Born in 1979 in Cagliari (Italy) he studied piano and composition at the Pierluigi Da Palestrina Conservatory improving with Azio Corghi and Ivan Fedele at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome and  with Luca Francesconi  at the Malmö Music Academy in Sweden. As a pianist he is a member of the Palestrina Ensemble, a group focusing on 20^th century and contemporary repertory. In 2004 he won the Il giornale della musica international composition Competition and in 2009 the Santa Cecilia Academy international composition Competition. He has had commissions and performances from the Biennale Music Festival in Venice, the Settimane Musicali Festival in Stresa, the Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra in Vaxjö (Sweden), the Bibiena Wind Quintet, the Pomeriggi Musicali orchestra in Milan and the RAI National Symphonic Orchestra.

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Antony Maubert started studying the clarinet at the conservatoire of Clermont-Ferrand while continuing scientific studies. Finally choosing music, he obtained a master of musicology, graduated from the department of music theory at the conservatoire of Lyon, and then attended the Conservatoire National Supérieur of Paris. During his studies he gained experience in various jobs : telephone operator, piano salesman, barman, music teacher, car washer, night auditor, door-to-door salesman, and school proctor.
A fund from SACEM allowed him to study at the Ateliers UPIC (founded by Iannis Xenakis) where he focused on electronic music with Gérard Pape, Julio Estrada and Jean-Claude Risset. A few years later he received the SACEM prize, and taught computer music from 2006 to 2010 at  the conservatoire of Nice. He currently lives in Madrid.
His work covers a wild range of musical aspects : instrumental and electroacoustic composition, improvisation, fixed media work, live electronics, interactive sound installation, performance, stage and short film music.
His music is often a theater of analysis and deconstruction of modern society. His work Ce qui aura fait notre solitude (a reflection on men and science confronting nature), Religion du Travail (his first piece in a trilogy dedicated to mediatic and political discourse), and Insomniac (describing the acceptance of daily ordinary violence) are examples of the evocative strength of his work.
His installation work generally confronts borderless spaces, cross-cultural hybridity and identity.

Composer Brad Balliett‘s music explores many corners of the musical landscape, ranging from bassoon etudes to avant-garde hip-hop operas; electronic music to interactive pieces for children. Recent months have seen his music performed in New York and Chicago on an International Contemporary Ensemble series, at the Fourth International Metapoetry Congress in New York City, and in a gallery exhibition of the artwork of Jesus Betances.

His works have been played by orchestras and ensembles throughout the country and abroad, including performances by the Brattle Street Chamber Players, the International Contemporary Ensemble, symphony orchestras at Harvard University and Masschusetts Institute of Technology, and the Callithumpian Consort. His music has been presented at the Aspen Music Festival, on NPR’s From the Top, on Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise, and at colleges and universities including New England Conservatory, Hartt School of Music, Skidmore College, MIT, and Harvard, Rice and Northwestern Universities.

An avid bassoonist, Balliett has premiered dozens of solos and chamber works with bassoon, including many original pieces. He has been a member of Ensemble ACJW and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and has performed in the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra under James Levine and the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra under Pierre Boulez. Born and raised in New England, Balliett’s teachers include Elliott Gyger, Robert Levin, John Harbison, Richard Lavenda, and Michel Merlet. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, has a M.M. in bassoon performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music (where he was a student of Benjamin Kamins), and studied counterpoint and harmony at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris during summer of 2008. Active as a teaching artist, Brad is currently fulfilling a two-year residency at P.S. 315 in Brooklyn through The Academy, a fellowship at Carnegie Hall. He resides in Manhattan and likes to run in Riverside Park.

Elliot Cole (b. 1984) takes the omnivore’s approach: he has sung in rock bands and musical theater, written concert music, worked as a commercial record producer, scored theater and film, and written music software.  His curiosity cuts through entrenched territories and parochialisms: forgoing institutionalized concert-spaces, his ensemble performs his Afghan music drama Babinagar exclusively in private living rooms, and his trio The Oracle Hysterical explores the the intersection of hip-hop, bardic storytelling and experimental concert music.  From Austin, Texas, he has degrees in music and cognitive linguistics from Rice University and is presently a graduate student in composition at Princeton.

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Anna Lindemann’s work integrates her passion for multi-disciplinary art and biology. Combining music, animation, and video, her pieces Winged One, Bird Brain, and The Flying Curiosities of the Plant & Animal Kingdoms explore biological development and evolution. The animated bird characters in Bird Brain take inspiration from the peculiar natures of brood parasites and bowerbirds. In Winged One, a lecture on the developmental mechanisms of wing growth goes awry as the possibility for human flight is considered. In both films, biological processes are illuminated using pasta, hats, buttons, yarn and bits of lace. The installation Flying Curiosities of the Plant & Animal Kingdoms weaves together reflections on flight by Alfred Russell Wallace, Henry Woodward, and Etienne-Jules Marey with animated vignettes of the evolutionary origins of flight, and the developmental origins of feather growth and wings in real and fictive species.

