Composer Chats

Giovanni Santos serves as Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at La Sierra University, where he directs the University Wind Ensemble, Chamber Winds, Big Band, and teaches courses in graduate and undergraduate instrumental music education, popular music, conducting and composition. Dr. Santos has proudly implemented a yearly wind band conducting workshop at La Sierra University and h...

Composer, author, and filmmaker Jack Curtis Dubowsky works in concert music, improvisation, and live performance. His output includes three books, one documentary feature, and numerous musical compositions in film scoring, classical music, popular music, choral music, and other musical genres. https://www.jackcurtisdubowsky.com/index.html

EMMY® Award-winning composer Alex Wurman is known for his versatility and broad musical range. He has collaborated with notable directors across various genres, including Steven Conrad (Ultra City Smiths, Patriot), John August (The Nines), Jill Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing), Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights), and Ron Shelton (Play It To The Bone) and more. Wurman compose...

Described as “alluring” and “stirring” by The New York Times , the “arresting” ( Gramophone ), “irresistible” ( San Francisco Chronicle ), and “exhilarating” ( Chicago Tribune ) music of Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong (b. 1990) has been commissioned and performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Or...

William Owens (b. 1963) is a native of Gary, Indiana. A seasoned music educator, he is highly active as a composer, clinician, and conductor throughout North America. His compositional style for young ensembles displays a keen, practical approach, which has firmly established him as a leader in the field. Since 1993, Mr. Owens has over 300 titles to his credit for concert band, string orchestra, a...

Bobby Ge * (b. 1996) is an American-born, Shanghai-raised composer and media artist whose work engages with themes of communication, home, and hybridity. Described as “expressive and gripping” ( Financial Times ) and “exciting, frenzied, unpredictable” ( CityNews CBR ), his work is filled with shimmering textures and restless motion, often undergirded by a wry sense of humor. Winner of the Barlow...

Composer and performer Shruthi Rajasekar is a McKnight Composer Fellow with the American Composers Forum, Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music (ARNCM), winner of the Global Women in Music Award from the United Nations, and recipient of the Marshall Scholarship from the Government of the United Kingdom. Shruthi’s music draws from her deep roots in the Carnatic...

Dennis Tobenski is a composer, singer, and die-hard advocate for living composers. As a composer and performer, he embraces emotional complexity and honesty, and never shies away from vulgarity or a good laugh (no polite chuckles, please). Whether he’s behind the microphone as the host of the Music Publishing Podcast or working as the creator and driving force behind the NewMusicShelf Anthologies...

Daniel Kidane‘s music has been performed extensively across the UK and abroad as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 3, described by the Financial Times as ‘quietly impressive’ and by The Times as ‘tautly constructed’ and ’vibrantly imagined’. Daniel was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Prize in 2013 and in 2016 received a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. He received an honorary doc...

Mark Orton is a composer working in the mediums of film scoring, concert music, and radio/podcast. He is both a multi-instrumentalist and a collector of antique and unusual instruments, performing on all manner (and era) of guitars, keyboards, and percussion. He is the co-founder of Tin Hat , an internationally renowned composer/improviser collective with seven critically acclaimed albums. Mark ha...

Joseph Metcalfe Composer, Conductor, Orchestrator, Producer • 20+ Yrs Music for Film, Stage & TV • Producer Of Musical Productions • Versatile Across All Musical Genres • Orchestrator • Conductor • 20+ Years of DAWs - Digital Performer, ProTools etc. • Proven Natural Leader, Dependable & Reliable • Self-starter, Fast Turn Around Times • Experienced Producer of Scoring / Recording Sessions...

Avid vocal composer Matthew Recio recently finished his post as Vanguard emerging opera composer with Chicago Opera Theatre. During his residency, he developed operas with librettists Royce Vavrek (2021) and Stephanie Fleischmann (2020). The concert presentation of his work with Royce, "The Puppy Episode," was premiered in March of 2021 through the Chicago Opera Theater (COT) and followed by co-pr...

