 2012 and premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Oliver Knussen. In 2011 she was appointed Associate Composer to the Hallé Orchestra for an initial tenure of three years. Her first commission for them, Near Midnight, was premiered on May 23, 2013 and a recording of her orchestral works performed by the Hallé was released as part of the NMC Debut Disc Series in 2014, which was awarded ‘Editors Choice’ by Gramophone Magazine. Upcoming highlights in May include the world premieres of Aviary Sketches (after Jospeh Cornell), a string trio commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Chamber Music Society Lincoln and the Hallé Orchestra, conducted by Markus Stenz will perform a newly commissioned Double Concerto. Summer 2015 also sees a BBC Proms performance of A Cold Spring given by Thierry Fischer and the London Sinfonietta and a performance of Everyone Sang given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo at the Aldeburgh Festival. Helen's music is published exclusively by Chester Music.

Sadie Harrison’s music performed and broadcast internationally with works released to critical acclaim on Naxos, NMC, Cadenza, Sargasso, Toccata Classics, BML, Divine Art/Metier, and Clarinet Classics. For several years, Sadie also pursued a secondary career as an archaeologist - reflecting this interest in the past, many of Sadie’s compositions have been inspired by the traditional musics of old and extant cultures with cycles of pieces based on the folk music of Afghanistan, Lithuania, the Isle of Skye, the Northern Caucasus and the UK. Her focus during 2015-16 was on a substantial collaborative project (Gulistan-e Nur: The Rosegarden of Light), working with US Ensemble Cuatro Puntos (with whom she is currently Composer- in-Residence) and students from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (where she is currently Composer-in-Association). The project resulted in tours in Europe and the USA and a CD with Toccata Classics released in June 2016. BBC3 Record Review described the disc as ‘moving and intriguing’, and MusicWeb International as ‘engaging, mysterious, delightfully pointed dances.’ The 25 minute title work was broadcast complete on BBC Radio 3 in March 2017 as part of the PRSF Women Make Music 2016 celebrations. The project was supported by two Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, a PRSF Women Make Music Award, and grants from RVW, Hinrichsen, New Music USA and the Ambache Charitable Trust in acknowledgement of the unique nature of the project which brought together music and musicians from Europe, America and Asia. 2015 saw the release of a portrait CD by Toccata Classics, (Observer: ‘disc of glittering intensity’; BBC Music Magazine: ‘beautiful and intriguing’; Fanfare: ’a special, fragile space’) and a Guest Directorship of the Irish Composition Summer School. She was also appointed as Visiting Fellow to Goldsmiths College in recognition of her research work on Afghanistan. Recent performances have taken place at the International Mozart Festival in Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg and Stellenbosch (Renée Reznek), Late Music York (Chimera, Kate Harrison-Ledger, Goldfield Ensemble, Albany Trio), Bergen, Nicosia and Tennessee (Peter Sheppard Skaerved), Club Inégales (Dr. K Sextet), Bristol (SCAW), Seaton (Trittico), Isle of Rasaay (Sarah Watts), Huddersfield (Nancy Ruffer), National Portrait Gallery, British Museum and Wiltons Music Hall (Peter Sheppard, Eve Daniel, Roderick Chadwick), Holbourne Museum (Elizabeth Walker/ Richard Shaw), Bristol, City University (Madeleine Mitchell/Geoff Poole/Ian Pace), The Forge (CHROMA), Almenucar, Granada (Frano Kakarigi), Sydney, Australia (Jenny Duck-Chong), the USA Hartford Women Composers Festival, Brighton Fringe Festival, Institute of Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin (Cuatro Puntos). Sadie’s symphonic work Sapida-Dam-Nau commissioned with funds from a Finzi Trust Scholarship was premiered by the Afghanistan Women’s Orchestra at the Closing Concert of the World Economic Forum, Davos in January 2017 with subsequent performances in Geneva, Weimar and Berlin. 2016-17 saw new works for violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved (..an amaranth from the shade..), double bass virtuosos Frano Kakarigi (A Book of Poems) and Dan Styffe (Hällristningsområdet), the latter released on Prima Facie Records in Summer 2017. SQUISH! King Kong’s Love Song (a celebration of the deaf community in Hartford, Connecticut) was premiered by Cuatro Puntos (USA) and The Murder (written in response to the artwork of Heather Nevay) was commissioned by New Music South West/Royal West of England Academy. Aurea Luce (Madeleine Mitchell/Nigel Clayton) was released on Divine Art in August 2017 (Pizzicato: ‘very lyrical’; The Whole Note: ‘Harrison’s lovely Aurea Luce’; The Strad: ‘The slow creep of plainsong in Aurea Luce builds to blistering richness’.) Sadie was appointed as the first Composer-in-Residence at the Bei Wu Sculpture Park, Berlin in 2017 supported by an Arts Council England/British Council International Development Grant and a PRSF Composer’s Fund Grant, with works for Concerto Brandenburg premiered at the inauguration of the Park’s Indigenous Australian Sculpture Gallery in June (as part of the Australia Now! Festival 2017). A new disc of piano music performed by Ian Pace, Philippa Harrison, Renée Reznek and Duncan Honeybourne was released in November 2017 (Prima Facie) and her carol As-salāmu ʿalaykum Bethlehem (Prima Facie December 2017) has been described as ‘daringly wild, so ebullient and confident in its expression of joy and optimism that the carol’s culmination sounds positively feral. Utterly amazing.’ (5:4) and ‘a riot of sound that bows least to the saccharine tendencies of the season. Even whilst pushing the harmonic envelope the result feels like a great shout of joy.’ (Composition Today) Sadie’s music is published by UYMP, ABRSM and Recital Music with works on examination board repertoire lists. She is a member of the British Music Collection’s Steering Group, the UK’s primary body for the curation and publicising of contemporary British composers and repertoire. She is also a composition mentor with the South West Music School and tutor with New Music South West.

