Ahmed Alabaca (they/them) is an African American composer, conductor, songwriter, pianist, and community facilitator. Creating power and possibility, through music, for themselves and the diverse communities they are a part of is the basis of Ahmed’s work. Raised in San Bernardino, CA, Ahmed understands the value of hard work and perseverance in the face of […]
Clara Frantzen is a violinist, composer, and conductor currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at the Boston Conservatory. As a composer, they have had two of their compositions premiered by the Civic Orchestra under the guidance of Jessie Montgomery, through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Young Composers Initiative. Before they were a part […]
Justin Weiss is a composer and conductor whose music has been described as “mesmerizing… simultaneously colorful and sparklingly direct” (Amici per la Musica) and “powerfully visual” (Third Coast Review). His music explores the perception of time, energy, and transformation through collective textural play and melodically driven lyricism, immersing the listener in dramatic and vibrant sonic […]
Hao Zhen is a composer, filmmaker, and pianist whose practice spans music, moving image, and installation. Her work explores sound as a material and relational process, engaging touch, distance, and forms of indirect transmission across acoustic and multimedia contexts. She approaches composition as a site of inquiry into how sound travels between bodies, objects, and […]
Devin Cholodenko is a composer with eclectic taste and signature style. His music tends toward the introspection of inner emotional and psychological experiences. Inspirations include time and memory, the experience of reality, nature, extreme experiences, classical mythology, and identity. His music has been performed, read, and recorded across the United States and internationally by chamber […]
Kyong Mee Choi, composer, visual artist, painter, organist and poet, received several prestigious awards and grants including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, John Donald Robb Musical Trust Fund Commission, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award, Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo, Honorary Mentions from […]
Asher Sizemore is a composer and performer based in Chicago. Her music blends interests in electronic, pop, and experimental genres, informed by her background as a producer, songwriter, and performer. Her music is often performed in non-traditional spaces, such as at house parties, in bars, and in queer clubs. She draws inspiration from queer culture, […]
Fredrick Gifford is a composer, educator and recording producer. His compositions are never the same twice: they explore openness by incorporating notated materials, live listening cues and performer decisions to shape their real-time unfolding. Commissions and festival performances include TIME:SPANS, Splice, Resonant Bodies, SEAMUS, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (AUT), Festival Internacional de Música Contemporánea (MEX), […]
Alissa Voth (she/her) is a composer, paper artist, and PhD candidate based in Chicago IL. Her music explores gradual transformations, drifting between song, noise, and wandering tonalities. Her paper weavings form abstract, textural structures that evoke meaning through the interplay of layered images. Website / Instagram
Composer, Songwriter, Orchestrator, Arranger, Sound Designer… are all ways to describe Daniel Clingman. However, if you were to ask him to describe himself; he would likely say that he is a storyteller. Crafting the emotions felt by audiences, he draws out the the underpinning force of the narrative. Within his music-craft, story always comes first. […]
Violinist, composer, and 3Arts awardee Brandi Berry Benson, noted for her “four-string acrobatics” and “indispensable skill” (TimeOut Chicago), has been praised as “alert [and] outstanding” (Chicago Classical Review), as her “riffs.. powered by a flashing blur of bow arm, rolled out with irresistible glee” (Washington Post). Brandi has performed with numerous ensembles throughout North America […]
Mason Kurtz is originally from southern IL but currently resides in Chicago, IL. Mason completed his Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance at Eastern Illinois University and is a current graduate student at DePaul University pursuing a Master of Music degree in vocal performance. Mason has experience in both opera and musical theatre. Previous […]
Dongryul Lee is a composer and Assistant Professor of Music at Loyola University Chicago. His music has been performed by ensembles and artists including Miranda Cuckson, the Jupiter and Mivos Quartet, the Taukay Ensemble, Paramirabo, the Grossman Ensemble, the Callithumpian Consort, Avanti!, and Axiom Brass, among others, and has been presented at venues such as […]
Baskin composes music based on literature classics and is a member of a band — Mortal Fools — that performs them in one-time-only happenings (music and interstitial narration). Website
Joel Y. Hoo (符永敬) boasts a multifaceted career as a composer, improviser, producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, distinguished by expertise in crafting music across diverse musical genres, tailored for online media, theater productions, and short films. His music stands at the convergence of orchestral and electronic music and treads the balance between post-minimalism and new complexities. […]
Annabel Punzel is a 22-year-old composer based in Chicago whose music lives at the intersection of classical elegance and imaginative eccentricity. Known for her vivid rhythms, colorful textures, and delightfully unpredictable harmonic turns, she draws inspiration from the shimmering hues of French Impressionism, as well as from folk melodies, rock grooves, and jazz-inflected harmonies—creating a […]
Joey Chimes is a multifaceted composer, pianist, improviser, and music teacher currently living in Chicago, IL. His music, while wildly eclectic in its juxtaposition of harmonic and stylistic traits, is marked by its organic sense of development and a keen attention to detail. His debut album, Reflections on Solitude, was released in 2020. His compositional […]
Nicole Hoffman is a Chicago-based pianist and composer. Her works explore contrasting timbres and the transformation of musical material through different styles. Additionally, she takes interest in how improvisation and collaboration can be used to foster spontaneous performances from the same principal material.
