Terri Sánchez is a Miyazawa Performing Artist and the newly appointed Assistant Professor of Flute at Bowling Green State University. Legendary flutist Paula Robison writes, “Sánchez has a beautiful presence as a player, and her sparkling clear sound spins out and fills the air with poetry.” After Sánchez premiered his new work for flute and piano, Archetypes, composer George Chave wrote, “her ability to pull the audience in and take them along for the ride is a true joy. Terri is a musician’s musician.” She is the author of The Aspiring Flutist's Practice Book Series published by Carolyn Nussbaum Music Co. and her recent compositions include The Walrus and the Carpenter and The Red Queen for flute/narrator and piano as well as Scarborough Fantasy for Solo Flute. She performs on a Miyazawa Classic Rose Silver flute.

Sánchez is a laureate of many national competitions: 1st Prize, National Flute Association Orchestral Audition Competition, 2nd Prize, NFA Young Artist Competition (along with “Best Performance of the Newly Commissioned Work”), 1st Prize, San Diego Flute Guild Artist Gold Competition, 2nd Prize, Myrna W. Brown Artist Competition, 2nd Prize, Upper Midwest Flute Society Young Artist Competition and Finalist, Walfrid Kujala Piccolo Competition. She also performed with the SMU Meadows and UNT Symphony Orchestras as a winner of both university concerto competitions.

An advocate for musician self-care and positive practice sessions, Sánchez is dedicated to creating resources for musicians that help them release practice anxiety and discover their true potential in the practice room. She has given numerous presentations based on these topics at National Flute Association Conventions, flute festivals and universities across the country. Each summer, she performs and teaches as a faculty member for Floot Fire, week-long summer masterclasses for beginner through advanced high school flutists. Sánchez was the flute professor for the University of Texas at Arlington from 2013-2021 where she was also the founder and creative director of the Maverick Flute Choir, a unique flute ensemble that sought to engage and inspire audiences with an unconventional fusion of classic, contemporary, original, and collaborative musical works, often fused with a wide variety of other artistic mediums. Under her guidance, the MFC wrote and performed four original "musical plays" at local, state and national festivals and conventions: Take a Chance, The Princess & The Dragon, As the Fog Descends Upon Us, and I Dream of Flute Choir. Recently, she created two online courses for flutists and teachers of all levels, Fall in Love With Your Flute and the Flute Teacher Superhero Course.

Sánchez received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Flute Performance, with a secondary emphasis in Music Education, from the University of North Texas, where she worked as a Teaching Fellow and Flute Choir conductor. She earned her Master’s degree at Southern Methodist University and her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her past flute instructors include Leticia Ledesma, Helen Blackburn, Jean Larson-Garver, Alexa Still, Kara Kirkendoll Welch, Deborah Baron, Terri Sundberg and Elizabeth McNutt. She is especially grateful to her two mentors, Claire Johnson and Gabriel Sánchez.

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At first evocative of a 1980s video game, Dragon for Solo Flute and Electronics evolves into a highly personal epic quest in which the flutist must face their fears and slay the dragon in front of them. Disruptive wing flaps and a crackling fire remind us that the dragon's flames can instill fear, but the flutist's determined melodies and relentless internal power show us that if we dig deep enough, we can be brave enough to do anything our hearts desire.

Called “a sensitive performer” by the New York Times and “especially impressive” by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, James Johnston is an American musician who enjoys an active and varied career as a pianist, keyboardist, teacher, composer, and arranger. A graduate of the Juilliard School and Yale University, James applies his varied skills and abilities to a wide variety of projects. Performance highlights include premieres of Tyondai Braxton’s Central Market with the London Sinfonietta and LA Philharmonic, a Centennial performance of Pierrot Lunaire with the Proteus Ensemble at the Five Boroughs Music Festival, and performances of John Adams’ Gnarly Buttons and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3 at the 2014 Vail Festival. Concerto appearances include Mozart K453 (with original cadenzas) with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Elliot Carter’s Double Concerto (on Harpsichord) and John Adams Grand Pianola Music with the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra.

