Artists

Hailed by the Calgary Herald as having "beauty of tone and a wonderfully flexible phrasing", Sara Hahn has been Principal Flute for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) since 2006. In 2005 she was Assistant Principal Flute/Piccolo with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and in 2002 she completed a three week tour of Japan and Hong Kong with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

As a soloist, Sara has performed throughout Canada, the United States and Brazil. She has also performed several concertos with the CPO including the Chaminade Concertino in 2015 (to critical acclaim), and the world premiere of "The Daughter of Elysium" by Arthur Bachmann in 2016. In February of 2018 she performed the world premiere of "Sea Dreams" by Peter Togni with fellow flutist Sarah Gieck and local phenom Luminous Voices under the direction of Timothy Shantz.

Awards for Sara's solo flute performances include the University of Toronto's concerto competition and the Junior Musical Club Concerto Competition of Winnipeg which gave her a debut performance as a soloist in front of an orchestra at the age of seventeen. In 2005 Sara won $10,000 as the winner of the Women's Musical Club of Winnipeg's Doris McLellan Competition for Solo Performance with Orchestra.

She graduated with honours from the University of Toronto, receiving a Bachelor of Music Performance under internationally renowned flutist Susan Hoeppner. Sara is proud to be a co-founder and active member of Green Banana Flute Studios, an innovative teaching and performing collaboration. For more information, please visit her website.

HALL (b. 1959) was born in San Francisco, CA. He holds a B.A. degree in Music from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1982), completing studies with Emma Lou Diemer and Peter Racine Fricker, and a Diploma degree in Composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia PA (1986), where he studied with Ned Rorem. From 1993 to 2005 he was Vice-President of the Maine Composer's Forum (MCF), and served from 2005-present as President of the MCF. In 2000 he was elected to the membership of the American Composers Alliance (ACA). His works are published by the ACA. He is a Fellow of the Ucross Foundation, a member of the American Composers Forum, and the American Music Center.

In 1991 he received a commission for the Hardanger Trio from the Maine Music Teachers National Association. Mr. Hall was selected as the "Maine Composer of the Year" in 1997 by the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, Brunswick, ME. Arkadia, commissioned in 2000 by the Arcady Chamber Orchestra, Bar Harbor, ME, received several performances at various venues in Maine. He appeared as guest on and subject of the July 8, 2000 Kalvos and Damien New Music Bazaar radio show entitled "Basic Instinct". Mr. Hall's Water: 2 Poems of W.S. Merwin for Soprano and Orchestra will appear on ERMMedia's Masterworks of the New Era CD series.

He has composed nearly forty works for varied ensembles. He has participated in concerts by the ACA, Society of Composers, Inc., Maine Arts, Gamper Festival, The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, Ought-One Festival, and in numerous concerts of the Maine Composers Forum. His MAX algorithm 21st Century Baroque for computer and sampling device(s) appeared on the MAX list CD-ROM.

Mr. Hall's works have been reviewed several times in the New Music Connoisseur, and in the New York Times as well as the Portland (Maine) Press-Herald. He has reviewed CD's for the Contemporary Record Society (CRS) Society News Magazine.

Mr. Hall is listed in Marquis' Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

American art song composer JULIANA HALL (b. 1958) is a prolific and highly-regarded composer of vocal music whose songs have been described as "brilliant" (Washington Post), "beguiling" (Times of London), and "the most genuinely moving music of the afternoon" (Boston Globe). Among her more than 50 song cycles and works of vocal chamber music are pieces for renowned countertenor Brian Asawa and star soprano Dawn Upshaw. SongFest awarded Hall its 2017 Sorel Commission, and she was invited to be Guest Composer for the 2018 Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar by artistic director and acclaimed mezzo soprano Stephanie Blythe, for whom Hall has also composed songs. Hall graduated from the Yale School of Music in 1987 (studying with Martin Bresnick, Leon Kirchner, and Frederic Rzewski) and completed her studies in Minnesota with Dominick Argento. Since receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989 her music has been heard in 29 countries on six continents at venues including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Library of Congress, and Wigmore Hall as well as in concerts at the London Festival of American Music, the Ojai Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Her music has been recorded on the Albany, MSR Classics, and Vienna Modern Masters labels and broadcast on the BBC and NPR radio networks. Her art songs and vocal chamber music are published by E. C. Schirmer and Boosey & Hawkes.

Mitch Hampton was born in 1967 in New York City, was educated at Interlochen Arts Academy and received a Bachelor's and Master's from New England Conservatory of Music. His piano teacher and mentor while there was Stanley Cowell. His composition instructor was Thomas McKinley.