Victoria Borisova-Ollas was born in 1969 in Vladivostok, a distance of over 9.200 km from Moscow, in the far eastern corner of Russia. In those years there was probably precious little to indicate that the Soviet Union would collapse within a couple of decades. Borisova-Ollas was born late enough to enjoy the freedom afforded by the new political system – such as the freedom to travel – but also early enough to profit from the advantages of the Soviet system of music education. A system which enabled the talented girl to move to Moscow, enrol in the Central Music School and then in the Tchaikovsky Conservatory where she mastered the craft of composition. At the Conservatory, Borisova-Ollas studied with a number of brilliant teachers. They included Nikolaj Korndorf (1947–2001), to this day a paragon she admires, as witnessed by the dedication of her orchestral work The Kingdom of Silence (2003), a kind of requiem in memory of her professor. The young composer continued her studies in Britain and in Sweden where she settled in 1992. Predictably enough, a question that is put to her again and again by journalists commissioned to write her portrait concerns the “nationality” of her music. Is she a Russian composer? To what extent has she been influenced by her studies in the West? Borisova-Ollas refuses to be pinned down to any unequivocal statement. Her music, she says, is “just a healthy blend of everything”, her idiom being closest to the cautious modernism of much of British music. Indeed, you cannot describe her idiom as “avant-garde” by any means. She writes music with the avowed aim of communicating images, sensations, perhaps even messages to her audience. The urge to communicate could derive from her Soviet or Russian background. In her native country, she says, artists, such as composers, feel a moral responsibility towards society. This is not always the case elsewhere where composers are often preoccupied with musical concerns of a technical nature. Unlike so many of her compatriots in exile who have over the centuries felt bound to their native country with passionate dedication, Borisova-Ollas is indifferent to the place where she happens to be living: the main thing is, she says, that it is equipped with a working musical infrastructure. Her messages are often of a religious nature, her main source of inspiration being the Book of Psalms. The titles she chooses for her compositions have frequently been drawn from sacred texts and she says the moment she has settled upon one, images flock to her: choosing a title is the first step, it determines the music she is about to write. Painting is another source of inspiration. A picture by Malevich gave her ideas for her first symphony, The Triumph of Heaven (2001); three paintings by Chagall are behind Roosters in Love (1999). Literature plays a role as well: Colours of Autumn (2002) is drawn from Nabokov’s Lolita and Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet is the basis of her eponymous composition which she calls “a staged performance for orchestra, singers and narrator” (2006). More recently, she drew on Shakespeare in writing a work for trombone and orchestra: Hamlet. A Drama (2007) has the soloist improvise and even recite from the play. Indeed, the idea for the work – the “show” – came from the trombone player, Elias Faingersh, who took an active role in elaborating the definitive version of the solo part. Victoria Borisova-Ollas “merely” provided the orchestral background. Sounds – especially as suggestive ones as bells – also give rise to musical ideas. The bells of Munich pealed in her mind, so to speak, when she set about composing a work for the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra: Angelus (2008)was commissioned to mark the 850th anniversary of the city’s foundation. Victoria Borisova-Ollas has over the years received a number of prestigious prizes, beginning with the Masterprize International Competition for Orchestral Composition where she came second in 1998, an Award of the Royal Swedish Academy for her Symphony No. 1 in 2005, an Award of the Swedish Music Publishers Association for The Ground Beneath Her Feet in 2008 and the Hilding Rosenberg Prize of the Swedish Composers’ Association in 2009. In 2011, Borisova-Ollas became the first woman ever to win the Swedish Christ Johnson Prize for Composition from the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. The prize was awarded for her clarinet concerto Golden Dances of the Pharaohs. The world première of Creation of the Hymn took place in 2013 in Stockholm at the Tonsättarweekend – a composer portrait dedicated to Borisova-Ollas. In December 2015 her work Vinden som ingenting minns for choir and orchestra was premièred at the Örebro Konserthus. On 13 February 2017 she was awarded Expressen’s annual Spelmannen culture award.

