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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.