Unsuk Chin

Unsuk Chin was born in 1961 in Seoul, South Korea, and has lived in Berlin since 1988. Her music has attracted international conductors including Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Kent Nagano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Robertson, Peter Eötvös, Neeme Järvi, Markus Stenz, Myung-Whun Chung, George Benjamin, Susanna Mälkki, François -Xavier Roth, Leif Segerstam and Ilan Volkov, among others. It is modern in language, but lyrical and non-doctrinaire in communicative power. Chin has received many honours, including the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for her Violin Concerto, the 2005 Arnold Schoenberg Prize, the 2010 Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award, the 2012 Ho-Am Prize, the 2017 Wihuri Sibelius Prize and the 2019 Hamburg Bach Prize. She has been commissioned by leading performing organisations and her music has been performed in major festivals and concert series in Europe, the Far East, and North America by orchestras and ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Kronos Quartet and Arditti Quartet. In addition, Unsuk Chin has been active in writing electronic music, receiving commissions from IRCAM and other electronic music studios. In 2007, Chin’s first opera Alice in Wonderland was given its world première at the Bavarian State Opera as the opening of the Munich Opera Festival and released on DVD by Unitel Classica. Between 2006 and 2017 Chin was Composer-in-Residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, overseeing its contemporary music series which she founded. Since 2011, she has served as Artistic Director of the ‘Music of Today’ series of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Portrait CDs of her music have appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, Kairos and Analekta. Unsuk Chin’s works are published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

Omar Thomas

Described as "elegant, beautiful, sophisticated, intense, and crystal clear in emotional intent," the music of Omar Thomas continues to move listeners everywhere it is performed. Born to Guyanese parents in Brooklyn, New York in 1984, Omar moved to Boston in 2006 to pursue a Master of Music in Jazz Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. He is the protégé of lauded composers and educators Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg, and has studied under multiple Grammy-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing "great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future," educator, arranger, and award-winning composer Omar Thomas has created music extensively in the contemporary jazz ensemble idiom. It was while completing his Master of Music Degree that he was appointed the position of Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music at the surprisingly young age of 23. He was awarded the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award in 2008, and invited by the ASCAP Association to perform his music in their highly exclusive JaZzCap Showcase, held in New York City. In 2012, Omar was named the Boston Music Award's "Jazz Artist of the Year." He is currently on faculty in the Music Theory department at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Omar's music has been performed in concert halls the world over. He has been commissioned to create works in both jazz and classical styles. His work has been performed by such diverse groups as the Eastman New Jazz Ensemble, the San Francisco and Boston Gay Mens' Choruses, and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, in addition to a number of the country's top collegiate music ensembles. Omar has had a number of celebrated singers perform over his arrangements, including Stephanie Mills, Yolanda Adams, Nona Hendryx, BeBe Winans, Kenny Lattimore, Marsha Ambrosius, Sheila E., Raul Midon, Leela James, Dionne Warwick, and Chaka Khan. His work is featured on Dianne Reeves's Grammy Award-winning album, "Beautiful Life." Omar's first album, "I AM," debuted at #1 on iTunes Jazz Charts and peaked at #13 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums Chart. His second release, " We Will Know: An LGBT Civil Rigths Piece in Four Movements," has been hailed by Grammy Award-wining drummer, composer, and producer Terri Lyne Carrington as being a "thought provoking, multi-layered masterpiece" which has "put him in the esteemed category of great artists." "We Will Know" was awarded two OUTMusic Awards, including "Album of the Year." For this work, Omar was named the 2014 Lavender Rhino Award recipient by The History Project, acknowledging his work as an up-and-coming activist in the Boston LGBTQ community. Says Terri Lyne: "Omar Thomas will prove to be one of the more important composer/arrangers of his time."

Kate Soper

Kate Soper is a composer, performer, and writer whose work explores the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the slippery continuums of expressivity, intelligibility and sense, and the wonderfully treacherous landscape of the human voice. She has been hailed by The Boston Globe as "a composer of trenchant, sometimes discomfiting, power" and by The New Yorker for her "limpid, exacting vocalism, impetuous theatricality, and mastery of modernist style." A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Soper has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters (The Virgil Thomson and Goddard Lieberson awards and the Charles Ives Scholarship), the Koussevitzky Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, the Music Theory Society of New York State, and ASCAP, and has been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and Yarn/Wire. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Civitella Raineri Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Camargo Foundation, the Macdowell Colony, Tanglewood, Royaumont, and Domaine Forget, among others. Praised by the New York Times for her "lithe voice and riveting presence," Soper performs frequently as a new music soprano. She has been featured as a composer/vocliast on the New York City-based MATA festival and Miller Theatre Composer Portraits series, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series, and the LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series. As a non-fiction and creative writer, she has been published by Theory and Practice, the Massachusetts Review, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies. Soper is a co-director and performer for Wet Ink, a New York-based new music ensemble dedicated to seeking out adventurous music across aesthetic boundaries. She teaches composition and electronic music at Smith College.