A winner in both the Yellow Springs and Fischoff National Chamber Music Competitions with the Proteus Ensemble, James is very active as a chamber musician. A founding member of the Proteus Ensemble, Newspeak, Trio Chimera, and Electric Kompany, he has also performed with the Eighth Blackbird, the Orion Quartet, the Ethel Quartet, Zephyros Winds, Either/Or, the Wordless Orchestra, Oneida, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Artemis Ensemble, and the Fireworks Ensemble. His concert schedule has included performances in Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, Alice Tully Hall, The Whitney Museum, the Ford Theatre, the Library of Congress, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Heinz Hall, Disney Hall, and the Walter Reade Theatre as part of the Great Performers at Lincoln Center series.

An active promoter of new music, James served as the pianist in the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble from 2001-2003 and has worked with Jacob Ter Veldhuis, David Rakowski, David del Tredici, and Mark Mellits on new works. James has also composed and arranged a number of works for his ensembles, as well as electronic tracks as the creator of the modern math pop group inalgebra. Arrangements James has done include Debussy’s ‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun’, Copland’s ‘Appalachian Spring’, Webern’s transcription of Bach’s RICERCAR from the Musical Offering, Eric Dolphy’s ‘Hat and Beard’, and ‘We Won’t Get Fooled Again’ by the Who.

James received his doctoral degree at the Manhattan School of Music and currently lives in Pittsburgh.

Originally from Bangkok, Piyawat Louilarpprasert is a Thai composer/artist who works interweave of composition, visual art and technology. Piyawat has been awarded commissions and prizes including Fromm Foundation Commission, Harvard University (USA), Hellerau Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Commission (Germany), Impuls Composer Commission 2025 (Graz), International Coproduction Fund (IKF)—Goethe Institut, Donaueschingen Musiktage (Germany), ISCM/Asian Composer League Prize 2022 (New Zealand), Südwestrundfunk (SWR) Experimental Studio (Freiburg), MATA Festival (New York), Mizzou Composer Festival (Missouri), ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award 2018, -20 and -21 (USA), Fritz Gerber Award, Lucerne Festival Commission 2021 (Switzerland), American Composer Orchestra-Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, Earshot Reading 2019 (USA), British Council Grants 2021: Connections Through Culture (United Kingdom), The Matan Givol International Composers Competition Winning Prize 2019 (Israel), Call for Scores Northwestern University Conference 2021 (Chicago), Call for Scores the 40th Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival 2019 (Ohio), Pro Helvetia Swiss Art Council (Switzerland), Japan Foundation Director Grants (Japan), Creative Funds by Siam Cement Group Foundation (SCG), the Audrey Kahin Research Fellowship (Mario Einaudi Center), The Charles Stewart Richardson Scholar Award and Commissions (Royal College of Music, UK), Unheard-of//Ensemble Multimedia Prize 2019, The Otto R. Stahl Memorial Award 2018 (USA), Sergei Slonimsky Composition Award 2018 (Russia), Léon Goossens Prize 2016 (UK), Lucerne Festival Academy Young Composer Seminar 2016 (Switzerland), Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra Award 2015 (TH), Rapee Sagarik Award 2018 (TH), Royal concerto orchestral composition prize 2017 (UK), Gabriel Prokofiev Nonclassical Music Competition (UK), Asia-Pacific Saxophone Composition Award 2015 (TH), SEADOM Composition Award 2015 (Philippines), Young Thai Artists Awards, Young Composers in Southeast Asia Competition 2013 (Germany) and many more. In 2017, he was a composer in residence at KulturKontakt 2017 (AIR), Vienna, offered by the Austrian Federal Chancellery Austria. In 2019, his “Smelly Tubes” was featured in CNN News World: “Young and Gifted”. His recent work, “Ohm-Na-Mo” was commissioned by Donaueschinger Musiktage for 100 years celebration in 2021.

