4:00pm - 6:30pm

Laura Andrea Leguia     Al Otro Lado
                                             Eva
                                             Palindrome Hunter                                           

                                             Laura Andrea Leguia Quartet
                                             Laura Andrea Leguía, soprano saxophone/voice
                                             Yuri Juárez, guitar
                                             Pablo Menares, bass
                                             Freddy "Huevito" Lobatón, cajón

Branic Howard                 burros / light
                                              Nick Gallas, clarinet
                                              Chester Howard, clarinet

Jessie Montgomery          Standing Forward
                                              PUBLIQuartet
                                              Jessie Montgomery, violin
                                              Curtis Stewart, violin
                                              Nick Revel, viola
                                              Amanda Gookin, cello

Steven Burke                    Fusion
                                             Laurie Smukler, violin
                                             Peggy Kampmeier, piano

Steven Burke                   The Heart of the Wise
                                             Peggy Kampmeier, piano

Anthony Korf                  Duo for Clarinet and Piano
                                            Alan Kay, clarinet
                                            Peggy Kampmeier, piano

Eugene Phillips               Fantasy Etude for solo violin
                                            Daniel Phillips, violin

Richard Wilson              Three Songs on Poems by John Ashberry
                                            Robert Osborne, baritone
                                            Richard Wilson, piano

Richard Wernick           Violin Sonata
                                            Laurie Smukler, violin
                                            Peggy Kampmeier, piano

Mohammed Fairouz      Dabkeh *NY Premiere*
Valerie Coleman             Red Clay, Mississippi Delta
                                            Imani Winds
                                            Valerie Coleman, flute
                                            Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe
                                            Mariam Adam, clarinet
                                            Jeff Scott, French horn
                                            Monica Ellis, bassoon

Gerald Cohen                  Playing For Our Lives
                                            Cassatt Quartet
                                            Muneko Otani, violin
                                             Jennifer Leshnower, violin
                                            Sarah Adams, viola
                                            Nicole Johnson, cello

           - BREAK -

6:45pm - 8:00pm

Fernando Otero             Music of the Night
                                           Fernando Otero Quintet
                                           LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin), viola
                                           Adam Fisher, cello
                                           Pablo Aslan, contrabass
                                           Juan Pablo Jofre, bandoneón
                                           Fernando Otero, piano

Theo Bleckmann           Music for voice, toys, and loops
                                          Theo Bleckmann, voice

Per Bloland                    Elsewhere is a negative mirror
Per Bloland                    A Drift of Gruntle *World premiere*
                                          Ensemble Pi
                                          Barry Crawford, flute
                                          Carol McGonnel, clarinet
                                          Idith Meshulam, piano
                                          Lawrence Goldman, bass

Scott Eyerly                   Algonquin Songs
Sheila Silver                   Transcending
                                          Robert Osborne, baritone
                                          Peggy Kampmeier, piano

           - BREAK -

8:30pm - 9:30pm

Neil Rolnick                   Ambos Mundos
Xinyan Li                       Mo Suo's Burial Ceremony
                                         Quintet of the Americas

Timothy Dunne             Ribbon *World premiere*
                                         Madalyn Parnas, violin

Richard Wilson             Gnomics
Yao Chen                        Sfumato
Dylan Glatthorn           The Stuff of Comets
                                         Quintet of the Americas

                -BREAK-

9:40pm - midnight

Amy Williams              Three Pieces for Piano
                                       Ursula Oppens, piano

Evan Ziporyn             Jubilee from Tight Fitting Garments
Evan Ziporyn             Kebyar Maya
Kevin Puts                  Simaku
                                       Nouveau Classical Project
                                       Amanda Lo, violin
                                       Isabel Kim, clarinet
                                       Mariel Roberts, cello
                                       Sugar Vendil, piano
                                       Maja Gunn, fashion

Gabriela Ortiz            Baalkah
                                       Madalyn Parnas, violin
                                       Timothy Kantor, violin
                                       Rose Wollman, viola
                                       Cicely Parnas, cello
                                       Sharon Harms, soprano
 Presented by Indiana University's Latin American Music Center and Jacobs School of Music

Bernadette Speach     altrove / elsewhere *World premiere*
                                       Madalyn Parnas, violin
                                       Bernadette Speach, piano

Matt Sullivan             Intricate Simplicity
                                      Matt Sullivan, oboe
                                      Ken Cro-Ken, painter

Miles Okazaki           Timings
                                      Miles Okazaki Quartet

Schedule and artists are subject to change.