Astor Piazzolla, arr. Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott

Jeff Scott

A native of Queens, NY, Jeff Scott started the French horn at age 14, receiving an anonymous gift scholarship to go to the Brooklyn College Preparatory Division. An even greater gift came from his first teacher, Carolyn Clark, who taught the young Mr. Scott for free during his high school years, giving him the opportunity to study music when resources were not available. He received his bachelor’s degree from Manhattan School of Music (studying with David Jolley), and master’s degree from SUNY at Stony Brook (studying with William Purvis). He later continued his horn studies with Scott Brubaker and the late Jerome Ashby. Jeff Scott’s performance credits are many and varied. They include The Lion King orchestra (Broadway, New York) 1997-2005, and the 1994 revival of Showboat (Broadway, New York) 1994-1997. He has been a member of the Alvin Ailey and Dance Theater of Harlem orchestras since 1995 and has performed numerous times under the direction of Wynton Marsalis with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Mr. Scott has also experienced good fortune as a studio musician. He can be heard on movie soundtracks scored by Terrence Blanchard, Tan Dun and on commercial recordings with notable artists such as Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Steve Coleman, Chris Brubeck, Chico O’Farill, Freddy Cole and Jimmy Heath, among others. Additionally, he has toured with artists such as Barbra Streisand and the late Luther Vandross. Jeff Scott’s arranging and composing credits are many, and include scoring the off-Broadway production of Becoming Something, The Canada Lee Story, the staged production of Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot!, and many original works for solo winds as well as wind, brass and jazz ensembles. His works are published by International Opus, Trevco Music, To The Fore Music and self-published at www.MusicbyJeffScott.com . Jeff Scott has been on the horn faculty of the music department at Montclair State University (New Jersey) since 2002

Rhian Samuel

In writing music, Rhian keeps the performer and performance uppermost in her mind. She believes that the performer contributes creatively to the work and that the composer should always offer him/her the space to make this contribution, a particular challenge in notated music. She acknowledges many other influences on her music, particularly those of her rich Welsh literary and musical heritage, the landscape of her present home in mid-Wales overlooking the Dyfi estuary and Cardigan Bay and her long sojourn in the USA. She is interested in all facets of classical music, particularly early music, and American music of all kinds; in her youth she played the oboe in orchestras and the viol and wind instruments in early music groups. She identifies with her female colleagues in a profession still dominated by males, seeing her position, somewhat outside the male tradition, as an exciting one with many challenges and opportunities, not one, as in former times for many women composers, that must be denied. Rhian has written for all kinds of ensembles as well as for solo instruments/voices. Her orchestral works have been premiered by BBCNOW, the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia 21, the Brunel Ensemble, the BT Scottish Ensemble, Sinfonia Adesso and others. Orchestral conductors with whom she has worked include Leonard Slatkin, Tadaaki Otaka, Richard Hickox, Martyn Brabbins, Jac van Steen, Tecwyn Evans, Cayenna Ponchione, George Vass and Holly Mathieson. Vocal music is also an important part of Rhian's output; she has written works for many renowned solo singers and accompanists. In the United States Rhian taught at Washington University St Louis, where she completed a doctorate on 16th-century musica ficta, and the St Louis Conservatory of Music; in Britain at Reading University, City University London (where she supervised DMA students from the Guildhall School and is now Emeritus Professor) and Oxford University where she was a member of the Music Faculty and tutored composition undergraduates at Magdalen College.

