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.

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

Alexandros Darna (b. 1998) is a Cypriot-Cuban composer based in Nicosia, Cyprus and New York City.

Alexandros’ works have been performed in Cyprus, Greece and the United States. His recent chamber work Minnaloushe – for Violin, Piano and Percussion, commissioned by the Cypriot chamber ensemble Trio Ostinato, was recently performed by the group at the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Athens, Greece. In 2015, Alexandros conducted his symphonic work Morning Voyage, with the Municipal Youth Symphony Orchestra of Nicosia in concert halls throughout Cyprus. His quartet Popular Renaissance received the first prize in the second student composition contest Solon Michailides (2016).

Upon graduating from Nicosia’s Music High School in 2016, Alexandros received the OPAP Best Overall Graduate Award. In 2017, after completing his military service, Alexandros traveled to Havana, Cuba and studied Composition at Instituto Superior de Arte under the instruction of Juan Piñera and Javier Iha Rodriguez.

Alexandros is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in classical composition at Manhattan School of Music in NYC, where he studies with Dr. J. Mark Stambaugh. Alexandros is honored to have been the recipient of the Manhattan School of Music International Advisory Board and the Makarios (Cyprus Children’s Fund) scholarship awards.

A native of College Station, Texas, Nicolas Farmer is a composer pursing his master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music. He completed his undergraduate studies in composition and horn performance at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Besides composing, he also has research interests in the study of timbre and orchestration. In July 2019, he gave a presentation titled “Seeing New Colors: Devices of Scriabinian and Post-Scriabinian Orchestration” at the first Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration Project conference at IRCAM.

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.

Yule Han (b.1994), born and raised in South Korea, and currently based in New York City, is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, music educator, and an avid collaborator. She seeks to explore unique conceptualizations of a sonic world that confronts what are perceived as conventions. Her music draws inspiration from various domains such as literature, science, nature and psychoacoustics.

Her music has been featured at SICPP, the Atlantic Music Festival, Tara Helen O’Connor’s Purchase CoM Flute Studio, and by Idith Meshulam Korman from Ensemble Π. She has attended workshops with Michael Finnissy, Nicholas Vines, Pierre Jalbert, and David Ludwig. As a collaborator, she has worked with both the Dance Conservatory and Film Conservatory of SUNY Purchase, which allowed her to work with Min Lee (ballet), Emily Danbi Park (film) and Damani Brissett (film). Recently, she has received the Jan Williams Award for Composition/Contemporary Performance Collaboration.

Upcoming presentations include 4 concerts in following venues: Weimar, Germany; Magdeburg, Germany; NYC, USA; Manhattan School of Music (November 2021).

Yule graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music summa cum laude from SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Gregory Spears, Kamala Sankaram, and Laura Kaminsky for composition; Carmit Zori for violin. She is expected to earn her master’s degree from Manhattan School of Music, studying with Reiko Füting.

www.yulehan.net

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

Euna Joh (b. 1995), a native of Seoul, South Korea, is a composer and a pianist. Euna is currently pursuing a Master of Music in composition at Manhattan School of Music, studying with Reiko Fueting. Her compositions have been performed throughout the United States and South Korea. In 2019, her work Love Languages was selected to be performed by the internationally renowned JACK Quartet. She has received several awards and scholarships including the KU Young Musician Academy Scholarship, the RST Prize from Chun University Music Competition, and a full scholarship from West Virginia University. Euna holds her Bachelor of Music degrees in Piano Performance and Composition from West Virginia University, where she studied piano with Peter Amstutz and composition with David Taddie and Yu-Chun Chien.

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

Sohwa Lee (Seoul, South Korea). Korean-born composer and theorist. Sohwa Lee got bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Composition at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul and a master’s degree in Composition and Theory at Mannes School of Music in New York City.
She believes in a huge sense of humor in music. Under the suggestion that human beings are a social species, she thinks interacting with each other is the key aspect of music. She actively writes music to develop her career as a composer and lives with communicating in the joy of music every day.

Listen on Soundcloud

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).

NYC-based composer Longfei Li (b. 1988) is originally from China. His music has been performed worldwide in North America, Asia, and Europe. He has worked with influential ensembles such as the Longleash Piano Trio, Yarn/Wire, and Loadbang. Li is searching for a way to create a better connection between mechanism and organism in his music. Notable works include his new media chamber opera Simulacrum, Catalyz for orchestra, Aurora for piano trio, and Passacaglia for solo percussionist and electronics. In 2016, his piano and electronic piece Ripples won the Samadis’ Records & International Composition Competition and his Legacy Quartet won the Manhattan Prize in the same year. In 2020, his piece Noisses.. for solo cellist won the first prize in the International Composition Competition by Academia Musica Wien. He has also attended many new music festivals such as the 2017 Loretto Project, the 2018 HighScore festival, the 2020 St. Petersburg International New Music Festival “reMusik.org”, the 2020 Vienna Summer Music Festival, and the 2021 Yarn/Wire International Institute. As the co-founder and the artistic director of Path New Music, he is organizing opera productions that combine contemporary music, new media arts, and dance. Longfei Li is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts at Manhattan School of Music with Dr. Reiko Füting. He is also teaching musicianship and theory at MSM.

www.longfeili.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

Shuwen Liao was born in China in 2001 and studied composition with Dr. Weihao Qiang in Shanghai. In 2012, she attended the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where she majored in composition with Dr. Wenpei Ju. She is currently an undergraduate at Manhattan School of Music where she is a student of Susan Botti.