Many of Anna’s musical compositions explore nature in its poignancy, absurdity, and complexity—from the musical depiction of the determined dung beetle in Garden Suite, which she composed as an eight-year-old, to recent explorations of music inspired from developmental biology systems in Bird Brain, Where do you come from little seedling? and Evo-Devo Music. Anna has enjoyed artistic collaborations as well—writing the music for two ballets, theater, and film. She has received awards for her musical compositions from ASCAP, MTNA, Collage New Music, The Pikes Peak Young Composers Competition, the Spokane Music and Allied Arts Festival, the Yale Sudler Fund for the Creative and Performing Arts, and the Yale Music Department Abraham Beekman Cox Prize. Anna has studied composition at The Walden School, and at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, as well as with her father Eric Lindemann, with Neil Rolnick at RPI, and with Kathryn Alexander, Michael Klingbeil, Yevgeniy Sharlat, and Orianna Webb at Yale University.

Anna graduated magna cum laude from Yale College with a B.S. in Biology. She conducted field research on bird speciation and bird calls in Indonesia, and she received the Edgar J. Boell Prize for her thesis research on genes involved in the patterning of wing eyespots during butterfly development. Anna received the DeWitt Wallace Fellowship, the Ellis and Karin Chingos ’37 Graduate Fellowship, and the Rensselaer Graduate Fellowship for her study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she is currently pursuing an MFA in Electronic Arts.

Anna’s works have been performed at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), Yale University’s Woolsey Hall and Sudler Hall, Harvard University’s Paine Hall, and the Dairy Center for the Performing Arts in Boulder, CO.

Manuella Blackburn was born in London in 1984. She went on to gain a bachelors degree in Music at The University of Manchester followed by a Masters in Electroacoustic Composition, gaining a Distinction and the Peter J Leonard Composition Prize. She has completed a PhD at the University of Manchester with Dr Ricardo Climent’s supervision, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Manuella is now as a lecturer in music technology at Liverpool Hope University.

Successes include First Prize for her work Vista Points in the 10th Musica Viva Electroacoustic Music Competition, 2009, Portugal, and Grand Prize in the Digital Arts Awards, Japan for Kitchen Alchemy. She has received Honorary Mentions in the CMMAS competition in Mexico and in the VII CIMESP (Concurso Internacional de Musica Eletroacustica de Sao Paulo 2007. Other awards include First Prize for her acousmatic work, Causal Impacts, in the 7th Musica Viva Electroacoustic Competition 2006, Portugal 2nd Prize in the Diffusion Competition, Limerick, Selection in the 2006 Bourges International Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Arts Competition, and the Public Prize in the CEMJKO competion in Brazil.

Manuella is also a member of The Splice Girls live laptop improvisation duo, who have been performing together since 2006. Together with Dr Diana Simpson Salazar they utilize tools built in Max MSP to create messed up loops and shimmering soiundscapes. They regularly perform at experimental music events. Highlights include a ‘sonic ferry’ at the Sonic Arts Network in Plymouth and Florida at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts (2008).

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Corey Dargel (b. 1977) is a Texas-born, Brooklyn-based composer, writer, and singer whose gentle assault on pop and classical idioms creates a tension that pervades his music. Deadpan and detached vocals reveal heartbreaking intimacies, awkward and obtrusive drum patterns struggle against fragile harmonies, vocals and music uneasily opposing each other as songs stumble to their ends. The New Yorker magazine calls him “a baroquely unclassifiable” composer of “ingenious nouveau art songs.” Salon praises his songs’ “rococo ingenuity” and “sustained bursts of lyrical brilliance,” and according to Gramophone magazine, he has “a compositional sense guaranteed to keep close listeners on their toes. Words and music are truly equal partners….”

Dargel studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory with John Luther Adams, Pauline Oliveros, Brenda Hutchinson, and Lewis Neilson.  His music has been profiled by Kurt Andersen (Studio 360), Alison Stewart (Weekend Edition), and David Garland (Spinning On Air).  He even earned a tweet from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for his art-song settings of the remarks of Condoleezza Rice.

