Nina Young
Composer and sonic artist Nina C. Young (b.1984) creates works, ranging from acoustic concert pieces to interactive installations, that explore aural architectures, resonance, timbre, and the ephemeral. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aizuri Quartet, Sixtrum, the JACK Quartet, and wild Up. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize, Nina has received recognition from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri, Fromm, the Montalvo Arts Center, and BMI. Recent commissions include Tread softly for the NYPhil's Project 19, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and a multimedia performative installation piece for the American Brass Quintet and EMPAC’s EMPAC’s High-Resolution Wave Field Synthesis Loudspeaker Array. Young holds degrees from MIT, McGill, and Columbia, and is an Assistant Professor of Composition at USC's Thornton School of Music. She serves as Co-Artistic Director of NY-based new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical.
Xinyang Wang
Born in Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province, China, Wang Xinyang is a composer of classical music, currently based in Pittsburgh. He holds a bachelor's degree from Sichuan Conservatory of Music and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music both in music composition and theory.
Xinyang takes inspiration from a broad spectrum of influences, such as traditional Chinese arts and its Western concert music. He’s been awarded numerous prizes in composition and has worked with many eminent interpreters. Recently he was announced as a first prize winner in the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award for his orchestral piece Boréas. The piece was performed on January 19 2021 at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall in a performance by conductor Yasuo Shinozaki and the Tokyo Philharmonic.
Meng Wang
Wang Meng (王萌）is a Chinese composer currently based in Cincinnati. Her music has been performed internationally by notable orchestras and ensembles, including Brussels Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Columbus Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, MSM Composer's Orchestra, China Youth Symphony; Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Longleash Trio, F- Plus Ensemble, among others. Wang was a composer fellow at Aspen Music Festival, Cabrillo Music Festival, and was selected to participate in 2019 ['tactus] Young Composers Forum with Brussels Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra EarShot readings in 2018. Recent commissions include a percussion ensemble piece for Shanghai Symphony in Chamber Concert series and a piano concerto for CCM Concert Orchestra, which will get its premiere in spring 2022.
Wang is currently pursuing her DMA in composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of music under the guidance of Prof. Douglas Knehans. She earned her Master's degree at Manhattan School of Music. Her primary instructors include composers Wenchen Qin, Reiko Füting, and Andreia Pinto Correia.
Sugar Vendil
Sugar Vendil is a composer, pianist, choreographer, and interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking, known as Brooklyn. She started her artistic life as a classical pianist, and after spending nearly a decade searching for her own voice, her practice evolved into performances that integrates sound, movement, and unconventional approaches to the piano. She writes and performs her own solo music for piano and electronics and has a keyboard/synth duo, Vanity Project, with composer Trevor Gureckis. Vendil is a proud second generation Filipinx American.
Vendil was awarded a 2021 MAPFund grant to support Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia. Recent commissions include Chamber Music America to write a new work for her ensemble, The Nouveau Classical Project, which she founded in 2008; ETHEL’s Homebaked 2019 for Unsacred Geometry, and ACF | Create to write for Box Not Found.
Vendil loves dancing and collaborating with other makers. In September 2020, she danced in choreographer Emily Johnson/CATALYST’s The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better – Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s) at Socrates Sculpture Park. She is part of Johnson’s Being Future Being process, which showed at Bates Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow in July 2021. Vendil took part in premiering composer-saxophonist Darius Jones’ LawNOrder at The Stone and Being Caged in ICE (2018) at Roulette.
She has performed at a variety of venues, ranging from arts spaces such as BAM Fisher, Dixon Place, Knockdown Center’s Ready Room, MoMa PS1, National Sawdust, the New School’s Glassbox Theater, The Stone, and Roulette; to galleries and spaces such as The Development Gallery, Milk Studios, and Spring Studios.
Vendil is an advocate of the oxford comma, is obsessed with her cat Coco, and has an excellent memory.
Tengku Irfan
Malaysian-born Tengku Irfan has appeared around the world as a pianist, composer, and conductor, and has been praised by The New York Times as “eminently cultured” and possessing “sheer incisiveness and power”. Irfan has performed with orchestras worldwide with conductors Claus Peter Flor, Neeme Järvi, Kristjan Järvi, David Robertson, Robert Spano, Osmo Vänskä, George Stelluto, Jeffrey Milarsky, among others. His compositions have been premiered by highly-acclaimed orchestras and ensembles, and have won international awards including three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards in 2012, 2014, and 2017.
Irfan started his piano lessons at age 7 and developed an interest in composing shortly after. His major debut performance was at age 11, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto in E flat (Wo04) with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Claus Peter Flor, where he improvised his own cadenzas for all three movements.
