Emma grew up in midcoast Maine amidst the seals and the pine trees. She danced to accordion-playing buskers on the uneven cobblestone streets of Portland and listened to the music of crashing waves and peeping frogs. Though she now calls Pittsburgh home, the music of her childhood continues to weave its way into her work. She loves writing programmatic music that exudes whimsy, feminine strength, and a touch of the sea. 

​In 2023, Emma completed her Masters of Music Composition at Carnegie Mellon University, where she saw her first orchestral premiere. Emma has been inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Kappa Lambda honor societies.​

When Emma is not writing music, one can find her knitting, bouldering, reading, or singing with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.

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Victoria Fraser is an Alaska-born soprano and composer. As a soloist and choral soprano, she has sung under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki, Matthew Halls, John Nelson, JoAnn Falletta, Jeffrey Thomas, and Craig Hella Johnson. Victoria was recently a featured vocal soloist with the San Francisco Ballet’s production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Favorite performance projects are those collaborating with artists in other disciplines  including Path of Miracles with ODC Dance Company (video production released in 2025) and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Jessica Lang Dance. She is a founding member of Turas Ensemble, a symphonic-folk duo weaving together classical, folk, trad, and pop on both acoustic and electric instruments.

​As a creator, Victoria’s work has been influenced by her multi-disciplinary mentor at the University of Limerick in Ireland, Óscar Mascareñas and by the late visionary artist, Carmen Helena-Téllez at the University of Notre Dame. Often striving to bring together visual arts, dance, Victoria has enjoyed close collaborations with a dancers, architects, physicists, visual artists, projection designers. Her compositions are rooted in a passion for early and sacred music that seeks to re-contextualize and re-imagine early styles and forms. Her music often explores the commonality between the sacred and the scientific, looking to bring these two often disparate but integrally linked worlds into dialogue.

​Victoria attended Smith College and went on to complete a Master of Music in vocal performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Masters in Sacred Music at the University of Notre Dame. She also completed an MA in Ritual Chant and Song at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

Passionate about the outdoors, and born to a mountaineer father, Victoria loves to row, ski, rock climb, hike, and is a certified PADI SCUBA divemaster.

www.victoriafrasersoprano.com
www.turasensemble.org

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Jordan Berlin Speranzo (They/He) is a composer, conductor and singer from Pittsburgh PA. They studied at CMU, where they received a BFA in music composition, and an AMSC in music entrepreneurship. They received several student awards while at CMU: For 'The Splintered lens', premiered by the CMU Philharmonic, 'string quartet no. 1', recorded by the Carpe Diem String Quartet, and 'Lights Out', a song after the Edward Thomas poem, written for SAI's Unusual ensemble challenge. They also composed The Women on the Wall, an opera with a libretto by Jess Honovich, for 2017's Co Opera program. Current projects include a flute sonata for Trē Abalos,  a second string quartet and a first symphony. They are a founder and artistic director of Suspension Theatrical Arts, and the Millvale Festival orchestra, both of which are dedicated to bringing even more art and music to Millvale. When they aren't writing or learning music, they can be found working at Mr. Smalls Theater; making drinks, constructing, helping in the recording studio, or doing whatever else needs doing. Their heartfelt thanks go out to Nat 28 for this incredible opportunity, Nancy Galbraith, Daniel Nesta Curtis, and Dan Teadt, for their unfailing mentorship, and to Kate Manuel, for being the constant inspiration that she is.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Luis Miguel Delgado Grande is a Colombian composer and Ph.D. student in Composition and Music Theory of University of Pittsburgh. His work as a composer is based on the development of musical discourse, from the structures with musical potential such as literature, physical phenomena, and public space intervention. He has received significant recognitions such as commissions by Siemens Stiftung, 3rd prize in the composition competition with The Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra 2019, Scholarships by the Government of Colombia, Ticino Musica Festival, and New Music on the Point Festival. He has been Artist in residence with the Cepromusic ensemble (México), National Center of Contemporary Arts (Russian Federation), and Copiuensemble (Chile – Ibermúsicas). His scores are published by Babel Scores.

Website: https://www.delgadogrande.com/

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Marina Lopez is a Pittsburgh-based composer, educator, and budding writer. She has a deep interest in challenging borders between musical genres and between art forms in order to create immersive experiences that challenge the listeners' preconceptions.

She started pursuing musical composition in the Fall of 2012, under the guidance of the late Dr. David Stock. In the Spring of 2018, she completed her Master's level studies in Musical Composition under Leonardo Balada, at Carnegie Mellon University.

Her music has been performed by the Transient Canvas, the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Mellon University Contemporary Ensemble, Counter)inductions ensemble, the Carnegie Mellon University Philharmonic, Kamratōn ensemble, and Boston's White Snake Project, amongst others. She has participated in reading sessions with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under maestro Leonard Slatkin, as well as with the Houston Symphony Orchestra under maestra Yue Bao. 

Her first opera 'Not Our First American' premiered at Pittsburgh Opera on April 13th, 2019, as part of Co-Opera; a year-long collaboration between Pittsburgh Opera and Carnegie Mellon’s Music and Drama departments. Her second opera 'Rosa' premiered December 2022 by Boston-based opera company Whitesnake Projects. 

From the fall of 2020 through the Spring of 2021 she developed and led a music education after-school program with local nonprofit Casa San Jose. She is currently developing similar curriculums for Volta Music Foundation, which seeks to make music education accessible to students in need in Latin America and create music programs that help underserved communities in the U.S.