Dargel has released two solo albums, Less Famous Than You (2006, Use Your Teeth) and Other People’s Love Songs (2008, New Amsterdam Records).  The New York Times calls Other People’s Love Songs “at once wistful and wry, tender and irreverent…. [G]iving voice to the lives and relationships of his subjects, [Dargel] invests melodies with playful melismatic turns, evoking Kurt Weill cabaret….”  His third album, Someone Will Take Care of Me (May 25, 2010, New Amsterdam Records & Naxos of America) is a double-CD album, featuring performances by the classical chamber group International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), David T. Little (drums), and Kathleen Supové (piano), comprised of song cycles adapted from Dargel’s critically acclaimed music-theater pieces, Thirteen Near-Death Experiences and Removable Parts

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Christopher Danforth is an electroacoustic and experimental music composer and instrument inventor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied composition under Henry Gwiazda and received a BA in Music from Minnesota State University, Moorhead.  In 2009, he was awarded a commission through the Jerome Composers  Commissioning Program. His electroacoustic music has been presented at various new music festivals including the Electronic Music Midwest Festival at Lewis University in Illinois and the World Electro-Acoustic Listening Room Project at California State University, Fullerton. His compositions have been featured on advertising campaigns, interactive websites and skateboarding videos.  With his ensemble, The Danforths, he has performed his experimental music across the country at venues  including the First Avenue Main Room and the Knitting Factory. Recordings of The Danforths are available on the Modern Radio Record Label. When he is not experimenting with sound at home, he works as a radio producer for American Public Media and Minnesota Public Radio.

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Christopher Adler is a composer, performer and improviser living in San Diego, California. His compositions encompass cross-culturally hybrid forms drawn from contemporary concert music and traditional musics of Thailand and Laos, the application of mathematics to composition, and the integration of improvisation into structured composition. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Tanglewood, Merkin Hall, Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo and at music festivals and universities across the U.S. and Canada by ensembles including the Silk Road Ensemble, red fish blue fish, Ensemble ACJW, Ensemble 64.8, pulsoptional, and the Seattle Creative Orchestra. His 2009 composition Pines Long Slept in Sunshine was commissioned by an international consortium of ten percussion ensembles led by the University of Kentucky. His compositions have been released on the 2008 CD Ecstatic Volutions in a Neon Haze (Innova) and the 2004 CD Epilogue for a Dark Day (Tzadik). His retrospective analysis of his own cross-cultural compositions has been published in John Zorn’s Arcana II: Musicians on Music (Hips Road, 2007). Christopher Adler is the world’s leading innovator in contemporary concert music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand. He has performed at the Bang on a Can Marathon, MATA, the Cultural Center of Chicago, and across the U.S. and Asia. This spring, he will premiere new works by Jeff Herriott, David Loeb and Sidney Marquez Boquiren on a concert tour entitled New Musical Geographies. As a pianist, he performs with the ensemble NOISE and co-directs the soundON Festival of Modern Music. This June, he will be composer-in-residence with the nief-norf Summer Festival. He has recorded for Tzadik, Innova, Centaur, and Vienna Modern Masters. Christopher Adler studied with Evan Ziporyn, Scott Lindroth and Steven Jaffe and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Diego. www.christopheradler.com

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Born in Athens in 1978, Nicolas studied guitar with Evangelos Assimakopoulos and harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Yiannis Ioannidis, as well as composition under Theodore Antoniou.

He moved to Paris in 2002 where he pursued his studies in composition with Michel Merlet at the Ecole Normale de Musique. He is currently finishing his Master’s degree in computer-aided composition at the university of Paris-8 under the direction of Horacio Vaggione and Jose Manuel Lopez-Lopez, and is taking composition classes with Philippe Leroux at the CRD of Blanc-Mesnil. Furthermore, since September 2007 he has been studying musical theatre composition with Georges Aperghis at the Hochschule der Kunste, in Bern, Switzerland.

He has taken part in composition master classes with, Brian Ferneyhough, Francois Paris and Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as computer music seminars at the IRCAM.

His music has been performed in France, Greece, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Peru, South Korea, and has been selected and awarded in competitions worldwide (Greece, Italy, USA, South Korea, France, Austria).

In Semptember 2009, he will attended the IRCAM Cursus 1 on computer music.

b. Serbia - Germany, 1980

Winner Gaudeamus Musicweek 2010

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Marko Nikodijević studied composition at the University of Arts in Belgrade with Srdjan Hofman and Zoran Erić from 1997 to 2003. From 2003 to 2005 he continued at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart with Marco Stroppa and since then has been living in Germany.

Among his honours are honourable mentions at the Gaudeamus Music Week 2003 and 2007, and the Franz Liszt Stipendium Preis 2005. In 2006 he was winner of the Forum du NEM.  Nikodijević has received scholarships from the Ministry of Saxony and Anhalt 2009, Ministry of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2010, and Ministry of Lower Saxony 2010.