His Piano Concerto for Improvised Jazz Piano and Orchestra was performed by him and recorded with the Czech Radio Orchestra. He has written The Four Humors, a double clarinet and flute concerto for Richard Stoltzman and Mike Feingold. His work for Richard Stoltzman, called Back To Bacharach: a Tone Poem for Clarinet and Orchestra was premiered at Boston's Symphony Hall. His Swinging Seventies was a concerto for flute and orchestra featuring Mike Feingold, originally performed at Boston's Symphony Hall and released in 2011 on CON MOTO: MODERN WORKS FOR ORCHESTRA, VOL. 1 on Ravello Records. In 2000 he wrote a children's jazz piano concerto for the Somerville Arts Council. His String Quartet was commissioned and performed by the Ciompi Quartet at Duke University and subsequently performed by the Boston Composers Quartet on National Public Radio and recorded by the Boston Composers Quartet. In 1997 he was the soloist on his piano concerto called Dark Dancing, written for the New York Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Gerald Schwarz and premiered at Avery Fisher Hall. He wrote a suite for flute and piano: Glass Houses (dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni) that was premiered by Robert Stallman at Weill Recital Hall. He wrote a chamber concerto called La Luna in memory of Federico Fellini which premiered at Duquesne University School of Music and was performed by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. His Jazz Taxonomies for Saxophone Quartet was performed by the Berlin Saxophone Quartet at Weill Recital Hall. A partial list of his many jazz compositions includes Ballad For Billy Strayhorn, Why Is That?, For John, Permanent Residence, Stroll, Strut And Stroll, Vegan Soul Food, and a series of Original Blues in Small, Medium, and Large.

In the 1980s and 1990s he worked as a solo pianist in cocktail lounges and hotels, played with the flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny, the Bill and Bo Winiker Ensemble, had a brief stint in a rock group, and accompanied many singers in lounges and in cocktail bars. He also performed professionally in an ensemble formed by the late George Russell in local jazz clubs. In 2010 and in 2013 he wrote music for two independent films by director Andrew Bujalski, Beeswax, and Computer Chess, as well as composing and performing music for a music and fashion video for Bob Packert Productions. He has collaborated as a pianist with the poet Mark Schorr in live performance. A non-fiction commentator, critic, and essayist, he maintains a blog, The Moderate Contrarian, and for thirty years was a writer for the journal Organica. He has contributed critical essays to Spirited Magazine. In 2010 he was featured performing piano and discussing his craft in a documentary film, Correspondence, directed by Jose Luis Guerin and Jonas Mekas. He is currently writing a concertino for flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny and a piano quintet for which the piano part is improvised. HARD LISTENING is his first recording of all solo piano music.

Harmonija Dissonance Ensemble evolved from the eponymous research and performance project that started at the Academy of Music in Zagreb in 2016. Guided by the idea of bridging the gaps between the worlds of academic and folk musicians, of traditional and art music, the project soon evolved into the lively and stimulating space of mutual learning, experimenting, and music-making of renowned traditional singers and the Academy’s students. Beyond that, the ensemble itself represents an important step: the introduction of traditional music performance into the programs of academic education of musicians and (ethno)musicologists. This broadens the scope of the musical traditions taught and studied at the Academy. It also represents the unequivocal answer to the question of whether the oldest layers of traditional music could be relevant and inspiring to the newest generations of musicians, which are trained in the tradition of western art music.

For Gregory Harris, the process of becoming a composer was one of absorption. By opening himself to soak up an unbounded array of sounds, influences, and genres -- a process he began formally at age 6, with piano lessons at his grandfather’s bench -- he has lived a life of near-constant immersion in music.

His childhood years of youth orchestras, chamber music and piano recitals led next to writing music for some of the small ensembles he played with. The first time he heard one of those ensembles play a piece of his music, the experience supercharged his passion for composition.

Harris’ young adult years were lived unrolling his sleeping bag at music festivals, busking with a saxophone and boom box in London’s subways where he earned enough to make a spare-change living, and traveling in a van as the keyboardist for a Top-40 cover band called Too Cool For School on a tour of the finest dive bars of California, Arizona, and Utah. “Freebird” and “Don’t Stop Believin’” were on heavy rotation.

At CalArts, where Harris worked with a youth program, music by modern composers -- Babbitt, Partch, Subotnick, Steve Reich, Ligeti -- bled through the rehearsal room walls, seeped into the hallways and into Harris’ musical imagination. Much of his work that followed blended progressive rock with classical music, and Harris created it with a plethora of sound sources: samples, electric guitar, mandocello, stand up bass, percussion, and 5 string electric violin. Not satisfied with the instruments available, Harris also began to work with instruments he built, found, and scrounged: tape loops, a kit-built hurdy gurdy, a $10 garage sale zither, a Scotland tourist’s souvenir shop bagpipe, plastic water jugs rattling with beads. A later project, a flirtation with the sounds of animated cartoons employed a slide whistle, bamboo flutes, a kit-made hammered dulcimer, and a hundred-plus year-old marimba that, according to the newspaper classified ad, had travelled from village to village in Guatemala on the back of a burro.

