Danny Fratina is a composer and trumpet player based in Pittsburgh and Istanbul. His work ties together improvisation and notation with themes of belonging, detachment, and control, and this year’s upcoming projects center around augmented trumpet (primarily motion tracking) and performance choreography-as-music. His work has been played by Hezarfen Ensemble in Istanbul, the University of Memphis New Music Ensemble, and the Boston Pops, with concerts scheduled this year with Ensemble Dal Niente and Unheard-of Ensemble.
Danny received his MA in Composition from the Istanbul Technical University Centre for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM) in Istanbul, Turkey, and holds a BM in Jazz Composition from the Berklee College of Music. From 2019 to 2022 he was Lecturer of Jazz Composition at the Istanbul University State Conservatory. He currently lives in Pittsburgh with his partner ilkim, a brilliant anthropologist, and their dog Köfte, while he works on his PhD in Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh.
Social media links:
website - www.dannyfratinacomposer.com
Instagram - www.instagram.com/dannyfratina
Jordan M. Holloway is an American composer, conductor, and violist. His music draws from a diverse array of inspirations, including the natural beauty of his home states of Pennsylvania and Colorado, the colossal and imaginative fantasy soundscapes of such media as Star Wars and The Legend of Zelda, and the current intense and outrageous political climate of the United States. While he very much enjoys writing chamber works, he has a particular passion for orchestral music, of which he has composed two symphonies and multiple tone-poems.
As a composer, Holloway has worked with groups such as ~Nois, the Ivalas Quartet, the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, he was commissioned by Peter Oundjian and the Colorado Music Festival to write the opening work for a concert entirely comprised of world premieres by himself, Carter Pann, and Adolphus Hailstork in July of 2023.
Holloway also directs the Dad Village Symphony Orchestra, a new virtual orchestra formed out of the COVID-19 pandemic dedicated to performing new and diverse works. The DVSO has produced four orchestral albums to date, premiering eleven new works by six different composers since 2020.
Holloway graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2021, earning a Bachelor of Music in composition and viola performance. There, he studied composition with Carter Pann, Dan Kellogg, and Annika Socolofsky, viola with Erika Eckert and former Tacáks Quartet violist Geraldine Walther, and conducting with Maestro Gary Lewis. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in composition at Carnegie Mellon University, under the tutelage of Nancy Galbraith.
In his spare time, Holloway enjoys hiking, surfing, and finding. He is a big Nintendo fan and enjoys playing video games, and he indulges in Star Wars marathons probably more often than is healthy.
Naama Perel-Tzadok is a composer, creator, and scholar known for her diverse music styles performed globally. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, PA. She has been mentored by renowned professors like Oded Zehavi, Eitan Steinberg, Hagar Kadima, Eric Moe, and Amy Williams. Naama derives inspiration from various sources such as nature, plastic art, current events, physical and acoustical space, cultural anthropology, and more. She continuously explores and pushes the limits of musical styles and traditions, particularly her Yemenite and Tunisian roots. Naama's latest album, "Memory Traces," is a song cycle structuredvaround the circle of life and was inspired by the songs of Yemenite Jewish women. It comprises original instrumental pieces interwoven with songs written in Yemeni Arabic, alternating between traditional and modern sections. Over the past three years, Naama has lectured about her music and research in various countries.