Composition

Zitian An is a music composer and multimedia artist. He studied Art and Technology at SAIC and is currently studying classical composition at Manhattan School of Music. Despite his interest in visual and olfactory art, music composition is his favorite subject. He has worked on interdisciplinary art, combining sound/music with other art forms, such as BioArt, virtual reality, and holographs.

He grew up in Guangzhou, a coastal city in southern China. His grandmother, a math and music professor as well as a painter, had a huge impact on him. Despite his passion for music, Zitian was always intrigued by her adventurous spirit in her religion and extraterrestrial lives studies. He studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and learned a lot, especially from his art and science classes. He then came to Manhattan School of Music for a deep and immersive study of music, and he hopes to continue exploring a multimedia approach through music composition.

Maya Borisov is a composer and soprano born in 2004. From 2017 to 2022 she studied composition with Dr. Craig Levesque at the Westminster Conservatory of Music as well as voice with Danielle Sinclair. Maya graduated with High Honors from the Westminster Conservatory Honors Music Program, where she double majored in composition and voice. In 2020 she won the Westminster Conservatory of Music scholarship for achievement in composition. Maya was a participant in the Curtis Institute Young Artist Summer Program (2020), and the Atlantic Music Festival (2021), where she had her pieces A Purple Forest, To What Used to Be, and On the Flipside performed. She is currently an undergraduate student at MSM studying composition with Dr. Nirmali Fenn.

Jemina Brechoire is a Franco Algerian composer, pianist, vocalist, and producer. Having originally trained as a jazz pianist, Jemina entered Berklee College of Music with the prestigious Presidential Scholarship where she studied under the tutelage of Alain Mallet. There, she deepened her love for cross cultural music and interdisciplinary art.

She has an interest in folklore from all other the world that stems from her Franco-Algerian background and her exposure to many traditional folk genres from a young age (North African folklore, French chanson, Jazz).

It is an interest that has grown significantly when she moved to the United States having been exposed to ever more local traditions and people.

As an artist, she strives to be innovative and eclectic in all her creations. Jemina has arranged for Best Jazz Album Grammy Awards Nominee Tia Fuller, was the musical director of the Berklee Esperanza Spalding Ensemble, co-wrote with Tokyo Metropolitan Theater artistic director and avant-garde composer Dai Fujikura, and recorded for Cop21 premiered documentary “Terra Libra” amongst many other projects.

In her work she has been striving to connect seemingly unrelated themes, people, and places both through the medium of music and throughout her collaborations: her first album “22” was entirely produced and written by her and featured musicians from more than eight different countries. The album was recorded remotely due to the pandemic and pays tribute to North African Folklore, taking a global approach to music making and, hoping to serve as a medium to help composers and performers through uncertain times as it did for the composer herself.

Jemina sees her interests lying in creating a music in movement, centered around our multitudes. Although her first instrument is piano, she also started developing an interest for the voice early on. Listening to jazz records she discovered scat through Ella Fitzgerald and is, to this day, fascinated by the power and emotional intensity that vocalists can deliver even with a wordless approach to music. A lot of Jemina’s music pays tribute to that vocal jazz legacy and to the artists that have been reclaiming the voice as an instrument.

This coming month Jemina will be performing for the arrival of Little Amal in New York, an eleven-foot giant refugee puppet from Syria and symbol of international human rights.

Her compositions have premiered in places such as the University of Toronto Massey College and Berklee Performance Center among others.

www.jeminamusic.com

Marco Catella is a freshman student composer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was exposed to music throughout his life but developed a stronger interest in writing in 2019, at age 16. Although his musical influences are noticeably diverse, he attempts to unite them by creating vividly dramatic works. Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, and many film composers like Hermann and Rosza enkindled his love for drama. He majored in economics for one year in Argentina but decided to take the risk and study music. While unfamiliar with US music schools, he quickly fell in love with the Manhattan School of Music. After going through the thorough application process, including a very engaging interview, he visited the school and attended a concert. After that day, he had no doubt about which place would be best to cultivate his musical potential.

Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Ya-Lan Chan is currently based in New York. She has attended many music festivals and workshops, such as the Nong Project in Seoul, Korea, the Etchings Festival in France, the Darmstadt Music Festival in Germany, and the Yarn/Wire institute in Stonybrook University. She also participated in masterclasses with Beat Furrer, Frank Bedrossian, François Sarhann, Milica Djordjevic, Jason Eckardt, and Zosha di Castri. Ya-Lan is becoming more interested in the creative process of music-making. She is especially interested in exploring the relationship between technology and people, and how these two have shaped each other in time. She has collaborated with artists who specialize in various artistic mediums, such as animation, poetry, dancing, and lighting design.