About the Artistic Director of the Composers Now Festival

Tania León's recent projects include the ballet Inura, premiered by Dance Brazil; Esencia para Cuarteto de Cuerdas, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation for the Del Sol String Quartet; Ácana for orchestra, a joint commission, premiered by Orpheus at Carnegie Hall and the Purchase College Orchestra; Ancients for 2 sopranos and mixed ensemble commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts for the Festival on the Hill; Alma for flute and piano, commissioned by Marya Martin; and Atwood Songs for soprano and piano, commissioned by the Eastman School of Music and Syracuse University. Recent awards include a 2008 Pulitzer Prize nomination for Ácana, 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fromm Music Foundation commission in 2005. She received "La Distinción de Honor de la Rosa Blanca" from the Patronato José Martí for her contribution to Cuban culture in the field of music in 2008. She was named Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York in 2006.

Ms. León served as U.S. Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. She also held a Composer/Conductor residency at the Beijing Central Conservatory, China. The National Symphony of China offered the Chinese premiere of Horizons at the opening concert of the Beijing International Congress of Women in Music. Ms. León has been the subject of profiles on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision (including their noted series "Orgullo Hispano" which celebrates living American Latinos whose contributions in society have been invaluable), Telemundo and independent films.

About the Host

Terrance McKnight is the WQXR weekday evening host. He also hosts the Saturday evening program, All Ears with Terrance McKnight, a show about musical discovery, which was honored with an ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award in 2010.
McKnight's musical experiences - from glee club soloist and accomplished pianist, to professor at Morehouse College, and finally as producer and host of several music programs for public radio - have consistently juxtaposed the European Classical tradition alongside American classic traditions - jazz, gospel, African American spirituals and other musical genres.

About the Artists

A jazz singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes, Grammy nominated and echo award recipient Theo Bleckmann makes music that is described as "from another planet" (the New York Times), "transcendent" (Village Voice) and "brilliant" (New York Magazine). Bleckmann has released a series of albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Berlin Kabarett, and of popular "bar songs"; a recording of newly-arranged songs by Charles Ives (with Kneebody); and his acoustic Solos for Voice I dwell in possibility, and Hello Earth - the music of Kate Bush. Bleckmann has collaborated with many artists, most prominently, Meredith Monk, with whom Bleckmann worked as a core ensemble member for fifteen years. He has recently been interview by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air and appeared on the Letterman show.

Per Bloland is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music whose works range from short intimate solo pieces to works for large orchestra, which incorporate video, dance, and custom built electronics. He has received awards and recognition from organizations including SEAMUS/ASCAP, Digital Art Awards of Tokyo, ISCM, and SCI/ASCAP. Performers of his work include the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, ICE Ensemble, Bent Frequency, Insomnio, Callithumpian Consort, and Inauthentica. Bloland is also the co-creator of the Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano, about which he has given numerous lecture/demonstrations and published a paper. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and serves as the founding director of OINC, the Oberlin Improvisation and Newmusic Collective.

Paul Griffiths of The New York Times wrote that the works of Steven Burke "might have been written by Brahms after hearing the Rite of Spring...highly accomplished...bursting with historical awareness and creative confidence." Steven Burke began his musical studies with the trumpet at age seven. In college, he divided his time between music and science. He was involved with neurosurgery research at New York University Medical Center and ironically, it was nerve damage that forced him to abandon trumpet and start composing. Since age twenty he has pursued composition exclusively. His music has recently been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Chamber Musicians.

The Cassatt String Quartet was formed in 1985 with the encouragement of the Juilliard Quartet. The Cassatt initiated and served as the inaugural participants in Juilliard's Young Artists Quartet Program. The Cassatt celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a series of world premieres and performance at the Library of Congress on the Library's Stradivarius Collection. The Cassatt, in residencies at Princeton, Yale, Syracuse University, University of Buffalo, and the University of Pennsylvania, has devoted itself to coaching, conducting sectionals, and reading student composers' works, while offering lectures in music theory, history, and composition. Summer finds them in residence at the Seal Bay Festival of Contemporary American Chamber Music and Hartwick College Music Festival.

Yao Chen began his musical journey in China, studying at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He received his PhD in music composition at the University of Chicago under the guidance of Shulamit Ran and Marta Ptaszynska. In recent years, his music has been performed by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Orchestra of St. Luke's, eighth blackbird, Quintet of the Americas, and Beijing New Music Ensemble. Yao has received an array of commissions, awards, and fellowships from ASCAP, Radio France, Leonard Bernstein Fund, Silk Road Chicago Project, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Aspen Music Festival.

