Composers
Current
Photo: Jiji
Gulli Björnsson
Gulli Björnsson is a guitarist, composer and programmer from Iceland whose music typically ties electronics, live instruments and visuals to experiences in nature. Gulli’s music has been described as “hypnotic” (News Gazette) “a knockout—wondrously inventive” (Soundboard Magazine) and “virtuosic, modern, occasionally discordant, but still accessible” (Classical Guitar Magazine). Gulli currently teaches Electronic Composition at the University of Kansas and holds degrees from Manhattan School of Music, Yale School of Music and Princeton University.
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Chen Yihan
Chen Yihan is a native of Changzhou, China. For him, creating music emanates from a love for life. The act embraces the human yet can transcend individual and collective limitations, whether historical or cultural. His music has been performed by orchestras and ensembles including the China Philharmonic Orchestra, China National Symphony Orchestra, China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the China National Opera House, American Composers Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, and Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has received honors such as the Copland House Residency Award and three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards. In 2023, he made his debut as a film composer with the Chinese-language commercial feature film Manifesto, produced by the Shanghai Film Group Corporation. He is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at Princeton University and holds a master's degree in composition from the Juilliard School and bachelor's degrees in composition and piano from the Jacobs School of Music.
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Ellie Cherry
Ellie Cherry is an electroacoustic composer fundamentally compelled by the belief that as an artist she is first and foremost an observer: be it the acoustic properties of the bark of a beech tree or the childhood experiences of an audience member, every element in our shared reality is worthy of consideration. Her composition therefore takes a holistic approach, in which spectral theory, physics, psychoacoustics, and historical and political context are all thoughtfully intertwined. She is particularly interested in exploring how new music composition can provide an effective platform for activism, frequently addressing topics such as environmentalism, gender and class inequality, and trauma.
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Dai Wei
Dai Wei is a composer and vocalist whose musical journey navigates in the spaces between East and West, classical and pop, electronic and acoustic, innovation and tradition. She often draws from Eastern philosophy and aesthetics to create works with contemporary resonance and reflects an introspection on how these multidimensional conflicts and tension can create and inhabit worlds of their own. Being an experimental vocalist, she performs herself as a Khoomei throat singer in her recent compositions, through which are filtered by different experiences and backgrounds as a calling that transcends genres, races, and labels. She was featured in The Washington Post’s ‘22 for 22: Composers and Performers to Watch this Year.’ Described as “impassioned” by The New York Times and “with a striking humanity” by The Washington Post, her music has received commissions and performances by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Reno Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Bang on a Can, Alarm Will Sound, and Aizuri String Quartet. Recent highlights include new works Curtis Symphony Orchestra 2023 West Coast and Asia Tour, Carnegie Hall Link Up program, and her new album. Wei is a PhD candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University.
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Gladstone Deluxe
Gladstone Deluxe (they / he) is a New York based artist working with percussion and electronics. Their work takes form in recorded music, installations, and performances. Gladstone has performed as a soloist at the Kennedy Center, released multiple tracks charted in the Beatport Top 10, works in fields of research as a technical audio engineer and software engineer, and is an installation artist addressing concepts linking rhythm, geometry, the black body, and technology. Gladstone holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA from Columbia University, and will be pursuing a PhD at Princeton University in the fall. This year, Gladstone will be releasing / has released music with Black Techno Matters, is / was, DETOUR, Ongoing Box and Miscellaneous Records. Films that Gladstone scored have been shown at the British Film Institute, a STARZ television premiere, the Hawai’i International Film Festival and more. They have appeared in galleries and night clubs across the east coast and midwest, including The Warhol Museum, Wallach Art Gallery, Chashama, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Hot Mass, Jupiter Disco, with more to come in the fall.
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Photo: David Kelly Crow
Francisco del Pino
Francisco del Pino is a Buenos Aires-born composer and guitarist with an affinity for music that is meticulous, expressive, and patient. Drawing influence from both classical and vernacular traditions, his work revolves around process and pattern and is usually characterized by an extensive use of counterpoint. Francisco’s debut album Decir, a song cycle on texts by Argentinian poet Victoria Cóccaro, was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2021. His music has been described as of “sheer beauty” (Bandcamp Daily), “lucid, entrancing” (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN), and “ethereal, yet heavy, distinguished, yet humble—and always beautiful” (Classical Post). Francisco is a PhD candidate in the Music Department and a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities.