Even as a student in London, Ryosuke’s works were performed at various venues around the UK – these included the Red Violin Festival in Cardiff (performed by Alina Ibragimova and Cerys Ann Jones, coached by Professor Madeleine Mitchell), the Clore studio at Royal Opera House, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Gallery in which all the works performed were his own compositions. His variation on Howard Skempton’s piece for piano four hands “Primary Colours“ has been published by ABRSM. His solo piano piece, “What I Saw in the Water…” has been performed by Professor Nigel Clayton and Kathron Sturrock in various UK venues and in Australia and Indonesia. Later on, this piece was made into a set of three pieces for piano solo under the name of VISION(S). Ryosuke has a particular passion for theatre music, especially ballet and opera, and in 2008 won a commission to compose for the Royal Ballet Draft Works at the Royal Opera House, a piece which he also conducted himself. After graduating from the RCM in 2009, his music was played in a concert that was part of JAPAN-UK 150 events held by the Japanese Embassy in the UK. In 2010, he was commissioned by Kathron Sturrock, Artistic Director of the Fibonacci Sequence (a chamber ensemble), and gave the world premiere in Cumbria (UK) as part of the Fibonacci Festival. In August 2010 he won the second prize in International Composing Competition “2 Agosto” with his piece for piano and orchestra “The Bird that Aspires to the Moon” and it was performed by the orchestra di Teatro Comunale di Bologna in Italy, and broadcast on Rai Radio. His Japanese art songs are highly regarded by many including a well-known Japanese soprano Mieko Sato and some of them have been sung by her repeatedly. Ryosuke became interested in weaving Japanese musical culture into his compositions, leading him to complete his first chamber opera in Japanese entitled Higekirimaru/髭切丸 in 2016. In this opera, he uses not only male singers but also Satsuma-Biwa, four instruments from Noh Theatre, and a Noh actor. More importantly, he applied some aspects of an ancient Chinese philosophy called Yin Yang Five Element Theory in this composition. The number of performers, selections of instruments (both Western and Japanese), and the construction of the opera have been determined by this theory. The following year, he gave a cocnert of his own (Japanese Art songs & piano pieces) in Bologna, Italy, and gave another concert in London in 2019 as part of events held by the Embassy of Japan in the UK called Japan-UK Season of Culture 2019-2020. In the summer of 2022, he gave his 4th concert of his own in Nara, Japan, where he introduced his Japanese Art songs and mono opera set to poems in the Kyoto dialect. In the concert, he also presented his arrangements for four hands from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, followed by a similar concert in Kyoto.

Naomi Pinnock’s music has been performed internationally by groups such as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Adapter, Quatuor Bozzini, Arditti Quartet, KNM Berlin, EXAUDI, London Sinfonietta, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Schola Heidelberg. Her works have featured at festivals including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tectonics Glasgow, Ultraschall Berlin, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Heidelberger Frühling, Rainy Days Festival Luxembourg, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Only Connect Festival in Stavanger, Norway and Spitalfields Festival London. She studied composition in London with Harrison Birtwistle and Brian Elias and in Karlsruhe, Germany with Wolfgang Rihm. In 2015-16 she received a scholarship from the Berlin Senate Department of Culture for a six-month residency at the Cité internationale des Arts in Paris and in 2017 a PRS Foundation Composers’ Fund Award. In 2020 her first portrait CD – Lines and Spaces – was released on WERGO. Also in 2020, her work I am, I am, written for soprano Juliet Fraser and the Sonar Quartett, received the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber-Scale Composition. She was awarded a Composer Prize in 2022 by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung. Current projects include new works for EXAUDI vocal ensemble and the Riot Ensemble.

Janet began composing at ten years old. She is largely self-taught, although has received valuable advice from several acclaimed composers. Her music draws on wide-ranging life experience, including her initial career as a communicator in radio broadcasting. She made current affairs programmes first for BBC World Service, as a producer and reporter, and then reported for Radio Four programmes such as “Womans’s Hour”, “Today Programme”, and “The World Tonight”. Janet then specialised in health and science programmes, writing and presenting “Health Matters” BBC World Service for 13 years. She won awards for her programmes about autism, the brain and music. Piano miniatures (with and without recorded sound) exploring life through the eyes of a child and the elderly, form the core of her output. She works extensively within the community, including 12 years for Little Missenden Festival, for massed musicians and children at the Royal Albert Hall, and has had large scale works performed by COMA. Janet composed and performed the piano music for Radio3 dramas, including “Amy’s View”, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, and “Three sisters Two”, and is published by ABRSM. Her all-inclusive pieces for many pianos have been performed widely including BBC Radio3.