He then spent four years in Cambridge, England, making a living as an audio technician, while co- founding a classical guitar society in the region.

Later projects include work as a member of the Los-Angeles based composers organization California Outside Music Association, writing the soundtrack for a short film honoring Olympia Dukakis, creating a soundscape to accompany an exhibition of work by Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, and composing works for Quercus, a fusion band.

After settling down in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, he constructed a recording studio which specialised in classical and acoustic music. Meanwhile, he continues to add to his catalogue of instrumental compositions (string quartets, guitar solos, duets and trios, guitar and oboe and solo violin), works for string orchestra and chamber orchestra, and many vocal pieces (acapella, and accompanied by string quartet, wind trio, guitar and clarinet, etc.)

Over the years he has written a collection of Art Pieces for piano, as well as a collection of fugues. He is currently completing a piano studies book for the autodidact, based upon his decades of private piano instruction.

Philosophically, Harris finds the idea of ‘artistic identity’ as something ​fluid,​ saying, “For each piece, the challenge is to find ‘​its ​voice’, waiting to be released”.

String Quartet # 1 is Harris’ first collaboration with The Sirius Quartet and Navona Records.

gregoryharrismusic.com | Soundcloud

Semir "Sammy" Hasić (b. 1964) began playing music at the age of 6. He attended music school in Zenica and studied theoretical and pedagogical direction under professor Vinko Kreitmeyer in Sarajevo, eventually completing his studies of composition and conducting in Würzburg where he became professor of composition and conducting.

He worked for the Benkert School of Music with the well-known Fischer Choir, had his own private school “SAMMY,” organized the “First Harmonica of BiH” competition, and organized the Association of the City of Artists of Ze-Do Canton. Hasić is producer and composer of international popular tunes, has held seminars and courses throughout Europe, and has performed concerts around the world.

Hasić is the author of four instructional books and CDs, collectively known as the “Sammy Keyboard Methods.” He has released albums and videos on Croatia Records, Bemix Produktion, and Nota Bene, and has composed the scores for various films. In Italy in 1994, he was awarded the title of Accordion World Champion.

www.semirsammyhasic.com

John Hawkes (b. 1942) first obtained a basic knowledge of music notation while in a church choir, but it was not until he was 14, when he heard an orchestra for the first time, that he became interested in composition. This interest has remained ever since, despite his subsequent career in science as a lecturer in Physics at the University of Northumbria in the U.K. Since taking early retirement in 1996, he has devoted his time to composition.

From 1994 to 2005 he attended composition classes at COMA (Contemporary Music for All) summer schools, studying with Michael Parsons, Diana Burrell, Daryl Runswick, Michael Finnissy, Stephen Montague, Deirdre Gribbin, and John Woolrich. In December 2001, after two years of part time study at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, he was awarded the degree of M.Mus. in composition. During this time, he studied with Agustin Fernandez and Deirdre Gribbin.

www.johnhawkes.co.uk

Malcolm Hawkins, British composer born in Portugal, has lived in New Hampshire since 1995. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, and was subsequently awarded a scholarship to study at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, with Cesar Bresgen, where he won an international song competition Das Neue Lied with 4 Songs for Baritone, Saxophone and Piano. These and a solo piano work were broadcast on Austrian Radio, and his wind quintet was performed in Salzburg and Vienna.

He has worked as a string bass player, piano accompanist and teacher at the RAM and other music schools, and studied solfËge and choral conducting at the Kodaly Institute in Hungary. Hawkins' Diversions for Oboe Quartet (published by Keturi Verlag) was premiered by Simon Dent and the Heutling Quartet in Berlin and is recorded on the Amati label. Broadcasts on BBC Radio Three include the Suite On Stage (Stainer and Bell) for piano duet, Ghost Games for piano, Vanities (BBC Concert Orchestra) Concerto for Oboe and Strings and Four Carols (E.C.Schirmer - BBC Singers with Siobhan Williams, harp and James Morgan). The carol Rosamundi was recorded on the Priory label.

Hawkins' received commissions come from the Vaughan Williams Trust and various festivals including Lichfield in England and the Round Top Festival in Texas, for which he wrote Variations and Fugue for Piano and Orchestra, premiered and recorded by James Dick. The Hungarian Chamber Symphony premiered his horn concerto Three Maidens with Imre Magyari in Budapest. Further commissions include New Hampshire String Teachers Association and Nashua Symphony and Chorus, which premiered The Cry from All. The text for this work was a collaborative piece by young writers masterminded by New Hampshire poet laureate Marie Harris.