His contribution to the Unesco Rostrum of Composers 2009 was a recommended work in both the general category and composers under 30. His music has been performed by ensemble recherche, Ensemble Modern, Ives Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, kammarensembleN Stockholm, de ereprijs, Brandenburger Symphoniker, Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, among others.

He is primarily interested in the use of digital technology in music: chaos theory, fractals, algorithmic composition, instrumental and digital sound synthesis, techno, DJ-ing and techno-aesthetics.

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Born in Santiago, Chile in 1982. He studied composition at the University of Chile with Jorge Pepi Alos, Aliosha Solovera, Pablo Aranda and Cirilo Vila.
Since 2005 he study and investigate the new possibilities of the interaction between musicians and computers, first at GEMA (Department of Electro-acoustic Art Music of University of Chile) and then at LATEM (Music Technology Laboratory of Pontifical Catholic University of Chile). As a result of this research, he composes music with real time electronics. One of these compositions is the song cycle “Instantaneas, 7 songs for voice, ensemble & live electronics”.
In 2009 he receives the DAAD scholarship, which gave him the opportunity to continue his studies in Germany.
Currently, he isfinishing his Master in Composition & Computer music in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, Germany, with Oliver Schneller, Piet Meyer and Marco Stroppa.

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Florent Ghys is a French composer of acoustic music and an upright bass player.
He employs hair dryers, blinkers, weather reports, vacuum cleaners, numbers, and enjoys controlling random elements.

He obtained degrees in ethno-musicology at Bordeaux University (Masters 03) and Bordeaux Conservatoire (Gold Medals 04), before going on to study the classical double bass with Thierry Barbé in Paris (Gold Medal 05). He participated in several composition master classes in the United States (Bang On A Can 06) and in Italy (Sentieri Selvaggi 06).

As a composer he works in a style situated between contemporary and pop music, creating tonal masses with or without pulsation. It has often been said to resemble American minimalist music.

He has collaborated with different ensembles and musicians such as Dither quartet, Abigail Fischer, Eleonore Oppenheim in New York, The F(x) in Miami, and has written music for both video projects (Lumina Productions, Aricie Productions), and websites (www.berto-cameraoperator.com, www.regardcamera.com).

The label Cantaloupe music in New York city is releasing 3 Eps called « Florent Ghys : Baroque Tardif » starting Septembre 09.

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Patricia Elizabeth Martínez was born in Argentina. She is a composer, improviser, pianist, performer of electronics and experimental inter-disciplinary artist. She is working specially with video art and poetry. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Music Composition and teaching at Stanford University with Brian Ferneyhough as her advisor.

Martinez was director and/or performer of different ensembles in Buenos Aires, Paris, Amherst and Stanford, such as: Zhéffiro, La Nada, ThrYzaS, Experimenta, Arsis, Stanford New Ensemble. Since 2001, she is member and organizer of FASE, an organization for contemporary music and politics. She was part of the organization of the International Festival Experimenta (1997–2000) and others different series of artistic events. She studied at the University of Quilmes, Municipal Conservatory of Music (Arg.) and at the annual course at The IRCAM with Tristan Murail (France, 1996/97).

Her works received awards as: 1st prize at “The International Young Composers’ Meeting” (Holland); 2nd prize at “Diffusion” (Ireland); residence at the “International Competition of Electroacoustic Music” (France); mention at “Pierre Schaeffer International Competition of Computer Music”; 5º prize at “The 60 seconds Piano Composition Competition” Paris New Music Review (USA); selected at “The International Competition of Composers and interpreters Deutsche Gesellschaft Flute” (Germany); 1st prize at the “National Composition Competition J.C.Paz”; the “Toda La Data Competition”; TRIME-TRINAC; SonoImagenes. In 1999, she was awarded with the life-First Music Price of the Buenos Aires City Government.

She received fellowships from: IRCAM, VCCA/UNESCO-Aschberg; Yvar Mikhashoff Trust For New Music Foundation; Beheer Groep; National Fund of the Arts, University of Quilmes; Luigi Russolo Competition (Italy) and commissions from Antorchas Foundation, Theater Municipal General San Martin, De Ereprijs, GMEB, FNA, Culture Fund BA, ProDanza, ProTheater, and Experimenta Ensemble. She participated at events like: Festival Synthese (France); Yjsebreker (Holland); Symposium of Computer Music (Brazil); Days of electroacoustic music (Uruguay); Florida Festival of Electroacoustic Music (U.S.); The ISCM World Music Days (U.K.); Diffusion (Ireland); Thom Theater (South Africa); Experimenta (Arg-Chile); Contemporary Music Festival, among others. Her works has been recorded at Wergo Label and 80 Mundos Label.