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Natalie Dietterich
Applauded by Performance Today for her “pulsatingly beautiful and moving” music, Natalie Dietterich is a composer, violinist, and vocalist from Harleysville, PA, primarily known for her orchestral and choral works, rhythmic layering, and creative use of unconventional texts. Recent projects include light, beloved, an acoustic-electric guitar concerto for virtuoso JIJI, which premiered at Carnegie Hall; and Choir Piece, a multidisciplinary collaboration with German artist Felix Kindermann and choreographer Florian Fischer, which questions the idea of “togetherness” by mirroring today's zeitgeist along with its societal distortions. It was presented by the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Gent, Belgium and featured at the KIT (Kunst im Tunnel) in Düsseldorf, Germany, as a four day exhibition in early 2020. Natalie’s orchestral music has been performed and / or presented at the Albany Symphony as part of the American Music Festival, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra as part of the Edward T. Cone Composition Institute, by the New York Youth Symphony, the Shanghai Symphony, and the Cabrillo Festival among others. She has been awarded fellowships from the Bang on a Can Summer Festival and Big Sky Conservatory with The Crossing, and has been awarded residencies at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute; the Norfolk Chamber Music Institute; and Arts, Letters, and Numbers. Dietterich holds MM and MMA degrees in music composition from Yale University, a dual bachelor’s degree in music composition and violin performance from West Chester University, and is currently pursuing a PhD in music composition at Princeton University.
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Kennedy Taylor Dixon
Kennedy Taylor Dixon is a composer, violist, and scholar currently residing in Princeton, New Jersey. Described as a “vibrant musical voice,” Dixon often writes for herself and is also passionate about collaborating with members in her musical community. Recent highlights of her career include recipient of Westminster College’s inaugural Hear and Now Emerging BIPOC Composer Commission (April 2023), Tetractys New Music: Here Be Monsters Commission (May 2023), New Music Gathering performer participant (June 2023), and Bang on a Can Composer Fellow (July 2023). Dixon has worked with numerous artists throughout her career, such as JACK Quartet, Sō Percussion, ~Nois, F-Plus, Boston Children’s Chorus, Parker Ramsey, Michael J. Love, and more. Dixon holds a MA in Music Composition in addition to her dual undergraduate degrees in Viola Performance and Music Composition from Western Michigan University. Dixon is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow.
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Liam Elliot
Liam Elliot is a composer, sound artist, and instrument builder from Calgary. His work seeks to create a sense of place and reflects a fascination with the sounds and processes of the natural world. Through his music and sound installations, Liam encourages audiences to listen in new ways to the world around them. He creates acoustic and electroacoustic pieces for concert performance and builds sound sculptures that directly transform natural processes into musical sound. As a performer and improvisor, he builds physical and digital instruments to shape the sounds of his collaborators and works directly with the sounds of nature to create unique sonic environments.
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Aliayta Foon-Dancoes
Aliayta Foon-Dancoes is an award-winning Canadian violinist, composer and interdisciplinary collaborator. Until this Fall, she was living in London, England, working with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC, and 12 Ensemble. She has performed at the Musikverein, Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie de Paris and the BBC Proms. Collaboration is central to Aliayta’s practice. She is a co-founder of the commissioning project Orbit Duo and the interdisciplinary collective THIRTYMINUTES. Through these projects, Aliayta has composed for new instruments designed by sound sculptor Marla Hlady, commissioned and performed pieces by Olivia Shortt, Cris Derksen and Robyn Jacob, premiered work at the Canadian Opera Company, and exhibited experimental audiovisual pieces Sub Tei (Berlin) and Espacio Gallery (London). Recently, Aliayta recorded on Esmerine’s Juno award-winning album Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More, and, with her sister, Rebecca Foon, co-wrote the soundtrack for One & One Other, a film commissioned by the Baryshnikov Arts Centre. Other work includes a collaboration with Patti Smith and Pathway to Paris, performances alongside Patrick Watson at Live At Lost River, and a tour of Phases, a live violin and multi-channel sound performance co-created with London based new media design studio Kai Lab. Aliayta holds a BA from the University of Victoria, a MA from the Royal Academy of Music and has held Chamber Music Fellowships at both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music (London). This Fall, she will begin a PhD in Composition at Princeton University.
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Photo: Gu Wei
Bobby Ge
Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator who seeks to create vivid emotional journeys that navigate boundaries between genre and medium. He has created multimedia projects with the Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Scattered Players Theater Company, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Winner of the 2022 Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the U.S. Navy Band, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra, Interlochen Arts Academy, Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Youth Orchestra, Music from Copland House, the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, the Bergamot Quartet, and Mind on Fire. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Princeton University as a Naumberg Fellow, and holds degrees from UCBerkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.
