• Bill Pfaff

    Composer

    The music of Bill Pfaff is characterized by a strong sense of line, clear harmonic motion, and gestures that have been described as “profound and extravagant.” Known for his collaborative impulse, Bill has produced music for theater, dance and art installations. In this context, his language embraces electronic sources, traditional acoustic instruments, electric guitar and found sounds. As a performer on the soundplane, Bill explores composition that combines physical modeling synthesis, granular synthesis and acoustic instruments.

  • Heath Mathews

    Composer

    As an active composer in the Minneapolis area for the past several years, Heath Mathews has been called a "gifted young composer" who "writes with a clarity of musical voice." The compositional interests of Dr. Mathews include a wide range of musical genres and styles. Playing in rock and jazz groups in his youth, the composer draws influence equally from the vernacular music of contemporary culture, western art music, and world music.

  • Barbara Day Turner

    Conductor

    Maestra Barbara Day Turner is the founder and Music Director of the San José Chamber Orchestra. An ardent advocate for new music, she has premiered more than 130 works just with SJCO. Named the 2012 Silicon Valley Arts Council "On Stage" Artist Laureate, Maestra Day Turner is also Music Administrator and Conductor of the Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theater, where she has led critically acclaimed productions of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, Puccini’s La bohème, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Verdi’s Otello, Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Showboat and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

  • Trio Céleste

    Ensemble

    Hailed as “a first-class ensemble” (Orange County Register) “exuberant and technically dazzling” (Long Beach Gazette) and “one of the best young chamber groups around today” (Philip Setzer, Emerson String Quartet), Trio Céleste has quickly established itself as one of the most dynamic chamber music ensembles in the country.

  • Paul John Stanbery

    Composer

    Paul John Stanbery is currently Music Director of the Hamilton Fairfield Symphony, Ohio Mozart Festival, Great Miami Youth Symphony and has been Associate Conductor of the Lima Symphony in Ohio. Guest appearances have included the Western Piedmont Symphony, Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, The University of Cincinnati, and the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest with the Miami University Symphony Orchestra.

  • Samuel Magill

    Cellist

    Cellist Samuel Magill has had a rich and varied career as soloist, chamber musician, and enjoyed a highly successful orchestral career. His first Naxos CD of the Cello Concerto by Vernon Duke was hailed as "flat-out magnificent" by the American Record Guide, while The Strad wrote of his world premier recording of Franco Alfano's Cello Sonata "Magill's husky, dark timbre matches the Cello Sonata's yearning intensity to perfection".

  • Jason R. Lovelace

    Composer

    A recipient of The Catholic University of America’s Furfey graduate fellowship and a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda music honors society, Jason R. Lovelace (b. 1980) currently serves as an adjunct instructor at Towson University in Towson, MD and Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, VA.

  • Richard Campanelli

    Composer

    Richard Campanelli was born in Hartford CT. When he was seven years old the family moved to Springfield, MO. There were not a lot of opportunities for an artistic education of any sort there, but he was able to finally talk his parents into getting a piano and started taking lessons from local piano teachers.

  • Kevin M. Walczyk

    Composer

    Portland OR native Kevin M. Walczyk received the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of North Texas where he received the Hexter Prize for outstanding graduate student and served as arranger for the renowned University of North Texas One O'clock Lab Band. Walczyk's works have been commissioned and/or recorded by organizations that include the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Kiev Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Ukraine National Symphony, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Portland Youth Philharmonic, and consortium-commissioning projects comprising over 60 university and conservatory wind ensembles.

  • Nicolas Kaviani

    Composer

    American-born composer, Nicolas Kaviani, has been actively composing chamber, orchestral and choral music since the age of 13. Mr. Kaviani received his Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition from the University of California at Santa Cruz in the year 2000, studying under the noted composer David Cope. He then went on to earn his grade de master in composition from the prestigious Conservatoire de Musique Olivier Messiaen in Avignon, France. There Mr. Kaviani was invited multiple times to attend master classes with some of the most prominent composers in France, including on one occasion Pierre Boulez, during the summer of 2005. In 2006 Mr. Kaviani's String quartet #4 was performed in the Festival de Musique Contemporaine in Avignon.