www.mauriciopauly.com

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Mauricio Pauly’s (b. Costa Rica, 1976) music has been performed in England, Germany, France, Hungary, Russia, Paraguay, Spain and the United States by ensembles including the JACK Quartet, the Ikarus Chamber Players, Tres Americas Ensemble, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Juilliard Pierrot Ensemble, Iturriaga Quartet and Psappha Ensemble. Pauly is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Manchester. He has previously studied in San José, Miami, Boston, The Hague and Budapest with Fredrick Kaufman, Lukas Foss, Richard Cornell, Ricardo Climent and Andrea Szigetvari. Mauricio was awarded the Staubach Honoraria for a new work which was premiered in Darmstadt, 2010. He has attended festivals such as the Bartók Seminar, Acanthes, Darmstadt and Impuls. His music was performed at the recent 2011 ISCM World New Music Days in Zagreb. Past awards include the Esther Kahn Career Entry award 2004, the Pablo Sorozabal Composition Competion 2005 and the Budapest Clavicembalo Foundation Composition Prize 2005 He has been funded by the Bliss Trust, the Solti Foundation, PRS Foundation UK and the University of Manchester. As a performer Mauricio has toured and recorded extensively as a bass guitarist. He lives in Manchester, UK and teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music.

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Composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1981 and is currently based in New York. Interested in creating intricate yet simple narratives that evoke intangible moments in time, she writes music for accordions, toys and electronics as well as chamber ensembles and orchestras.

Angélica received an early education in piano and violin at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico where she later studied composition under the guidance of composer Alfonso Fuentes. She has been awarded scholarships from the Amaury Veray Foundation (2004-2007), Phantomvox (2004), Pro Arte Musical (2006), the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts (2007) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (Emergency Grants 2009). Her music has been performed by Iktus Percussion Quartet, Astoria Symphony Orchestra, TRANSIT ensemble, janus trio, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, NYU Symphony Orchestra and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and she has written music for documentaries, films, theater and modern dance. She frequently collaborates with the experimental theater company from Puerto Rico Y No Había Luz writing music for their plays, which often incorporate puppets, masks and unusual objects.

A long time member of the Puerto Rican underground music scene, Angélica is a founding member of the electro-acoustic pop outfit Balún where she sings and plays the accordion and violin. With her project Arturo en el Barco she concentrates on working with lo-fi ambient compositions and has released albums on Observatory (Austria) and Carte Postale Records (Belgium). She has performed in venues such as Mercury Lounge, Monkeytown, Galapagos Art Space, Roulette, The Tank, Glasslands and (Le) Poisson Rouge and in festivals like Pop Montreal 2007 (Montreal), Decibel 2008 (Seattle). Through the process of recontextualization and reappropiation she often incorporates found sounds and field recordings in her music attempting to create a personal microcosm of recollections through sound that accesses reality but at the same time deconstructs it.

In 2008, as a recipient of the Lindsay and Brian Shea Fellowship, she participated in the European-American Musical Alliance (EAMA) Summer Music Program at L’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris where she studied with Dr. Robert Beaser, chair of the Composition department of The Juilliard School, and guest composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Her recent work for toy piano and electronics “Columpio” won second prize on the UnCaged Toy Piano Competition and she participated as a curatorial associate for MATA Interval Series for their 2008-09 season where she curated a concert at Issue Project Room (NYC) of music for toys and unconventional instruments.

She holds a master’s degree in music composition from New York University where she studied with Pedro da Silva and is currently pursuing a doctorate in music composition at The Graduate Center (CUNY), where she studies with Tania León. She also holds a bachelor’s in audiovisual communications from the University of Puerto Rico, and has contributed as a writer to the International Alliance of Women in Music Journal and the British magazine The Wire. Also active as an educator, Angélica is currently working as a teaching artist for the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s School Residency Initiative program.

She is a member of ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, New York Women Composers and the American Music Center, and is currently working on a commission from MATA Festival 2011 for a new piece for chorus and live electronics.

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Praised by the New York Times as “imaginative…like, say, a Martian dance party,” Ryan Carter’s music has been performed throughout Europe and North America by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Nieuw Ensemble, the JACK Quartet, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, NOW Ensemble, and many others. Recent commissions have come from Carnegie Hall, Present Music, The Milwaukee Children’s Choir, and the Calder Quartet, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer. Recent awards include the Lee Ettelson Award, the Aaron Copland Award, the National Association of Composers/USA Composer’s Competition, and the Publikumspreis at the Heidelberg Spring Festival; Ryan was also a finalist for the 2005 Gaudeamus Prize. Ryan holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and SUNY – Stony Brook, where his primary teachers included Richard Hoffmann, Pauline Oliveros, and Daniel Weymouth. Ryan spent 2007-2008 studying with Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (the Netherlands) and is currently pursuing doctoral work as a MacCracken Fellow at New York University, working with Elizabeth Hoffman and Matthias Pintscher.

