Composers

Ronald Perera’s (b. Boston 1941) compositions include operas, song cycles, chamber, choral, and orchestral works, and several works for instruments or voices with electronic sounds. He is perhaps best known for his settings of texts by authors as diverse as Dickinson, Joyce, Grass, Sappho, Cummings, Shakespeare, Francis of Assisi, Melville, Ferlinghetti, Updike and Henry Beston. Seven major pieces are represented on compact discs released in the late 1990s. Reviewing CRI CD 796 for Fanfare magazine, critic John Story writes, “Three Poems of Günter Grass is, quite simply, one of the most haunting works of the last 25 years.” Reviewing The Outermost House on Albany Troy 314 he writes, “When he is on form, Ronald Perera is among the finest living combiners of words and music…The music is simply lovely.”

Simon Proctor is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music where he gained the GRSM degree and LRAM diploma in piano performance and teaching. He won several prizes for composition, orchestration, and piano including the Eric Coates prize, the Academy’s top award for orchestral composition. As a pianist, he has given recitals in Germany, The Bahamas, and the United States and has appeared many times as a concerto soloist in the United Kingdom and America.

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1931, Donald Martino began music lessons at nine ñ learning to play the clarinet, saxophone, and oboe ñ and composing at age 15. He went on to obtain degrees from Syracuse and Princeton Universities.

Donald Betts made his New York debut as a pianist and composer at the age of 21, playing his own music along with works by Prokofieff, Liszt, and Schumann. The New York Times called him "a pianist of imagination and poetic feeling". Musical America cited "his tremendous technique and bravura style".

Symphonic, solo, choral, chamber, theater and electronic music composer Carlos Alberto Vázquez is among the most versatile and outstanding Latin American contemporary composers coming from the Caribbean basin. Born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Vázquez studied music at the University of Puerto Rico, University of Pittsburgh, New York University and La Sorbonne in Paris, where he earned a Doctoral degree.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1965, Alfonso Tenreiro entered the world of music studying organ. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in composition.

Ricardo Lorenz's compositions have received praise for their fiery orchestrations, harmonic sophistication, and rhythmic vitality. These impressions have accompanied performances of the Venezuelan-born composer's works at prestigious international festivals such as Carnegie Hall's Sonidos de las Amèricas, Ravinia Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, France's Berlioz Festival, Spain's Festival Internacional de Musica Contemporanea de Alicante, the Festival Cervantino in Mexico, and many more. Lorenz's orchestral compositions have been performed domestically by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and the Dayton Philharmonic, and internationally by premier orchestras in Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Brendon McConville (b. 1977) is a composer, theorist, and teacher at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has crafted works for numerous contemporary ensembles. His music has been performed in the United States and throughout Europe, including performances and recordings with the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of Lviv, and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra.

Norman Mathews’s art songs were featured, along with the works of John Kander and Charles Strouse, at the Kennedy Center in a program of classical music written by theatre composers.

Shyly courting the limelight, composer and librettist Edward Ficklin focuses his creative energy on the various forms of music theater. He has realized his works in a number of unusual venues, like a store window near Grand Central Station and a vacant bank lobby near the World Trade Center (with the support of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the September 11th Fund). His work has also been presented by American Opera Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Opera Company of Astoria (Astoria, NY), Little Opera Theatre of New York, the Spring Fever Festival (New York, NY), David Parker/The Bang Group (a collaboration with choreographer Lise Brenner) and Opera Vista (Houston, TX).

Paul A. Epstein's compositions include two chamber operas as well as works for string orchestra and for a variety of small ensembles. His Prime Times 2 for flute, bassoon, and piano was a winner of the Pascal Gallois 2008 call for scores.

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.

David Froom was born in California in 1951. His music has been performed extensively throughout the United States by major orchestras, ensembles, and soloists, including the Louisville, Seattle, Utah, and Chesapeake Symphony Orchestras, The United States Marine and Navy Bands, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the 21st Century Consort, and the New York New Music Ensemble.

Gregers Brinch was born in Denmark to a Danish father and American mother, but spent a substantial part of his childhood and, since returning from Germany in 1994, adulthood in the small village of Row in East Sussex, Great Brittain.

Robert Stewart (b. 1918) has composed for a variety of soloists, orchestras, and ensembles. He has written music for the New York Brass Quintent, the National Symphony String Trio, the Stradivari String Quartet, and many others. His compositions have been performed across North America and Europe.

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.

Tim Sullivan's compositions have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe at various venues and new music festivals, including the Borealis Festival, American Opera Projects, 2008 NASA Conference, Etcetera Festival of New Music, and World Saxophone Congress XIII. He has received awards and honors from the American Composers Orchestra/EarShot, ASCAP, Downbeat magazine, and ALEA III.

Stephen L. Mosko (1947-2005) was born in Denver, where his early musical education was fostered by conductor Antonia Brico. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree Magna cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in 1969 studying with Donald Martino and Gustav Meier, and his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 1972 studying with Mel Powell, Leonard Stein, and Morton Subotnick.

Patrick Beckman received his B.M. and M.M. in piano from the University of Illinois-Urbana. After graduation he became Artist-in-Residence at Highland College in Illinois where he later headed the music department. He has also taught at Rockford College. Beckman's works for piano include the albums Songs for Piano (1981); Biscuit Alley (1984); Street Psalms (1985); and Spring Chants (1987). Past CDs include Earth Day Sonata (1992); Piano Pieces (1997); Tavern Tunes (2003); American Scenes Vol. 1 (2006); American Scenes Vol. II (2007) and Street Dance (2008, produced by Bob Lord).

Rebecca Oswald is an award-winning composer with many areas of experience and excellence. From 1980 to 1995 she was a freelance pianist, accompanist, keyboardist and studio musician in Houston, Texas. In 1998, she earned her BM in Music Theory and Composition summa cum laude from Westminster Choir College of Rider University and in 2001 she completed her MM in Composition from the University of Oregon School of Music. Today she is a composer, pianist, orchestrator, singer, arranger, and producer based out of Eugene, Oregon.