Other performance highlights include the Juilliard Orchestra, AXIOM, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Sao Paulo State Youth Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Peoria Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, and a solo recital at the la Virée classique Festival Montréal, on invitation from Kent Nagano. Irfan also won the Aspen Music Festival Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.2 Competition in 2013, and was resident pianist for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble for four consecutive years since 2014.
Irfan’s career as a composer has garnered three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards and a Charlotte Bergen Award with performances and premieres by orchestras such as the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Peoria Symphony Orchestra and the MDR Simfonieorchester. His orchestral composition titled Keraian, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, with Case Scaglione conducting.
Irfan was a double major in piano & composition in the Juilliard Pre-College program (under Yoheved Kaplinsky & Ira Taxin). He currently studies at the Juilliard School as a double major in piano & composition under Yoheved Kaplinsky and Robert Beaser respectively, and also studies conducting with Jeffrey Milarsky and George Stelluto. Irfan served as Teaching Artist Intern for the New York Philharmonic Composer’s Bridge Program, and is a proud recipient of the Juilliard School Kovner Fellowship Award.
Tom Morrison
New York native Tom Morrison (b. 1992) is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Morrison draws his inspiration from the experience of place. Recent projects include new works for leading new music groups, including the Aizuri Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Latitude49, Sö Percussion, and Contemporaneous. Upcoming Projects include new works for the New Jersey Symphony; Albany Symphony’s new music chamber orchestra, Dogs of Desire; and new electroacoustic works for Theo Van Dyck and Parker Ramsay. Recently, his work has been released on Eric Huckin’s album, Drifter. He was the winner of the 2016 Thailand International Composition Festival Competition judged by Mark Adamo, Aaron Jay Kernis, and John Corigliano. More recently, he won first place in the 2021 Symphonia Caritas Competition. Morrison is a graduate of the Juilliard School (MM) where he studied with Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Christopher Rouse. He is also a graduate of the University of Montana (BM), in Missoula, where he cultivated his love for nature and the environment. He holds an MFA from Princeton University, and is currently a PhD fellow at Princeton.
Jared Miller
Described as a “rising star” by MusicWorks magazine, JUNO-Nominated composer Jared Miller has collaborated with the American Composers Orchestra, the Victoria and Nashville Symphonies, the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Toronto, Detroit and Edmonton, The Attacca Quartet, Latitude 49, the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, the Emily Carr String Quartet and Standing Wave. His music has been featured and recognized in the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial (2014), the ISCM World Music Days (2017 & 2019), Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival (2010, 2015 & 2019), and the Festival Internacional de Jóvenes Orquestas (2019.)
Recent accolades include SOCAN’s Jan V. Matejcek Award, young composer prizes from the SOCAN and ASCAP Foundations, and a nomination for the 2020 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. He has also held residencies at the Banff Centre, I-Park’s International Artist-in-Residence Program, and with the Victoria Symphony from 2014-2017.
An advocate for musical education and outreach, Miller has taught and performed in several initiatives including The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Connects Program, BC’s Health Arts Society, Vancouver’s Opera in the Schools, and New York’s Opportunity Music Project.
Miller holds Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Juilliard School where he studied with Samuel Adler and John Corigliano. He has also studied at the University of British Columbia with Stephen Chatman, Dorothy Chang, Sara Davis Buechner, and Corey Hamm. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Dalhousie University.
Jihyun Kim
Jihyun Kim's music has appeared in the prestigious venues around the world, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Harris Hall in Aspen, DiMenna Center, Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence Italy, and Seoul Arts Center in Korea.
Jihyun’s works were performed by eminent ensembles such as the American Composers Orchestra, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Cornell Symphony Orchestra, Cornell Festival Orchestra, Tanglewood New Fromm Players, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, JACK Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Society for New Music, Asciano Quartet, Switch Ensemble, Karien Ensemble, and Chanticleer LAB Choir, and were featured in the Underwood New Music Reading, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Mayfest, USF New Music Festival, Midwest Composers Symposium and Korean Music Expo.
Jihyun was selected as the winner of the Consortium Commission from American Composers Orchestra/Alabama Symphony/American Youth Symphony, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, the League of Composers/ISCM Composers Competition, the American Prize in Orchestral music, the Libby Larsen Prize, PUBLIQ Access, Florence String Quartet Call for Scores, the 32nd Chang-ak Composition Competition, the Otto R. Stahl Memorial Award/ Russell Distinguished Teaching Award from Cornell University, and received honorable mentions from Red Note New Music Composition Competition, TEMPO New Music Ensemble Call for Scores, among many others.
Jihyun is currently a doctoral candidate in Composition at Cornell University. Jihyun previously earned MM degree in Composition from Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University while serving as an Associate Instructor in Music Theory, and BM degree in Composition from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.
Jihyun recently joined the Oberlin Conservatory as Visiting Assistant Professor in Composition. She previously taught at the Washington State University as Lecturer in Composition.