Patrick Hawkins holds degrees in performance from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, East Carolina University, and Arizona State University. Post-graduate studies in music education were taken at California State University, Los Angeles, and at the University of Washington, Seattle. His major teachers have included Janette Fishell, Peggy Haas Howell, Kimberly Marshall, and Carole Terry (organ); Shirley Mathews, and Webb Wiggins (harpsichord); and Shuko Watanabe and Joseph Rackers (piano). In 1993 Dr. Hawkins made his European debut at the Cambridge Summer Recitals. He has regularly returned to Europe to perform in France and Germany, and in 2013 he was invited to lecture at the 2nd International Conference on Early Keyboard Music at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the United States, he has appeared as soloist at four regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and in 2014 he performed a square piano recital for the National Conference of the Historic Keyboard Society of North America held at the National Music Museum in South Dakota. He has recorded music of Johann Sebastian Bach for Arkay Records and his recordings have been featured on National Public Radio. Dr. Hawkins lives and teaches in Columbia SC.

Growing up on a farm outside of Spartanburg SC, Dr. Phillip Chase Hawkins serves as Principal Trumpet with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 2013. He is also a member of the cornet section in Fountain City Brass Band and is an active performer on historical instruments as a member of Kentucky Baroque Trumpets and Saxton's Cornet Band. Hawkins can also be heard as a performing and recording artist for the Nashville Music Scoring Studio and Sound Lair Studio. His previously held positions include Visiting Professor of Trumpet at Centre College and Interim Professor of Trumpet at the University of Kentucky.

Hawkins has performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Le Château de la Voix Baroque Orchestra, and others. He has appeared as guest soloist with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival and the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra. Hawkins has performed in concert halls and recital venues throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia.

Receiving several awards and achievements in solo competitions, Hawkins has gained both national and international recognition. In 2014, Hawkins won first prize in the Grand Valley State University International Solo Trumpet Competition. In 2013, Hawkins took first prize at the NABBA Solo Competition in the high lyric category. In 2012, he was the first-place winner of the National Trumpet Competition in the Graduate division, having taken second place in 2011, as well as winning first place in the National Brass Symposium Solo Competition. And in 2010, Hawkins was selected as a top 10 finalist in the Prague Spring International Solo Competition in Prague Czech Republic.

Hawkins holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and both Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music. At Eastman, Hawkins received the distinguished Performer's Certificate, was the inaugural recipient of the Sidney Mear Trumpet Prize, and was a Howard Hanson Scholarship recipient for academic merit.

For more information, please visit his website.

Phillip Chase Hawkins is a Yamaha Performing Artist.

MARA HELMUTH was composes music and sonic spaces often involving the computer, focusing recently on environmental issues and wildlife. Her recordings include Irresistible Flux on Esther Lamneck’s Tarogato Constructions, from O on Open Space CD 33 Benjamin Boretz 9x9, Lifting the Mask on Sounding Out! (Everglade), Sound Collaborations, (CDCM v.36, Centaur CRC 2903), Implements of Actuation (Electronic Music Foundation EMF 023), and works included on Open Space CD 16 and the 50th Anniversary University of Illinois EMS collection. Scores are published in Open Space Magazine Issues 19-20 (from O), and Notations 21 (String Paths), edited by Theresa Sauer. Her music has been performed internationally at conferences, festivals, and arts spaces. Her research includes software for composition and improvisation, and has involved granular synthesis (StochGran), wireless sensor networks, user interfaces, performance over Internet2 (Soundmesh), Unity musical game environments, and contributions to the RTcmix music programming language.

She is Professor of Composition at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, and Director of the CCM Center for Computer Music. She previously taught at Texas A&M University and New York University. She holds a D.M.A. from Columbia University, and earlier degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She served on the board of directors for the International Computer Music Association as Vice President for Conferences, newsletter editor, and President, and on the SEAMUS board of directors and newsletter editor. She also plays tennis, and practices t’ai chi ch’uan.
marahelmuth.com

Matthew Hetz (b. 1957) is a contemporary Californian composer. A native of Los Angeles, he began piano lessons at age 16, and began playing the violin at age 23. Hetz has composed works for solo instruments, songs, chorus, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and a chamber opera. His works have been performed nationally, and recently his “Elegy for the Victims and Survivors of School Shootings,” was selected to be performed in a PARMA Recordings virtual concert, MOTO VITRUO II, by cellist Ovidiu Marinescu. Hetz is currently an instructor at Santa Monica College’s Emeritus program. He was the president and executive director of the Culver City Symphony Orchestra and Marina del Rey Symphony for 16 years, and plays in the Orchestra’s 2nd violin section. He was also a member of the West Los Angeles College Chamber Orchestra and the Dominguez Hills/Carson Symphony. The composer devotes himself to the causes of environmental and mass transit advocacy. Hetz is extremely grateful to PARMA Recordings for this recording of his Sarajevo Cellist.

www.matthewhetz.com

Described as "flat out beautiful" and "full of mystery," - Stereophile Magazine Edie Hill's music is performed all over the globe. Venues have included Lincoln Center, Musis Sacrum in Arnhem, Holland, LA County Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Minneapolis' Walker Arts Center, St. Paul's Schubert Club, The Cape May Festival (NJ), The Downtown Arts Festival (NYC), Liviu Cultural Center (Romania), Feszek Müvészklub (Budapest), concert halls in Bangkok (Thailand), Dublin (Ireland), Reykjavik (Iceland), Moscow (Russia), Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Baltic States, and The United Arab Emirates.

