Beth Ratay is a versatile composer who is able to craft music using a wide variety of styles and techniques. From music possessed of a quiet, understated grace, to music that plays joyfully with mathematical concepts, to laugh out loud operatic fun, her music is engaging, charming and beautiful.
Dr. Ratay received her Doctor of Musical Arts in World Music Composition from the University of California, Santa Cruz and has had works performed around the world by ensembles such as Earplay, West Edge Opera, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Boston Opera Collaborative, Coalescence Percussion Duo, and the Cambridge Chamber Singers.
Ratay currently teaches at the University of New Mexico as well as with the Active Learning Through Opera program at the Santa Fe Opera. She lives with her amazing family including one husband, two sons, and two cats in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Leah Reid is a composer, sound artist, researcher, and educator, whose works range from opera, chamber, and vocal music, to acousmatic, electroacoustic works, and interactive sound installations. Her primary research interests involve the perception, modeling, and compositional applications of timbre.
Winner of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship, Reid has also won the American Prize, first prizes in the International “New Vision” Composition Competition, the KLANG! International Electroacoustic Composition Competition, and Musicworks’ Electronic Music Competition, Sound of the Year’s Composed with Sound Award, IAWM’s Pauline Oliveros Award, and second prizes in the Iannis Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition and the International Destellos Competition. She has received fellowships from the Guerilla Opera Company, Transient Canvas, Copland House, the Hambidge Center, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), the Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo.
Her compositions have been presented at festivals, conferences, and in major venues throughout the world, including Aveiro_Síntese (Portugal), BEAST FEaST (England), Espacios Sonoros (Argentina), EviMus (Germany), Forgotten Spaces: EuroMicrofest (Germany), ICMC (USA & Chile), IRCAM’s ManiFeste (France), LA Philharmonic's Noon to Midnight (USA), the Matera Intermedia Festival (Italy), NYCEMF (USA), the OUA Electroacoustic Music Festival (Japan), the SF Tape Music Festival (USA), Série de Música de Câmara (Brazil), the SCI National Conference (USA), Soochow New Voice Concert Series (China), the SMC Conference (Germany), the Tilde New Music Festival (Australia), TIES (Canada), and WOCMAT (Taiwan), among many others.
Reid received her D.M.A. and M.A. in music composition from Stanford University and her B.Mus from McGill University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at the University of Virginia.
Stephen Caldwellis fascinated with writing music which gives audiences immersive experiences.
Inspired by popular avant-garde movements, Caldwell has sought to combine the accessible and the unfamiliar. Whether for full orchestra, chamber ensemble, soloist, electronics, or anything in between, Caldwell’s music welcomes performer engagement and repeated listening. Emotional sensitivity stems from research on the psychology of listening, while machine-like rhythms and noisy settings arise from experiments in glitch art and computer science. Caldwell often creates artwork, animation, and poetry to transform his music into engrossing multimedia works.
No matter the current study, Caldwell is keen to find the next far-flung topic to incorporate into his ever-expanding fabric of music.
A native of Stafford, Virginia, Melika M. Fitzhugh (A.B. Harvard-Radcliffe: Music Theory and Composition, M.M. Longy School of Bard College: Composition) has studied conducting and composition with Thomas G. Everett, Beverly Taylor, James Yannatos, Julian Pellicano, Roger Marsh, Jeff Stadelman, and, most recently, Osnat Netzer and John Howell Morrison.
The artist, who has composed music for film and stage, was a member of Just In Time Composers and Players and is currently a member of world/early music ensemble Urban Myth and the early music ensemble Quilisma Consort, in addition to playing bass guitar with acoustic rock singer/songwriter Emmy Cerra, the ambient rock band Rose Cabal, the symphonic metal band Illusion's End, and the Balkan folk dance band Balkan Fields.
Mel enjoys teaching and playing a variety of instruments for folk dance ensembles, including: violin/viola/violoncello/double bass; acoustic guitar/bass; recorders; flute; clarinet; saxophone; trumpet; hand percussion including dumbek/djembe/kahoun.
Sunny Lee is a dynamic force in the world of music, seamlessly blending classical piano virtuosity with a modern flair for innovation. Hailing from South Korea, Huiseon's journey began at the prestigious Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School, where she honed her craft and developed a profound appreciation for the intricacies of classical composition. This foundation laid the groundwork for her distinctive sound, characterized by a seamless fusion of classical elegance and contemporary creativity.
John Masko, a Rhode Island native, is a rapidly rising orchestral conductor with a knack for bringing contemporary music and time-honored classics together in new ways. He is currently music director of the Brockton Symphony Orchestra and the Providence Medical Orchestra, director of orchestral activities at Marywood University, and a frequent assistant and cover conductor with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra. An enthusiastic advocate for new music, John is principal conductor of the Boston New Music Initiative. He has conducted at the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music and the Atlantic Music Festival, and led numerous premieres, including recent works by Robert Ruohola and Oana Vardianu.
John holds a master’s degree in conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Eric Dudley. He has also studied conducting with Charles Peltz at New England Conservatory. John has conducted in masterclasses led by Cristian Măcelaru, Rüdiger Bohn, Sian Edwards, Paavo Järvi, and Jorma Panula, and has assisted conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Krzysztof Urbanski, Cristian Măcelaru, and Osmo Vänskä.
Outside of music, he fancies himself maker of the best gumbo north of the Mason Dixon Line and is a devotee of the novels of Thomas Hardy.
Jarod Apple is a Saxophonist and Educator currently based in New Jersey with a passion for new music and expanding the saxophone’s role in classical music. As a performer, Jarod has been featured with various orchestras, wind ensembles, jazz orchestras, chamber ensembles, and as a soloist across the country. Recently, Jarod was a Performance Fellow at the 2023 Cortona Sessions for New Music hosted in Cortona, Italy. In competition, Jarod has placed Second in the 2023 London Classical Music Competition, won the Bergen Philharmonic Young Artist Competition and was the winner of the 2024 Rutgers University Graduate Concerto Competition and the 2017 ATU Concerto Competition. As an active chamber musician, Jarod is the Saxophonist for the Voyager Reed Quintet. The ensemble was awarded the Ensemble Forward Grant through Chamber Music America and was a Semi-Finalist at the 2024 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
Jarod is a Doctoral Candidate in Saxophone Performance at Rutgers University - studying under Dr. Paul Cohen. Jarod holds a Master of Music Degree in Saxophone Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music Education from Arkansas Tech University, studying saxophone with Mr. Ken Futterer, and voice with Dr. John Clements.
Jarod is a Silverstein Works Artist and plays with Silverstein Works Ligatures.