Ya-Lan Chan holds a master’s degree from Manhattan School of Music and a bachelor’s degree from the Taipei National University of the Arts in theory and composition. She is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts at Manhattan of Music, where she studies with Dr. Reiko Füting. She also serves as a teaching fellow in the theory department.

www.yalan7667.wixsite.com/mysite

Szilvia Cimino is a composer, arranger, soprano, pianist, brass player, actor, and poet from Fairfield, Connecticut. In 2022, Szilvi was awarded the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Musicianship Award, the John Philip Sousa Band Award, the CAS Outstanding Arts Award. She was also the 2022 recipient of the Halo Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play. She has performed at many renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Radio City Music Hall.

Szilvi’s works are largely narrative and highly emotional. Her poetic nature allows her to create expansive settings and intense feelings that transcend verbal language. Her style is influenced by the Hungarian folk music she grew up surrounded by and her background in theatre. She enjoys going out of her comfort zone, as she views such a challenge as a learning experience.

Alaina Ferris is an interdisciplinary composer, poet, and performer who specializes in choral works, opera, and contemporary theater. As an active pianist and Celtic harpist, her music is inspired by a love of Renaissance chorales and her former work as a music therapist. She is one half of the indie-folk duo, Physical Kids, alongside Matt Schlatter. She is an awardee of the New Music USA 2022 Creator Development Fund; was summer 2022 artist resident at Cité International des Arts in Paris; a 2019-2021 Composer Fellow at The American Opera Project; a co-winner of the 2019/2020 Brooklyn Youth Chorus Composer Competition; and selected as a 2019 National Sawdust Summerlab Musician.

Alaina’s work has been presented at HERE, SoHo Rep, Barnard College/Columbia University, Abrons Arts Center, The Connelly Theater, and St. Ann’s Warehouse. She has worked with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, artists César Alvarez, Coco Karol, Sxip Shirey, Ellen Winter, Amanda Palmer, Jason Webley, Steve Earle, Anne Waldman, Eliza Bent, Mia Rovegno, William Burke, Joshua William Gelb, Mac Wellman, Tyler Gilmore (Blank For.ms.), and more. She is the founder of The Music Room, a membership space (a guild!) for composers and music teachers who are dedicated to the art of practicing music, located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Alaina was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada and later moved to Boulder County, Colorado. She earned her B.A. in Music and Creative Writing from the University of Denver and her M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University, and now lives in Brooklyn.

http://www.alainaferris.com/

Chongguang Guan is a classical composer, pianist, and electronic music performer who graduated from the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music where he studied composition with Weihao Qiang. Currently he is studying composition at the Manhattan School of Music with Marjorie Merryman for his Bachelor of Music. His timbral approach is very unique and was well received in Elinor Armer’s master class (2015 May) and the Winter Master Class Program (2016) run by UCLA’s music department. His works have not only been influenced by various music genres, but also by his rich variety of experiences as a performer. He performed in the 2018 Electric Daisy Carnival Shanghai as a Guest DJ, and he also performed at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as a jazz pianist in 2016.

Yachari Santiago Gutiérrez was born in 1993 in Santiago De Cali, Colombia. His studies started when he was 16 years old as a singer in the Coral Escolanía. His professional studies started when he was 18 at Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá (2012), where he started his career as a singer studying under Carolina Plata and Maria Olga Piñeros. Further in 2015 he majored in Composition where he studied under Guillermo Gaviria, Julián Valdivieso, Juan Carlos Britto, and Juan Pablo Carreño, among others. As a composer Santiago has focused his work on the exploration of timbre and the construction of sound atmospheres in conjunction with traditional sounding textures. Some of his pieces have been premiered and played in different venues around the city, like the Sala de conciertos Luis Angel Arango and the Aula Multiple of the Universidad Javeriana. His music has also been recorded and published under the university name in the form of a CD named Nuevos Horizontes Sonoros. As of right now Santiago is preparing to start his master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music in the fall of 2021.

Julian Bennett Holmes is an award-winning composer and theorist, a doctoral student at the Manhattan School of Music, and Sacred Music Coordinator for Columbia University. He studied with Lowell Liebermann, Richard Danielpour, and Marjorie Merryman. As a teenager, he toured internationally, playing in experimental bands.

He has won prizes including the Society for New Music Israel/Pellman Award, the Society for Chamber Music in Rochester Young Composer Competition, the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Composers Award, and Second Prize at the Seventh International Antonín Dvořák Composition Competition.