Piyawat’s music explores possibilities of creating the amalgamation of sonic and visual arts; including integrating multimedia and music, deconstructing instruments’ s mechanism and physicality with sound production method, and involving Thai traditional music elements in new compositions. Louilarpprasert’s compositions have been performed more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe and United States. His music has drawn attention in numerous music festivals such as Darmstadt New Music Festival (Germany), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), MUSIIKIN AIKA – Time of Music (Finland), European Creative Academy, International Composition Residency (France), Saint Petersburg New Music Festival (Russia), Kulturkontakt Residency (Vienna), Gaudeamus Musikweek (Netherlands), China – ASEAN Music Week (China), London National Portrait (UK), Mozart of Tomorrow (UK), Musica y Arte: Correspondencias Sonoras (Spain), Asian Composer League (Japan) and Dian Red Kechil Young Composers Residency (Singapore).

He collaborated with several established ensembles and orchestras including Tacet(i), Arditti, Alarm Will Sound, Arditti, [Switch~ Ensemble], Berlin Philharmonic Horn Section with Horn Pure, International Contemporary Ensemble, Yarn Wire, Mozaik, Platypus, Meitar, Wet Ink, Lucerne Alumni, Omnibus, Orkest Ereprijs, Oerknal!, Vertixe Sonora, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Trickster Orchestra, Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra, Stockport Youth Orchestra, University Cincinnati Chamber Players, University of Austin Texas Chamber Ensemble, Vienna Improvisor Orchestra, University of Philippines Symphonic Band, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, American Composer Orchestra, Elbland Philharmonie etc.

As an educator, he was awarded the Don Michael Randel Research Fellowship 2021-22 to conduct his new music course: P.I.Y. (Perform it Yourself) at Cornell University, Ithaca where he obtained his D.M.A. in music composition. He also holds M.M. in composition at Royal College of Music, London, B.M. in composition and conducting at College of Music, Mahidol University. His major teachers are Valeriy Rizayev, Dai Fujikura, Gilbert Nuono, Jonathan Cole, Kevin Ernste and Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri.

Piyawat Louilarpprasert holds a DMA in composition from Cornell University where he was awarded the Don Michael Randel Research Fellowship to conduct his new music course: P.I.Y. (Perform it Yourself) as well as degrees from Royal College of Music (M.M.), London and College of Music, Mahidol University (B.M.), Bangkok. Piyawat was previously a faculty at Cornell University, Ithaca College, State University of New York.

Piyawat is currently an Assistant Professor of Composition at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). In Thailand, he is serving as a chair and a program curator for Int-Act Festival (Thailand).

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Fly is originally composed for my dear friend, Pisol Manatchinapisit, a great Thai saxophonist. "fly" is focused on the flowing textures and gestures of saxophones where both sonic materials are reflected in both acoustics and electronics. The fixed media electronics are presenting the variety of timberal resonation of saxophone acoustic sounds in the large space. The acoustic sound (saxophone) creates sonic ambiguities between fragility and distortion which both characters situate sonic scenes of orientation-disorientation and connectivity-disconnectivity.

Born in Le Havre in 1947, Tristan Murail received advanced degrees in classical and North African Arabic from the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes, as well as a degree in economic science, while at the same time pursuing his musical studies. In 1967, he became a student of Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory, and also studied at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, graduating three years later. In 1971, he was awarded the Prix de Rome, and later received a First Prize in composition from the Paris Conservatory. He spent the next two years in Rome, at the Villa Medicis.

Upon returning to Paris in 1973, he co-founded the Ensemble L'Itineraire with a group of young composers and instrumentalists. The ensemble quickly gained wide recognition for its fundamental research in the area of instrumental performance and live electronics.

In the 1980s, Tristan Murail used computer technology to further his research in the analysis and synthesis of acoustic phenomena. He developed his own system of microcomputer-assisted composition, and then collaborated with Ircam for several years, where he taught composition from 1991 to 1997, and took part in the conception of the computer-assisted composition program "Patchwork". In 1997, Tristan Murail was named professor of composition at Columbia University in New York, teaching there until 2010.