Shawn E. Okpebholo is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning composer whose music has been described as "devastatingly beautiful" and "fresh and new and fearless" (The Washington Post), “affecting” (The New York Times), “searing” (The Chicago Tribune), “staggering” (The New Yorker), “lyrical, complex, singular” (The Guardian) and “powerful” (BBC Music Magazine). Okpebholo's work as a composer and his music has been featured on PBS Newshour, and radio broadcasts all across the country, including NPR's All Things Considered, NPR's Morning Edition SiriusXM’s “Living American” series on Symphony Hall Channel, and Chicago's WFMT. His artistry has resulted in many prizes and honors, including The American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award in Music, First Place Winner of the 2020 American Prize in Composition (professional/wind band division), and Second Place Winner in the 2017 American Prize in Composition (professional/orchestral division), First Prize Winner in the Flute New Music Consortium Composition Competition, Sound of Late Composition Contest, Accent06 International Composition Competition, and the Inaugural Awardee of the Leslie Adams-Robert Owens Composition Award. Okpebholo maintains a dynamic career as a composer, including performances on five continents, over forty states, almost every major U.S. city, at some of the nation's most prestigious performance spaces, including Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and the National Cathedral. His music has been featured on Lyric Opera of Chicago recital series, Washington National Opera Inauguration Day Concert; three works at the Ear Taxi Festival; Festival of New American Music; Ravinia Music Festival; and performances with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Urban Arias and the Inscape Chamber Orchestra; Fifth House Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente's Tara Lynn Ramsey and Kyle Flens, Lincoln Trio, Monte Music Festival (Goa, India); MusicX Contemporary Music Festival; The Uncommon Music Festival (Alaska), among others. Solo artists include vocalists J'Nai Bridges, Will Liverman, Michael Michael Mayes, Ryan McKinney, Robert Sims, and Tamera Wilson; pianists Paul Sánchez, Mark Markham, Craig Terry, and Robert Ainsley; euphonium virtuoso Steven Mead, flutists Jennie Oh Brown and Caen-Thomason-Redus, among others. Okpebholo regularly receives commissions from noted soloists, universities, and organizations, including UrbanArias (co-commissioned by Minnesota Opera, Colorado Opera, Dallas Opera, and Opera); Cincinnati Opera, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Fifth House Ensemble, United States Airforce Strings, International Tuba and Euphonium Association, The Meir Rimon Commissioning Program of the International Horn Society, Astral Artists, Oakland Symphony, Lincoln Trio, among others. His compositions have been featured on six commercially released albums, including his first album solely devoted to his music, Steal Away, a collection of re-imagined Negro spirituals. As a pedagogue, Okpebholo has given masterclasses at many academic institutions worldwide, including two universities in Nigeria, and has served on the faculty of summer music festivals, currently on the Fresh Inc Festival's composition faculty. His compositional and research interests have been a gateway for ethnomusicological fieldwork in both East and West Africa: studying the music of the Esan people in southern Nigeria, the Akambe people in the Machakos region of Kenya, and South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda. His field research has resulted in two chamber works, two symphonic works, transcriptions, and academic lectures. Grants from the Endowment of the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, Tangemen Sacred Music Center, Wheaton College, and Pew Research Grant (Union University) have supported his work. He earned his masters and doctoral degrees in composition from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati, where he also studied music theory. He completed a bachelor's degree in composition and music history from Asbury College. He had additional studies in film scoring from New York University through the Buddy Baker Film Scoring Program. Growing up, a significant part of his music education was through The Salvation Army church, where he regularly received free music lessons. Inspired by that charity, Okpebholo is passionate about offering his musical expertise to underserved communities. Currently, he is Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music (IL), having also taught at Union University (TN), Northern Kentucky University, and CCM. He’s also the Composer-in-Residence of the renowned Fifth House Ensemble and was awarded a residency with the Chicago Opera Theater (2021-2023 seasons), culminating with an opera commission with librettist Mark Campbell, librettist for the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night. He lives in Wheaton, IL, a suburb of Chicago, with his wife, violist Dorthy, and his daughters, Eva and Corinne.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. Esmail’s work has been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, Richmond Symphony, Town Music Seattle, Albany Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Girls Chorus, The Elora Festival, Juilliard415, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Upcoming seasons include new work for Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Amherst College Choir and Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and Conspirare. Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2023 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. Previously, she was named a 2019 United States Artist Fellow in Music, and the 2019 Grand Prize Winner of the S & R Foundation’s Washington Award. Esmail was also a 2017-18 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow. She was the 2012 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (and subsequent publication of a work by C.F. Peters) Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis and Martin Bresnick, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazundar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers. Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Mickie Wadsworth is a soprano and composer based in Upstate New York. They have written works for solo instrument, voice, electronics, small chamber and large ensembles. In their music they work to discover the impact of music both within and outside of a poetic context. Additionally they advocate for the creation of gender inclusive vocal repertoire and operatic roles. They have collaborated with a variety of living poets and librettists including Angela Rebrec, Jamie Leigh Sampson, Julia Black, and Briah Luther. Wadsworth’s commissions include works for multimedia (podcasts and short films) as well as works for recitals. They have participated in several workshops and festivals including N.E.O. Voice Festival (2021), Art Song Lab (2020), and Electronic Music Midwest (2019). Throughout their undergraduate degree they had the opportunity to participate in several reading sessions with revered soloists and ensembles such as Aurora Borealis, Holly Mulcahy, and Sarah Cahill. Additionally they have participated in a composition masterclass with Jake Heggie. Mickie is currently pursuing their masters in Music Composition at Ohio University with a teaching assistantship where they are studying with Dr. Robert McClure. They graduated from The State University of New York at Fredonia with their B.M. in Music Composition in 2021. At Fredonia they studied privately with Dr. Andrew Martin Smith and Jamie Leigh Sampson. Most recently their work Lake Song was published in NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music: Trans & Non-binary Voices, Vol. 1. Outside of performing and composing Mickie spends their free time running and hiking, where they find a large amount of inspiration for their artistic endeavors.

