Field-Of-Study: Music Composition

Composer/performer/sound artist Elliott Sharp has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetics to musical composition and interaction.  He leads the projects SysOrk, Orchestra Carbon, Terraplane, and Tectonics.  Compositional strategies range from highly detailed through-composed scores to conceptual, algorithmic, and graphic approaches.  Improvisation is an important element in his own live performances and

With work described as “sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies” (New York Times), and “unspeakably gorgeous” (Gramophone), American composer Elena Ruehr is known for her lyrical and rhythmically vibrant music.  Her music has an organic, breathing flow, derived from its origin in the movement of the body and the vitality of the natural world;

Eric Nathan’s (b. 1983) music has been performed in the United States and abroad at music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen Music Festival, Ravinia Festival Steans Institute, Aldeburgh Music Festival (UK), World Music Days, Yellow Barn as well as at the Louvre Museum and Carnegie Hall, and featured on NPR’s radio show “From the Top,” WQXR’s

Composer Sheila Silver has written in a wide range of mediums: from solo instrumental to large orchestral works; from opera to feature film scores. Her musical language is a unique synthesis of the tonal and atonal worlds, coupled with a rhythmic vitality which is both masterful and compelling.  She collaborates with leading musicians and music

The music of Mikel Kuehn has been described as having “sensuous phrases … produc[ing] an effect of high abstraction turning into decadence” by author and New York Times critic Paul Griffiths. Trained as a percussionist in the Los Angeles area in the early 1980s, Kuehn split his time equally between jazz, classical, and electroacoustic music,

Mathew Rosenblum’s music is filled with diverse musical elements derived from classical, jazz, rock, and world music traditions. The Boston Globe called his music “an ear-buzzing flood of sound, rich in unusual overtones,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described his work Mobius Loop as “richly layered" and stated that it “shimmered with vibrancy.” A wide array of

Composer and virtuoso guitar player Kampela is the winner of the 1995 International Guitar Composition Competition (Caracas, Venezuela) and winner of the 1998 Lamarque-Pons Guitar Composition Competition (Montevideo, Uruguay). He has received commissions and awards from the Collegium Novum Zurich 2013, DAAD (Artist-in-Residence Berliner Künstlerprogramm 2012–2013), New York Philharmonic (2009), Koussevitzky Foundation (2007), Fromm Music

Reviewing a performance of Jesse Jones’ music by the Juilliard String quartet at Alice Tully Hall, the New York Times praised the composition as “Eloquent in its melancholy, [making] a striking impact in a poised, intense account.” And in its estimation of another performance of his work by the Juilliard Quartet, the Los Angeles Times was

Bay Area–based pianist and composer Myra Melford, winner of the 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music, is an esteemed veteran of the international creative music community and an Associate Professor of contemporary improvised music at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the course of two decades and more than thirty recordings, she has

Aaron Einbond’s work explores the intersection of instrumental composition, sound installation, field recording, and technology, bringing the spontaneity of live performance together with computer interactivity to impact and challenge the listener. His recent work has focused on audio recording not only as a means of documentation, but as the center of a creative process bridging

Benjamin Broening’s music couples his interest in the expressive power of sound with a sense of line derived from his background as a singer. His orchestral, choral, chamber, and electroacoustic music has been performed in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Ukraine,

Read a statement of Xiaogang Ye’s Twilight of Tibet for Cantata.

 Bobby Previte is a composer and performer whose work explores the nexus between composed and improvised music. The New York Times writes that “Previte’s music is thoroughly, stubbornly and distinctly his own. The music copies nothing, and is utterly original.”  The New Yorker says, “His ensembles speak in visionary tongues.” And the Village Voice called