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 […]
Dr. Hyejin Cho enjoys a flourishing performance career as a soloist and chamber musician, with concerts across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her research, centered around her passion for Robert Schumann, led her to develop a concert series featuring his piano works in eight different states, supported by the Missouri Arts Council, the Kate […]
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.
Black Moon Trio is a horn, violin, and piano ensemble redefining the chamber music experience through adventurous programming, community-centered education, and a commitment to equity in the arts. Founded in 2022 by Parker Nelson, Jeremy Vigil, and Khelsey Zarraga, the trio seeks to effect meaningful change by connecting with diverse audiences and amplifying underrepresented voices. […]
A not-for-profit organization offering scholarships in Turkey and France. In the USA, private music lessons are given to underserved children and teens in the Chicago area. Ayse Celasun founded Notre École de Musique in 2014; in 2020 the school was moved to Chicago’s North Center neighborhood from the famous Fine Arts building downtown. Former Assistant […]
Matt A. Mason is a distinguished composer, pianist, and educator whose work spans across multiple genres, including contemporary classical, electroacoustic, and music theater. Currently an Assistant Professor of Musicianship at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Matt teaches courses in music theory, composition, and performance. His teaching interests reflect his expertise in post-tonal music theory, electroacoustic music, and […]
Described as “dazzling” and “scintillating,” (Classical Source) and lauded for her “beautiful singing lines” and performances filled with “drama and energy” (Joan Tower), pianist Emiko Edwards continues to captivate audiences with her sincere musical interpretations and wide variety of tonal color. Edwards’s international performing career has taken her across North America, Europe, and Asia, where […]
San Francisco based classical pianist Samantha Cho currently serves as Professor of Piano Pedagogy at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Prior positions include Associate Professor of Music at Cabrillo College. She has perfomed on San Francisco Symphony’s Chinese New Year Concert, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert in Chicago, Noontime Concert Series, Old First Concert Series, […]
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 […]
Hailed as “spine-tingling” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) and “breathtaking” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), American pianist Kyle Orth possesses unusual virtuosity and artistic sensitivity. He has distinguished himself globally as a captivating soloist and chamber musician, passionately reviving lesser-known works while offering intriguing interpretations of pieces within the standard repertoire. The Dallas Morning News praised his complete musicianship […]
Cacie Miller has relied on the sounds and repertoire of the piano to help her make sense of the world around her since a young age. She is drawn to compositions packed with colorful storytelling and especially those that seem to push through the edges of reality. She relishes these qualities in the music of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Marissa Kerbel (she/her) is a pianist and pedagogue based in Chicago, IL. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano performance from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati where she studied with Michael Chertock and James Tocco. Other significant pedagogical influences include Marvin Blickenstaff and Dr. Erin Bennett. Marissa has performed in […]
Described as “kaleidoscopic,” and praised for its “real power,” “triumphalism,” (Fanfare Magazine) and “depth, beauty, and rich dimension” (The Courier), the multistylistic work of Baltimore-based composer and pianist Adam D. O’Dell (b. 1992) invokes theatre, nature, and human behavior and speech to explore the territory between the profound and the absurd. O’Dell has been commissioned […]
Osnat Netzer /osˈnat ˈnɛtsɛʁ/ is a composer, performer and educator. Osnat creates her compositions collaboratively, tailoring her work to the performer’s sensibilities, physicality and improvisational inclinations. She takes inspiration from cognitive linguistics, and in dialogue with the embodied experience of physical forces, such as potential and kinetic energy, resulting in compositions that are rich in […]
Born in Guatemala City, Xavier studied piano at the National Conservatory of Guatemala with Consuelo Medinilla. At age 18, he was awarded the first prize at the Augusto Ardenois National Piano Competition and third prize at the Rafael Alvarez Ovalle Composition Competition in Guatemala. He continued his piano studies in the United States with Argentinean […]
South Korean native Koeun Grace Lee is an accomplished performer, educator, and conference lecturer. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, a Master of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, and […]
CELEBRATED FOR COMPOSITIONS THAT ARE EMOTIONALLY-CHARGED AND VISCERALLY-ENGAGING, COMPOSER MISCHA ZUPKO WRITES MUSIC THAT EXCITES BOTH MUSICIANS AND AUDIENCES Working collaboratively with other great musical minds, his body of work is intensely virtuosic and bracing in its vision and scope. In the words of Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein, Zupko’s piano concerto Fahrenheit was“…a powerhouse of the evening” and […]
Carl J. LaMark’s work as a composer, pianist, and collaborator has been described an exercise in “sustained intensity”. Coming from a long line of Chicago natives, he received the majority of his training as a pianist at the Music Institute of Chicago at Winnetka and Northwestern University under primarily under Dr. Soo Lee. He received […]