The work of Los Angeles-based composer Dana Kaufman focuses on disruptive opera and vocal music, accessible and inclusive stages, and the intersection of pop culture and Western classical music. Hailed as “whirlwind” (Gramophone) and “lively, engaging and moving” (Berkshire Fine Arts), Kaufman’s music has been heard throughout North America and Europe. Her works have been featured at venues and festivals such as New York Opera Fest; Contemporary Music Center of Milan; Jordan Hall; Boston New Music Festival; National Opera Week; Carlow Arts Festival; soundSCAPE Festival; Hartford Opera Theater; Charlotte New Music Festival; Spontaneous Combustion New Music Festival; Opera on Tap Chicago; the national Estonian Music Days festival; Chosen Vale International Trumpet Seminar; Hot Air Music Festival; Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Hall; College Music Society National Conference; Peoria Civic Center; Connecticut Summerfest; Atlas Performing Arts Center; Music by Women Festival; Baltimore War Memorial; International Clarinet Association's ClarinetFest; North American Jewish Choral Festival; Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre Fall Festival; FEASt Festival; Frontwave New Music Festival; Ravinia Festival’s One Score, One Chicago Series Youth Division; and FETA Foundation Concert Series. Kaufman’s music also has been performed by ensembles such as So Percussion, Great Noise Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, ensemble PHASE, 5th Wave Collective, Third Eye Theatre Ensemble, a very small consortium, The Spatial Forces Duo, Firebird Ensemble, LNK New Music Collective, Resound Duo, Na Wai Chamber Choir, MiamiClarinet, Passepartout Duo, and performers with OperaRox Productions and the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra. From 2012-2013, Kaufman was a Fulbright Student Research Fellow in Tallinn, Estonia, where she conducted ethnomusicology research and studied composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. She is also the recipient of numerous other awards: ASCAP Plus Awards; Finalist, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards; Third Place in the American Prize Instrumental Chamber Music Student Division and Finalist in the Choral Music Student Division, Honorable Mention in the Chamber Music Student Division, and Semi-Finalist in the Opera/Theater/Film Division; Finalist in Hartford Opera Theater’s New in November 10 Call for Scores; University of Miami Dean’s Fellowship; Finalist, OperaRox Productions’ New Works Competition; Amherst College Edward Poole Lay Fellowship; Winner of the Ensemble Ibis Composition Competition; Finalist in the New American Voices Composition Competition; Honorable Mention in the Boston Choral Ensemble’s Commission Competition; First Runner-Up in the Black House New Operas Project Composers’ Competition; Third Place in the Amherst College College Song Composition Competition; Eric Edward Sundquist Prize in Composition; Mikhail Schweitzer Memorial Book Award; First Place in the Music Institute of Chicago’s Generation Next Composition Competition; and is a winner of the Women Composers Festival New England Score Call and flutist Orlando Cela’s “Project Extended” Score Call. Her selected “Project Extended” work, Hang Down Your Head, was released by Ravello Records on “Shadow Etchings: New Music for Flute.” She was also Composer-in-Residence of the Na Wai Chamber Choir and Lutheran Church of the Ascension (IL), and Hashkiveinu (co-composed with Richard Cohn) is published by Transcontinental Music Publications and performed at synagogues throughout North America. A frequent speaker, particularly on composing for trans voice and her recent work Opera Kardashian, Kaufman has given invited talks at venues including the LA Opera, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Pedagogy into Practice: Teaching Music Theory in the Twenty-First Century Conference, Tallinn University of Technology, Fulbright Enrichment Seminar in Prague on Public Space and the Arts, College Music Society National Conference, Na Wai Conductor's Institute, and the Music by Women Festival; she also was a panelist for “Gender Representation in New Opera” at New Music Gathering. Kaufman graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College (Bachelor of Arts in Music and Russian), completed her Master of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at University of Miami Frost School of Music as the first Frost student to be a Dean’s Fellow. She is Assistant Professor in Music Composition at University of California, Riverside.