In 2014, Shuwen became the first young Chinese composer included in the New York Philharmonic’s “Very Young Composers Program.” Her work, Shadow of the Wolf, was performed by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra 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.

In 2015-2017, Shuwen participated in the third “Spring Awakening” National Composition Contest, and her composition, Wolf Shadow, won first place in the chamber music group. Her work, Transfinite, won the prize of excellent composition in the Second National Composition Competition “Yinzhong Cup.” She participated in the fourth “Golden Oriole Awakening Spring Dawn” International Composition Contest and won third prize for her work, The wind comes across the sea, laughing in the leaves.

In 2018, Shuwen curated “Incandescence”, a two-concert series at the Yibo Gallery in Shanghai, featuring her music and that of 8 of her composer colleagues.
In 2020, her string quartet, Pure. Fire, won third place in the Manhattan Prize at MSM.

www.shuwenliao.com

Alexander Liebermann graduated from the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’ Berlin and the Juilliard School. He is currently enrolled in the doctoral program at Manhattan School of Music, studying with Reiko Füting. Recent works include a climate-change-reflective monodrama commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin (2019) and a soundtrack for the documentary film ‘Frozen Corpses Golden Treasures’. He has been a faculty member at Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program since 2017.

www.alexanderliebermann.com

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

Jace Mankins is a native of Kilgore, TX. He holds a Bachelor of Music in composition from Texas Christian University and is currently pursuing a Master of Music in composition from the Manhattan School of Music. Jace has over 15 years of experience playing piano, cello and organ. He studied piano with Sylvia Bolding and Harold Martina and has studied organ with Lorenz Maycher, Founding Director of the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival. Jace is a former piano and cello instructor at Arlington School of Music and currently serves as the Director of Communications for the Roy Perry American Classic Organ Foundation.

Jason McCauley is a composition student in the Professional Studies Program at Manhattan School of Music studying with Reiko Fueting.
He has two master’s degrees from St John’s College in the Liberal arts of Western Civilization from 500 b.c. to the 18th century and in Eastern Classics from India, China, and Japan and has studied Sanskrit and translated sections of the Bhagavad Gita.
Jason studied music composition for his B.A. at Cornish College of the Arts with Professor Jarrad Powell, friend and collaborator of John Cage, and noted student of Lou Harrison. Other teachers of Jason’s include former students of Carl Off and Messian, and in other disciplines, students of William McNeill and Mordmer Adler.
His compositions are inspired by melodic systems from world historic traditions. Attempting synthesis of these, Jason has created his own mathematical model for deriving music rather than creating it, by combining Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory with Phenomenology. Jason is currently preparing his recently completed proof of the infamous 3n+1 conjecture and is hoping to submit it for peer review this year.
Jason’s career is that of a freelance artist and spans a gamut of disciplines such as board membership, higher education, working in the arts industry of thailand and various collaborations with award winning artists internationally.
Jason is a Liberal Arts Composer; he seeks freedom through knowledge for himself and others. Jason finds himself on a path analogous to that of the Bodhisattva and music is his framework for fullfilling that path.

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.

English Composer Ben Munro is a 3rd year Bachelor of Music student under the support of the Parnassus Award at the Royal College of Music, London. Ben’s style encompasses a plethora of genres as he often experiments with different forms and mediums of musical creativity. His orchestral debut was with the Leeds Symphony Orchestra in 2016 where a successful first performance led to two further appearances on the programme later that season. This created an ongoing relationship with the orchestra as both a composer and performer, leading to a commission by The Chamber Orchestra of Leeds; Reflections was first performed in February of 2019 at the Chamber Orchestra’s debut concert.
Aside from composing for orchestral ensembles, Ben is actively involved with the music of his local community, leading to conducting in a variety of Yorkshire ensembles such as Harrogate Male Voice Choir’s 50th Anniversary concert at the Royal Hall, Harrogate, and composing an experimental sensory workshop piece for the visually impaired which combined both acoustic and electronic composition. He recently worked in collaboration with the composition department at the Royal College of Music as a composer and website programmer for Treephonia, an interactive website to explore the connections between sound and the natural world in Kensington Gardens, London.
Aside from commissions, he has taught in schools in Harrogate and Knaresborough, weaving creative aspects of theory and composition into teaching piano. Ben is currently studying on a semester abroad exchange programme at the Manhattan School of Music, New York City.

https://benmunro.uk

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.