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Hannah Ishizaki
Hannah Ishizaki is a composer and sound artist based in New York City. Her music seeks to foster connections between musicians and the audience through the explorations of the physicality of music performance. Hannah finds inspiration in the process of composition, leading her to experiment with a wide range of instruments and sound generating methods—from acoustic instruments in an orchestra to digital sensors to rocks and zippers. Immersed in the world of collaboration, Hannah has worked with dancers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists, to connect the seemingly unconnected and create innovative and multidisciplinary projects. Recently, Hannah was named one of five 2023 Hildegard commission winners, which is presented by National Sawdust and generously supported by The Onassis Foundation and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
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Photo: Sarah H. Paulson
Travis Laplante
Travis Laplante is a composer, improviser, and saxophonist. Laplante leads the acclaimed tenor saxophone quartet Battle Trance, as well as Subtle Degrees, his duo with drummer Gerald Cleaver. Recently, Laplante has composed long-form works for new music ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, and the ~Nois Saxophone Quartet. Laplante is also known for his raw solo saxophone concerts and being a member of the avant-garde quartet Little Women. He has performed and / or recorded with Tyshawn Sorey, Caroline Shaw, Ches Smith, Peter Evans, Sō Percussion, Ingrid Laubrock, Mary Halvorson, International Contemporary Ensemble, Michael Formanek, Buke and Gase, Darius Jones, Mat Maneri, Julia Bullock, and Matt Mitchell, among others. Laplante has released 12 critically acclaimed albums as a leader or co-leader on New Amsterdam Records, Aum Fidelity, Skirl, Tripticks Tapes, Out of Your Head Records, and NNA Tapes. Laplante has toured his music extensively and has appeared at many major international festivals such as The Moers Festival (Germany), Jazz Jantar (Poland), Saalfelden (Austria), Jazz em Agosto (Portugal), Earshot (Seattle), Hopscotch (North Carolina), and the NYC Winter JazzFest. As a composer, Laplante has been commissioned by the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), the JACK Quartet, Roulette Intermedium, Yarn/Wire, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the MATA festival, and The Jerome Foundation.
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Hope Littwin
American composer and music producer Hope Littwin grew up in dance and theater before she took to music, first as a singer-songwriter then as a classical singer and now as a composer and music producer. She loves to collaborate with artists of all kinds on embodied, expressive works. Hope’s compositions fuse chamber music, vocal music, electronics and choreography. She has been commissioned by choirs, chamber ensembles, theater and dance companies to lead the creation of original works that pull from the idiosyncratic desires and abilities of the ensembles that she is engaged with. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. The Daily Princetonian says Hope Littwin's music explores the “euphoric realm, where the physicality of musical expression is fully embraced—where music is not only something we do, but something we are.” Hope’s original works are available for streaming on band camp and YouTube, her albums can be found on Spotify / iTunes. Find Hope on instagram @hopelittwin
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Photo: Seoung Yull Nah
Soo Yeon Lyuh
Soo Yeon Lyuh is a composer, improviser, and master of the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument. Hailing from Daegu, South Korea by way of Princeton, New Jersey, Lyuh draws inspiration from traditional Korean music to perform a meld of improvisatory and experimental sounds. She is currently pursuing her second PhD in composition at Princeton University, after receiving the first doctorate in Korean music at Seoul National University. As a performer, Lyuh possesses flawless technique and a full command of the haegeum’s traditional repertoire. For twelve years, she was a member of South Korea’s National Gugak Center, which traces its roots to the 7th Century Shilla Dynasty and is Korea’s foremost institution for the preservation of traditional music. To weave authentic styles into new musical domains, Lyuh relocated in 2015 to the San Francisco Bay Area and drew inspiration from its dynamic improvised music scene. In 2017, she was invited to collaborate in a series of concerts with the Kronos Quartet, and this work set her on the path of becoming a composer. As a composer, Lyuh asks classically trained performers to think outside the box, drawing out fresh sounds that, once understood, sound organic. Although these sounds are uneasy to visualize with notation, Lyuh can communicate a lot of them and often demonstrates the parts by joining and performing with the ensemble. Ultimately, Lyuh is all about making a bridge between cultures across borders, and breaking down any walls.