He performs weekly organ improvisations at Columbia University, which you can watch on YouTube.

www.julianbh.com

Alexander Howard was born in 2004 in Chandler, AZ. He has been studying the saxophone and clarinet for seven years and participated in two All-State competitions with both. He discovered his desire to compose in elementary school and continued forward with his passion. In high school, he studied saxophone and clarinet privately with Mr. Don Goldstone, piano with Mrs. Blair Myers, and composition with Dr. Mathew Fuerst.

He is obsessed with a medley of composers and of the folk music from many cultures. He strongly believes that music is a universal medium and music must be able to resonate as strongly with everyone playing and listening. His music possesses strong melodicism and richly colorful harmonic palette, focusing on the intense joys and the cataclysmic lows of the human condition. He often derives music from nature, and alongside his synesthetic responses, finds music in every tenet of life.

Besides music, he loves reading, studying butterflies and geology, hiking in the mountains, and talking with his friends and family.

Sunbin Kim is a Korean-born composer based in New York. Sunbin’s compositions have been performed in concerts and festivals such as the Aspen Summer Music Festival and School, the Zodiac Music Festival (France,) BUTI Tanglewood Summer Music Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, the Uzmah/Upbeat International Summer Music Festival, the High Score Summer Festival, Charlotte New Music Festival, and the VIPA Summer Festival and Academy.

An accomplished pianist, Sunbin performed his own Fantasy Concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein. His ensemble works have been performed widely In United States and Europe, receiving commissions from the New Juilliard Chamber Ensemble, Quartet Indigo, Iktus Percussion Ensemble, Smash Ensemble, Cisum Percussion Ensemble, the Longleash Ensemble, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. He has received numerous awards including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship, the Gena Raps String Quartet Competition, the New Juilliard Chamber Ensemble Competition, seven ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and the North/South Consonance Award and commission.

Sunbin was awarded Bachelor’s degrees in music composition and physics from Bard College and his Master of Musical Arts degree in composition from The Juilliard School. He is currently studying for his DMA with Reiko Füting at the Manhattan School of Music.

www.sunbinkim.com

Wookhyun Lacey Kwon is Korean and currently living in New York. As a composer, she concentrates on the process of clearly translating specific concepts or ideas into musical language. In this process, she aims for all of the musical materials to be CLEAR in and of themselves with the clear rules and reasons.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from Kookmin University in Seoul and is currently pursuing her master’s degree with Marjorie Merryman at MSM. She won first prize in the Eumak Journal Competition in Seoul and was selected as the composer in the project, Echo Chamber: Sound Effect Seoul 2019. She is currently working on her next work, a large ensemble piece which will be premiered in Weimar and Magdeburg in Germany and two additional times in New York City in November 2021.

www.youtube.com/channel/UCNXsmJ586HsbUpibtg_Z_ZA

Kenedea Lee is a composer and pianist. She studied Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Classical Composition at the Manhattan School of Music. At the Manhattan School of Music, she studies with Professor Susan Botti. Growing up in South Los Angeles, Kenedea has been inspired to write music that reflects her upbringing. She aims to compose music in the Contemporary Classical style while taking heed of the black vernacular, vocabulary, and the African American Experience.

https://www.kenedealee.com

Jacob Leibowitz is a composer and bassist who maintains an artist’s idealism in an un-ideal world. He believes in the importance of questioning one’s conditions/environment, and endeavors to go out of his comfort zone with each piece he writes. Jacob has a fascination with the non-virtuosic, as well as with the interactions that take place between performers. Both of these ideas are present in several of his compositions.

Jacob took part in the esteemed New York Youth Symphony’s composition program, and in the future hopes to tour his music with an ensemble of his making. In the meantime, he is focused on getting the most out of his undergraduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music studying under the guidance of Dr. J. Mark Stambaugh and Dr. Reiko Fueting.

www.JacobLeibowitz.com

Arthur Siyun Li (b.1998) is a Canadian composer and pianist currently based in New York City. He is pursuing dual master’s degrees in composition and piano at the Manhattan School of Music. He is a recipient of the MSM President’s Award Scholarship as well as the Silver Medal for piano in the Canadian Music Competition (2009).

As a composer, Arthur’s recent work aims to explore the poetic fragment as an analog for motivic construction in music. In addition, Arthur is interested in writing music for film and games. He composed the score for the animated short film Front of the House (dir. Ashley Ma), which was selected as part of the LA Shorts International Film Festival in 2019. At MSM, Arthur is under the tutelage of Susan Botti (composition) and Alexandre Moutouzkine (piano).

Shuwen Liao was born in China, graduated from the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2018, where she majored in composition with Dr. Wenpei Ju. In 2022, She graduated from Manhattan School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in composition. Shuwen is currently a graduate student at Manhattan School of Music, where she studies with Susan Botti.