Lori Laitman

Lori Laitman

Juliana Hall

Described by Fanfare Magazine as “one of the most talented and intriguing of living composers,” LORI LAITMAN has composed multiple operas and choral works, and hundreds of songs setting texts by classical and contemporary poets, including those who perished in the Holocaust. Her music is widely performed throughout the world and has generated substantial critical acclaim. The Journal of Singing wrote “It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music.” In May 2016, Opera Colorado presented the World Premiere of Laitman’s opera The Scarlet Letter, with a libretto by David Mason. Of the subsequent Naxos release, Gramophone Magazine wrote: “The first thing that leaps into one’s ears is the sheer beauty of the music…and her ability to meld words with lyrical, often soaring lines is on abundant display in her…impressive and fervent opera.” It was named a Critic’s Choice by Opera News and one of the top 5 CDs of 2018 by Fanfare Magazine. The Three Feathers, Laitman’s children’s opera with librettist Dana Gioia, is based on a Grimm’s fairy tale, and was commissioned by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, where it premiered in October 2014. Seattle Opera commissioned an abridged version which toured schools in Washington state in 2018. The international premiere will be in November 2019 with L'arietta Singapore, and Opera Steamboat will mount a full production in August 2020. Laitman is currently finishing a chamber opera, Uncovered, based on Leah Lax's memoir. A finalist for the 2018 Pellicciotti Opera Prize, it is being commissioned by several universities for a spring 2021 premiere. Laitman continues to receive prestigious commissions, including from the BBC, Opera America, Opera Colorado, Seattle Opera, Grant Park Music Festival, Washington Master Chorale, Music of Remembrance, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Her works have been featured on Thomas Hampson’s Song of America radio series and website and in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. She is a magna cum laude Yale graduate and received her MM from The Yale School of Music. In May 2018, Laitman was the recipient of The Yale School of Music’s Ian Mininberg Alumni Award for Distinguished Service.

Jennifer Jolley

Laura Kaminksy

Cited in The Washington Post as “one of the top 35 female composers in classical music,” LAURA KAMINSKY’s works are “masterful” San Francisco Classical Voice) and “full of fire as well as ice, contrasting dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). Her opera As One (2014; co-librettists Mark Campbell & Kimberly Reed) is the most widely-produced contemporary opera in the U.S. since the 2016-17 season. Hometown to the World (libretto by Reed; Santa Fe & San Francisco Operas: Opera For All Voices Consortium) premieres in 2020. Currently Composer Mentor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative, she is head of composition at the Conservatory of Music Purchase College/SUNY. Kaminsky serves on the boards of Opera America and the Hermitage Artist Retreat.

Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) is a West Texas-based composer of vocal, orchestral, wind ensemble, chamber, and electronic works. Jennifer's work draws toward subjects that are political and even provocative. Her collaboration with librettist Kendall A, Prisoner of Conscience, has been described as "the ideal soundtrack and perhaps balm for our current 'toxic'…times" by Frank J. Oteri of NewMusicBox. Her piece Blue Glacier Decoy, written as a musical response to the Olympic National Park, depicts the melting glaciers of the Pacific Northwest. Her partnership with writer Scott Woods, You Are Not Alone, evokes the fallout of the #MeToo Movement. Jennifer's works have been performed by ensembles worldwide, including the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Wind Symphony, Dulciana (Dublin, Ireland), Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra (New York, NY), and the SOLI Chamber Ensemble (Alba, Italy residency). She has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, University of Texas Wind Ensemble, the Quince Ensemble, and many others. Her music can be found on various albums, including Quince Ensemble's Motherland with New Focus Recordings, Ohio University Wind Symphony's Ampersand and Bowling Green State University Wind Symphony's New Music for Wind Band Vol. 1, both released with Mark Records. Future releases will be with Ablaze Records, Reference Recordings, and PARMA Recordings. Jennifer deeply values the relationship that is created between composers and the communities with whom they collaborate. She has been composer-in-residence at Brevard College, University of Toledo, the Vermont Symphony, the Central Michigan University School of Music, and the Alba Music Festival in Italy. Most recently she was the Composer-in-Residence of the Women Composers Festival of Hartford in 2019. She promotes composer advocacy and the performance of new works through her opera company North American New Opera Workshop, her articles for NewMusicBox, and her work on the Executive Council of the Institute for Composer Diversity and the New Music USA Program Council. Jennifer’s blog—on which she has catalogued more than 100 rejection letters from competitions, festivals, and prizes—is widely read and admired by professional musicians. She is particularly passionate about this project as a composition teacher, and enjoys removing the taboo around “failure” for her students. Jennifer joined the composition faculty of the Texas Tech School of Music in 2018 and has been a member of the composition faculty at Interlochen Arts Camp since 2015.