Composers

Eliane Aberdam was born in Nancy, France. She studied piano and theory at the Conservatoire National de Region in Grenoble (1972-1981). She completed her undergraduate studies in composition at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, Israel, where she studied with Mark Kopytman. In 1989, she entered the graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania where she studied with George Crumb, and obtained her master’s degree in 1992. She completed her Ph.D. in Composition at U.C. Berkeley.

Composer and conductor Lee Actor (b. 1952) was one of five composers selected in November 2014 as an “Honored Artist of the American Prize”, the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed. He has won a number of awards for his compositions, most recently for Dance Rhapsody, winner of the Austin Civic Orchestra Composition Competition and second place winner of the 2011 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, Redwood Fanfare, a winner of the 2009 Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra Fanfare Competition, and Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, the First Prize Winner in the 2007 International Horn Society Composition Contest.

DANIEL ADAMS (b. 1956, Miami FL) is a Professor of Music at Texas Southern University in Houston. Adams holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (1985) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Master of Music from the University of Miami (1981) and a Bachelor of Music from Louisiana State University (1978). He served as the College Music Society Board Member for Composition from 2015 through 2017.

Samuel Adler was born March 4, 1928 in Mannheim, Germany and came to the United States in 1939. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2001, and then inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in October 2008. In 2018 he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (first class), the highest civilian award given by the German government. He is the composer of over 400 published works, including five operas, six symphonies, 17 concerti, eight string quartets, five oratorios, and many other orchestral, band, chamber and choral works, and songs, which have been performed all over the world.

A pianist who "can create whatever type of music he wants at the keyboard" (Chicago Sun-Times) and a composer who writes "with uncommon imagination" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), James Adler's extensive list of compositions is headed by Memento mori: An AIDS Requiem.

The music of Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand (b.1970) has been called “strong and startlingly lovely” (Boston Globe). His compositions are wide-ranging in influence and inspiration, encompassing solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. From scores for dance, to compositions for young people, to multidisciplinary and collaborative works, Al-Zand’s music is diverse in both its subject matter and its audience. It explores connections between music and other arts, and draws inspiration from varied sources such as graphic art, myths and fables, folk music of the world, film, spoken word, jazz, and his own Middle Eastern heritage.

Ahmed Alabaca is an African American composer, conductor, songwriter, pianist, and community facilitator creating power and possibility, through music, for himself and the diverse communities he is a part of. Raised in San Bernardino CA, in a low-income community, Alabaca knows the value of hard work and perseverance in the face of systemic and interpersonal challenges. Alabaca’s vision is “a new renaissance” for underrepresented composers, which centers on the works of people of color and creates opportunities for them to perform, record, and archive their work.

Born 1949 in Kingston, Jamaica, Alberga decided at the age of five to be a concert pianist. Five years later she was composing works for the piano. In 1968 she won the biennial Royal Schools of Music Scholarship for the West Indies, which she took up in 1970 at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying piano and singing. But a budding career as a solo pianist — she was one of three finalists in the International Piano Concerto Competition in Dudley, UK in 1974 — was further augmented by composition with her arrival at The London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1978. Under the inspirational leadership of its Artistic Director, Robert Cohan, she became one of the very few pianists with the deepest understanding of modern dance and her company class improvisations became the stuff of legend.

Award-winning composer Adrienne Albert (ASCAP) has had her chamber, choral, vocal, orchestral, and wind band works performed throughout the United States and around the world. Having previously worked as a singer with composers Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, and Gunther Schuller among many others, Albert began composing her own music in the 1990s.

Alexis Alrich started piano lessons at age eight with a rare teacher who encouraged her to start music composition at the same time. Her studies continued at the New England Conservatory of Music, California Institute of the Arts, and with Lou Harrison at Mills College in California. Harrison was a key mentor, and Alrich’s music is also influenced by West Coast Minimalism, French Impressionism, Asian music, and American roots music. Her compositional style is tonal and melodic, using lively rhythms and colorful timbres to weave a musical narrative.