She has been commissioned to compose for solo voice to choir, solo instrumental to orchestral and mass band, miniature to full evening drama; and loves the challenge of exploring all combinations, including electroacoustic and mixed media.

Through her lectures and workshops, she actively cultivates the talents of young composers and musicians as well as educating and engaging the public in the music of today. She's served as Composer-in-Residence at St. Paul's Schubert Club from 2005-2017, where she ran and grew the Mentorship Program for gifted high school composers. She has lectured at colleges, universities, and various institutions in the States and abroad.

A three-time McKnight Artist Fellow and a two-time Bush Artist Fellow, Hill has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, ASCAP, Meet The Composer, and Chamber Music America. After earning a B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont under the tutelage of Vivian Fine, Hill moved from her native New York to Minneapolis where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Minnesota with principal composition teacher, Lloyd Ultan. She has also studied extensively with Libby Larsen.Composing is a life-long love. Writing music is always an opportunity to research, learn, muse, reach down deep, and allow inspiration to come from the stuff of life. She lives in Minneapolis MN where she free-lances and runs Hummingbird Press, through which all of her works are available for perusal and sale. For more information visit

Having been praised by the press as "precise and keenly projective" and demonstrating "the highest level of proficiency," Japanese-Canadian pianist Yoko Hirota is considered one of the leading interpreters of contemporary piano repertory of her generation.

Hirota received her doctoral degree in piano performance under Louis-Philippe Pelletier at McGill University. Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts allowed her to study in Europe with Gábor Eckhardt in Hungary, Herbert Henck in Germany, and Florent Boffard in France.

Hirota is a strong advocate of contemporary music and has appeared in recitals including: New Music Concerts (Toronto), Discovery Series (Calgary), Windsor Canadian Music Festival (Windsor), Domaine Forget International Music Festival (Quebec), Innovations en concert (Montréal), the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival (Quebec), Friday Evenings at the Rolston (Banff), and Chapelle Historique du Bon Pasteur (Montréal). Hirota was invited by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM) to perform the challenging work, Joy (for 23 musicians and tape), by Magnus Lindberg, for its Canadian premiere. The Montreal Gazette gave special recognition of her performance.

Hirota's performances were broadcast on Société Radio-Canada, and she has received prestigious grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. At the 1996 Clara Liechtenstein Piano Competition (Montréal), a Special Mention Prize was especially created to distinguish her excellence in the interpretation of 20th-century repertoire. In 2013, she was invited to perform at Le 16e Gala des prix Opus.

Hirota released five albums with grants awarded by Canadian arts organizations at both federal and provincial levels. All of her albums focus on contemporary classical music and received rave reviews from Wholenote, Musical Toronto, and The Globe and Mail. Three of her albums exclusively consist of music by contemporary Canadian composers, released by the recording label Centrediscs.

Hirota is currently Professor of Piano at the Music Department of Laurentian University in Ontario Canada and co-founder and co-artistic director of 5-Penny New Music Concerts.

RUSSELL HIRSHFIELD has appeared in recital throughout the United States and in Brazil, China, Belgium, England, Serbia, Costa Rica, and South Africa, programming traditional and contemporary music. His recent programs include concerts at the Royal Academy of Music in Antwerp, the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, and the Royal Flemish Academy in Brussels. In 2017 Phaedra Records released Seeker – The Piano Music of Piet Swerts. The recording has been featured on Belgian Radio Klara and well-received by critics in Holland (Opusklassiek), Belgium (Flanders Art Magazine) and the United States (American Record Guide). In 2020 Navona Records released his program of the early works of Alexander Scriabin.

Hirshfield is Professor of Music at Western Connecticut State University. He has presented masterclasses and conference lectures throughout the United States and abroad. Hirshfield was a member of the Artist Faculty for the 2019 International Piano Festival in Bačka Palanka, Serbia, Guest Artist for the 2015 Piano Master Class Series at New York University, and a member of the piano faculty for the 2013 Oxford University Piano Festival in England.

