Composers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 Dawn Sonntag translates the experience of being human into music that has been called “hauntingly lyrical” (Schaumburg-Lippe Landeszeitung), “visceral,” and “freshly relevant.” Her operas have been featured at the Cleveland Opera Theater’s New Opera Works festival, the Hartford Women’s Composers Festival, the Hartford Opera Theater’s New in November festival, and the Opera from Scratch festival in Halifax. Based on the true story of World War II refugees, her first opera, Verlorene Heimat, for which she wrote the libretto and music, won Honorable Mention in the 2021 American Prize for composition. Her settings of Sara Teasdale’s poetry are included in the new Modern Music for New Singers: 21st Century American Art Song.

David Warin Solomons (b. 1953) began his musical career relatively late, taking up the violin at the age of 14 and the classical guitar a few years after that. Most of his musical expression in composition has been based on the principle of "learning by doing," liberally seasoned with musical collaborations. The first of these collaborations, as far back as 1969, was with two pen-friends in France and Germany, which gave rise to several trios for the unusual combination of violin, trumpet, and piano. Solomons moved on to Christ Church at Oxford University in 1972 to study French and German and also began to sing there on a regular basis, eventually settling on alto as his preferred range. At Oxford he met lots of great musicians, many of whom had important influences on his compositional style.

Scott Solak (b. 1961) has written works in a wide variety of genres, including solo piano, orchestral, and chamber music. The bulk of his output has been in the realm of vocal and choral music, both sacred and secular. Choral commissions include two full-length oratorios for church performance (Healing of the Blind Man and Welcome to Thy World, O King [Chevy Chase Concerts and Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church]; Velvet Shoes and This Music [Reston Chorale]; and The Day of Pentecost [private commission]. Instrumental commissions include Canzona for Oboe and Orchestra [Reston Community Orchestra]; Sonata di Gloria for two violins and piano [commissioned for the Chamasyan Sisters]; Slant of Light [Washington Saxophone Quartet]; and Sicilienne for viola and piano [private commission].

Kile's frequently performed music is praised by audiences and critics for its emotional power, direct appeal, and strong voice. He is Curator of the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in the Free Library of Philadelphia, co-host of Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection, and host of the contemporary American music show Now is the Time on WRTI 90.1 FM in Philadelphia.

Pianist and composer Vytautas Smetona was born in Cleveland OH. His parents, Birute and Julius, and paternal grandparents narrowly escaped the 1940 Soviet invasion and subsequent occupation of Lithuania. Smetona’s grandfather, Antanas Smetona, was the last President of independent Lithuania. The family arrived and settled in the United States in 1941 via a route through Germany, Portugal, and Brazil. Vytautas’ father, Julius, was an attorney, and his mother was a musician.

Gary Smart’s career has encompassed a wide range of activities as composer, classical and jazz pianist, and teacher. Always a musician with varied interests, he may be the only pianist to have studied with Yale scholar/keyboardist Ralph Kirkpatrick, the great Cuban virtuoso Jorge Bolet, and the master jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. A true American pluralist, Smart composes and improvises music that reflects an abiding interest in Americana, jazz, and world music, as well as the Western classical tradition.

Michael K. Slayton is an American composer who has written works in a cross-section of musical genres, with specific emphasis on chamber music. His continuing dedication to the value of artistic exchange has afforded him opportunity to partner with distinguished performers all over the world. His music, published by ACA, Inc. (BMI), is regularly programmed in the U.S. and abroad, including Chemnitz, Seitz, Leipzig, Droyssig, and Weimar, Germany; Graz, Austria; Paris,Tours, and Marquette-lez-Lille, France; Kristiansund, Norway; Aviero, Portugal; Brussles, Belgium; Johannesburg and Potchefstroom, South Africa; London, UK; and New York, NY.

Hailed by The Australian as possessing a “rare gift as a melodist” and by Limelight as expressing “both exquisite delicacy and tremendous power,” Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth writes across the mediums of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and experimental music. His vivid musical language is colored by three years spent in Japan where his immersion in the study of the shakuhachi bamboo flute inevitably became a part of his muse.

Eric Simonson's music has been heard in concerts across North America, including SEAMUS (Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States), ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) and SCI (Society of Composers Incorporated) performances.

Mark G. Simon received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from Cornell University, where he studied with Karel Husa, Steven Stuckey and Robert Palmer. His compositions include orchestral, chamber and vocal works, many featuring the clarinet. His musical history Jennie’s Will was commissioned for the bicentennial of the Village of Dryden, New York in and revived in 2015 for the sesquicentennial of Cornell University.

Carlos Simon is a versatile composer and arranger who combines the influences of jazz, gospel, and neo- romanticism.

Amintas Angel Cardoso Santos Silva (b. 1977) is a composer, singer, songwriter, writer and diplomat whose passion is expressing himself through art, especially music. He refers to the radio, soundtracks of old Brazilian soap operas, and of course, his mother’s singing as his first musical experiences. He also mentions his father’s old school musical taste as an initial and permanent guidance.

Lawrence Siegel brings to the writing of KADDISH twenty-five years of experience creating and directing music and music theater projects using texts from oral histories, interviews, and community dialogues. His music has won awards from the McKnight Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and many others. He has been a fellow in composition at the Tanglewood Music Center and the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH.

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.