Ashley Seward is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic media currently based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is currently finishing her Bachelor of Music (Composition) degree at the University of Calgary, where she studies with composers Laurie Radford, David Eagle, and Allan Gordon Bell. Her music explores the spiritual, the esoteric, and absurd notions at the edge of human understanding, as well as ideas of environment, home, and embodiment. She is also thrilled to be the latest in a line of out queer composers, and is constantly working to produce works which reflect her transgender experience. Ashley has been the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards at the University of Calgary, in addition to taking part in a number of summer workshops over the course of her career. She is beyond thrilled to begin a Master of Music (MMUS) in composition at the University of British Columbia starting September 2020. When not working on her next piece or fooling around with Max patches, she likes to run around and pet her cat.

Nell Shaw Cohen (b. 1988) is a composer, librettist, and multimedia artist. She evokes landscapes, visual art, and the lives of mavericks in her lyrical works for the stage, concert hall, and digital media. Her commissions have included Houston Grand Opera, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Boston Choral Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, American Wild Ensemble, The Brass Project, Laura Strickling, and Montage Music Society. Her operas have had workshops with Fort Worth Opera, The American Opera Project, New Dramatists, New York University, and University of New Mexico, and she was first runner-up for the 2020 Zepick Modern Opera Competition. Cohen earned degrees in composition from NYU and New England Conservatory, where her teachers included Herschel Garfein and Michael Gandolfi. A past Artist-in-Residence with Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Cohen has received an OPERA America Commissioning Grant for Female Composers, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music. As Founder & Director of Landscape Music, an international network of composers and performers, she advocates for music inspired by landscape, nature, and place. She lives in the Shawangunk Mountains of New York's Hudson Valley.

Hope Salmonson, from Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia), is a queer, trans composer and tubist, trying to navigate the very big world around her. In 2017, she was accepted to Mount Allison University under a Mary Emerancy Pickard Music Scholarship, and studies composition under Dr. Kevin Morse. She has studied tuba and euphonium with Drs. Linda Pearse, Dale Sorensen and Olivier Huebscher. Hope will be graduating from Mount Allison in Spring 2022, and hopes to pursue a master’s degree. Hope’s compositional practice is inspired by community and connection to others. Her works have been performed by Ensemble Allure, the andPlay Duo and the Mount Allison Elliott Chorale, among others, and in April 2021 she hosted a recital of her compositions, featuring seventeen performers and five premiere performances. Hope has composed for the 2020 Art Song Lab and the 2021 Wildflower Composers Festival. Hope's work can be found in a few places. In 2019, her essay “Not Quite Romeo: Berlioz, Smithson and the Unspoken Truth” was published in Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology. Her art song "At a Dinner Party" is published in the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music: Trans & Nonbinary Voices, vol. 1 curated by Aiden K. Feltkamp. In her free time, Hope enjoys gaming, cooking for her loved ones, and singing.

Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times), “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), and praised for her “apocalyptic imagination” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Scottish Opera and many others. In 2018 she became, along with Jeanine Tesori, one of the first woman to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Classical Composition”. She is currently the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Her 2018 opera Proving Up, created with longtime collaborator librettist Royce Vavrek and based on a short story by Karen Russell, is a surreal commentary on the American dream. It was commissioned and premiered by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and Miller Theatre, and was deemed “harrowing… a true opera for its time” by the Washington Post. Her 2016 opera Breaking the Waves, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects, was called “one of the best 21st-century American operas yet” by Opera News. Breaking the Waves received its European premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival; future performances are planned at LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Adelaide Festival. Her next opera, The Listeners, will premiere in 2021 at the Norwegian National Opera and Opera Philadelphia. In 2016, Missy and composer Ellen Reid founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female composers created in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center. Her works are published by G. Schirmer.