Shuwen became the first young Chinese composer included in the New York Philharmonic’s “Very Young Composer” program. Her work, Shadow of the Wolf, was performed by the New York Philharmonic in Lincoln Center, and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra concert hall. She later wrote an international music postcard, The Skeleton Demon, which was premiered in New York by the New York Philharmonic and subsequently toured around the world.

Shuwen has received many prizes and scholarships. Her composition, Wolf Shadow, won the first place in the chamber music group in the Third “Spring Awakening” National Composition Contest. Shuwen’s string quartet Pure. Fire, won the third place of the Manhattan Prize at MSM. Her wind quintet, Warm Station, was commissioned by Windscape to perform in New York. Shuwen also received the Giampaolo Bracali Award for Music Composition at Manhattan School of Music in 2022. Recently, her orchestral piece, Elegant Cloud, won the Grand Prize in the Red Maple Composition Competition in Canada. In her music, Shuwen seeks to create an illusion – something wild and unexpected, but in a subtle way, quietly exciting, full of lightness.

Yaxin Liu was born in 1997 in China. In September 2015, she enrolled in the Minzu University of China as a composition and music technology major and studied with Dr. Yang Yu.

During her undergraduate degree, she did an internship at the Kuwo Company. From her freshman to junior year, she assisted Dr. Yu in operating and maintaining the WeChat account “Yubo Classroom.” She was mainly responsible for finding music that matched the advertorial themes of the account in order to educate the students.

In 2020, she was admitted to Manhattan School of Music’s Master of Music program in classical composition where she studies with Dr. J. Mark Stambaugh. Yaxin Liu is used to composing what she has heard and felt in her daily life, while traveling, and in books. These are all the sources of inspiration for her.

www.soundcloud.com/user-859696738

Tongyu Lu is a composer from China who is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in composition at Manhattan School of Music with Professor Reiko Fueting.

Tongyu was born into a musical family and began to learn the piano at the age of five and the trumpet at the age of eleven. In 2016, he was admitted to Central Conservatory of Music Middle School with excellent results, and studied trumpet with Professor Chen Guang, piano with Professor Li Xiang, solfeggio practice and music theory with Professor Wang Yusu, Associate Professor Zhang Juan and Professor Li Tong. He also joined the China Youth Symphony Orchestra (Central Conservatory of Music Youth Symphony Orchestra). In 2020, he officially began to study composition, under the guidance of Professor Xu Zhitong and Professor Liu Kanghua.

He has an extensive passion to compose various styles of music and create his own new works. Also, he has a great interest in art and nature under the influence of his family. Many of his works are inspired by them.

Hefang Ma is a music composer and pianist. Her work includes an exploration of Japanese traditional instruments, and her work Nishang applied this concept and has been selected to be featured on YouTube’s incipitsify channel. She was a faculty and staff member at Tokyo College of Music and Tokyo College of Music High School in Japan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Composition from Tokyo University of the Arts. In 2020, she moved to Virginia in the United States to pursue her master’s degree. While there, she worked as a graduate assistant in music theory at James Madison University, from where she earned her master’s degree in Composition in 2022. She currently lives in Manhattan, studying music composition with Dr. David Adamcyk at Manhattan School of Music on a Presidential Scholarship Award.

Luis McDougal is a prolific composer, arranger, guitarist and private instructor who currently attends the Manhattan School of Music. With a dual degree in Composition and Contemporary Writing & Production from Berklee College of Music, he has learned from a multitude of world class musicians of diverse backgrounds including Hal Crook, Bill Elliott, Julian Lage, Gilad Hekselman, Karim Al-Zand and Alla Cohen. Coming from a jazz background, he loves to dive into other genres which include different types of Latin music, pop, rock, funk and especially contemporary classical. One of the hallmarks of his music lies in his harmonic language, which consists of an ongoing exploration of polychordality and polytonality along with sophisticated and unpredictable dissonances. His love for these unusual sounds works its way into his avant-garde compositions as well as in his jazz guitar playing. In addition to the creative aspect of his professional life, Luis is a relentless voyager in searching for the sounds that move him. That is to say, he will work as long as he must in order to obtain something satisfying in his mind’s eye.

