Composers

Hailed as “brilliant” by Fanfare Magazine, multi-award winning pianist-composer Zhen Chen has performed as a soloist and chamber music artist at prominent music venues in USA and China, such as Stern Auditorium, Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall of Lincoln Center, Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center, and China National Centre for Performing Arts.

Composer Alejandro Rutty is best-known for his distinctive mix of South American styles, lyrical melodies, meticulous rhythmic detail, and textures suggested by modern recording processing techniques.

Dr. David Dickau is a choral conductor and composer residing in Mankato, Minnesota where he is Director of Choral Activities at Minnesota State University, Mankato. As a part of his duties, Dr. Dickau conducts the Concert Choir and teaches conducting and composition. Dr. Dickau holds advanced degrees in Choral Music from Northwestern University (Evanston IL) and the University of Southern California (Los Angeles CA) where he studied with Morten Lauridsen and Rodney Eichenberger. He has taught choral music on both the high school and college levels and has conducted community and church choirs.

Lionel Sainsbury began to play the piano at an early age and soon started to compose his own music. Born in Wiltshire, England, in 1958, he studied composition with Patric Standford at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. At the age of 21 he was awarded a Mendelssohn Scholarship, which brought him into contact with composers as diverse as Edmund Rubbra, John McCabe and Henri Dutilleux.

Patricia Julien writes extensively for theatrical productions, including composing the score for O, Caligula! A Mvsical. In the last ten years, she has composed the music for productions of India Song, Ostentatious Poverty, Eurydice, The Clean House, Peter Pan, The Arabian Nights, The Witches, Anna’s Journal, Winnie The Pooh, Marat/Sade, and Coracles, Castanets, Cadaques.

Composer Mark Volker is Associate Professor of Music at the Belmont University School of Music, where he is Coordinator of Composition Studies and directs the New Music Ensemble. He received degrees from the University of Chicago (Ph.D), the University of Cincinnati (M.M.), and Ithaca College (B.M.).

Described as “harmonically lush and lyrically soaring” by the New York Times, and as having “abstract elegance, structural coherence, and tender feeling” by the Wall Street Journal, music by Daniel Crozier has been performed or recorded by the Fort Worth Opera, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the New York City Opera, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Songfest 2004, Winsor Music, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, oboist Peggy Pearson, and pianists Heidi Louise Williams and Vivian Choi.

Mona Lyn Reese concentrates on opera, orchestra, and choral music. Her work is melodic and accessible with an emphasis on driving or complex rhythms, movement, and contrasting textures. Her music communicates and expresses emotions traditionally or experimentally without allowing a prevailing fashion to dictate style, form, or harmony.

Considered by the international press as one of the most active and recognized composers of the musical scene, Felipe Perez Santiago has received several prizes and recognitions in Europe, United States and Latin America. His compositions have been played and commissioned in more than 40 countries by internationally renowned orchestras and ensembles and has been invited as resident composer to conservatories, universities and institutions all over the world.

Scott Pender (b. 1959) has called the phonograph his first music teacher. He cites his parents’ “extensive, eclectic record collection” as a primary early influence. As a child, he began making up tunes at the piano and taught himself to read music. Formal study in piano and theory as a teenager led to his enrollment at Peabody Conservatory, where he began composition studies with Jean Ivey. He holds degrees in philosophy from Georgetown University and music composition from Peabody Conservatory.

Kansas composer Dwight Beckham, Sr. did his undergraduate and graduate work at Wichita University. He has studied composition with Homer Keller, Adrian Pouliot, Harold Moyer, Joshua Missal, and Robert Marek. He has played trumpet with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, the Newton Mid-Kansas Symphony Orchestra, and the Wichita Wind Ensemble.

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.

Joyce Wai-chung Tang’s works have been described by Ablaze Records as “incisive and brilliant…terrific and fresh compositional voice,” and have been premiered and performed worldwide. Her works span orchestral, chamber, solo, vocal, choral, electro-acoustic, and theatrical genres, many of which have been jury-selected for performances in major festivals and conferences.

David Maki is a composer and pianist based in the Chicago area. Maki’s compositions have been performed widely at regional, national and international venues by many diverse ensembles and musicians. His music has been described as “fresh and unusual” by All Music Guide, “vivid, languid, introspective” by American Record Guide and “meditative and beautiful” by Fanfare Magazine. Recordings of his music can be found on the Albany Records and Avid Sound Recordings labels.

Dr. Amir Zaheri (b. 1979) is the musical director and conductor of the University of Alabama Contemporary Ensemble, which is committed to performing music of the 20th and 21st centuries, including masterworks by established composers, music by emerging composers, and the music of University of Alabama student and faculty composers. He also serves as full time instructor of composition and theory, maintaining a full studio of student composers. Immediately prior to his appointment, Zaheri held the distinguished Narramore Fellowship at the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Music Composition in 2013. At UA, Zaheri studied under the primary tutelage of C.P. First and received additional instruction from Peter Westergaard.

Richard Pressley (b. 1970) has enjoyed performances of his music at festivals and concerts in the United States, Europe, even Brazil and Australia, by such performers and ensembles as the JACK Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, Claire Edwardes, thingNY, Patrick Crossland, ensemble platypus, Richard Ratliff, the dissonArt ensemble, the Moran Quintet, the Definiens Project, and counter)induction, among others.

Flutist, pianist, composer, and conductor Byron W. Petty holds a BM in flute performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with the noted flutist Britton Johnson. He has served as Instructor of Piano at Roanoke College and Instructor of Flute and Piano at Southern Virginia University. He is a Lecturer in Music and has taught courses in Composition and Musical Analysis as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Washington and Lee University. From 1995-2002, Petty was the Conductor/Music Director of the Eurydice Community Orchestra of Roanoke and subsequently, the Artistic Director from 2002 through 2003.

Rachel Lee Guthrie was born on November 3, 1979 in Des Moines IA. From an early age, she played the piano by ear and resisted formal lessons until the age of fourteen when she began studying with various college-level instructors. In 2004, Guthrie earned a degree in piano pedagogy from Drake University, graduating cum laude. Her passion has always been for Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Impressionist masters, and she has composed a number of new pieces in the classical tradition as well as works in a contemporary style.

Matthew Durrant's music has been performed throughout the United States at festivals, conferences, and recitals. His style is very melodic and can be thought of as neo-tonal. While his music is generally triadic in nature, its richness is expanded by borrowing from beyond the diatonic realm and employing tonality in unconventional ways.

Betty Wishart and music are synonymous. Her earliest memories involve singing in church choirs and playing the piano. She was introduced to contemporary music while studying with Richard Bunger at Queens University. At the end of her junior year, she wrote her first composition, submitted it to a music fraternity and was invited to perform a mini-recital of her music at their international conference. That event inspired her to continue composing while earning an M.M. degree in piano performance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.