Composers

Andrew March was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, United Kingdom in 1973. In 1992, he was accepted at the Royal College of Music to study composition with Jeremy Dale Roberts. He graduated in 1996, gaining a Bachelor of Music degree with honors.

The music of award-winning composer Greg Bartholomew is frequently performed across the United States and in Canada, Australia and Europe by such highly regarded instrumental ensembles as Third Angle New Music Ensemble, the Electrum Brass Trio, and the Spring Wind Quintet, as well as such acclaimed choral ensembles as Seattle Pro Musica, Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble, and Connecticut Choral Artists (CONCORA). NPR classical music reviewer Tom Manoff called Bartholomew "a fine composer not afraid of accessibility."

Missouri native Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927) was born into a musical family and had begun her early compositions at the age of 5. Throughout her elementary and high school years her performance studies continued and her interest in composition intensified, and she attended the Eastman School of Music and the Yale School of Music, receiving her bachelorís and masterís degrees in composition from the latter and her Ph.D. from the former.

Composer Sparky Davis' music is featured on THE MUSIC OF SPARKY DAVIS, an album highlighting his "modern, not modernistic" approach to composition.

Vienna, Austria-native Rudy Kronfuss started playing the guitar at age 13 and formed his own band when he was 17. He has loved composing music since his teenage days, and in 1974 he decided to stay in the Netherlands after a tour with his group. In 1984 he successfully completed his six years study of jazz guitar at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Since then he has taught at "GLOBE," the Central Music School of Hilversum. In 1994 he received his degree in composition and arrangement from the Conservatory of Rotterdam under the guidance of Bob Brookmeyer. Kronfuss is an internationally performing artist. His passion is to teach, play, compose, arrange and produce music. He has published 8 CDs and 4 DVDs.

Gregory Hutter holds degrees from Western Michigan University, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern University. He has been a faculty member at DePaul University since 2002. His compositions have been performed by the Moravian Philharmonic, the Kiev Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, Musica Moderna (Poland), the Cassatt Quartet, the Maia Quartet, the Julstrom Quartet, Trio Callisto, the Carpe Diem Quartet, the Anaphora Ensemble, Arts at Large Chicago, Duo Diorama, the Society for New Music (Syracuse), the Philovox Ensemble (Boston), pianists Winston Choi and Matthew McCright, Pinotage, Musica Nova (Israel), and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), among others.

Harlem NY-born Reynard Burns' (b. 1946) prolific career includes work as a composer, arranger, and educator, as well as a bassist and guest conductor for several orchestra festivals. His compositions for full and string orchestra, wind ensemble, concert band, jazz ensemble, improvising strings, and other combinations have been performed throughout the United States and abroad, with his orchestral works receiving national recognition, most notably Flying, which was performed by the Long Island Philharmonic in a program honoring American composers.

Playful! If you had to pick a single word to describe Louis Babin's approach to composing music, 'playful' would be the one. Because for this composer creation is a form of play. Indeed, Babin's early works are associated with the world of story and theatre: Les filles de l'amour divin, as performed at Montréal's Salle Fred-Barry, the intimate character of L'amiral blanc at Les fleurs du mal cafe theatre, and in larger productions, such as his contributions to Le bossu de Notre-Dame, presented at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and La légende du roi Arthus at Usine C in Montréal.

Composer and keyboard player Juan Sebastián Lach Lau's recent instrumental and electroacoustic music, as well as sound installations, are based on algorithmic processes and harmonic microtonal inquiries, a field in which he obtained a doctorate in artistic research at the University of Leiden, Holland, in 2012.

Born in Texas in 1947, Michael Mauldin moved to New Mexico in 1971 for "the light, the space and the timelessness." He completed a graduate degree in composition, opened a music school, raised a family and wrote music. He was recognized in 1980 as the national Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association. In 1985, his Fajada Butte was performed in Kennedy Center by the National Repertory Orchestra for the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches in Albuquerque and at his composing and teaching retreat near Cuba, New Mexico.