Listen on Soundcloud

Tamara McLeod (b. 1999) is a composer and pianist from Denver, Colorado. She recently completed her undergraduate studies with composer David Garner at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). Tamara currently studies with Dr. Reiko Füting at the Manhattan School of Music in New York as she pursues her graduate studies. Tamara’s music is informed by her Scots/Ukrainian heritage, at times displaying the melodic contour and harmonic underpinnings of Balkan and Gaelic folk-music. In the Summer of 2021, Tamara studied with composer Derek Bermel while attending the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, which led to the world premier of the String Quartet Béton Brut. In the Spring of 2021, her first art song, Dirge for a Joker (Sylvia Plath) won third place in the SFCM 9th Biennial art song competition. In the spring of 2020, her first choral work, De Profundis (Garcia Lorca) won second place in the SFCM 14th Biennial a cappella choral competition. Also during 2020, she attended the Fresh Inc Festival that culminated in the live-streamed world-premiere of the piano trio Vertigo. In the summer of 2018 and 2019, she attended the European American Music Alliance summer program in Paris, France studying with maestro Michel Merlet. Before her compositional studies, Tamara pursued intensive studies in piano for many years with Juilliard-trained pianist Dr. Tamara Goldstein, as well as with internationally acclaimed concert pianist Artur Stoyanov from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Aside from her composing, Tamara enjoys hiking, reading poetry, and cooking.

José Eduardo Muñoz Muñoz was born in 1993 in Puebla, Mexico. He began his studies in Puebla’s Music Conservatory at the age of 16 in Classical Guitar. In 2012 he moved to Mexico City to study Composition with the Faculty of Music of the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM by its initials in Spanish). Since that year he has produced numerous works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles and orchestra under the supervision of accomplished composers as Dr. Gabriela Ortiz, Dr. José Juan Hernandez, Leonardo Coral, Dr. Francisco Cortez, Dr. Peter Ruzicka (Germany), Francesco Filidei (Italy), and Yann Robin (France). He has participated as a composer and as a performer as well in various masterclasses in Mexico, Salzburg (Universität Mozarteum), and Vienna (Universität für musik und darnstellende künst Wien). In 2018, he won the National Composition Competition “Arturo Marquez” for Chamber Orchestra with his work “No llores ojos hermosos, llévame al río”. In 2019, he was a finalist in the EarShot competition Aguascalientes organized by the American Composers Orchestra with his work “Alquimia” for large orchestra. In 2020, he was a finalist in the Dartmouth International Composition Competition for Wind Band with his work “Particle”. He is currently beginning his Master’s degree in Composition at the Manhattan School of Music under the supervision of the renowned composer Susan Botti.

Joshua Nuñez is a Mexican-American composer, producer, and guitarist, born and raised in Marietta, Georgia. He has a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University where he studied with Nickitas Demos and Robert Scott Thompson. He studied jazz guitar with Dave Frackenpohl and Mace Hibbard.
In 2017, he was accepted to participate in the 3rd Summer Music Performance Program at Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece where he studied with Yiorgos Vassilandonakis and Nickitas Demos; he was commissioned to compose the work, EXIT, for the festival. In the summer of 2019, he participated in the Longy Divergent Studio of Bard College in Cambridge, MA, where he was commissioned to compose the works Demons and Wander. In April 2018 his work, Glass, was selected for the American Evolution: Piano Preludes – Call for Scores, which appreciated multiple performances along the southeastern United States, and can be found on the album titled, The Silence Between, by Chris Karlisle. Joshua was a member (guitar, keyboard, vocals) of the Atlanta based, alternative-metal group, Misty Eyed from 2019 to 2020. He is interested in composing/performing music rooted in improvisation, indeterminacy, drama, humor, social issues and collaboration.

www.joshuanunezmusic.com

Joohyun Parc is a composer and sound engineer based in New York City. She has written instrumental music as well as electronic music and her interests lie in the coexistence, separation and cancellation of sound and space. She is currently studying composition at Manhattan School of Music.

Reinier Potgieter is a composer based in New York City. His music is informed by an almost overwhelming tendency for deep introspection. He believes that his art, as an extension of his life, should be an avenue to contemplation. Through this, he attempts to (with varying degrees of success) create opportunities for listeners to engage with the material as essential mechanisms in slowly unfolding events, even as passive observers. When not absorbed by his graduate studies at Manhattan School of Music, he can often be found half-finishing crossword puzzles before starting new ones

Lin Qiao (b.1998) is a composer, conductor, and pianist from Yangzhou, China. She received her bachelor’s degree at Franklin & Marshall College, where she studied classical composition with John Carbon and jazz piano with Jarrett Cherner. She is currently enrolled in the master’s program at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Reiko Füting. Her works focus on the relationship between individual emotions and the natural and human environment.