Mad Dances - American Music for Saxophone and Piano, with saxophonist Dan Goble, was released by Albany Records in 2010. American Record Guide identified Hirshfield as “… a highly skilled and flexible artist who digs into the thorny passages, yet renders the handful of special moments with wonderful touch and sincerity” (ARG, September/October 2011). Hirshfield trained in New Haven and later studied at the Eastman School of Music, Boston University, and the University of Colorado. His teachers include Robert Spillman, James Avery, Anthony di Bonaventura, and Alvin Chow. His adventuresome programming was deemed “challenging even to the most ambitious pianist…” (Boulder Daily Camera).

russellhirshfield.com

Sydney Hodkinson (b.1934) currently holds the Almand Chair of Music Composition at Stetson University and has served as Composer-in-Residence and faculty conductor at Colorado's Aspen Music Festival and School for fifteen years. His distinguished 55-year teaching career includes posts at the Universities of Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Southern Methodist and Rochester - and visiting professorships at Western Ontario, Oberlin, Indiana, and Duke Universities.

As conductor, he held positions as director of the Contemporary Directions Ensemble (Michigan), Eastman's Musica Nova Ensemble and the Kilbourn Orchestra, the Voices of Change (SMU, Dallas), Banff Festival, Toronto's New Music Concerts, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble as well as many guest appointments.

Hodkinson received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Eastman School of Music and his Doctorate from the University of Michigan, studying primarily with Bernard Rogers and Ross Lee Finney. Other major mentors were Carter, Sessions, Babbitt, Britten, and Dallapiccola.

During 2012, Dr. Hodkinson was awarded the Bolcom Extended Residency in Composition from the University of Michigan. Earlier awards include those from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Canada Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ford Foundation.

Composer Hendrik Hofmeyr first came to the public's notice when his opera, The Fall of the House of Usher, won the South African Opera Competition and the Nederburg Opera Prize. The opera was performed at the State Theatre in Pretoria in 1988 while Hofmeyr was furthering his studies in Italy during a ten year self-imposed exile. That same year he was awarded first prize in an international competition with music for a short film by Wim Wenders.

In 1992, he accepted a post as lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch. In 1997, he won two further international competitions: the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition of Belgium (with �Raptus' for violin and orchestra) and the first edition of the Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition in Athens (with �Byzantium' for high voice and orchestra). His Incantesimo for flute was chosen to represent South Africa at the Congress of the International Society of Contemporary Music in Croatia in 2005. In 2008, he received a Kanna Award from the Kleinkaroo National Arts Festival.

Hofmeyr is currently professor of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he obtained his Doctorate in Music in 1999.

Christopher J. Hoh hails from Pennsylvania and the Washington, DC area. He has participated in workshops with Jean Berger, Daniel Moe, Robert Page, and Mack Wilberg. He studied as a composition fellow with Alice Parker in 2014.

Chris's recent commissions include American folksong settings for Alexandria, VA middle school choruses & piano and a cappella motets for a church on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The Stuttgart German-American chorus called on him to write an extended setting of the O Antiphons for choir & organ, which premiered in 2014. PROJECT:ENCORE endorsed his setting of the early American "Come Away to the Skies" in 2015, leading to several additional performances around the U.S. and commissions for more arrangements of American folk hymns. His song cycle "I Breathed A Song" for mezzo-soprano, baritone saxophone and piano premiered at Vienna's Musikverein in 2011.

California's Meistersingers also requested new work from him: Shakespeare's "My Mistress' Eyes" for SATB a cappella (2014) and an SSATBB treatment of the 16th-Century carol "Ein Kind Geborn In Bethlehem" (2013). The William & Mary College choir reprised and took on tour his six-part "Angele Dei" in 2014-15, while Shepherd University asked him to re-arrange "Dona Nobis Pacem" for six-part male chorus. The Montana-based ensemble Musikanten, for whom he was composer-in-residence in 2008, has performed his work on several European tours. The last few years have seen premieres of Chris Hoh compositions in Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, and West Virginia, as well as Austria, Canada and Spain. His work has been published by Augsburg Fortress Press and Art of Sound Music.

Chris's current projects include more part-songs on Shakespeare and old German texts, a symphony of Latin psalms for choir and orchestra, and flute/horn/piano arrangements of less-known Christmas carols, along with choral pieces for church and concert. He is also editing neglected works from the European renaissance (e.g. Caurroy, Monte, Prætorius, Sweelinck) and the New World (Billings, Beach, Holyoke, Parker, Salazar) for performance today.

In addition to recordings with Navona/PARMA, his compositions are found on ERM Media's "Made in the Americas, Vol. 1" CD and Phoenix Classical's "Undiscovered Choral Gems." Chris Hoh graduated from Georgetown University in international affairs. He served in the U.S. Foreign Service for over 30 years and is now a Senior Adviser at the Department of State. Scores, audio and information about Chris's compositions may be found on his website, www.HohMadeMusic.com and J.W. Pepper's MyScore.