Gerald Cohen's music has been commissioned by the Cassatt String Quartet, the Verdehr Trio, the Franciscan String Quartet, Chesapeake Chamber Music, and the Wave Hill Trio, and has been performed by ensembles including the Borromeo String Quartet, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the San Diego Symphony. Recent honors in composition include an Artist Residency with American Lyric Theater, the Copland House Borromeo String Quartet Award, a Copland House residency, and the American Composers Forum Faith Partners residency. He is Cantor at Shaarei Tikvah Congregation in Scarsdale, N.Y., and is on the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He received his BA in music from Yale University, and his DMA in music composition from Columbia University.

Composer and flutist Valerie Coleman began her music studies at the late age of eleven. Today, Coleman is the resident composer, flutist, and founder of the Imani Winds. Her performances and works are heard regularly on Classical radio stations throughout the country. She can be heard on NPR's Performance Today, All Things Considered, and The Ed Gordon Show; WNYC's Soundcheck, and MPR's Saint Paul Sunday. Valerie's music infuses contemporary orchestration with jazz, Afro-Cuban traditions, various distinct sonorities found within the African continent, and her African-American heritage. She is best known for the wind quintet work, UMOJA, which was listed by Chamber Music America as one of the "101 Great American Works." She has received countless commissions and awards both for her work as a composer and flutist.

Ken Cro-Ken is a Manhattan based earthwork painter and videographer who creates his paintings in above and below freezing temperatures, high and low altitudes, and witnesses the power of natural creation using paint, rather than seeing the world and then going to the canvas. Cro-Ken sets a painting in motion to recreate the push-pull forces that shape and mold all things to create microscopic and satellite views of the earth and places scattered throughout the multiverse. Cro-Ken has exhibited his art and lectured in Boston, Pittsburgh, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington D.C., New Zealand, Austria, and Hungary.

Currently a doctoral candidate at the State Conservatory of St. Petersburg, Timothy Dunne studied composition with Sergei Slonimsky and counterpoint with Anatoly Milka. He was awarded the Prize for Composition from the University of Vienna in 2006. Dunne has also been an active artistic advisor, translator, and supporter for new music during his six years in Russia working with the St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra, the cultural foundation Art Modern, the publishing house Kompozitor, the Society of Composers, and for the contemporary music festivals Soundways and Fin de Siècle. As a pianist, he has given the Russian premieres of Luciano Berio's Sonata per Pianoforte, György Ligeti's third book of Études, as well as works by Boulez, Ferneyhough, and others. Dunne is co-founder and co-director of The Mostar Fund, a non-for-profit organization supporting cultural rehabilitation projects in Bosnia Herzegovina.

In 2003, Ensemble Pi began an ongoing close collaboration with the American Composers Alliance, and has been the ensemble in residence at four American Music Festivals presented by ACA. Ensemble Pi has premiered over fifty works by American composers. For the last four years, Ensemble Pi has presented Peace Project - an annual multi-media event at Cooper Union acting as a space for dialogue between ideas and music on the great issues of the day. Collaborators have included South African artist William Kentridge, American journalist/writer Naomi Wolf, Iraqi actress Namaa Alward, and Israeli philosopher/activist Anat Biletzki. A multi-year collaboration with the composer Elias Tanenbaum resulted in an album of his music, Keep Going, in 2010. Ensemble Pi has premiered and commissioned works by Frederic Rzewski, Philip Miller, Alice Shields, and Peter Ablinger.

Scott Eyerly has been recognized for achievements in theater, song, choral, chamber, and symphonic works. Current commissions include Creatures Great and Small, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore and the string ensemble OpusFive, and Arlington Sons, a concert piece for baritone David Pittsinger. Other works include the opera The House of the Seven Gables, produced at Manhattan School of Music, available from Albany Records; Exultation Overture, commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony; The Palm at the End, commissioned by Chamber Music America for the ensemble Hexagon; On Blue Mountain, a music theater piece based on Appalachian folklore, commissioned by Philip Morris Companies Inc; and Variations on a Theme by Honegger, a large-scale symphonic work, winner of the Louisville Orchestra New Music Prize. Mr. Eyerly has never won a MacArthur "genius" grant but checks his email frequently.