Varun Raja (b. 2000) is a master’s student at the Manhattan School of Music where he studies Composition under the tutelage of Professor Susan Botti. He enjoys writing for all manner of instrumentations from solo to symphony orchestra. As a composer, he would describe his stylistic aesthetic as a fusion between romantic influences and contemporary techniques. From a recent dance collaboration with a Texas Women’s University choreographer, Varun and his collaborator’s multimedia video Paradox was selected for the American College Dance Association (ACDA) Screen Dance Festival.

varunrajamusic.com

Pablo Marcelo Ramírez is a Colombian composer, classical guitarist and music producer based in NYC.
He studied guitar and music production in Bogotá at the Universidad de los Andes. From 2013 to 2014, he lived in China and privately studied with professor and guitarist Mr. Chris Wong in Hong Kong. There, he attended master classes with Alvaro Pierri, René Izquierdo and Pepe Romero.

After returning to Colombia and finishing his bachelor’s, he soon started collaborating in film scoring and audiovisual media projects.

In 2018, he coordinated and composed music for different chamber music concerts along with the “Colectivo de Compositores y Creadores Colombianos” in different halls of the city; among these, the concert series Desde la Mente del Compositor, a project in the search of establishing new approaches for audiences to contemporary composition.

Marcelo became a self-taught composer, however, he consolidated his skills studying with composer and professor Gustavo Parra and at the Berklee Online program.

His intuitive process has led him to an exploration of various styles resulting in an eclecticism that is expressed throughout his work. In a constant state of quest, the search of innovation, representation & abstraction, individuality, spirituality and beauty are the personal foundations of his creative process.
Marcelo has composed for the “VASTO” and Bogota Chamber Orchestra ensembles, worked as a producer for the Colombia National Symphony Orchestra, recorded with the Budapest Art Orchestra among others.

Awarded with the MSM and ICETEX scholarship “Jovenes Talento,” he is currently pursuing his master’s in composition with Dr. Reiko Füting at the Manhattan School of Music.

Shahar Regev, born in 1992 in Israel, is an interdisciplinary Composer, Singer and Cellist. Regev Graduated from the Composition Department at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She was instructed by famous Israeli musicians – Professor Josef Bardanashvili, Professor Yinam Leef, and Professor Michael Klinghoffer. Recently, Regev completed her master’s degree in Composition at the Mannes School of Music, studying with Dr. Lowell Liebermann in New York City. She is currently studying in the professional studies Composition program at the Manhattan School of Music with Susan Botti.
Her works include various styles of orchestrations – vocal, chamber, and orchestral music. Her pieces were performed by ensembles and orchestras at concerts and festivals in Israel and overseas. Artistic engagements include commissions and collaborations and with Symphonette Raanana Orchestra (Israel), Tzlilim Bamidbar Festival (Israel), Toscanini Quartet (Israel), Ensemble diX (Germany), Alambic duo (Italy) Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York (Bulgaria, USA), Mestizo Sax Quartet (Italy), MMS project – Mediterranean Miniature Sketches (Greece), The IPO for Kids (Israel), Duo BassGuitar (Israel), Meitar Ensemble (Israel). She also composes music for the theater, musical arrangements, and original songs.

www.schacharregev.com

Elliot Roman (b. 1999) is a multifaceted composer, instrumentalist and conductor based in New York City.

Elliot’s compositions often juxtapose stasis with motion, rich harmony with rhythmic vibrancy, and sincerity with wit. They have won prizes around the world, and he has received commissions from ensembles such as the American String Quartet and the Manhattan School of Music Chamber Choir. In addition, Elliot has composed for other genres such as musical theatre and film. He orchestrated Morningside, a new musical premiered in 2019 at the Manhattan School of Music and scored Ashes Artist Collective’s short film Girl of My Dreams (2021).

Elliot also has experience performing as a soloist and orchestral player. He was a member of the New York Youth Symphony on flute and piano from 2017-19, performing at Carnegie Hall and on tour in Spain. As a freelance instrumentalist, Elliot has premiered new works on both piano and flute in programs such as the Carnegie Hall “Migrations: The Making of America” Festival and SPHERES Collective.

Elliot co-founded the Claremont Chamber Orchestra, a summer ensemble based in Manhattan, and currently serves as their artistic director and conductor.

Elliot is a graduate student at the Manhattan School of Music, where he also received his undergraduate degree and was a recipient of the Jay Rubinton Scholarship. He has studied composition with Reiko Fueting and J. Mark Stambaugh and studied piano with Daniel Epstein.

www.elliotromanmusic.com

Cengxing Shi began studying piano at age five and composition at age of 11. Then, when she was 12 years old, she was accepted by the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China. She studied with Hong Gao and Professor Weihao Qiang. In 2020, she was accepted by Manhattan School of Music. She studies with Professor Marjorie Merryman. In addition, when she was nine years old, she won third prize in the junior group of the piano competition in the Anhui Province, China. Also, when she was 14 years old, she won first prize in the Second National Composition Competition (Yinzhong Cup in China). When she was fifteen years old, she won second prize in the School Photography Competition.

