Russ Lombardi
Composer
Professor Russ Lombardi performed on the fretless electric bass in various touring rock bands and resort jazz bands for several years before entering Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated summa cum laude. Upon graduating, he taught music at the school for several years and later served as registrar of the college. He received his Master of Music degree in Jazz Studies with honors from Boston’s New England Conservatory studying composition and arranging with William Thomas McKinley and George Russell. Lombardi also taught music at Bowdoin College and The University of Maine at Farmington.
Christopher Shultis
Composer
Christopher Shultis is a Regents' Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico. His early musical life was as a performer, specifically a percussionist and conductor specializing in the interpretation of experimental music. His first compositions were experimental in nature. Beginning with an exploration of sound and the world in which those sounds occur, Shultis's current work is an examination of self in that world and the sounds that he hears as a result are what he writes down.
Stephen Barber
Composer
Stephen Barber is an influential American voice with over 30 years of professional experience as a composer of concert and film music and an arranger, performer and producer for jazz, classical, popular and world music. From early beginnings in Abilene, Texas, his musical contributions encompass a varied list of the world's leading musicians and ensembles, including Joe Zawinul, Joe Henry, Keith Richards, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Ornette Coleman, T. Bone Burnett, Trakia (Bulgaria) folk ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Chamber players from the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Boys Choir and Czech Radio Orchestra, to name a few.
Barry Seroff
Composer
Barry Seroff was born in Flushing, Queens on July 4th 1978. He earned his Bachelors Degree at the Aaron Copland School of Music where he studied theory with Joe Strauss, composition with Paul Alan Levi, Jeff Nichols, and Bruce Saylor, and musicology with Henry Burnett. At the same time outside of school, he studied classical flute with Michael Laderman and Petina Cole, modern and traditional jazz guitar with Joe Giglio and Bern Nix, and shakuhachi with Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin.
Michael Summers
Composer
Michael Summers' music has harmonic richness, rhythmic flair, and a gift for melody. His works include lyrical string quartet movements, sexy 17th-century song settings and funk-inflected piano pieces. His organ piece Variations on an English Folksong, released by Navona in 2011, was described as 'urgently dramatic' by Gramophone and 'striking and ingenious' by Allmusic.com. Other keyboard works include Modus operandi for piano, which was first performed in 2010. One critic noted its 'subtle and complex rhythms and its impressionist language' and likened the style to Bartok and Debussy.
Israel Neuman
Composer
Composer and bassist Israel Neuman (b. 1966, Haifa, Israel) received a Ph.D. in composition and a M.A. in jazz studies at the University of Iowa, and a B.Mus. in jazz studies at the University of Hartford. He studied composition with Lawrence Fritts, John Eaton, David Gompper and John Rapson. He studied bass with Gary Karr, Michael Klinghoffer, Diana Gannett, Volkan Orhon, and Anthony Cox.
Michael Boyd
Composer
Michael Boyd (b. 1978, Montgomery County MD) is a composer, scholar and experimental improviser who currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. His music, performed throughout the United States, attempts to (re)integrate performers into the creative process of music making through graphic notation and embraces experimental practices such as live electronics, improvisation, installation, multimedia and performance art.
Jay C. Batzner
Composer
Jay C. Batzner (b. 1974, Dubuque IA) is currently on the faculty of Central Michigan University where he teaches music technology, electronic music composition, and music theory courses. Prior to this position Dr. Batzner was on the faculty of the University of Central Florida, Kansas City Kansas Community College, Metropolitan Community Colleges (Kansas City area), and Indiana University Southeast. He earned his doctorate in composition at the University of Missouri - Kansas City and holds degrees in composition and/or theory from the University of Louisville and the University of Kansas.
Scott Michal
Composer
Unabashedly tonal and delightfully anachronistic, the music of American composer Scott Michal combines lyric, harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity with exceptional craftsmanship in a unique stylistic manner that remains true to the spirit of the great masters. Neo-classic in form and tonality, innovative and original in content, Scott’s music is always fun to listen to, and fun to perform.
Allen Bonde
Composer
A native of Manitowoc, WI - distinguished composer and pianist Allen Bonde is Professor Emeritus of Music at Mount Holyoke College. A graduate of Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, he has both the Master of Music and (the first) Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Catholic University of America. He has received many awards, honors, and commissions, notably a Festival Casals Scholarship, a Yale Graduate Fellowship, an American Composers Project, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and was recognized for his outstanding contributions in music with Alumni Achievement Awards from Lawrence University and Catholic University.
Francis Fairman
Composer
Francis Fairman (b. 1923) was born in Annapolis MD. Growing up in a musical family, his father played the violin, his mother the piano, his brother the trumpet, and his sister the violin, Fairman was exposed to music at an early age; he had his first piano lesson in Pittsburgh at the age of 5, and was soon able to sight read and play Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique Op. 13. At age 10, his family moved to Philadelphia, where he continued music lessons under Ms. Gertrude Hamilton, a Curtis Institute graduate.
Sophia Serghi
Composer
Sophia Serghi (b. 1972) was born in Nicosia, Cyprus and is now a resident of the United States. She has written works for stage, orchestra, and chamber ensembles, along with her vocal and multimedia works, and her compositions have been performed throughout Europe and the United States.
William Vollinger
Composer
William Vollinger is predominantly a composer of vocal music, spoken and/or sung, performed by groups such as the Gregg Smith Singers and New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, whose performance of Three Songs About the Resurrection won first prize at the Geneva International Competition. The instrumental work The Violinist in the Mall won the 2005 Friends and Enemies of New Music competition. Sound Portraits is a collection of his vocal works featuring soprano Linda Ferraira recorded by Capstone-Ravello. Raspberry Man was selected for both the 2009 National SCI Conference in Santa Fe NM and the University of Nebraska 2009 New Music Festival.
Peter Van Zandt Lane
Composer
The music of Peter Van Zandt Lane (b. 1985, Port Jefferson NY) has been described as having "Propulsive rhythms" and "surprising lyricism" and has been praised by musicians and critics alike (Boston Musical Intelligencer) as music that "gives an amazing first impression." A Boston-based composer and bassoonist, Peter writes passionately for ensembles of all types, and often employs the use of electronics in his compositions. With backgrounds in classical performance and rock, contemporary theory and music engineering, he draws on his diverse experiences to create music that is fresh, genuine, and widely appealing.