Praised by the New York Times as "warmly sympathetic" and "brilliantly handled," Mohammed Fairouz's music has been received internationally throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. He has received commissions from Northeastern University, the Imani Winds, and the Cygnus Ensemble. Fairouz received the Tourjee Alumni Award from the New England Conservatory, the Malcolm Morse Memorial Award, the NEC Honors award, and awards from the Merit Funds of the New England and Boston Conservatories. In 2008 he was honored with a national citation from the Embassy of the U.A.E in Washington D.C. for outstanding achievement in artistry and scholarship. He has been invited to lecture and lead residencies across the country, and has served on the faculty at Northeastern University in Boston as well as several summer festivals including SongFest.

Clarinetist Nicholas Gallas has performed with artists and ensembles, including the Axiom Ensemble, Washington Ballet Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble, Ensemble Pi, Red {an Orchestra}, Duncan Sheik, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, the New Juilliard Ensemble, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He joined the Quintet of the Americas in 2009. Nicholas has performed in such venues as the MoMA, Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Severance Hall in Cleveland, and the Echoplex in Los Angeles. He has performed in festivals including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Aurora Music Festival (Sweden), Hot Springs, and Kent Blossom festivals. Nicholas received his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School and his Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his teachers included Charles Neidich and Franklin Cohen.

Dylan Glatthorn is an American composer and lyricist currently residing in New York City. Dylan is a founding member of Circles and Lines, a New York City based composers collective. He has received numerous premieres at venues including (le) poisson rouge, the Greenwich House, and Brooklyn's Vaudeville Park. Dylan's music has been performed by the Quintet of the Americas, the PCCA Orchestra, and the PRISM Brass Quintet. Dylan has written two full-length musicals: Republic and The Way It Goes and is working on his third, Edison. In 2009, Republic was read at the Acorn Theatre in Times Square, and went to the final round of selections for 2011's Eugene O'Neill Musical Theatre Conference. He has received the 2011 and 2007 Alan Menken Award and Walker's Rising Stars Scholarship. Dylan is a member of ASCAP and The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.

Implicit in Branic Howard's work is a sense of struggle and of slow release. For him the confrontation of pure sound and exposing its inherent elements is an impetus in itself for creating music. Much of his work attempts to creatively incorporate technology into live electro-acoustic music and improvisation. Currently he is working toward a PhD in composition at SUNY Stony Brook.

Chester Howard is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied with Nathan Williams and Jon Manasse, respectively. At the former, he performed regularly with both the Eastman Wind Ensemble and the ensemble Musica Nova, which devotes itself to the performance of new works. Currently, he works toward his Master of Music degree at Stony Brook University as a student of Alan Kay.

The Grammy nominated Imani Winds' extensive touring schedule has brought them to most of America's major concert venues. The group is amid its Legacy Commissioning Project, an endeavor launching Imani Winds into its second decade of music making. Future commissions include a highly anticipated work by Philip Glass. They have been recognized with numerous awards including the ASCAP Award, CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and the CMA/WQXR Award for their debut and self-released album, Umoja. At the 2001 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, Imani Winds was selected as the first-ever Educational Residency Ensemble, in recognition of their tremendous musical abilities and innovative programming. In the summer of 2010 the ensemble launched its annual Chamber Music Institute. 2011 marked the enlargement of the Institute into the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival.

Pianist Margaret Kampmeier enjoys a varied career as a soloist, collaborative artist, and educator. She is a founding member of the Naumburg award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, and performs regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared often with the Kronos Quartet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Colorado and Cassatt Quartets, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Saratoga Chamber Players, Richardson Chamber Players, Peter Schickele, and many new music ensembles including Sequitur, Newband, Speculum Musicae and Musician's Accord. A dedicated educator, Ms. Kampmeier teaches at Princeton University, and has presented forums on the music of women composers and contemporary techniques. A recently named Symphony Space "All-Star," Ms. Kampmeier will perform at New York City's Symphony Space numerous times in the coming seasons. As a recording artist, Ms. Kampmeier can be heard on the Albany, Centaur, CRI, Koch, Nonesuch, Bridge and Deutsche Gramophon labels.

Clarinetist Alan R. Kay was honored with membership in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2002 and serves as Principal Clarinet with New York's Riverside Symphony. He also performs often with the American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and the American Ballet Theater. Mr. Kay's honors include the C.D. Jackson Award at Tanglewood, a Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award, Juilliard's 1980 Clarinet Competition, and the 1989 Young Concert Artists Award with Hexagon, later featured in the prizewinning documentary film, Debut. Kay is a founding member of Windscape and Hexagon, and appears frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and with the Mendelssohn, Rossetti, Mirò, and Shanghai Quartets. Kay teaches at the Manhattan, Hartt, and Juilliard Schools.