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Lucy McKnight
Lucy McKnight is an artist who works with colors, textures, and sounds to create environments where she and others can explore intense emotions and ways of surviving them. She is interested in using touch, connection, movement, and sound to build mutually cathartic experiences. Recent mediums include wood, strings, pots, paint, ceramics, tinfoil, magnets, fabric, her cello, her own body and voice, and her friends’ bodies and voices. Her work has been performed across the US and in Europe by artists including Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Yarn/Wire, ~Nois, Parker Ramsay, Dither Quartet, Longleash Trio, and Transient Canvas. In her spare time, she loves to swim in natural bodies of water, with particular affinity for the Pacific Ocean off the coast of her hometown, Los Angeles. Currently, she and her three deeply affectionate cats live in her wildly colorful home in Trenton, New Jersey while she works on her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University.
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Photo: Jiyang Chen
Jessie Montgomery
Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post). Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Banner (2014)—written to mark the 200th anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner—for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation, which was presented in its UK premiere at the BBC Proms on 7 August 2021. Summer 2021 brought a varied slate of premiere performances, including Five Freedom Songs, a song cycle conceived with and written for soprano Julia Bullock, for Sun Valley and Grand Teton Music Festivals, San Francisco and Kansas City Symphonies, Boston and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, and the Virginia Arts Festival; a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape Festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance, I was waiting for the echo of a better day; and Passacaglia, a flute quartet for The National Flute Association’s 49th annual convention. Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African American and Latinx string players and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Jessie holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. She ispProfessor of violin and composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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James Moore
James Moore is a composer, guitarist, and bandleader who is currently in his sixth year of the composition program at Princeton. In addition to writing concert music and leading his own ensembles, he performs extensively as a chamber musician, soloist, and a collaborator in theater, dance, and multimedia projects. He can often be found playing with the raucous electric guitar quartet Dither, the whimsical acoustic group The Hands Free, and the avant-grunge / sloppy-math band Forever House.
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Gemma Peacocke
Gemma Peacocke is a composer from Aotearoa New Zealand. She has a particular interest in cross-art form projects. Her first album, Waves & Lines, which sets poems by Afghan women, was released on New Amsterdam in March 2019. Gemma is co-founder of the Kinds of Kings composer collective which is focussed on amplifying and advocating for under-heard voices in classical music. A joint Ph.D. candidate in Music and Humanistic Studies at Princeton University, Gemma previously studied with Julia Wolfe at NYU Steinhardt and at the New Zealand School of Music. Gemma has been commissioned by the Auckland Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Third Coast Percussion, PUBLIQuartet, Bang on a Can, Rubiks Collective, Stroma, and Alarm Will Sound. She lives in Brooklyn with her biggest fan, a standard poodle called Mila (and Gemma’s husband George also lives with them). She also spends as much time as possible in New Zealand.
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Photo: Natalie Camacho
Christian Quiñones
Christian Quiñones is a Puerto Rican composer who explores personal and vulnerable stories through the lens of cultural identity. From sampling to auto-tune, and to interactive multimedia, Christian is interested in interacting with existing music to create intertextual narratives. Recently Christian was selected as a composer in residence at the Copland House, and as a fellow for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Workshop, Cabrillo Festival, and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival. In 2020 he was selected for the Earshot Underwood Orchestra Readings where he worked with the American Composers Orchestra. He has received commissions from the New York Youth Symphony, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, Transient Canvas, the icarus Quartet, the Bergamot String Quartet, Chromic Duo, and the Victory Players where Christian was the 2018 – 2019 composer in residence. His music has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, Dal Niente, Hub New Music, Yarn/Wire, Loadbang, Unheard-of Ensemble, Victory Players, the American Composers Orchestra, and René Izquierdo. Christian graduated from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico (BM) and the University of Illinois (MM), where he was the recipient of the Graduate College Master’s Fellowship. Currently, Christian is a PhD President’s fellow at Princeton University.
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Photo: Tanya Rosen-Jones
Isaac Santos
Isaac Santos is a composer of contemporary concert music based in New Jersey and originally from Broward County, Florida. Much of Isaac’s current output is inspired by visual art, nature, and everyday life. Through his compositions, he aspires to create deeply affective music that engages introspectively with some of our most deep and poignant emotions.
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Photo: David Goddard
Nathan Schram
Nathan Schram is a member of the Attacca Quartet and the Founder & Executive Director of Musicambia, an organization that develops music education programs in prisons throughout the United States. Albums of his original music have been released on New Amsterdam and Better Company Records. He has a wife and daughter and adores living in Princeton.