An American composer whose music has been “characterized by propulsive, syncopated rhythms, colorful orchestration, and instrumental virtuosity,” (Robert Kirzinger, Boston Symphony Orchestra) Kevin Day (b. 1996) has quickly emerged as one of the leading young voices in the world of music composition today. Day was born in Charleston, West Virginia and is a native of Arlington, Texas. His father was a prominent hip-hop producer in the late-1980s in Southern California, and his mother was a sought-after gospel singer from West Virginia, singing alongside the likes of Mel Torme and Kirk Franklin. Kevin Day is a composer, conductor, producer, and multi-instrumentalist on tuba, euphonium, jazz piano and more, whose music often intersects between the worlds of jazz, minimalism, Latin music, fusion, and contemporary classical idioms. A winner of the BMI Student Composer Award and other honors, Day has composed over 200 works, and has had numerous performances throughout the United States, Russia, Austria, Australia, Taiwan, South Africa, and Japan. His works have been programmed by major orchestras and wind bands including the Boston Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, and the UT Wind Ensemble, and several top military bands. He was also selected as the 3rd Prize winner of the 2020 New Classics International Young Composer Contest of the Moscow Conservatory. His works have also been performed at Carnegie Hall, Rachmaninov Hall (Russia), The Midwest Clinic, TMEA, and other major venues. Day has collaborated with the likes of Jens Lindemann, Demondrae Thurman, Steven Cohen, and Jeremy Lewis on concertos for their respective instruments, as well as chamber ensembles like One Found Sound, Axiom Brass, Ensemble Dal Niente, The Puerto Rican Trombone Ensemble, The Zenith Saxophone Quartet, The Tesla Quartet, and many more. He has been mentored by composers Gabriela Lena Frank, Frank Ticheli, John Mackey, William Owens, Julie Giroux, Marcos Balter, Anthony Cheung, Matthew Evan Taylor, and Valerie Coleman. Day is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Composition at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, where he is studying composition with Lansing McLoskey, Charles Norman Mason, and Dorothy Hindman, as well as jazz piano with Shelly Berg. Day holds a Master of Music in Composition Degree from the University of Georgia, where he studied with composers Peter Van Zandt Lane, Emily Koh, and conductor Cynthia Johnston Turner. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree in Tuba/Euphonium Performance from Texas Christian University (TCU), where he studied tuba and euphonium with Richard Murrow and composition primarily with Neil Anderson-Himmelspach. His works are published with Murphy Music Press, Dev Music Publishing, Cimarron Music, and Kevin Day Music. Day currently serves as the Vice President for the Millennium Composers Initiative and is an alumnus of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America.

The compositions of Venezuelan-born Ricardo Lorenz have garnered praise for their fiery orchestrations, and rhythmic vitality as well as for raising awareness about global societal challenges that concern the composer. These impressions have earned him two Latin Grammy Award nominations, multiple commissions and performances of his works at prestigious international festivals such as Carnegie Hall’s Sonidos de las Américas, Ravinia Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, France’s Berlioz Festival, Spain’s Festival Internacional de Música Contemporanea de Alicante, the Festival Cervantino in Mexico, Turkey’s Uluslararasi Summer Festival and South Korea’s PAN Music Festival, among others. His orchestral compositions have been performed in the United States by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, among many others and by orchestras in Venezuela, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, Canada, Israel, Argentina, and the Czech Republic. Between 1999 and 2003, Ricardo Lorenz was Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Armonia Musicians Residency Program and he held the position of Associate Director of the Indiana University Jacob School of Music’s Latin American Music Center between 2003 and 2005. He has received awards and commissions from the MacDowell Colony, National Flute Association, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Meet-the-Composer Midwest, MetLife Creative Connections, Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, Concert Artists Guild, Ravinia Festival, The University of Chicago, and the American Bandmasters Association/University of Florida Commissioning Project. His works for wind ensemble have been performed and recorded by numerous band programs across the United States, including Eastman School of Music, University of North Texas, Michigan State University, University of Michigan, University of Georgia, Ithaca College, Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, and many others. Some of Ricardo Lorenz’s works, his musical viewpoint, and his artistic persona have been the bases for articles that have recently appeared in Current Musicology, Naxos Musicology International “Listening to Latin America” Series, and in the textbook Experiencing Latin American Music published by University of California Press. Ricardo Lorenz is currently Professor and Chair of Music Composition at Michigan State University College of Music has served as Composition Faculty of the Wintergreen Summer Music Academy (Virginia) and as Composer-in-Residence of Music in the Loft (Chicago), Sewanee Summer Music Festival (Tennessee), the Billings Symphony Orchestra (Montana), and the Pan and Young-Nam International music festivals in South Korea. He has adjudicated composition competitions in the U.S., Colombia, South Korea, and the Philippines. Ricardo Lorenz’s compositions are published by Keiser Southern Music and by Boosey & Hawkes and they can be heard on the following record labels: ECM, Naxos, Albany Records, Arabesque Recordings, Navona Records, Cedille Records, GIA Publications, and Blue Griffin Recordings as well as labels in Turkey, Mexico, Venezuela, and the U.K. In 2019, Ricardo Lorenz was honored with the Michigan State University César Chávez Community Leadership Award. He holds a Ph.D. degree in composition from The University of Chicago and a MM degree from Indiana University and studied composition with Juan Orrego-Salas, Shulamit Ran, and Donald Erb. Ricardo Lorenz previously taught at Indiana University, The University of Chicago, and City Colleges of Chicago. He can be contacted at lorenzri@msu.edu