Jianing Song graduated from China Conservatory of China. She graduated with high distinction from her undergraduate studies, having received various scholarships.

Her art song My Thoughts Fly to You won the Gold Award in the 6th International Asia-Pacific composition competition and the first prize of the 10th China new generation composition competition. Her micro-opera The Story of a Mental Hospital is “the creation and research improvement project” of China Conservatory of Music and “The Academy Level Project” of Sichuan Conservatory of Music.

While majoring in composition, her second major is conducting. She conducted an orchestra academy affiliated to China Conservatory of Music to perform Mozart’s piano concerto K.482 and numerous other works.

R.S. Stricklin III, born in 1994 in Dallas, Texas, has had his music performed across the United States and in Europe. He has worked on performances of his music with loadbang, Frances-Marie Uitti, and members of the Ostravská Banda and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Stricklin graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2017 with a BM in composition and honors in the liberal arts, and Manhattan School of Music in 2020 with an MM in composition, where he is currently pursuing a DMA in composition, studying under Reiko Füting.

Wesley Thompson is a composer and pianist from the coastal town of Fairhope, Alabama. Born into a home filled with music, he grew up listening to pianist George Winston. After beginning piano lessons, he quickly took to arranging and improvising over his favorite songs from video game soundtracks. This early experimentation initiated a love for improvisation that continues to color his musical style to the present day.
In addition to George Winston and the aforementioned video game soundtracks, Thompson’s work as both composer and pianist pays homage to classical composers such as Chopin and Bach, heavy metal bands like Animals as Leaders and Dream Theater, and jazz artists like Bill Evans. These seemingly unrelated influences point toward one of his chief musical goals: the blurring of boundaries between the categorical tools called “genres.” Above all else, Wesley Thompson seeks to connect with his audience by producing music that is gripping, emotional, and listenable.
Thompson’s compositions have been featured at events such as the Charlotte New Music Festival and have been performed by artists as diverse as the Beo String Quartet, Transient Canvas, and Aaron Petit. His piece The Albatross and the Seal for jazz sextet and chamber orchestra was featured as the finale to the Frost Stamps Scholarship Ensembles’ 2020 All-Stamps Concert. He is currently a first-year master’s student at the Manhattan School of Music, where he studies with Dr. Reiko Füting.

www.wesleythompsonmusic.com

Akshay S. Tiwari (b. 2002) is a music composer and multi-instrumentalist from Princeton, New Jersey. Over the years, he has studied the viola, piano, and bağlama saz in depth. Influenced by rich folk traditions from around the world, his works draw from a colorful palette of musical styles and idioms. His journey into composition began by writing and arranging various world folk pieces for an ensemble he started consisting of a string quintet and mixed percussion, which performed at several venues around New Jersey.

Over the years, he has developed a particular affinity for the folk music of Turkey, Eastern Europe, Northern and Western Africa, and his family’s native India. This blending of often overlooked folk idioms with standard western ensembles forms the core of his work, and as he studies composition at the Manhattan School of Music, he plans on expanding his musical language, guided by the fundamental belief that music of every tradition offers a new perspective which, when combined with other perspectives, provides a more complete view of the human spirit.

Currently working as a private viola teacher, his ambitions include film and video game scoring as well as composing contemporary concert and art music.

Celebrated percussionist, composer and arranger, Samuel Torres was born in Bogota, Colombia. Before departing for the U.S. in 1999, the resourceful young artist had become an established figure on Colombia’s hectic music scene, backing leading Colombian performers while serving as an arranger and music director for his country’s highly regarded telenovelas (TV soap operas) and films.

Shortly after arriving in the U.S., his career took a dramatic turn when he was tapped by famed Cuban trumpet virtuoso Arturo Sandoval to join his group. Torres spent four years touring the world and recording with the jazz great, over time, he would perform, arrange, produce and/or record with a veritable “who’s who” of the jazz, Latin pop and salsa world, including such luminaries as Tito Puente, Paquito D’Rivera, Chick Corea, Alejandro Sanz, Ricky Martin, Don Byron, Richard Bona, Lila Downs, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Angelique Kidjo, Marc Anthony, Rubén Blades, Fonseca, Andrés Cepeda, Thalía, and his country’s own international superstar, Shakira. His talents have also been featured in concerts with classical orchestras as Berlin Symphoniker, City of London Sinfonia, Boston Pops, Bogotá Philharmonic, Medellín Philharmonic, Delaware University Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Nashville Symphony.