Joshua Paul Daniels (he/him/his) is a composer based in Chicago, Il. His music focuses on themes of the sharper edges of life. From a personal place this comes from his experience with bipolar type 2 and the deconstruction of his religious upbringing. On a broader sense, the world as we know it is not short […]
Benjamin Damann is a composer, percussionist, music technologist, & educator fromChicago. His internationally-performed works explore metric & rhythmiccomplexity, accessibility, habituation, & the timbral manipulation of acousticinstruments through physical preparation & electro-acoustic augmentation. Heseeks to normalize such complexities by generating works that engage with them interms of feel, groove, & intuition.His research utilizes combinatorics & linear […]
Zae Munn is now a Chicago-area composer following her recent retirement from her position of Professor of Music at Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. She continues as the Director and Resident Composer of the Summer Composition Intensive . Past faculty positions include Bowdoin College, Transylvania University, Lehigh University, and Interlochen Arts Camp. Her […]
Jaime Garcia-Anoveros is a NYC / Chicago-based composer, violinist, and President / Co-Founder of the Deleuze New Music Collective (DNMC). He has been playing violin for fourteen years and composing for six. Jaime currently studies composition with Marcos Balter at Columbia University. Previously, he completed studies with GRAMMY-award winner Jessie Montgomery, Kevin James, Amanda Harberg, […]
Alex Reyes is a pianist, composer, and improviser who is currently based in Urbana, IL. He previously lived in Chicago, and had the pleasure of performing at venues such as the Chicago Public Library, Fourth Presbyterian Church, and the Green Mill. He plays a wide range of musical styles including new music, jazz/blues, folk music, […]
Carolyn Sundlof Boudreau is a crossover vocalist and pianist. She has performed with Stare at the Sun, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, Music of the Baroque, Grant Park Music Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, Skokie Theater, 4 Chairs Theatre, and Big Noise Theatre. Carolyn also serves as cantor at Saints Faith, Hope & Charity in Winnetka, IL. […]
Originally from Chicago, Marissa Simmons is a contralto, noted for her “deep, evenly produced mezzo and theatrical magnetism” (South Florida Classical Review). She is also distinguished by her “comic precision” (San Francisco Examiner) and praised as “una formidable” (Especial/El Nuevo Herald). Simmons earned a Master of Music under Catherine Cook at the San Francisco Conservatory […]
Composing and performing her own compositions in public since age 7, Dr. Lois Veenhoven Guderian has been active as a composer, performer, educator, and author throughout her professional life. She is a versatile composer, composing in several genres, and in a variety of levels of compositional complexity. Lois has composed hundreds of songs and instrumental […]
Chloe Liuyan Liu is a composer who earned her Master of Music in Music Composition from Indiana University in May 2023, following her Bachelor of Music in Composition at Wheaton College in 2021. In 2019, she achieved recognition by winning both the Schultheis Composition Competition Award and the Josephine Halvorsen Memorial Composition Prize. Liu has […]
Michael Chipchak (b. 1999) is a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and student at Elmhurst University. He considers himself to be a contemporary-style composer, taking great influence from the Second Viennese School. He’s most inspired by composers including Claude Debussy, Anton Webern and Samuel Barber. He focuses most of his music on impressionistic, dissonant and pointillistic sounds.