Anthony Korf has been commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, and a consortium of ensembles comprising of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Ensemble, and Sonar. A 2008 Guggenheim fellow, Korf was awarded a commission from The Koussevitsky Music Foundation to compose a cantata for The New York Virtuoso Singers. In 1988, he was honored with a Godard Lieberson Fellowship from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Korf has received commis¬¬sio¬ning and recording grants from the Jerome Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Howard Hanson Fund, University of Connecticut, and the Astral Foundation. As conductor and founder of Parnassus, and as guest conductor in numerous venues, Korf has championed the music of living composers from America and abroad. He currently serves as artistic director for Riverside Symphony.

Under the direction of conductor and producer Carmen-Helena Téllez, the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University collaborates with emerging and established artists to develop commissions and premiere performances between musicians of the Americas. This project joins the artistic gifts of Madalyn and Cicely Parnas, the violin and cello duo that has been praised as "stunning" and "electrifying" by the New York Times; violinist Tim Kantor, who has been a featured artist with the Banff and Aspen festivals as well as with the Cleveland Pops; violist Rose Wollman, who has performed all over the world with conductors Pierre Boulez, Fabio Luisi, Hugh Wolf, Joseph Silverstein, and Larry Ratcliff; and soprano Sharon Harms, who returns to New York for the performance of Charles Wuorinen's It Happens Like This, which she premiered under the baton of the composer at Tanglewood last summer.

Composer Xinyan Li's music has been performed by American Composers Orchestra, Prism Quartet, Quintet of the Americas, Quintette K, and Chicago New Music Ensemble. In 2011, Xinyan's music was broadcasted by Sweden's national radio--Sveriges Radio. Her awards include International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition, American Composers Orchestra New Music Readings, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award, and a commission from National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and Music From China. Ms. Li's music has been featured at Aspen Music Festival, Septembre Musical de l'Orne (France), National Center for the Performing Arts (China), Gamle Logen (Norway), and Shanghai Oriental Art Center (China). Ms. Li is currently a doctoral candidate at University of Missouri-Kansas City. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at China Conservatory of Music.

The Miles Okazaki Duo (made up of guitarist Miles Okazaki and drummer Dan Weiss) has been developing a rhythmic language for over a dozen years. The duo creates textures and rhythmic structures by weaving together material from a wide variety of sources - a recent performance was described by Ben Ratliff in the New York Times as demonstrating "the new jazz musician's inexhaustible options as they fit ideas together without stopping." Their work together is documented on four recordings: Dan Weiss' Tintal Drumset solo and Jhaptal Drumset Solo are hour-long expositions of Indian Tabla repertoire on the drumset, accompanied by Okazaki, while Miles Okazaki's albums Mirror and Generations are rhythmic works for small group, built on the core of the drum-guitar engine.

Karla Moe has an active career as both an orchestral and chamber musician, frequently playing with the New York City Opera, the American Ballet Theatre, the American Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic, and the New York Grand Opera. She has played under such conductors as James Levine, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, and was asked to play with the St. Petersburg Orchestra on their American tour. For the past ten years, Karla has been the flutist with The Queen's Chamber Band, a Baroque ensemble. An active educator, Karla has taught in the Music Advancement Program at Juilliard, and has played for the New York Philharmonic Education Programs. She is on the faculty of Nassau Community College and Long Island University - C.W. Post College, where she is also the Director of Woodwind Studies. Karla plays for many Broadway shows, including Lion King and Wicked.

Jessie Montgomery is a violinist, composer, and music educator. She holds a Bachelor's degree from The Juilliard School in violin performance and is currently completing Graduate Studies in Film Scoring at New York University. An avid chamber musician, Jessie is a founding member of PUBLIQuartet. As a composer, Jessie was in Residence at the Deer Valley Music Festival and was the two-time recipient of the Composer's Apprentice Award from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She has served as resident composer for the Providence String Quartet and has been commissioned by several youth arts organizations including CMW, Jump! Dance Company in Providence, and The Norwood School in Bethesda, MD.

The Nouveau Classical Project is a group that re-imagines the classical music concert. NCP connects modern classical music with fashion and art through interdisciplinary projects. NCP offers an exciting way to experience classical music that will satisfy cultural omnivores. The group, which consists of a production team and ensemble, provides a platform for emerging composers, as well as artists and fashion designers, to have original work presented. Other activities include fashion shows, operas, and art exhibitions. NCP will premiere Trevor Gureckis's Lost Generation in a musical/sartorial salon at Symphony Space on April 5.