Rounding out the Colombian musician’s résumé are his show-stopping performance for the 2000 edition of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, where he placed second.

In 2012 and 2017 Torres was awarded a New Jazz Works Grant by Chamber Music America, for which he wrote Forced Displacement and Alegria, his most recent Latin Jazz Recordings.
In 2019 his album Regreso (with the Nueva Filarmonia) was awarded Latin Grammy for Best classical Album.

www.samueltorres.com

Angela Tse is a freshman student at MSM. She was brought up in two cities of China, Beijing and Guangzhou. Angela discovered her ability to compose in a very early age. Although she didn’t receive much formal composing education since she had been studying in public schools, her insistence and determination in composing got her in her favorite school and now studying with Reiko Fueting.
Angela is obsessed with some old arts. She has been influenced by her favorite artist Antonio Lucio Vivaldi from the Baroque period, having many similar preferences in composing. To reappear the charm of Baroque and classical art in a modern language is one of her major goals in music.

Her music often focuses on some moments of certain human emotion. They can be explosive, colorful and sophisticated, which are reflected and marked on the highly varied and passionate melody in her compositions. She believes good pieces of music are able to impact people’s emotion and mood, so she wants to enlighten people through music. In addition to orchestra music, she also writes pop music, and she has recently been invited to participate in the writing of the music for a film in China.

Apart from music, she develops deep interests in many other subjects such as art, literature and astronomy. She is also a talented and skilled painter, and she studied English Literature in high school, which helps her to write lyrics and novel in her spare time.

Foo Jeng Wong is a Malaysian pianist and composer. It is the craft of storytelling that informs his musical character, and his work often finds itself between the spaces of Jazz and Classical music.
He’s both a finalist of The American Prize in Composition and winner of the El Paso Original Music/New Ideas Competition. Moreover, he’s also performed and composed music for several festivals, namely: St. Petersburg New Music Festival, São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival, Borneo Jazz Festival and the Malaysian Jazz Piano Festival (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center).

Foo Jeng holds a degree in Music Performance from Berklee College of Music and will be attending the Manhattan School of Music in Fall 2021. His goal is to create stories from his art, and to uncover beauty in the tradition and evolution of music.

foojeng.com

Meiling Wu, graduated from Department of Composition, Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China. Meiling won scholarships many times and honorary titles of professional excellence for students during her undergraduate. In 2019, Meiling’s piece was selected for the San Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival.

Chinese composer Zizhan Wu finds his unique voice through the obstacles he has encountered throughout his life. Music is not only a language for him to share his growth as a human being and an artist, but also a medium he employs to build up a connection with others to empower their personal experiences through the undeniable universal language of music.

Yeabon Jenny Yi is a Korean American composer-performer currently residing in New York. She is classically trained in double bass and likes to experiment with improvisation and timbre on the instrument. She is also a self-taught producer and continues to explore the technicalities of music production and sound engineering.

Jenny has a bachelor’s in composition from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee which where most of her pieces and performances were debuted. She was able to work on collaborative projects with professional musicians such as Arx Duo and yarn/wire. One of her larger ensemble works was recently performed by The Boston Conservatory’s String Orchestra. Jenny has also worked on many other projects with her friends, peers, and colleagues. During her undergrad years, she has performed (double bass) in numerous concerts with the Boston Conservatory Orchestra. She is now at Manhattan School of Music to pursue her master’s in composition. Jenny works on not developing her musical language but rather the variety of musical language there is. Her most recent works seek to express her own concept of complexity within simplicity.

Chen Shuhe Yue (Yue Chen), a composer, soprano and multi-genre artist, was born in 1995 in SiChuan, China. Yue was awarded bachelor’s degree in Opera Acting from The Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, and went to Mannes School of Music to study with Huang Ruo in Music Composition for master’s degree. Now she is in the professional study program in composition at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Reiko Füting.

As a composer, Yue writes in various styles. Her works include solo, chamber, opera, music theater electroacoustic music and sound installation. Yue has cooperated with many notable musicians such as Jack Quartet, PHACE Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, David Fulmer, and musicians around the world. As a soprano, she used to perform traditional operas such as The Magic Flute, Così fan Tutte and La bohème. Now she is active in performing contemporary vocal music, including her own music. As an interdisciplinary artist, Yue has traveled to more than 20 countries and has participated in many Art festivals and art projects such as Street Installation, Performance Art, Immersive Theatre… In 2017, Yue founded the nonprofit subscription “DramaEtMusica” based on Weibo and WeChat social media, dedicated to public music education of Opera and classical vocal music and new music in China.

https://www.chenshuheyue.com