David Holdhusen is the Director of Choral Activities and the Douglas and Susan Tuve Distinguished Professor of Choral Music at the University of South Dakota. His responsibilities include serving as conductor for the Chamber Singers and teaching courses in conducting. In addition to his teaching duties, Dr. Holdhusen is the Chair of the Department of Music, Director of the university's annual Choral Directors Institute, and the USD Summer Music Camp.

Dr. Holdhusen received his Ph.D. in Music Education from Florida State University. He holds an M.M. from Northwestern University in Choral Conducting, and a B.A. in Music with education certification from Gustavus Adolphus College. While at Gustavus, Dr. Holdhusen was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda and awarded the Presser Foundation Scholarship.

Dr. Holdhusen was the recipient of the SD-ACDA Encore Award for excellence and achievement in the field of choral music and the prestigious Belbas-Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor USD bestows on its educators. He is in demand as a guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician throughout the region. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the College Music Society, the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) and the National Association for Music Education (NAfME). Dr. Holdhusen has had research published in national journals and presented clinics and interest sessions throughout the country. He has been elected to leadership positions in various organizations, including a term as President for the South Dakota Chapter of ACDA. His book, "Commitment to Musical Excellence" is published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Choirs under his direction have been invited to perform at state and regional festivals and conventions, have won first place and grand champion awards in music festivals throughout the country, and have been honored by the American Prize for sustained excellence in Choral Performance.

Peter Homans received a BA in English from Washington & Lee University followed by two master�s degrees in music from New England Conservatory with Don Martino (Composition) and then Ernst Oster (Theory) in 1974 and 1976. He received two fellowships to Tanglewood in '75 and '76, studying with Gunther Schuller, Betsy Jolas, and Oliver Knussen. During his stay, he won the first ever Aaron Copland Prize for Composition.

After his studies, Homans worked as Assistant Business Manager and Principal Musical Assistant for Leonard Bernstein. Having decided not to pursue a career in academia, he has spent the last 30 years in the financial industry, working as a partner at Bear Stearns, principal of his own brokerage firm, and most recently principal of the Parkman LP hedge fund.

He has written and recorded numerous pieces for chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the NY Chamber Symphony, Marin Alsop's Concordia, Boston Musica Viva, Dinosaur Annex, Czech Radio Orchestra, and the Silesian Radio Orchestra. He has released 3 CDs and most recently premiered his viola concerto Dialogs with soloist Will Frampton, and Dinosaur Annex, which will be released on PARMA Recordings along with pieces from this concert later this year.

Founded in 1983, the Hong Kong Composers' Guild (HKCG) is a professional association of serious composers with objectives to promote and cultivate music composition in Hong Kong. Apart from organising concerts, publishing scores and producing recordings of works by Hong Kong composers, HKCG also takes an active part in arousing interest in composition especially amongst youths and in developing music as a vital creative art form in Hong Kong. Organising composition competitions and sending composers to the community and schools are its regular activities. HKCG works closely with professional musicians and institutions in not just concert performances, but orchestration workshops, field trips, forum, commissions, and community services. As one of the cultural ambassadors of our city, HKCG has also established strong links with many international organisations and has played a significant role in international music exchanges. HKCG's predecessor is the Hong Kong Section of the Asian Composers League which was founded in 1973. HKCG is also a National Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music. It also co-operates with RTHK to send a composer as representative to the International Rostrum of Composers each year. Since July 2010, HKCG has become one of the Year Grantees of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Monica (Niki) Houghton was born in Vermont and grew up in northern Nevada. She holds A.B. and A.M. degrees from Harvard University in Chinese Language and Literature and East Asian Studies. She earned an M.M. in Composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2003 and served as instructor for their Joint Music Program with Case Western Reserve University for nine years before moving back to Nevada in 2011.

Ms. Houghton received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council in 2007. Her works for large ensemble have been performed by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the University Circle Wind Ensemble, Heights Chamber Orchestra, Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra.

Houghton's works have been performed at festivals around the country and the world, including the AKI Festival of New Music, Ernest Bloch Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, and Shanghai Spring International Music Festival.

Ms. Houghton's music has been described as "evocative" and "full of feeling." She has incorporated non-Western instruments and musical practices into several of her compositions. A glance at her catalog reveals a wide range of influences inspiring her works, including nature, poetry, the visual arts, language, science and world events. Ms. Houghton also appreciates and draws inspiration from live performances by living performers.

In addition to her many chamber works, she has composed solo works for piano, organ, viola, guitar and tuba. Monica Houghton is also the composer and co-librettist of an award-winning opera The Big Bonanza premiered by the Nevada Chamber Opera in April 2016.

For further information about Niki Houghton please visit her website.