  • Shawn Crouch

    Composer

    Gramophone Magazine calls Shawn Crouch a "gifted young composer" and Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times describes Shawn Crouch's work as music of "gnarling atonal energy". Lawrence Johnson of the Miami Herald called his Road From Hiroshima; A Requiem a "staggering achievement, an imaginative, powerful and deeply moving work" making the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel's 2005 Classical Music Standouts.

  • John D. Rojak

    Trombonist

    John D. Rojak joined the American Brass Quintet in 1991. He is bass trombonist with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, IRIS, New York Pops, Little Orchestra Society, Stamford Symphony, and played for the 16-year run of Broadway’s Les Misérables. He has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, Orpheus, New York Chamber Symphony, and as solo trombone of Solisti NY. He has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, for Pope John Paul II in New York's Central Park and St. Patrick's Cathedral, and for Pope Francis in Madison Square Garden.

  • David Arend

    Composer

    Arend moves easily across genres such as classical, jazz, and electro-acoustic music. He has written or performed music in contexts ranging from theater, dance, and concert stage to art galleries, night clubs, and outdoor festivals. Arend's music has been performed in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

  • William Coble

    Composer

    William Coble’s premieres include the Richmond Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Syracuse Symphony, Moravian Philharmonic, Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Composers Conference Chamber Orchestra, Contempo Chamber Orchestra, eighth blackbird, New York New Music Ensemble, Alea III, and the Pacifica String Quartet. He has been performed by Matt Albert, David Tanenbaum, Scott St. John, Steve Harlos, Charles Mokotoff, Daphne Gerling, Susan Synnestvedt, William Hite, Jay Morrissey, Walter Huff, Elizabeth McNutt, Sharon Garvey-Cohen, Chuong Vu, Janelle Ott, Lisa Kaplan, Judy Pannill, and Heran Yang.

  • Fredrick Kaufman

    Composer

    Fredrick Kaufman is the composer of over 130 published compositions that have been performed worldwide by orchestras such as the Warsaw Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Czech Radio Orchestra, Lithuanian Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, National Orchestra of Brazil, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras. Kaufman is a former Fulbright Scholar, and recipient honors and fellowships from the Endowment of the Arts, the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ford Foundations.

  • Peter Vukmirovic Stevens

    Composer

    Peter Vukmirovic Stevens is a composer, pianist, and multimedia artist. Stevens’ illustrative music covers an extensive palette of sensibilities from concert to sound art. He is the founder of Ensemble Ex Materia. Stevens lives in Paris.

  • Viktor Valkov

    Pianist

    Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists National Auditions, and Gold medalist at the 2012 New Orleans International Piano Competition, Viktor Valkov has been highly acclaimed by the critics as “lion of the keyboard” and “sensational”. Among numerous chamber music and solo appearances, during the last few concert seasons Mr.Valkov also performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, and West Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

  • Lachezar Kostov

    Cellist

    Hailed for the "awesome purity of his playing" (New York Concert Review) and described as a "prodigiously skilled protagonist", Bulgarian cellist Lachezar Kostov has performed as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician in USA, Japan and Europe. In 2006 Mr. Kostov was the National Winner at the MTNA competition. Lachezar Kostov gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 2009 together with his longtime friend and chamber music collaborator pianist Viktor Valkov.

  • Skyros Quartet

    Ensemble

    The Skyros Quartet has performed extensively, traveling around Asia and North America. In their hometown of Seattle, the quartet has concertized at Benaroya Hall as part of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, has been featured artists numerous times at Resonance at Soma Towers, and are seen in frequent performance around the Puget Sound region. They have been heard at the Aspen Music Festival and School (Aspen, Colorado) and the Sunflower Music Festival (Topeka, Kansas). In 2014, Skyros was invited to Ontario, Canada, where they were guest artists at QuartetFest 2014 at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario) and performed at the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society (Ontario, Canada).

  • St. Helens String Quartet

    Ensemble

    Taking its inspiration from the exquisite rugged natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the Saint Helens String Quartet embraces a sense of musical adventure, exploring an often uncharted sonic territory in which contemporary classical music intersects with genres including jazz, pop, rock, folk and world music. Called the "Saint Helens adventurous four" by the Seattle Weekly, the group makes a practice of commissioning and performing works by 20th century composers.