Miles Okazaki is from Port Townsend, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest. He graduated from Harvard University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School; was 2nd place finalist in the 2005 Thelonious Monk Guitar Competition; and has received grants from Chamber Music America, the French-American Cultural Exchange, Jerome Foundation Jazz Gallery Residency Program, and the American Music Center. He has toured and recorded with Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Barron, and Steve Coleman and the Five Elements.

Ursula Oppens has long been recognized as the leading champion of contemporary American piano music. Ms. Oppens recently captured a Grammy Award nomination-her fourth to date-for the 2011 recording Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano on Cedille Records. Ms. Oppens has performed with virtually all of the world's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. Abroad, she has appeared with the Berlin Symphony, Scottish BBC, and the London Philharmonic Orchestras. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Oppens has collaborated with the Arditti, Juilliard, Pacifica, and Rosetti quartets. Ursula Oppens is a Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.

Gabriela Ortiz is one of the foremost composers in Mexico today. Recent commissions and premieres include her new videopera Unicamente la Verdad with the Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Ensemble under Carmen Helena Téllez; Altar de Piedra for Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Esa- Pekka Salonen and Kroumata percussion ensemble; Zócalo-Bastilla, for violin, percussion and orchestra premiered by violinist Pierre Amoyal; and Altar de Muertos, commissioned by Kronos Quartet. She has received Rockefeller, Fulbright, and Guggenheim Fellowships and admission to the National Network of Creators of Mexico. Born in Mexico City, her parents were musicians in the famous folk music ensemble Los Folkloristas. She currently teaches composition at the Mexican University of Mexico City, and has been a guest faculty at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

Bass-baritone Robert Osborne has sung over 40 roles in operas from Bernstein to Weill with companies in Paris, Berlin, New York, Houston, Santa Fe, and Los Angeles. His concert career has taken him to Royal Albert Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Victoria Hall in Singapore, the Gran Teatro in Havana, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, and Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow where he has sung under such distinguished conductors as Bernstein, Ozawa, Spivakov, Tilson Thomas, John Williams, and Russell Davies. He has appeared with the Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein, Nakamichi, USArts/Berlin, Aspen, and Marlboro Festivals as well as on several celebrated telecasts for the BBC, PBS, Russian and European television. He has appeared in four City Center Encores! musicals, in the Bernstein at 70! Gala from Tanglewood, and in the BAM Salutes Sondheim Gala.

Argentine composer and pianist Fernando Otero found his voice as writer, musician, and bandleader when he began to incorporate the indigenous sounds of his native Buenos Aires into his work. As he recalls, a guitar and composition instructor, Marcelo Braga Saralegui "showed me the possibility of developing something with the roots of tango, the sound of tango. Not necessarily tango itself, but the music I heard as a child, the sound in the streets. I started working with a bandoneon player and tried my first project, which I called X Tango." He has collaborated with one-time Bill Evans sideman Eddie Gomez, flautist Dave Valentin, pianist/film composer Dave Grusin, Chico O'Farrill's Jazz Orchestra at Jazz @Lincoln Center, and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera.

American violinist Madalyn Parnas has already performed nearly 50 times as guest soloist with orchestra and concertized with Peter Serkin in the Parnas/Serkin Trio. She has earned several enthusiastic reviews in the New York Times, and over her short career, Madalyn has taken top prizes in solo violin, piano, and voice competitions. She is an impassioned devotee of new music, evidenced in both her solo career and her life-long performing partnership with cellist and sister, Cicely Parnas, as duo parnas. Madalyn, an Artist Diploma student of Jaime Laredo at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, is a recipient of the Joseph Gingold Violin Scholarship and the Artistic Excellence Award. Ms. Parnas graduated summa cum laude with concentrations in Music and French from The College of Saint Rose. Madalyn performs on a 1715 Alessandro Gagliano violin and is the granddaughter of legendary cellist Leslie Parnas.

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist and teacher. Mr. Phillips has performed as soloist with many of the country's leading symphonies, and appears regularly at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA, and the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England. He has toured and recorded in a string quartet with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. Daniel Phillips is a founding member of the Orion String Quartet, which tours internationally and has residencies at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Mannes College of Music.

