Alvin Singleton

Reena Esmail

Reena Esmail

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.

Ricardo Lorenz

President Reagan and Hector Barreto Sr., ca. 1980.

Hector Barreto and President Reagan ca. 1980. Courtesy of Tributo A Mi Padre Tequila.

Jennifer Jolley

Elainie Lillios

Adolphus Hailstork

Brian Raphael Nabors

Brian Raphael Nabors (b.1991, Birmingham, AL) is a composer of emotionally enriching music that tells exciting narratives with its vibrant themes and colorful harmonic language. Nabors’ music has been performed by the Cincinnati, Atlanta, Nashville, & Detroit Symphonies, as well as ROCO Chamber Orchestra. He has also been performed by artists such as the Atlanta Chamber Players, Dallas's Voices of Change, Boston Musica Viva and the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings. He was named a 2021 composition fellow of the Tanglewood music festival; a 2021 Seikilos Focus Fellowship recipient by Air Serenbe, The Serenbe Institute; a 2019 composer fellow in the American Composers Orchestra’s Earshot program with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; a 2019 composer fellow with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s Composer Lab; and 2019 cycle five grand prize winner of the Rapido! National Composition Contest. Nabors was also a 2020 Fulbright scholarship recipient to Sydney, Australia, studying with composer Carl Vine at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Missy Mazzoli

Missy Mazzoli

Cecilia McDowall

Born in London, 1951, Cecilia McDowall has won many awards, been short-listed eight times for the British Composer Awards and in 2014 won the Choral category of the British Composer Awards for her haunting work, Night Flight, which celebrates the pioneering flight of the American aviatrix, Harriet Quimby, across the English Channel. McDowall’s distinctive style speaks directly to listeners, instrumentalists and singers alike. Her most characteristic works fuse fluent melodic lines with occasional dissonant harmonies and rhythmic exuberance. Her music has been commissioned and performed by leading choirs, including the BBC Singers, The Sixteen, Oxford and Cambridge choirs, Kansas City Chorale, ensembles, and at festivals worldwide. Recent commissions include When time is broke (Three Shakespeare Songs) for the BBC Singers and Adoro te devote for Westminster Cathedral Choir, London. Three Latin Motets were recorded by the renowned American choir, Phoenix Chorale, conductor, Charles Bruffy; this Chandos recording, Spotless Rose, won a Grammy award and was nominated for Best Classical Album. The National Children’s Choir of Great Britain commissioned a work focusing on ‘children in conflict’, called Everyday Wonders: The Girl from Aleppo. This cantata is based on the real-life escape of Nujeen Mustafa (who is wheelchair-bound) and her sister from war-torn Aleppo; it tells of their harrowing journey across 3,500 miles, through seven countries, eventually arriving in Germany with relief and great gratitude. In May, 2019, Wimbledon Choral Society and the Philharmonia Orchestra premiered McDowall’s large-scale choral work, the Da Vinci Requiem, to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death. The work received its first performance on 7 May in the Royal Festival Hall, London. McDowall’s works are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio and readily available on CD. In 2013 Cecilia McDowall received an Honorary Doctorate from Portsmouth University and in 2017 McDowall was selected for an Honorary Fellow award by the Royal School of Church Music. In 2019 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from West London University. In 2021 the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, will release a CD of her choral music on the Hyperion label. In 2020 McDowall was presented with the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for ‘outstanding music collection’ for a ‘consistently excellent body of work’. This was a ‘Gift’ from The Ivors Academy (formerly the British Composers’ Academy).

Mickie Wadsworth

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.

Dana Kaufman

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

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

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.