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Photo: Shervin Lainez
Nina Shekhar
Nina Shekhar is a composer and multimedia artist who explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter to create bold and intensely personal works. Described as “tart and compelling” (The New York Times), “vivid” (The Washington Post), and an “orchestral supernova” (LA Times), her music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her work has been featured by the Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Library of Congress. Recent projects include commissions for the New York Philharmonic, a multimedia work for Grand Rapids Symphony, a solo electronics show at LA’s Monk Space, and a children’s interactive piece for Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). Nina is a PhD candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is currently serving as Composer-in-Residence of The Crossing and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 2023 – 2024 Sound Investment Composer. She is a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Music Fellow and recently completed her tenure as Composer-in-Residence for Young Concert Artists. Nina is a first-generation Indian American and a native of Detroit, Michigan.
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Photo: Colin Mohr
Elijah Daniel Smith
Praised by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a “rising star”, composer Elijah Daniel Smith is quickly establishing himself as one of today’s leading young composers. His music, which has been described as “gnashing and relentless” (Chicago Tribune), and as “an ingenious study in clarity and distortion” (San Francisco Classical Voice), ranges from orchestral compositions to multimedia and interdisciplinary collaborations. Elijah’s affinity for dense and complex textures, rhythmic ambiguity and fluidity, and rich gravitational harmonies shines through in all of his creations. His music has been premiered and performed by world renowned ensembles including The Chicago Symphony Orchestra for MusicNOW, the American Composers Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, Contemporaneous, JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Bergamot Quartet, Sō Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Yarn/Wire, ~Nois, DITHER, Copland House, Ensemble Linea, Ecce Ensemble, Fuse Quartet, the Lea Mattson Collective, and Earspace. Elijah is currently pursuing his PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow, and he is the Composition Studies Associate at the Curtis Institute of Music. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition from the Boston Conservatory in 2017, and a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in 2020. Elijah’s music is published by Project Schott New York.
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Max Vinetz
Max Vinetz’s music draws inspiration from various intersections between improvisatory, popular, and traditional forms and aesthetics. His work centers the perception of rhythmic and timbral events and is concerned with the relationships between narrative, musical objects, and sonic artifacts as they relate to music and other forms of media. Max is a recipient of a Fromm Foundation Commission, ASCAP’s Morton Gould Award (2018, 2020), the Paul and Christiane Cooper Prize, and the Gardner Prize from the American Viola Society. He has received additional recognition and awards from Voices of Ascension, the Doug Davis Composition and Performance Endowment, Musiqa, Copland House, and the Mizzou International Composers Festival. As a Yale undergraduate, Max won the Beekman Cannon Friends Prize, awarded for a “musical composition exhibiting unusual originality and promise,” the Abraham Beekman Cox Prize awarded to the “most promising and gifted composer” in the junior class, and was also awarded the Lewis P. Curtis Fellowship, the Tristan Perlroth Prize, and the R.J.R. Cohen Fellowship for Musical Performance (2017, 2018). Upcoming projects include an evening length staged electroacoustic song cycle for panSonus, titled The New Manilla Envelope and an EP written in collaboration with Anson Jones. A graduate of both Yale and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Max is currently pursuing his PhD in Composition at Princeton University as a Naumburg Doctoral Fellow.
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Connor Elias Way
Connor Elias Way is a composer whose music explores resonance through carefully wrought networks of imitative counterpoint and a spectrally-informed approach to sonority and timbre. His music has been performed by groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, Aizuri Quartet, Yarn/Wire, Contemporaneous, Sō Percussion, Chamber Cartel, Terminus Ensemble, Modern Medieval, Dither, Omnibus Ensemble, Now Hear This, Occasional Symphony, Arx Duo, Bergamot Quartet, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and at the Charleston Symphony’s Magnetic South series. Connor holds a BMus in Composition (summa cum laude) from Georgia State University and an MM in Composition from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University where he was presented with the Gustav Klemm Award in Composition. He is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University.
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Justin Wright
Justin Wright is a composer, cellist, and multimedia artist from Montreal, Canada. After finishing his masters in molecular biology, Justin left science and started performing in bands of all sorts before eventually teaching himself how to compose, using the techniques he learned in recording studios. Justin’s primary composition tools, for both electronic and acoustic music, are his cello, Ableton Live, a modular synthesizer, and a 4-track tape machine. Lately, Justin has focused on filmmaking, early music, virtual reality, and in situ composition. He has opened for artists such as Johann Johannsson, Hauschka, Thomas Mapfumo, Lubomyr Melnyk, Colin Stetson, Okkyung Lee, and Mount Eerie. Justin’s most recent album, A Really Good Spot, was released in July 2022 on Beacon Sound and First Terrace Records. This past summer, Justin traveled to Svalbard, an archipelago close to the North Pole, and serenaded the glaciers with the most northerly cello performances in history.