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Felix Jarrar is a multidisciplinary artist, distinguished as a composer, coach and conductor. His music has been praised for its "dreamlike" quality (Boston Globe) and "delightfully cruel" edge (Operawire). Jarrar's compositions have been noted to "flow from him in the most natural and lively way" (Tom Cipullo). Jarrar has had the privilege of collaborating with numerous esteemed organizations, in...

Collaborative pianist and composer Jodi Goble is Senior Lecturer in Voice at Iowa State University, where she coaches singers, music-directs the ISU Opera Studio, and teaches diction and song literature. She received the Iowa State University Award for Early Excellence in Teaching in 2015. Before coming to Iowa, she was Lecturer at the Boston University College of Fine Arts, Senior Vocal Coach and...

r. Emerson Eads currently serves as Director of Choral Activities at Minot State University. As a composer and conductor, he has devoted himself to music of social concern. His Mass for the Oppressed was written to support the Fairbanks Four, Alaskan Natives from the composer’s hometown who were wrongfully imprisoned for over sixteen years. His cantata “…from which your laughter rises” was written...

Award-winning composer Paul Leonard-Morgan has written music for the concert hall, the theater, public events, worked with pop and rock bands, and composed for the screen, both large and small. His experience and range are the epitome of the skill, versatility, and appeal of a 21st century composer—in a world where genres are less and less important, he’s a conservatory trained composer with a pun...

Composer Kurt Erickson specializes in creating innovative large scale, multi-year projects for multi-artist commissioning consortiums. His 2023-2025 Each Moment Radiant will include some 20-25 global arts organizations, including those in the US, Sweden, and Finland. The multimedia vocal work will honor the lives of the thirty-five Syracuse University students who perished in the Pan Am Flight 103...

Joseph Jones is a dedicated, passionate, and consummate classical musician with a wide range of talents including composition, conducting, and orchestral playing. Mr. Jones studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and has been a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and Allentown Symphony. He has also been an assistant or apprentice conductor with the New York Youth Symphony, National...

Marti Epstein (November 25, 1959) started studying composition in 1977 with Professor Robert Beadell at the University of Nebraska. She has degrees from the University of Colorado and Boston University, and her principal teachers were Cecil Effinger, Charles Eakin, Joyce Mekeel, Bunita Marcus, and Bernard Rands. Marti was a fellow in composition at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1986 and 1988 and...

Jessica Rudman’s music inspires empathy for social issues through stories of myth, magic, and the modern world. Described as a “new music ninja” by the Hartford Advocate, she blends lyrical melodies and dramatic narrative structures with sensual harmony and vibrant color to draw the audience into the world she has created. Her works for the concert hall, dance, and opera often differ in musical la...

Born in Australia and raised in an immigrant family, Melissa Dunphy herself immigrated to the United States in 2003 and has since become an acclaimed composer specializing in vocal, political, and theatrical music. She first came to national attention in 2009 when her large-scale work the Gonzales Cantata was featured in The Wall Street Journal , The Atlantic , National Review , Fox News , and on...

Charles Booker (b. 1952), a native of Natchez, Mississippi, is a former U.S. Army Bandmaster, and Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith. He served the university as Director of Jazz Studies, Director of Bands, and Chair of the Music Department. During his tenure at UA Fort Smith he taught trumpet, band, jazz band, conducting, music theory, orchestration and composition. Mr...

Catherine Likhuta (b. 1981, Kyiv, Ukraine) is an Australian-based composer, pianist and recording artist. Catherine holds a bachelor's degree in jazz piano from Kyiv Glière Music College and a five-year post-graduate degree in composition from the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv Conservatory). She is currently [2018] pursuing a Ph. D. in composition at the University of Queensl...

Jennifer E. Rose (b. 1978) is an American composer, sound designer, and audio editor. A former band director and music educator of 15 years, Rose is passionate about engaging students through performance. Lately, her genre-breaking scores that incorporate 8-bit sound design and orchestral elements have garnered the attention of ensemble directors worldwide. ​Jennifer holds a Professional Artist Ce...