Drawing from inspirations as diverse as Medieval chant to contemporary pop, the music of composer and conductor Evan Williams (b. 1988) explores the thin lines between beauty and disquieting, joyDrawing from inspirations as diverse as Medieval chant to contemporary pop, the music of composer and conductor Evan Williams (b. 1988) explores the thin lines between beauty and disquieting, joy and sorrow, and simple and complex, while often tackling important social and political issues. Williams’ catalogue contains a broad range of work, from vocal and operatic offerings to instrumental works, along with electronic music.

His music been performed and commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble, Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra, Quince Ensemble, American Brass Quintet, and by the Cincinnati, Toledo, Detroit, Seattle, and National Symphonies. He has received performances at festivals such as MATA, RED NOTE, the New Music Gathering, Strange Beautiful Music, SEAMUS, and the New York City Electronic Music Festival.

Williams has received awards and recognition from the American Prize, the National Federation of Music Clubs, ASCAP, Fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and served and sorrow, and simple and complex, while often tackling important social andas the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Classical Roots Composer-in-Residence in 2018. He currently serves as Composer-in-Residence for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Williams holds a DMA in Composition with a cognate in Orchestral Conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, where he served as a teaching assistant in electronic music. He also holds degrees from Bowling Green State University and Lawrence University.

Originally from the Chicagoland area, Williams resides in Boston, MA and serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at the Berklee College of Music, where he teaches composition, conducting, music technology, harmony, and counterpoint.

Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant folk vocalist who explores corners and colors of the voice frequently deemed to be "untrained" and not "classical." Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads and unapologetically joyous Dolly Parton covers. Annika writes extensively for her own voice, including composing a growing repertoire of “feminist rager-lullabies” titled Don’t say a word, which serves to confront centuries of damaging lessons taught to young children by retelling old lullaby texts for a new, queer era. Annika has taken Don’t say a word on the road, performing with ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, New European Ensemble, Albany Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Latitude 49, and Contemporaneous. Her follow-up feminist rager-lullaby song cycle in collaboration with ~Nois, titled I Tell You Me, was recognized by the Chicago Tribune as “grotesquely gorgeous… among the most captivating compositions heard the whole festival [Ear Taxi 2021]” and was included in their “Chicago's Top 10 for classical music, opera and jazz that defined 2021.” Recordings of her music are available on New Amsterdam, Bright Shiny Things, Naxos, and Innova record labels. Her research focuses on contemporary vocal music, using the music of Dolly Parton to create a pedagogical approach to composition that is inclusive of a wide range of vocal qualities, genres, and colors. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado Boulder, and is the recipient of the 2021 Gaudeamus Award. She holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University.

www.aksocolofsky.com

Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida Shirazi is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Shirazi’s music is described as ”unfolding with deliberation” by The New York Times, “well-made” and “affecting” by The New Yorker, and “unusually creative” by San Francisco Classical Voice. In her works for solo instruments, voice, ensemble, orchestra, and electronics, she mainly focuses on timbre for organizing structures inspired by Persian and English languages and literature.

Shirazi’s music has been featured at festivals and concert series, including Manifeste, Wien Modern, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, OutHear New Music Week, MATA, Marlboro Music Festival, Direct Current, Taproot, and Tehran Contemporary Music Festival in venues such as Maison de la Radio France, Radialsystem Berlin, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Kennedy Center. Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Miranda Cuckson, International Contemporary Ensemble, Oerknal, Quince Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Sarah Cahill, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, are among the performers of Shirazi’s music.

Shirazi holds a Ph.D. in composition and music theory from the University of California, Davis. She has studied with Mika Pelo, Pablo Ortiz, Kurt Rohde, Yiğit Aydın, Tolga Yayalar, Onur Türkmen, and Hooshyar Khayam, and participated in workshops and masterclasses by Mark Andre, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Riccardo Piacentini, and Füsun Köksal, among others. She is a 2022 graduate of IRCAM’s “Cursus Program in Composition and Computer Music.” Shirazi holds a B.M. in music composition and theory from Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey) and a B.A. in classical piano from Tehran University of Art (Iran.) She has studied santoor (traditional Iranian hammered dulcimer) with Parissa Khosravi Samani.

