Composers

Dr. Joseph T. Spaniola is a composer on a passionate quest to engage the hearts and minds of audiences and performers through the communicative powers of music. Spaniola is active as a composer, arranger, educator, conductor, lecturer, producer, clinician, and adjudicator. He has composed works for band, orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, voice, choir, and electronic tape.

Composer Mira J. Spektor was born in Europe, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, and then studied at Mannes and Juilliard. In 1975, she founded the acclaimed Aviva Players, dedicated to presenting the rich repertoire of chamber music and songs by women composers from the 12th to 21st Centuries. The New York Times called her “An interesting composer” and “attractive and tonal,” with music described as “A passionate duet” and “A sprightly songfest.”

Lewis Spratlan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2000. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Massachusetts Artists Foundations, the NEA, the Tanglewood Festival, and the MacDowell Colony. Recent commissions include Earthrise, for the San Francisco Opera; Streaming for the Centennial Celebration of the Ravinia Festival; Wonderer for pianist Jonathan Biss; Shadow for cellist Matt Haimovitz; a concerto for a consortium of 30 saxophonists; A Summer's Day for BMOP (Boston Modern Orchestra Project), and Process/Bulge for Wet Ink. His opera Life is a Dream received its world premiere at Sante Fe Opera in July 2010. Apollo and Daphne Variations, Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra, and A Summer's Day are currently in preparation for a BMOP CD, as is his Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano for Albany Records.

Dr. Andre’ E. Godsey, Sr., Ph.D. has found his voice in the contemporary classical music venue. Over the last 15 years, he reveals an ability to inspire and entertain audiences nationally and internationally. At Lake Clifton Senior High school in Baltimore MD, he was awarded the Musician of the Year for 1979. In more recent times, several musical events include the world premiere of Symphony Number One in C# Minor: Themes for Soren Kierkegaard, “Movement One,” at the Sao Paulo Contemporary Classical Music Festival, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2019.

From the onset of his career, German composer Gerhard Stäbler (b. 1949) has not only been active as a composer, but also involved in the political and organizational arenas. He organized the new music festival Aktive Musik, along with serving as the artistic director of the 1995 World Music Days of the ISCM in the Ruhr Area in Germany. A third vital point of his activities lies in teaching; he has worked with many young international composers in a variety of workshops and seminars. He was a composer-in-residence and visiting professor throughout North and South America as well as in the Middle and Far East.

Composer Jeff Stadelman's (b. 1959) unusual, arresting, exacting musical voice has evolved over 25 years, amounting to a complex musical practice that suggests no obvious counterpart.

James William Stamm completed his classical guitar and theory/composition B.F.A. at Marshall University in Huntington WV. As of the release of PATTERNS, he is completing an M.F.A. in film music composition at UNC School of the Arts. His musical background also includes songwriting.

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.

Elizabeth Start is a composer, cellist, arts administrator, and union officer, currently dividing her time between Kalamazoo MI and the Chicago area.

Born in Aachen, Germany, Walter studied in Hamburg with Ernst-Gernot Klußmann, Wilhelm Maler, and Philipp Jarnach (Busoni’s pupil, and the teacher of Kurt Weill and Bernd Alois Zimmermann). He is prolific in all genres, from solo and chamber works to grand opera. Five of his operas were brought to stage in Germany: “Eli” inspired by Nelly Sachs and “Die Judenbuche / The Jew’s Beech” after the novella by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff were performed in Dortmund.

Erich Stem’s music has been described as “sophisticated and intriguing” (The Washington Post), “unique and beautiful” (Boston Theatre Review), and as having a “fluent and chaotic exchange that breaks minimalism apart” (A Closer Listen). It pulls from a variety of sources, including American jazz, Japanese shakuhachi music, and Stem’s interest in improvisation. His music has been performed live around the globe in places such as New York City, Boston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Miami, England, the Netherlands, and Romania, and can be heard on albums by critically acclaimed groups such as counter)induction, Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, SOLI Chamber Ensemble, and the Cadillac Moon Ensemble. His commissions include music for recognized artists such as saxophonist Johan van der Linden and flutist Lindsey Goodman.

Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn (b. 1980, Vallejo CA) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, was educated on both coasts and now finds himself in the middle of the country. His music combines a frenetic rhythmic language, lean textures and lyrical sensitivity. His music has been recorded and performed throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Asia by ensembles and organizations including the Kiev Philharmonic, The Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, Huntsville Alabama Army Band, Composers Inc, Conundrum, The Yale Brass Trio, Scott/Garrison Duo, and Vox Novus.

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.

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.

David Nisbet Stewart is a composer, pianist, and organist. His career began in academia and migrated into computer technology from 1979 onward. His style of composing also changed as he pursued a new occupation. He believes that leaving academia for the business world was a great benefit to his art. Music is the business of entertainment; the composer must satisfy, even delight, the paying audience. His compositions connect with the listener’s ear and heart.

North Macedonian pianist and composer Natasha Stojanovska has received numerous prestigious prizes and honors, including the American Prize. Having left her native country to continue her education in the United States, she was selected to be a member of the studios of Roberta Rust at Lynn University’s Conservatory of Music and Alexander Toradze at Indiana University. Stojanovska continued on to pursue a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University with James Giles.

IngridStölzel (b.1971) has been hailed “as a composer of considerable gifts” who is “musically confident and bold” by National Public Radio’s classical music critic. Her music has been described as “tender and beautiful” (American Record Guide) and as creating a “haunting feeling of lyrical reflection and suspension in time and memory” (Classical-Modern Review). At the heart of her compositions is a belief that music can create a profound emotional connection with the listener.

Su Chen-Hsin was born in Chiayi City, Taiwan in 1989. He is a licensed doctor who graduated from the Department of Medicine at China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, in 2015. Su has been in psychiatry residency training programs at the Taoyuan Psychiatric Center, Taiwan since August 2017.

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.

Joseph Summer began playing French horn at the age of 7. While attending the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina at age 14 he studied composition with the eminent Czech composer Karel Husa. At age 15 he was accepted at Oberlin Conservatory, studied with Richard Hoffmann, Schönberg’s amanuensis, and graduated with a B.M. in Music Composition in 1976. Recruited by Robert Page, Dean of the Music Department at Carnegie Mellon University, Summer taught music theory at CMU before leaving to pursue composition full time.