Joanne Martin is a Canadian violist, composer, Suzuki teacher and Suzuki teacher trainer. Her career has included performing as a violist with numerous orchestral and chamber groups including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and Concertante Chamber Players. Since her graduation from the University of Winnipeg, Joanne has taught using the Suzuki Method. She has been appointed a Suzuki Teacher Trainer by both the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the European Suzuki Association. Joanne now divides her time between Winnipeg, Canada and Montpellier, France. She has taught, lectured, and performed at prestigious conferences and workshops in many countries. Her compositions and arrangements are performed worldwide by students and professionals.

Shiguang Cui (崔世光) (b. 1948) is a Chinese composer and pianist. To celebrate the 2008 Summer Olympic Games held in Beijing, his work Concerto for Ten Concert Grand Pianos and Orchestra was commissioned by the Dean of the National Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Ping Chen. Ten internationally-renowned pianists were invited to give the world premiere on August 19, 2008. The pianists were Claude Frank, Phillippe Entremont, Vladimir Feltsman, Louis Lortie, Yunyi Qin (秦云轶), Shikun Liu (刘诗昆), Lang Lang (郎朗), Cyprien Katsaris, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Sha Chen (陈萨).1 This piece was originally conceived as Concerto for Ten Concert Grand Pianos and Orchestra, and was composed in 2008 with the title China Jubilee (喜庆中国). The original concerto for ten pianos was never published. The only published edition of this work is for two pianos, with the second piano serving as the orchestral reduction, with a different title: Piano Concerto No. 2.2 The work contains four movements. My dissertation contains four chapters. Chapter I, a brief history of the development of keyboard instruments in China, includes information about several important pianists who contributed to the development of the piano and to Chinese piano music. Chapter II gives an overview of Shiguang Cui’s career as a composer, his works for the keyboard, and background information on the Piano Concerto No. 2. Chapter III contains a stylistic analysis of the Concerto No. 2, including pentatonic scale techniques, use of the interval of a fourth, and the employment of traditional Chinese textural techniques as well as Western rhythmic and textural compositional techniques. Chapter IV discusses the influence of Chinese traditional musical elements in the Piano Concerto No. 2. These include Chinese folksongs and dances, quotation from Chinese operas, and the influence of Chinese instruments. Piano Concerto No. 2 is an important contribution to the genre and to the development of Chinese piano music. My hope is that more Chinese works will be composed, and that more pianists will be inspired to learn and perform Cui’s Piano Concerto No. 2 as well as his solo piano music.

Born in China in 1941, Chu Wang-Hua’s compositions were first played at the First National Music Week of China when he was aged just 14 years old. He studied piano and composition at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, and was appointed a lecturer there following his graduation. Chu Wang-Hua came to Australia in the late 1980s to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Melbourne, where he studied composition with Peter Tahourdin, and the piano with Donald Thornton. He graduated with a Master of Music in 1986, and following further studies in Melbourne and the USA was awarded a Doctor of Music degree in 1988. He received the Albert Maggs Composition prize in 1987, and has been a represented composer with the Australian Music Centre since 1988. Since arriving in Australia Chu Wang-Hua has composed a number of pieces, including symphonies, string quartets, piano concertos, and other works. His compositions have been performed and recorded around the world. Two of his symphonies, Ash Wednesday and Autumn Cry, have been performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, while The Borderland Moon, for soprano, sextet and percussion, was performed at the First Contemporary Chinese Composers Festival in Hong Kong. His Piano Sonatina was awarded a prize at the 21st Century Chinese Children’s Piano Compositions Competition in 2000. Chu Wang-Hua was recently invited by the Chinese Cultural Council to give a number of piano recitals of his own work at Beijing Concert Hall and other venues in September 2002. His book, Selected Works for Piano by Chu Wang-Hua, published by the Music Publishing House of China, will be launched during his tour.