Shirazi is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Iranian Female Composers Association (IFCA.) Shirazi’s music is published by BabelScores.

Composer Paul Pinto creates, performs and produces experimental music and theatrical works, primarily focused innovative and engaging new form of opera-theater that fuse the musicality of American speech, poetry, classical music, extended vocal techniques and electronic sound art. He is a founding member of the acclaimed collectives Varispeed and thingNY, and his music has been performed across the U.S. and internationally with and by ensembles, performers and presenters around the world, including Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ne(x)tworks, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, loadbang, wildUP!, The Industry in LA, The Royal Scottish Academy Chamber Chorus, the Carnegie Mellon Concert Chorus, New Thread Saxophone Quartet, Iktus Percussion, BRIC Arts, The Whitney Biennial, The Kitchen, Roulette, Experiments in Opera, the Panoply Performance Laboratory and Performa.

His recent work as a composer, collaborator, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist has been praised in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, NewMusicBox, and Time Out New York. His opera Thomas Paine in Violence was hailed as "expressive, impressive and engaging" by the Times, and "thrilling and rare, and must be experienced" by Schmopera. With his performance collective, Varispeed, Paul created a new site-specific arrangement of Robert Ashley's seminal opera for television, Perfect Lives, which made TONY's "Best of 2011" List and was praised by the Times as one of the "standout operas of recent decades."

For years, Paul has been an advocate of underrepresented experimentalists in the classical music concert halls, particularly Julius Eastman and Robert Ashley, and has worked to diversify modern opera and experimental music theatre both in casting, and in form and style. Paul has chosen to work equally with traditional instruments and vocalists, lo-fi electronics, unconventional sound-makers and amateur musicians, creating one-minute opera, concert length chamber music, and durational performance art. At the helm of thingNY, Paul has premiered hundreds of works from emerging and established composers including Pauline Oliveros, Vinko Globokar, Art Jarvinen, Gelsey Bell, John King, Kyle Gann, Rick Burkhardt, and Gerard Grisey. With thingNY, he co-created and performed the operas ADDDDDDDDD (2008), TIME: A Complete Explanation in Three Parts (2011), Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, Patriots, Run for Public Office on a Platform of Swift and Righteous Immigration Reform, Lots of Jobs, and a Healthy Environment (2013), and This Takes Place Close By (2015). Of their latest work, the new music journal I Care If You Listen writes "rarely, if ever, [have I] seen an encyclopedic array of experimental effects so intimately linked with their expressive potential."

As a vocalist, Paul has performed in the U.S. and Asia in untraditional chamber music works and experimental and improvisatory creations, including the five-octave lead role in Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, in John Sanborn and Dorian Wallace's video opera, Temptation of St. Anthony, and originating the Broadway role of Balaga in Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin's hit musical, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

Scenes from his ballet, Miseke are available on DVD and CD through the educational UK label, Learning and Teaching Scotland. In addition to thingNY's comic book opera release ADDDDDDDDD and their latest album minis/Trajectories, Paul has self-released four albums: The Gentlemen (2009), a suite for vocals and electronics, Every Note on the Piano (2010), NUDES: live at the Mary Benson Gallery (2010), and For Stefanos Tsigrimanis (2011) an elegy for turntables, voice, guitar and electronics. His scores have been published by Deep Listening Publications.

Paul is a recipient of several awards and grants from the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New Music USA, Chamber Music America, The Puffin Foundation, and a three-year residency at the HERE Arts Center, where he developed Thomas Paine in Violence. He was born and raised in Queens, a child of immigrants, studied at Carnegie Mellon with Nancy Galbraith, Leonardo Balada and with Robert Page, and then at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with John Maxwell Geddes, before moving back to New York. He now lives in Jersey City with his wife, Amanda, and their dog, Lady.