Musician and composer Kjell Magne Andersen, was born in 1954. At the age of ten he began to play guitar and later he was presented with the clarinet. He received his musical education from Barratt Due's Music Institute in Oslo, with clarinet as his primary instrument.

Deborah J. Anderson grew up in Tacoma WA and began composing at age 6. As a teenager she studied piano and voice. In college she majored in languages and she later served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia, where she taught English, studied Arabic music, and learned to play the ‘oud and sing in Arabic. After earning a master's degree in French (University of Washington, Seattle), she taught at the college level for a number of years. From 2000 to 2011 she sang in the Pacific Lutheran University Choral Union. She enjoys her four adult children, the arts, travel, and gourmet cooking.

Andrew Anderson (b. 1971) is based in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied composition with Rodney Ford, violin with Barbara O’Reilly, and piano with Arvon McFadden. His choral works are informed by engagements with parish choirs in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as private tuition in singing with Nigel Wickens (Cambridge UK). From 2021 through 2022, he was the inaugural composer in residence at St James' Old Cathedral.

Douglas Anderson is a composer, conductor, educator, and producer who has been active in the New York area for 45 years.  He studied music and psychology at Columbia University, where his three degrees culminated in a doctorate in music composition in 1980. His professional career began as a jazz musician at the age of 12, and he performed widely in the Eastern United States before moving to New York to attend college. His work as a conductor has been his performance focus for the last several decades.

Simon Andrews is an English composer who is earning a reputation as a creator of eloquent concert music that blends harmonic complexity and lyricism, introversion and broad gestures, delicate timbres and bold statements. His output ranges from large-scale orchestral works and opera to intimate chamber music, with a special delight in chamber music with solo voices. He studied at Oxford University, and the Royal Academy of Music, and gained a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Winner of the 1985 Benjamin Britten Prize, his music has been commissioned and performed to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fabio Aantonelli was born in Rome in 1966 and studied musicology and composition with great Italian composers like Ivan Fedele, Mario Garuti, and Gabriele Manca. He graduated in Musicology at the University of Pavia (Italy) and in Composition from The Como Conservatory of Music (Italy), then he graduated with a Master’s in Composition from The Milan Conservatory (Italy). He’s achieved advanced degrees in Astrophysics and Cosmology from the University of Bologna (Italy). With his work, Antonelli tries to represent the silence of the universe. His music consists of fragments that are isolated and suspended in the Void.

Dr. David Arbury grew up in Washington, DC where he sang from age 9 as a boy treble at Washington National Cathedral in the Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys under Richard Dirksen and later, Douglas Major. He remained with the choir for 18 years and in that time sang with every voice part. Through the 1990s while still in the choir, he became active in DC’s thriving indie rock scene, playing drums and bass with several bands in the post-punk community there.

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.

Chris Arrell (b. 1970, Portland OR) composes music for throats, fingers, and oscillators that celebrates the blurring of lines between human and machine, the natural and the digital, and the popular versus the avant-garde. His music, praised for its nuance and unconventional beauty (New Music Box, Boston Music Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution), has led to commissions from the Alte Schmiede (Austria), Boston Musica Viva, MATA, Spivey Hall, Cornell University, and the Fromm Foundation. A winner of the Ettelson Composer Award for his work Of Three Minds, he holds additional honors from Ossia Music, the League of Composers/ISCM, the Salvatore Martirano Competition, the MacDowell and ACA colonies, and the Fulbright Hays Foundation. His music is available from Beauport Classical, Electroshock Records, Navona Records, PARMA Recordings, and Trevco Music. Arrell is an associate professor at the College of The Holy Cross in Worcester MA.

Nicholas Anthony Ascioti was born in Syracuse NY on May 30th, 1974. He attended the College of St. Rose in Albany NY where he earned degrees in Composition and Conducting. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in Composition from Bennington College in Vermont. Asciotis has studied with Allen Shawn, Dr. Amy Williams, and Stephen Siegel.