Ileana Perez Velazquez is a Cuban-American composer and Professor of Composition at Williams College since 2000. She was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, and then studied as an undergraduate in piano and composition from the Higher Institute of Arts (ISA), Havana, Cuba before moving to the United States for graduate work in composition at Dartmouth College and Indiana University, where she earned her DMA.
Her work draws from a range of influences, which a New York Times review characterized having an "otherworldly quality mirrored in the accompaniment and sounding like a musical expression of the Latin American literary form magical realism." [1] In contrast, one of her compositions performed in 2019, Tu, paz mia, was reviewed as "Processional and solemn, the work is Baroque in tone." [2] She has been commissioned to compose works by many organizations, including the 2015 Commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. She has written works for numerous performers and ensembles, including Continuum (New York City), Momenta String quartet (NYC), Cassatt Quartet (NYC), Ensemble Dal Niente from Chicago
Festival performances of her work includes venues such as the Sonidos de las Americas Cuba Festival at Carnegie Hall, by the American Composers Orchestra Chamber Players, and the Composers Now Festival in New York City, but also in Cuba, the United States, throughout South and Central America, Europe, China, and the Middle East.
Annie Gosfield is a New-York-based composer who works on the boundaries between notated and improvised music, electronic and acoustic sounds, refined timbres and noise. She composes for others and performs with her own group, taking her music to festivals, factories, clubs, art spaces and concert halls. Much of her work combines acoustic instruments with electronic sounds, incorporating unusual sources such as satellite sounds, machine sounds, detuned or out-of-tune samples and industrial noises. Her work often contains improvisation and frequently uses extended techniques and/or altered musical instruments. She won a 2012 Berlin Prize.
Elodie Lauten was a French-born American composer described as postminimalist or a microtonalist.
Tania León is a Cuban-born American composer of both large scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations.
Jin Hi Kim is a composer and performer of komungo and electric komungo, and a Korean music specialist.
Danilo Pérez is a Panamanian pianist, composer, educator, and a social activist. His music is a blend of Panamanian roots with elements of Latin American folk music, jazz, European impressionism, African, and other musical heritages that promote music as a multi-dimensional bridge between people. He has released eleven albums as a leader, and appeared on many recordings as a side man, which have earned him critical acclaim, numerous accolades, Grammy Awards wins and nominations. He is a recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship, and the 2009 Smithsonian Legacy Award.
The Zephyr Quartet is a string quartet based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1999, they have been recognised with awards and have collaborated with international musicians.
Tina Davidson is an American composer.
Gabriela Lena Frank is an American pianist and composer of contemporary classical music.
Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger, singer, and educator from Rio de Janeiro. She is influenced by popular Brazilian culture, Romanticism, world music, and jazz. She comes from a musical family, which includes her father, guitarist Sergio Assad, her uncle, guitarist Odair Assad, and her aunt, singer-songwriter Badi Assad.
Nathaniel Stookey is an American composer and musician.
Laura Elise Schwendinger was the first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin's Berlin Prize.
Odaline de la Martinez is a Cuban-American composer and conductor, currently residing in the UK. She is the artistic director of Lontano, a London-based contemporary music ensemble which she co-founded in 1976 with New Zealander flautist Ingrid Culliford, and was the first woman to conduct at the BBC Promenade Concerts in 1984. As well as frequent appearances as a guest conductor with leading orchestras throughout Great Britain, including all the BBC orchestras, she has conducted several leading ensembles around the world, including the Ensemble 2e2m in Paris; the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; the Australian Youth Orchestra; the OFUNAM and the Camerata of the Americas in Mexico; and the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra. She is also known as a broadcaster for BBC Radio and Television and has recorded extensively for several labels.
Victoria Ellen Bond is an American conductor and composer in New York City.
Carolyn Yarnell is an American composer and visual artist. A recipient of the Rome Prize, Charles Ives Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is particularly noted for works which combine visual and musical depictions of landscape and light, many of which were inspired by the landscapes of her native California.
David T. Little is a Grammy-nominated American composer, record producer, and drummer known for his operatic, orchestral, and chamber works, most notably his operas JFK,Soldier Songs, and Dog Days which was named a standout opera of recent decades by The New York Times. He is the artistic director of Newspeak, an eight-piece amplified ensemble that explores the boundaries between rock and classical music, and is a member of the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music.
Sabrina Peña Young is an American composer and percussionist.
Valerie Coleman is an American composer and flutist as well as the creator of the wind quintet Imani Winds. Coleman is a distinguished artist of the century who was named Performance Today's 2020 Classical Woman of the year and was listed as “one of the Top 35 Women Composers” in the Washington Post. In 2019, Coleman's orchestral work, Umoja, Anthem for Unity, was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Coleman's Umoja is the first classical work by a living African American woman that the Philadelphia Orchestra has performed.
Dorothy Hindman is an American composer and music educator.
Sofia Eugenia Koutsovitis, known professionally as Sofia Rei, is an Argentinian vocalist, songwriter, producer, and educator. A classically trained mezzo-soprano, Rei's influences include South American folk styles, jazz, pop, new classical and electronic music. Singing in Spanish, English and Portuguese, her voice was described by The Boston Globe as "possessing a voluptuously full voice, comprehensive command of Latin American rhythms, and encyclopedic knowledge of folkloric forms from Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Uruguay." She was born and raised in Buenos Aires and has been based in New York since 2005.
Lansing McLoskey is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His Zealot Canticles: An Oratorio for Tolerance was a winner of the 61st Annual Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance by the ensemble The Crossing. McLoskey serves as a Professor of Music at the Frost School of Music in Miami, Florida. Among McLoskey's numerous commissions are those from Guerilla Opera, Copland House, The Fromm Foundation, The Barlow Endowment, N.E.A., The Crossing, ensemberlino vocale, New Spectrum Foundation, Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, Passepartout Duo, the Boston Choral Ensemble, and Kammerkoret NOVA.