MSsu-Yu Huang, a native of Taiwan, enjoys an active career in contemporary music. Her compositions - covering a wide range of music with bold and delicate genres - are performed by professional musicians and orchestras in Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United States, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela. German maestro Günther Herbig praised her orchestral work, calling it "a modern and complex style, presenting her own characters and creativity." She has received awards and honors including the first Call For Score of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan in 2010 (winner), the 2013 IBLA Grand Prize (Most Distinguished Award), the 2015 American Prize (semi-finalist in composition-chamber music), and the 2016 Maurice Ravel International Composition Competition. During 1997-2000, she was commissioned by Kazuhito Yamashita to compose many pieces for guitar solo, including the "Grand Music of Tang," a suite of 24 pieces inspired by poems from the Tang Dynasty of China. In 2018, her orchestra piece "Heritage of Hakka" was premiered at the grand opening ceremony of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts Weiwuying. Her compositions have been published globally through companies such as Mahin Media (United States), Mark Custom Recording (United States), and Ablaze (Australia). Her wind band and ensemble scores have been published by Golden Hearts Publications (Japan). In recent years, Huang's works have been increasingly performed throughout European, Asian, and American continents.

For more information about Ssu-Yu Huang, please visit her website.

Robert Hugill is a London based composer, journalist, blogger and lecturer. Robert runs the highly regarded classical music blog, Planet Hugill. Robert's setting of the Advent Prose was premiered by Alistair Dixon and Chapelle du Roi at St John's Smith Square in December 2014, and they premiered Robert's setting of Ruth Padel's Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth in 2015. London Concord Singers, conductor Jessica Norton, premiere Robert's motet Dominus illuminatio mea in December 2016 as part of the choir's 50th anniversary celebrations.

Robert's cantata The Testament of Dr. Cranmer was issued on disc of Robert's music on the Divine Art label in 2008, performed by the eight:fifteen vocal ensemble, the strings of the Chameleon Arts Orchestra, Christopher Wilson (tenor), Paul Brough (conductor). Robert's first opera Garrett was staged at Hoxton Hall in 2001, and his opera When a man knows was staged in 2011 at the Bridewell Theatre, London, in a production directed by Ian Caddy and conducted by David Roblou. Robert's most recent opera The Genesis of Frankenstein was premiered by the Helios Collective in London in 2016. Robert has recently completed Tempus per Annum, a cycle of 70 motets for the church's year with over 45 hours of music, and has released all the motets for free download on the CPDL website. Robert's songs were placed in the English Poetry and Song Society's A E Housman Competition, Ivor Gurney Competition and Diamond Songs Competition.

http://www.roberthugill.com/

Gregory Hutter holds degrees from Western Michigan University, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern University. He has been a faculty member at DePaul University since 2002. His compositions have been performed by the Moravian Philharmonic, the Kiev Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, Musica Moderna (Poland), the Cassatt Quartet, the Maia Quartet, the Julstrom Quartet, Trio Callisto, the Carpe Diem Quartet, the Anaphora Ensemble, Arts at Large Chicago, Duo Diorama, the Society for New Music (Syracuse), the Philovox Ensemble (Boston), pianists Winston Choi and Matthew McCright, Pinotage, Musica Nova (Israel), and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), among others. Hutter has been the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, in addition to receiving grants and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, the MacDowell Colony, the American Music Center and the Meet the Composer Foundation. His debut full-length solo CD was released on the Naxos American Classics label in 2008. Individual compositions are recorded on various labels including Capstone, ERM, Navona, and Innova. His compositions are published in print by E. C. Schirmer (ECS Publishing) of Boston. Hutter's many distinguished teachers have included Ramon Zupko, C. Curtis-Smith, Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Evan Chambers, M. William Karlins, Alan Stout and Marta Ptaszynska.

Jon Hynes is a prize-winning pianist of several competitions including the gold medal of the Nena Wideman International Competition, the Eastman Concerto Competition, and the Young Keyboard Artists International Competition. He has performed extensively in Europe including concerts in London at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Oxford at Trinity College, Frankfurt at the American Consulate, Geneva at the American Concert Series, Interlaken at Aula Hall, the Musicora International Festival in Paris, the European Piano Teachers Association Convention in Novi Sad (Serbia), Brussels at the American Concert Series, the American Cathedral in Paris, and numerous concerts throughout France, including concerts at both the United States Consulate and Embassy. Recent performances include the International Conference on the Arts and Humanities in Hawaii, Boccarelli Auditorium in São Paulo (Brazil), and a longside his wife (pianist Mia Hynes) at Steinway Hall in New York City. Previously the founder and Director of the Arkansas Baptist School of Fine Arts, he now teaches at Center Stage Academy for the Performing Arts in Warrensburg MO.

photo: Mia Hynes