The works of Liviu Marinescu (b. 1970, Bucharest, Romania) have received recognition in numerous festivals of new music throughout the world, and have been performed by prominent orchestras and ensembles, including the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Czech Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia and the National Chamber Radio and Music Academy orchestras in Bucharest.

Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City MO in 1896 in what was then still an agricultural society. Early years in the Midwest exposed him to the folk music, hymn tunes and popular songs that would figure so prominently in his compositions.

Marie Incontrera (b. 1985) is a wayward ballerina and heavy metal pianist who writes music in Brooklyn, New York. She has been a recipient of the Miriam Gideon Composition Award for women composers, a winner of the Remarkable Theater Brigade Art Song Competition, a 2010 and 2011 recipient of the ASCAPlus award, a winner of the 2011 Vocalessence/American Composers Forum "Essentially Choral" readings, and was a finalist in the Iron Composer 2010 competition.

Ulf Grahn (b. 1942) studied composition with Hans Eklund, Violin and Viola with Rudolf Forsberg and Piano with Herbert Westrell. He holds degrees from Stockholm's Musikpedagogiska Institut and the Catholic University of America. He has also studied Business Administration, Economics and Development Studies at The Universities of Lund andUppsala, Sweden. In 1973 he founded the Contemporary Music Forum, in Washington, D.C. and served as its Program Director until 1984.

Osias Wilenski was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From an early age he studied piano with Professor Vicente Scaramuzza and harmony, counterpoint and composition with Dr. Erwin Leuchter, who had been a pupil of Alban Berg. From Leuchter comes his early interest in 12-tone music, a system that Wilenski has abandoned since. During the 1950s and through the suggestion of pianist Arturo Rubinstein, Wilenski won a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he resided for several years. There he studied composition with William Bergsma, William Schuman and Vincent Persichetti. He also had private piano lessons from virtuoso Simon Barere, of which he was the only pupil. He started a solo pianist career and played concerts in New York in Hunter College and Town Hall.

R. David Salvage (b. 1978, Boston MA) is a composer and pianist whose piano, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works have been performed by many of America's most gifted musicians, including the Arcturus Chamber Ensemble, the Rosetta String Trio, the Monticello String Quartet, the Cygnus Ensemble, Miranda Cuckson (violinist), Christopher Swanson (tenor), Thomas Meglioranza (baritone), David Thomas (clarinetist), and the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra (OH).

Malcolm Hawkins, British composer born in Portugal, has lived in New Hampshire since 1995. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, and was subsequently awarded a scholarship to study at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, with Cesar Bresgen, where he won an international song competition Das Neue Lied with 4 Songs for Baritone, Saxophone and Piano. These and a solo piano work were broadcast on Austrian Radio, and his wind quintet was performed in Salzburg and Vienna.

Joseph Koykkar (b. 1951), composer, has had his music performed nationally and internationally for the past 30 years, including performances and commissions by many of the leading new music ensembles in the nation including the Relache Ensemble, Present Music, Zeitgeist, New York New Music Ensemble, North/South Consonance, Synchronia, and the C.A.L. Ear Unit.

Warren Gooch's music has been widely performed throughout North America, as well as Europe, Asia and Latin America. His work has been recognized by the National Federation of Music Clubs, Minnesota Orchestra, American Choral Directors Association, Music Teachers National Association, Percussive Arts Society, International Trumpet Guild, College Music Society, Music Educators National Conference, the Composers Guild, Composers and Songwriters International, Collegiate Band Directors National Association, American Composers Forum and numerous other organizations.

Howard L. Richards Jr. received his first piano lesson when he was six years old and began studying popular piano and trumpet at the age of eight. He attended high school at Culver Military Academy in Indiana and was a member of the Infantry Band for four years. Upon graduating high school, Richards spent one year at the University of Michigan to study Physics, but switched at midyear to major in Music Composition.