Eugene Phillips began his musical studies at home in Pittsburgh with his father, an internationally known violinmaker. During World War I, Sgt. Phillips toured with Army War Bond Shows as violinist/violist and later was selected to perform with the celebrated Infantry Concert Group. After the war he joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner, and under the GI Bill, enrolled at the Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Phillips later became active as a violin teacher and as leader of the Phillips String Quartet. In 1981, Andre Previn and the Pittsburgh Symphony premiered Mr. Phillips' Prelude, Adagio, and Toccata. In 1989, his Concerto for two violins and orchestra was written for the100th Anniversary of the Pittsburgh Tuesday Musical Club, and was premiered by his sons Daniel and Todd. Subsequent performances of later works have been performed by the Orion String Quartet and other ensembles.

As graduates of The Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music, and Mannes College of Music, each member of PUBLIQuartet contributes to a collective background in classical, jazz, world, and electro-acoustic performance. PUBLIQuartet has been presented by the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, the Ear Heart Music series, and were the featured artists for the Socrates Sculpture Park's annual Gala, supporting their endeavor to encourage "strong interaction between artists, artworks and the public." They have performed at such venues as Lincoln Center, Cornelia Street Cafe, Norwalk Symphony Hall, and numerous historical community spaces in NYC. PQ supports their artistic community by providing educational workshops to teach string improvisation. This season, PQ will be the featured artists in the Composer's Voice concert series, Harlem House Concerts, and the Queens College New Music composer's concert.

Composer Kevin Puts has been commissioned by leading orchestras and chamber ensembles in the United States and abroad. Future projects include a work for the Houston Symphony, an opera based on the film Joyeux Nöel for Minnesota Opera, a chamber opera for eighth blackbird, and a work for Trio Solisti. Puts has received awards and grants from the American Academy in Rome, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, BMI and ASCAP. He has served as composer-in-residence of Young Concerts Artists, the California Symphony, the Fort Worth Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, and the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. He received his training at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University. Since 2006, he has been on faculty at the Peabody Institute.

Quintet of the Americas is one of the Western Hemisphere's finest chamber ensembles. The Washington Post has called their performances, "Musical dialogue at the highest level" and Japan's InTune Magazine has written about them, "Their virtuosity, balances, articulation and intonation mark them as one of the world's top wind quintets. I have never heard finer playing." Long recognized as leading interpreters of folk and contemporary wind quintet music of North and South America, the group's mission is to broaden the knowledge and appreciation of woodwind chamber music from the Western Hemisphere by performing contemporary, classical, and folk-derived music from the diverse cultural traditions of the Americas, and the performance, commissioning, and recording of woodwind quintets and related chamber music. The Quintet is currently in residence at New York University.

Neil Rolnick has been a pioneer in the use of computers in performance, beginning in the late 1970s. He has performed around the world, and his music appears on numerous recordings. Though much of Rolnick's work has been in the realm of experimental music, his music has always been highly melodic and accessible. Since 2003 he has completed works including The Shadow Quartet for Ethel string quartet, Fiddle Faddle for Todd Reynolds, Body Work for Joan La Barbara, Ambos Mundos for the Quintet of the Americas, Making Light of It for Thomas Buckner, Uptown Jump for the MAYA Trio, Segal's Billboard for Jacqueline Kerrod, and the iFiddle Concerto for the American Composers Orchestra with soloist Todd Reynolds. His thirteenth album, Digits, was released in 2006 on the Innova label. Rolnick teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he was the founding director of the iEAR Studios.

Sheila Silver's musical language is a unique synthesis of the tonal and atonal worlds, coupled with a compelling rhythmic complexity. "Only a few composers in any generation enliven the art form with their musical language and herald new directions in music. Sheila Silver is such a visionary" (Wetterauer Zeitung, Germany). Silver had two chamber operas premiered last season: The Tale of the White Rooster, commissioned by the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC for the exhibit, In the Realm of the Buddha; and The Wooden Sword, winner of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Music for Opera. Silver is Professor of Music at SUNY Stony Brook. Her music is published by Lauren Keiser Music Publishing, Marimba Productions, and Argenta Music, and is available on various labels including, Naxos, CRI, Albany Records, Bridge, and Mode.

Laurie Smukler is an active soloist and recitalist who has performed on the "Music for Mischa" series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Festival Chamber Music Society concerts at Merkin Hall, Da Camera of Houston, Bard Music Festival, and the "Collection in Concert" series at the Pierpont Morgan Library. Ms. Smukler's wide musical interests include contemporary music, and she has premiered works by many composers, including Ned Rorem, Morton Subotnik, Steven Paulus, Shulamit Ran, and Bruce Adolphe. Smukler teaches at the Kneisel Hall Festival and SUNY Purchase.

