Eric Sessler is an American composer and educator. [1] Among his collaborations are works written for Anthony & Demarre McGill; Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux; Philadelphia Orchestra principal flutist Jeffrey Khaner; organist Alan Morrison; the Dover Quartet; and the flute & guitar duo of Bonita Boyd & Nicholas Goluses. [2]
Also a composer of educational works, he has written music for youth orchestra, wind ensemble, narration and voice for young minds and musicians. Sessler teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, Pre-College and he is a trained classical guitarist.
"Sessler's 2013 String Quartet, whose first movement was full of reverberations and refractions on optimism and sincerity, and the same kind of American vibe that infused Barber" was written by Peter Dobrin in The Philadelphia Inquirer. [3] While Victor L. Schermer added, "Sessler achieved a delicate balance between the rounded romantic development of mood and motif and a post-modern sense of music that’s paradoxically linear in its non-linearity and constant in its change— a song without a singer." [4] For the release of the recording of Organ Concerto, Phil Muse of Sequenza 21 wrote, "The main reason for excitement on the release of this new album is that it is the recording debut of Eric Sessler’s scintillating new (2006) Organ concerto. The work itself is a stunning conception, being both a display piece for the organ and a solid concert work for the orchestra, which remains an equal partner with the soloist throughout the 18-minute piece, so that it is an organ concerto in every sense of the word" [5]
John Nicholas Maw was a British composer. Among his works are the operas The Rising of the Moon (1970) and Sophie's Choice (2002).
John Maynard La Montaine, also later LaMontaine, was an American pianist and composer, born in Oak Park, Illinois, who won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Piano Concerto No. 1 "In Time of War" (1958), which was premiered by Jorge Bolet.
Geoffrey Alan Burgon was an English composer best known for his television and film scores. Among his most recognisable works are Monty Python's Life of Brian for film, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Brideshead Revisited for television, the latter two earning Ivor Novello Awards in 1979 and 1981 respectively. He also won BAFTAs for his themes for the remake of The Forsyte Saga and Longitude.
Hendrik Pienaar Hofmeyr is a South African composer. Born in Cape Town, he furthered his studies in Italy during 10 years of self-imposed exile as a conscientious objector. While there, he won the South African Opera Competition with The Fall of the House of Usher. He also received the annual Nederburg Prize for Opera for this work subsequent to its performance at the State Theatre in Pretoria in 1988. In the same year, he obtained first prize in an international competition in Italy with music for a short film by Wim Wenders. He returned to South Africa in 1992, and in 1997 won two major international composition competitions, the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition of Belgium and the first edition of the Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition in Athens. His 'Incantesimo' for solo flute was selected to represent South Africa at the ISCM World Music Days in Croatia in 2005. In 2008 he was honoured with a Kanna award by the Kleinkaroo National Arts Festival. He is currently Professor and Head of Composition and Theory at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he obtained a DMus in 1999.
John Purser is a Scottish composer, musicologist, and music historian. He is also a playwright.
Jason Vieaux is an American classical guitarist. He began his musical training in Buffalo, New York at the age of eight, after which he continued his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1992, Vieaux was awarded the Guitar Foundation of America International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event's youngest winner.
David C. Sampson is an American contemporary classical composer.
Iain Ellis Hamilton was a Scottish composer.
David Horne is a Scottish composer, pianist, and teacher.
Zdeněk Lukáš was a Czech composer. He authored over 330 works.
Gary Alan Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002.
Jiří Gemrot is a Czech composer, radio executive, and a record producer. Since 1990 he has been director in chief of Czech Radio in Prague. As a composer, his music has been performed by all of the Czech Republic's major orchestras.
David Serkin Ludwig is an American composer, teacher, and Dean of Music at The Juilliard School. His uncle was pianist Peter Serkin, his grandfather was the pianist Rudolf Serkin, and his great-grandfather was the violinist Adolf Busch. He holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad. His choral work, The New Colossus, was performed at the 2013 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
Herbert Blendinger was an Austrian composer and viola player of German origin.