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Christopher Mayo is a Canadian composer living and working in London. He was the recipient of the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal’s Génération 2010 Audience Prize, the 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Composition prize and a Serge Garant Award in the 2005 SOCAN Awards for Young Composers. Christopher was appointed as the first composer-in-residence at Tatton Park in 2006-2007. As a member of the Camberwell Composers’ Collective, Christopher was a New Music Associate at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge for 2008-2010.
Born in Toronto in 1980, Christopher studied at the University of Toronto where he was awarded the Glenn Gould Composition Prize and the William Erving Fairclough Scholarship on the way to earning an Honours Bachelor of Music degree. He relocated to London in 2003, where he obtained a Master of Music in Composition from the Royal College of Music studying with Julian Anderson. In 2006 Christopher began doctoral studies at the Royal Academy of Music studying with Philip Cashian.
Recent projects include works for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Esprit Orchestra, the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal +, Tête à Tête, Tatton Park, The St Paul’s Sinfonia, the London Handel Festival, Michael Collins and the Dante Quartet, the Buffet Crampon Clarinet Prize, arraymusic and
a work for the NMC songbook recorded and released on NMC records. Christopher’s music has been performed at Faster Than Sound, the Cheltenham Festival, the Toronto New Wave Festival, Kettle’s Yard, the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival. Christopher collaborated with Matthew Herbert on his ‘One Day’ project for the London Sinfonietta and he also appeared in the BBC 2 documentary Classic Goldie where he assisted English drum and bass star Goldie with his commission for the 2009 BBC Proms.
Upcoming projects include a new vocal work for the Dawn Upshaw and Donnacha Dennehy Young Artists Concert at Carnegie Hall, a multimedia work incorporating film and electronics for the Motion Ensemble, a new work for the New York-based TRANSIT, a new orchestral work for the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2010 Panufnik Scheme and a new work for the combined forces of ACME and L’arsenale for the 2011 MATA Festival.

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Gudmundur Steinn Gunnarsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1982. Began music studies at the age of seven. In 2005 he graduated from The Iceland Academy of Arts. There he studied composition with Dr.Ulfar Haraldsson and Hilmar Thordarson. Recently Gudmundur graduated with a M.A. degree in composition from Mills College. There he studied with Alvin Curran, Fred Frith and John Bischoff. He has attended masterclasses with Tristan Murail, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pauline Oliveros and Clarence Barlow.
His compositions have been performed at festivals such as U.N.M., Reno Interdisciplinary Arts Festival, ESAP 2007 and Music for People and Thingamajigs. His music has been performed by ensembles such as Quartet Opabinia (US), The Zapolski Quartet (DK) and Atón/Njútón (IS).
Gudmundur Steinn was the musical director of an experimental animated film named Hidebound which won a special prize for music at the NUFF young film makers festival in Norway. He has also been active as a improviser and has performed in that context with musicians such as Steve Hubback, Fred Frith, Andrew D’Angelo and Ad Peijnenburg. His music has appeared on various records which are available from Bad Taste (Reykjavik) and Edgetone (San Francisco).

www.acmemusic.org

The American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) is dedicated to the outstanding performance of masterworks from the 20th and 21st centuries. The ensemble aims to present cutting-edge contemporary literature by living composers alongside the “classics” of the contemporary.

ACME members include violinists Ben Russell and Caleb Burhans, violist Nadia Sirota, cellist and artistic director Clarice Jensen, pianist Eric Huebner, and percussionist Chris Thompson.

Since its first New York concert season in 2004, the ensemble has performed works by John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Caleb Burhans, John Cage, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Jacob Druckman, Jefferson Friedman, Philip Glass, Charles Ives, Donald Martino, Olivier Messiaen, Nico Muhly, Michael Nyman, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Arnold Schoenberg, Ryan Streber, Toru Takemitsu, Kevin Volans, Charles Wuorinen, Iannis Xenakis, Chen Yi, and more. A regular guest of (Le) Poisson Rouge and the Wordless Music Series, ACME has also performed at Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Tenri Cultural Institute, the Noguchi Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Flea Theater, and Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, among others.

HU Jianbing has earned wide recognition for his artistry as a sheng soloist and composer. He graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music, and joined in the Central National Traditional Orchestra of China. He’s member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.