Again in Europe, he continued giving master-classes and seminars all over the world, was guest professor at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg for three years, and is currently guest professor at the Shanghai Conservatory.

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For ages, the Fontaine (that is to say the spring) de Vaucluse (vallis clausa: the closed valley), was a place of legends and mysteries. A massive bubbling rises unexpectedly from the ground, water suddenly appears from everywhere, creates whirlpools, clouds of spray, like a small provincial Niagara... Today, we know that it is the resurgence (the exact word is: exsurgence) of a vast system of underground pools and rivers that extends underneath the mountainous area of the region. Weary of Avignon, where Petrarch lived for many years, before returning to his native Italy; and thus the base of the connections: during his years of pilgrimage, Franz Liszt devoted pieces to three of Petrarch’s sonnets, but also to the Villa d'Este and its water displays. When composing Résurgence, I thought a lot about these pieces by Liszt. My piece tries to recreate the sonic turbulence, frothy clouds, iridescence - sometime using instrumental techniques invented by Liszt.

Praised by The Chicago Tribune as “minutely crafted” and “utterly lovely,” The New York Times as “whimsical” and “surreal,” and The Washington Post as “dark and deeply poetic,” the music of composer Marcos Balter (b.1974, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is at once emotionally visceral and intellectually complex, primarily rooted in experimental manipulations of timbre and hyper-dramatization of live performance.

Past honors include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award, fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Tanglewood Music Center (Leonard Bernstein Fellow), two Chamber Music America awards, as well as commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Chicago Symphony Music Now, The Crossing, Meet the Composer, Fromm Foundation at Harvard, The Holland/America Music Society, The MacArthur Foundation, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Recent performances include those at Carnegie Hall, Köln Philharmonie, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, ArtLab at Harvard University, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Hall, Teatro Amazonas, Sala São Paulo, Park Avenue Armory, Miller Theater, Villa Medici, Teatro de Madrid, Bâtiment de Forces Motrices de Genève, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. Recent festival appearances include those at Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, Ecstatic Music Festival, Acht Brücken, Aldeburgh Music Festival, Aspen, Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Neue Musik, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, and Banff Music Festival. Past collaborators include the rock band Deerhoof, dj King Britt and Alarm Will Sound, yMusic and Paul Simon, Claire Chase and the San Francisco Symphony, the International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Orquestra Experimental da Amazonas Filarmonica, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, and conductors Karina Canellakis, Susanna Malkki, Matthias Pintscher, and Steven Schick.

His works are published by PSNY (Schott), and commercial recordings of his music are available through New Amsterdam Records, New Focus Recording, Parlour Tapes+, Oxingale Records, and Navona Records.

He is the Fritz Reiner Professor of Musical Composition at Columbia University, having previously held professorships at the University of California San Diego, Montclair State University, and Columbia College Chicago, visiting professorships at the University of Pittsburgh, Northwestern University, and the University of Pennsylvania, and a pre-doctoral fellowship at Lawrence University. He currently lives in Manhattan, New York.

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My fascination with percussion is directly related to my Brazilian heritage. I remember being mesmerized as a young child watching the enormous percussion ensembles (sometimes over one hundred percussionists) that perform during the official carnival parade in my hometown, Rio de Janeiro. I will never forget the feeling of having my whole body shaking as an involuntary resonator to such potent sounds. The experience was both physical and metaphysical.

When Sam Solomon asked me to write a new work for him, I knew immediately that I wanted to recreate that same transcendental feeling I once experienced. The challenge was to find ways of translating it into a solo piece. It was not until I watched a video with the late Tito Puente that I realized the intensity I wanted to capture had little to do with number of performers or sonic simultaneity. What I was searching for was a proximity to that dangerous zone that blends controlled and uncontrolled virtuosity, rationalized and spontaneous reactions to extremes, unpolished and refined responses to physical challenges. Only by immersing the performer in such frantic, incongruent, almost hypnotic and yet agitated mind state could I hope to convey these feeling to the audience. Descarga is my attempt to create such a sonic world, celebrate Sam’s artistry, and revisit my roots.