Equally influenced by atonal modern classical, the ambient music of Brian Eno, the nuanced and free improvisation approach of AMM, the chamber pop of Burt Bacharach, and the industrial machinations of Throbbing Gristle, minimalists Reich and Glass, as well as jazz, rock, prog, & punk, Dan has been playing with sound since the early 80’s […]
Matthew is a Cellist/Composer hailing from Rochester New York. As a composer, he studied under Georg Friedrich Haas and Zosha DiCastri at Columbia University and Margaret Henry at the Eastman Community Music School. As a cellist, Matthew is a member of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra and is interested in doing community outreach with contemporary classical […]
Timothy W. McDunn (b. 1994) is a composer and theorist with a distinguished international profile. He specializes in just intonation and electroacoustic composition. His music and research is regularly presented and performed at major peer-reviewed conferences and festivals including NYCEMF, SEAMUS, SCI National Conference, Convergence, MOXSonic, ChimeFest, NSEME, and others. His background in classical languages […]
Jadie Reeves (they/she) is a Chicago-based composer and vocalist who completed their Bachelor’s of Music in Composition and Vocal Performance at Western Michigan University in the spring of 2024. They are currently pursuing their M.M. in Composition at Roosevelt University, where they serve as the program’s graduate assistant. Through the careful creation, performance, and instruction […]
Tabes Bridges is a Chicago-based composer and baritone whose music takes listeners on fantastic journeys of harmony, language, and color. A longtime choral singer, Tabes is obsessed with the interplay between words and music, and his long-term artistic goals include 1) pushing the limits of textual sources in choral music, and 2) expanding the boundaries […]
Composer Myron Silberstein (b. 1974) began his career as a pianist dedicated to bringing attention to composers whose work had fallen into obscurity. Immersion in the music of Vittorio Giannini, Nicolas Flagello, Ernest Bloch, and Paul Creston led to the development of his own compositional voice. Silberstein’s music is Romantic in outlook while making liberal […]
Megan DiGeorgio is a composer, violist, vocalist, educator, and arts administrator based Chicago, Illinois. As an artist, Megan believes in collaboration and community, rather than competition. She takes joy in creating and inspiring others to create. She most enjoys working in a spirit of genuine collaboration with other artists, musical and non-musical, and she strives […]
Han geul Lee is a multifaceted musician, known for his innovative approach to the piano as a composer, improviser, and instrument maker. He has explored a wide range of piano repertoire, from early baroque to premiere performances of new music and continues to explore theuntapped sonic capabilities of the piano with experimental techniques and electronics […]
Mark Snyder is a drummer, tubist, video artist, composer, engineer, producer & teacher living in Chicago. Mark’s multimedia compositions have been described as “expansive, expressive, and extremely human.” As a producer, writer, engineer, and performer, his discography includes world, electroacoustic, pop, rock, classical, and country records. A two-time quarterfinalist for the Grammy Music Educator of […]
Blair Boyd is a Chicago-based composer whose highly energized compositions engage with physical movement and the perception of time. Her works have been performed throughout the U.S. and internationally including Cheltenham Music Festival (U.K.), impuls Festival (Austria), and HighScore New Music Festival (Italy), as well as broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Dr. Boyd holds degrees […]
Cole Reyes (b. 1998) is a Michigan-based composer, educator, conductor, and performer originally from the Chicagoland Area. His music explores the intersection between personal experience and the world beyond. He has collaborated with artists such as JACK Quartet, the Rhythm Method Quartet, Bergamot Quartet, Juventas New Music Ensemble, BlackBox Ensemble, Del Sol Quartet, Transient Canvas, […]
Xu Han 许瀚 ( Beijing China) is a composer, scholar, sound artist, trombone & euphonium player, instrument hacker, coder, and improviser who draws inspiration from Buddhist Philosophy and hands-on aesthetics. Han is currently a composition doctoral candidate at Cornell University. He finished a music master degree in composition (graduating with distinction) from the Royal Northern […]