Bernadette Speach's work has been played by numerous performers in venues across the world. Most recently, In and Out of Love - after Liaisons and Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music, was premiered by Anthony de Mare, pianist and Artistic Director of Liaisons: Re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, which commissioned the work. She has performed as pianist with her husband, guitarist Jeffrey Schanzer as the Schanzer/Speach Duo across the United States, in Puerto Rico, and in numerous venues in Europe. Their first CD, Dualities, was released on the Mode/Avant Label in 1992. Through her efforts as an administrator, fundraiser, board member, presenter and educator Bernadette continues to bring the work of a broad range of artists to audiences in the New York metropolitan area and beyond.

Oboist Matt Sullivan has performed extensively on four continents and is recognized internationally as both a virtuoso performer and teacher, as well as an important advocate for the modern oboe. The New York Times has praised his "gorgeously lyrical playing" and the New Yorker has called his inventive performances "the cutting edge." As a composer, his innovative works created for oboe, English horn, and digital horn, along with his solo and chamber music performances, have been featured on National Public Radio and on Voice of America. He is a member of Musicians' Accord, the Richardson Chamber Players, the Westchester Chamber Orchestra, and First Avenue - the electro acoustic trio.

Dan Weiss, from New Jersey, studied drums and composition at the Manhattan School of Music with John Riley and David Noon, frame drums with Jamey Hadaad, and for the last 14 years, he has studied Tabla exclusively under the guidance of his guru Pandit Samir Chatterjee. He has performed and or recorded with David Binney, Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Miguel Zenon, Kenny Werner, Village Vanguard Orchestra, and Ravi Coltrane.

Richard Wernick's many awards include the 1977 Pulitzer Prize in Music, three Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards, the Alfred I. Dupont Award from the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, as well as awards from the Ford Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2006, he received the Composer of the Year Award from the Classical Recording Foundation. Wernick taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1968 until his retirement in 1996. He has been commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Juilliard String Quartet, and the Emerson String Quartet. He has served as the Philadelphia Orchestra's Consultant for Contemporary Music and as Special Consultant to Music Director Riccardo Muti.

The compositions of Amy Williams have been presented at Ars Musica, Gaudeamus Music Week, Dresden New Music Days, Musikhøst, Festival Musica Nova (Brazil), and Tanglewood by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Aleph, Wet Ink Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ICE, and pianists Ursula Oppens and Amy Briggs. As a member of the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, she has performed at important new music festivals and series throughout Europe and the Americas. Williams was the recipient of a Howard Foundation Fellowship for 2008-2009 and a Fromm Music Foundation Commission in 2009 for the JACK Quartet. She holds a Ph.D. in composition from SUNY Buffalo, where she also received a Master's degree in piano performance. She is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh.

Richard Wilson was the recent recipient both of the Roger Sessions Memorial Bogliasco Fellowship and an Academy Award in Music. He has previously received the Hinrichsen Award, the Stoeger Prize, the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Burge/Eastman Prize, a Frank Huntington Beebe Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Recent commissions have come from the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations. His orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic, American Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia, and the Residentie Orkest of The Hague. Mr. Wilson studied composition with Robert Moevs at Harvard, in Rome, and at Rutgers University. He holds the Mary Conover Mellon Chair in Music at Vassar and is also Composer-in-Residence with the American Symphony Orchestra. His opera Aethelred the Unready received its first staged performance at Symphony Space in 2011.

Evan Ziporyn studied at Eastman, Yale, and UC Berkeley with Joseph Schwantner, Martin Bresnick, and Gerard Grisey. He first traveled to Bali in 1981, studying with Madé Lebah, and later returned on a Fulbright. In 1992 he co-founded the Bang on a Can All-stars (Musical America's 2005 Ensemble of the Year), with whom he has toured the globe and premiered over 100 commissioned works, collaborating with Nik Bartsch, Iva Bittova, Don Byron, Ornette Coleman, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Thurston Moore, Terry Riley, and Tan Dun. Their latest recording, Steve Reich's 2x5, was released on Nonesuch. Ziporyn joined the MIT faculty in 1990 and has been commissioned by Silk Road, Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Maya Beiser, So Percussion, Wu Man, and BMOP. He received the 2007 USA Artists Walker Award and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Lieberson Fellowship.