HU’s father, Hu Zhiguo, was his first music teacher.  He taught young Jianbing to play Chinese traditional instruments sheng, suona and guanzi. He is also a student of the domestically well-known Sheng players such as, Mu Shanping, Feng Haiyun   and composition from Professors Li Bingyang and Guo Wenjing.

In 1983, he won the Best Chinese Music Instruments Soloist Competition prize in Gansu Province. In 1990, his commissioned piece “Plum Festival” was premiered by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.  It was then recorded and broadcasted by the Chinese Central Broadcast Corporation. His composition piece “Fragrant as ever” received the Taiwan Original Music Awards in 1993. “Fragrant as ever”, along with two other he’s piece “Lisao” and “Qiu Sai Yin” played by Hu Zhihou and Wang Zhongshan were released by BMG Hong Kong.  In 1997,  the Central National Traditional Orchestra of China, organized “The Autumn Melody—- HU Jianbing’s music” at Beijing Music Hall.

HU is very active in cultural and academic exchange between China and United States.  He has done many workshops and  performances with Yo-Yo  Ma on Silk Road Ensemble since 2001.  In 2004, HU with Bao Jian went to Paris to perform in a concert organized by Pro Musicis. Their Premiere featured HU’s piece Dancing with Ghosts.  In the same year HU performed with Bao Jian in the Guanzi and Sheng Contemporary Music Concert at Carnegie Hall; The year after at the same place he performed Jin Diao, one of his representative works, for the board of directors of Carnegie Hall. In 2007, invited by his alma mater he participated in the Beijing International Modern Music Festival, where he held the recital “Extension: Guan Zi and Sheng”. HU also cooperated with ACJW Ensemble for a performance at Carnegie Hall in 2008. In the same year he participated in Peabody Museum’s “Olympic Week” concert series and held a solo recital at the concert hall of Colgate University in New York. In 2009, Hu and his colleague Bao Jian were invited by the Museum of Modern Art to give a special concert for Sheng and Guan Zi at its concert hall. In 2010 Hu was invited by the Cambridge Salon of Harvard University and delivered a speech on composition and interpretation of Chinese music. In 2011, HU perform a Sheng and Orchestra  piece with the Seattle Symphony .

The Boston Globe wrote of his recent performances, “he has an impressive command of the sheng and of a broad range of its classical, folk, and modern musical literatures.”

A graduate of  the  Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Bao Jian has gained tremendous attention as an outstanding performer of the guanzi (a double-reed folk instrument of ancient Chinese origin) through numerous appearances as soloist and chamber musician worldwide. Hailed by The Berlin Daily Post for his “pure hallowed music from the East,” Mr.Bao has enchanted audiences with his virtuosity and poise. He boasts an impressive list of awards includes the 1998 Pro Musicis International Award and First Prize in the 1995 “International Chinese Ethnic Instrumental Competition” in Beijing.

With immense knowledge of classical and folk Chinese music, Mr.Bao is also acclaimed as a major innovator of contemporary works. UNESCO chose his recording of the song of “Three Layers of Yang Guan” to be internationally published . His performance of “Lin Li” concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra set new standards for the guanzi . With saxophonist Ken Radnofsky, he premiered Lei Liang’s “Extend” at the New England Conservatory’s Spring Music Festivals in Jordan Hall. With The Phoenix Symphony, he premiered Xu Zhenmin’s “Mooring at night by the Maple Bridge.”

As a recitalist, he has been heard on three continents and is a frequent guest performer at heralded festivals, including the “Festival of Asian Art” in Hong Kong and the “Bao der Weltkulturen” in Berlin. His reputation has earned him mention in “Famous Ethnic Chinese in the World of Arts & Literature”. He is currently an artistic director of the Chinese Performing Arts of North America.

www.cantorinewyork.com

A three-time winner of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Cantori New York has built a strong reputation for artistic excellence and innovative programming, including an evening of theatrical choral music with Tony Award winner Maryann Plunkett. Cantori’s collaborators have included the Cassatt String Quartet, Prism Saxophone Quartet, and the Gregg Smith Singers; appearances have included the opening season of Zankel Hall with Michael Tilson Thomas, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, and World Financial Center Arts & Events.