Thomas Palmer is a composer and performer based in New York City. His works have been performed by ensembles across the east coast, including the Imani Winds and the Akropolis Quintet. Thomas is the recipient of the John and Lucrecia Herr award for Composition and the Arthur M. Fraser award, as well as the Presser Scholar Award for extraordinary musical and academic accomplishments. He was interviewed in 2019 on South Carolina NPR’s Sonatas and Soundscapes and is published by Murphy Music Press.

Thomas is an advocate for new music, and he maintains a full schedule of projects and commissions. Thomas received his B.M. in Composition from the University of South Carolina and currently studies under Dr. Reiko Füting at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

Liang Christopher Qian won the 2018-2020 the China National Arts Fund (CNAF). He also has won Golden Bell Awards (GBA), the Ablaze International Symphony Awards, the Carl Kanter Prize in Composition (MSM), and his work Cello Song listed in the Famous Chinese Masterpieces of Contemporary Art by China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. He has been commissioned by many organizations, such as the China National Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, the EOS Repertoire Orchestra, the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cheltenham Music Festival in the UK, the Lucca International Music Festival in Italy, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, the International Youth Theatre Festival, and some singers and performers. Since 2016, his works have been recorded and published by ABLAZE Records in USA, his scores published by People’s Music Publishing House in China. He’s also a member of the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC).

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.

Tian Qin is a candidate for a Bachelor of Music in the Composition, Theory and Skills department at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Dr. Marjorie Merryman. She has also studied piano with Jiayin Li at MSM since 2018.

Tian started studying piano at age nine and classical composition at age 10. She studied in the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music for six years with composition professor Din Ying and piano professor Yu Xiangjun until she graduated. Her vocal piece, “The Moon,” won second prize in the vocal category of the Li Ming Chun Xiao China National Composition Competition in 2015. Her trio, “Obsessed,” comprised of traditional Chinese instruments, won second prize in the Yinzhong China National Composition Competition in 2016. This piece was selected to be performed at the 34th Shanghai Spring International Music Festival as well as the Communication Concert of the Xian and Shanghai Music Middle Schools in 2017.

During her three years of studying in Manhattan, Tian has had several opportunities to work with ensembles. In 2019, Tian composed “One to Ten” for the trumpet and soprano duo “Byrne:Kozar:Duo” – though the concert was postponed because of the pandemic. In 2020, Tian composed a wind quintet piece called “Songs for Children” for a recording project with the Windscape Ensemble. This year, she was also invited to write background music in the Podcast Channel 话室 Chat Room.

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.

Adam Sisler is a composer, photographer, visual artist, saxophonist, and pianist from Lexington, Virginia. Adam graduated from Rockbridge county high school in 2011 and has since taken courses at both the New England School of Photography, studying portraiture, and the Academy of Realist Art, where he studied figure and portrait drawing. Adam is a candidate for a Bachelor of Music from the Manhattan School of Music in 2022. Adam has participated in several concerts at MSM as well as in his home town at various churches and local venues of musical interest.

His musical works range from strictly music to multimedia cinemagraphs, or videos of still images with accompanying music, which are often improvised. Upon graduating, he aims to write concert works as well as seek opportunities in advertisement or videogames for commercial employment.

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.

Yuqin (Strucky) Yi is a classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who graduated from the South China University of Technology’s School of Art and is now pursuing his Master of Music in classical composition at Manhattan School of Music. Influenced by a wide variety of music genres, his works aim for a crystallization not only of classical music but also of rock, jazz, and soul music. Apart from working in the commercial music industry (pop production, film scoring), Strucky has also been involved with many classical and jazz events as a composer, orchestrater and consultant. Selected for the NCPA’S (National Grand Theatre) Young Composers Program Award in 2019, his works have been in China, the United States, and Europe. His method of composition—of works that are often literary in conception—reflects the fullness and possibility of contemporary music, freshly processing timbre, harmony, and rhythm to generate a philosophical narration of life experience.

Haihui Zhang was born in Wuhan, China. She studied piano and composition with her father at the age of 4. She attended the Music Middle School Affiliated to Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2013 and studied composition with Professor Ding Ying. She also studied piano with Professor Wang Qing, Zhou Ting and Yu Xiangjun. In 2016, she was accepted by Manhattan School of Music and studied composition with Dr. Reiko Fueting.

Both as a composer and a pianist, Haihui Zhang has received many prizes and scholarships. In 2014, she was in the top ten of the CCTV Piano and Violin Competition for piano in the youth group. In 2015, she won third prize in the China–ASEAN Music Week Art Song Competition, and she won second place in the Advanced Music College’s ninth Chinese Traditional String Quintet Competition. In 2017, she won second prize in the China——ASEAN Music Week Piano Solo Composition; in the same year, she was commissioned by the International Percussion Education Association. In 2018, she won first prize in the WALDORF 100 International Composition Contest. In 2019, she was commissioned by the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, her piece, “The Hourglass,” won third prize in the first Hangzhou Contemporary Music Festival Art Creation Awards International Orchestral Composition Competition and was premiered during the Hangzhou Contemporary Music Festival; in the same year, her orchestral work, “A Journey to the West” was premiered during the 28th “Autumn in Chengdu” International Music Season. Her works have been performed in China, United States and Europe.