Cantori’s recordings include The Metamorphoses of Paul Crabtree, Echoes and Shadows (contemporary American choral works), and the first CD recording of Frank Martin’s Le Vin Herbé, which was an Opera News Editors’ Choice.

www.ditherquartet.com

DITHER, a New York based electric guitar quartet, is dedicated to an eclectic mix of experimental repertoire which spans composed music, improvisation, and electronic manipulation. Formed in 2007, the quartet has performed in the United States and abroad, presenting new commissions, original compositions, improvisations, multimedia works, and large guitar ensemble pieces. With sounds ranging from clean pop textures to heavily processed noise, from tight rhythmic unity to cacophonous sound mass, all of Dither’s music wholeheartedly embraces the beautiful, engulfing, and often gloriously loud sound of electric guitars. The quartet’s members are Taylor Levine, David Linaburg, Joshua Lopes, and James Moore.
Dither’s recent collaborators include downtown bagpiper Matthew Welch, composers Eve Beglarian and David Lang, and guitarist/composers Bryce Dessner, Nick Didkovsky, Marco Cappelli, Elliott Sharp, and Mark Stewart. In Fall of 2008, the quartet traveled to Hong Kong to premiere an evening-length theatrical work by Samson Young, Hong Kong Explodes! funded by the Hong Kong Council for the Arts. Recent performances in New York include the Performa Biennial, The MATA Festival Interval Series, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Bang on a Can Marathon, at which they performed a monstrous rendition of Eric km Clark’s exPAT, a Dither commission for hearing-deprived guitar orchestra. Dither’s debut album was released on Henceforth Records in June 2010.

www.metropolisensemble.org

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Metropolis Ensemble is a professional chamber orchestra based in New York City. Dedicated to emerging a new generation of composers and performers, Metropolis Ensemble has quickly established a reputation for presenting “new music played with the same kind of panache and bravura we usually experience only in performances of standard repertoire” (Esa-Pekka Salonen).

Founded in 2006 by conductor Andrew Cyr, Metropolis Ensemble has commissioned and performed new music from the next generation of composers, including Timothy Andres, David Bruce, Jakub Ciupinski, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman, Ryan Francis, Vivian Fung, Ryan Gallagher, Ray Lustig, Ricardo Romaneiro, Adam Schoenberg, Cristina Spinei, and Michael Ward-Bergeman, alongside imaginative and unorthodox masterpieces of the 20th Century and beyond that illustrate and embrace the fluid state of contemporary music from composers such as John Adams, Bela Bartok, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Osvaldo Golijov, Gyorgy Ligeti, Claudio Monteverdi, W.A. Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Erik Satie, David Schiff, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, and Kurt Weill, illustrating and embracing the fluid state of contemporary music.

Metropolis Ensemble recorded its debut studio album with the Grammy-winner Classical Producer of the Year (2005) David Frost, featuring the chamber orchestra concerti of composer Avner Dorman (b. 1975). The album was released internationally in January 2010 on the world’s leading classical label, NAXOS. Metropolis Ensemble received a nomination in the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards for Avi Avital (soloist) and Andrew Cyr (conductor) with Metropolis Ensemble for Avner Dorman’s Mandolin Concerto, part of the album. David Frost also received a Classical Producer of the Year Grammy nomination for his work on five albums, including his recording of Avner Dorman’s Concertos.

www.larsenale.com

Founded in Treviso by young musicians and composers under the artistic/musical direction of Filippo Perocco, L’Arsenale aims to bridge the divide between writing music and making music, between conceiving a sound and the gesture needed to produce that sound, between the lifetime of a sound and the space it lives and dies in. A special feature of the group is its flexibility, easily changing personnel in its keenly attentive explorations of the new work coming from young composers in the vast field of contemporary music.

From its inception, L’Arsenale has devoted much of its activity to commissions and first performances of new music. To date the group has given world premiéres to more than thirty pieces, working in close collaboration with composers such as Andrew Byrne, David Lang, Michael Gordon and Camille Roy, and thanks also to the cooperation of international organizations such as Sacem – Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique.

The ensemble’s objective is to explore the languages belonging to the world of modern and contemporary music through its extensive repertoire, which stretches from the historical avant-garde of Messiaen, Stravinsky and Schönberg to composers such as Ligeti, Berio, Stockhausen, Morton Feldman and Toru Takemitsu, and takes in the minimalism of Louis Andriessen, Terry Riley and Steve Reich, and the sound researches of Salvatore Sciarrino, Gerard Grisey, Iannis Xenakis and Giacinto Scelsi.

Collaborating with various associations, the group has taken part in numerous contemporary music festivals, such as Metaarte, cZ95 in Venice, ‘Compositori a Confronto’ in Reggio Emilia and many others.

In 2007 it performed in the 52nd Venice Biennale.

From its foundation L’Arsenale has been resident ensemble at the Teatro delle Voci, as well as collaborating with Fabio Vacchi in his composition classes at the Accademia Musicale Villa Ca’ Zenobio, both in Treviso.

In 2008 it also worked with a composition course organized by the Kairòs association and given by Riccardo Vaglini.

There are concerts programmed for the near future in collaboration with two major institutions in Rome, the Goethe Institute and the American Academy, and with the German Centre for Venetian Studies in Venice.