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Composer Victor Valle aims to connect the stories of others to help them feel less alone. He has constantly put his heart into his music since he started playing piano and saxophone from the age of six. After receiving a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition and minor in musical theater from the University of Texas at Arlington, Valle is now pursuing a Masters Degree in Music Composition at Carnegie Mellon University and studying under Nancy Galbraith. He is currently writing multiple chamber works as well as a musical theater song cycle entitled “Coming Out.” Valle has been composing music for solo instruments and ensembles across the country since high school. His music has been performed at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention, UTA and CMU stages, and bars across Texas. Most recently, his orchestra work entitled “and the fool leaped” was premiered in Carnegie Music Hall by the CMU Philharmonic. He was awarded the Lloyd Carr Taliaferro Award for his solo piano piece “Isolated Joy."

Alongside his passion for composing, he has accompanied musicals in various community and high school theaters across North Texas, such as Pocket Sandwich Theatre, North Texas Performing Arts, and Nolan Catholic High School. In 2020, Victor had produced and performed in a cabaret fundraiser to raise money for the Marsha P. Johnson Institute for black trans people. Though Victor prefers to be behind the piano for musicals, he's also been seen on the stage in shows such as Legally Blonde and Mamma Mia!. Aside from theater and music, Victor loves to spend his free time hiking, spending time with family, and exploring new coffee shops to support his caffeine addiction.

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Nicolás Aguía is a composer from Bogotá, Colombia. Aguia received two bachelor’s degrees: one in music from Sergio Arboleda University and one in Philosophy from the Pontifical Xavierian University. He received his M.M in Music Theory and Composition from New York University (Steinhardt), and has studied composition with Ricardo Márquez Romero, Ezequiel Viñao, Eric Moe, Amy Williams, and Mathew Rosenblum. Ensembles and performers such as Sonia Diaz, the JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Loadbang, Duo Cortona, Duo Jacarandá, Bearthoven and Sonic Apricity have performed his music in the United States, Italy, and Colombia. His musical style is characterized by pulsating rhythms and prolonged harmonic fields that change gradually and conceives form as an extension of the rhythmic patterns and melodic motives used to structure his works. Aguia also explores heterophonic textures, expanding musical material through the gradual ornamentation of a main melodic line. In August 2021, the Orfeo Choir from Bogotá premiered an evening length work titled “The American Poetry Choral Cabaret”, a collaboration with transdisciplinary artist Alfonso José Venegas. It is a choral song cycle and performative art piece that sets texts of different American poets from the 18th and 19th century, including: Walt Whitman, Phillis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frances Ellen Watkins. “The American Poetry Choral Cabaret” won the Small Grants Project sponsored by the United States Embassy in Colombia. He received the “Premio Especial” for his String Quartet “Melismas Espectrales” in the Second String Quartet National Composition Competition of Colombia, in 2020; and the 2022 Winner of the William Thomas McKinley Alumni Commission to write a piece for the Estrella Consort that is going to be premiered at the Alba International Music Festival. He was a Composer Fellow at the Alba Composition Festival in 2019 and composer in the Artist in Residency Program at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Pittsburgh. His areas of scholarly research include Latin American Philosophy, Mimetic Theory and Violence, Music and Memory and the literary work of Gamaliel Churata, and has presented his work in musicology, ethnomusicology and cultural studies conferences. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. in Music Theory and Composition at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Emmanuel Berrido (b.1986) is a Dominican-American composer with a passion for telling stories through sound. His work has been performed by a variety of artists including the JACK Quartet and the Amernet String Quartet, cellists Megan Chartier, and Craig Mehler, violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved, and the Illinois Modern Ensemble. Recent experiences have included performances at the American Composer's Orchestra EarShot Readings with the Grand Rapids Symphony, the New Music Miami Festival, the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, and the Ball State University Festival of New Music. He was the recipient of the Louis Smadbeck Composition Prize in Ithaca, NY, for his work "Bend the Knee" for brass quintet, the Ithaca College Orchestral Composition Competition for his "Danza Ritual" for orchestra, and the 2022 Pittsburgh Composer’s Project by ensemble NAT 28. His composition mentors include Eric Moe, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Evis Sammoutis, and Orlando Jacinto García. Emmanuel is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition and Music Theory at the University of Pittsburgh and serves as staff member at the Valencia International Performance Academy and Festival, and the New Music on the Point festival.

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Xinyang Wang is a composer of classical contemporary music, currently based in Pittsburgh. Wang is receiving a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, under the tutorship of renowned composers, Profs. Eric Moe, Mathew Rosenblum, and Amy Williams.

Wang takes a broad spectrum of influences from both the Eastern and Western hemispheres. His music shows excellent skills, depth, and musicality and “balances an onomatopoeic soundworld with a delicate harmonic sophistication and witty, imaginative, capricious orchestration (Thomas Adès, and on the “Modern Music” program of NHK).

Wang receives numerous honors, such as the First Prize of the prestigious 2020 Toru Takemitsu Composition Award. Some notable music events, such as the 2021 Tanglewood Music Festival and the 2022 Beijing Modern Music Festival, have featured Wang at the event. He has worked with world-class interpreters and orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic and Hong Kong New Music Ensemble.

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Nicholas Fagnili is a composer, synthesist, and music historian based in Pittsburgh, PA. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Nicholas received his B.Mus. in Composition from Ithaca College, taking lessons with Dana Wilson, Jorge Grossman, Louise Mygatt, and Evis Sammoutis. He also studied piano with Greg DeTurck, Dmitri Novgorodsky, and Diane Birr; and harpsichord with Jean Clay Radice and Mary Holzhauer.

​At Ithaca College, Nicholas recieved the 2019 Louis Smadbeck Prize for his trio for clarinet, piano and cello Naphtha. He also recieved the Best Music award from the 2019 Ithac Student Film Festival. Nicholas also focused his Music History research on Third Stream music, studying with Dr. Sara Haefeli to present a new historical interpretation of the genre.

​As a composer, Nicholas has explored various notational methods, from strictly notated to freely improvsied, and across a variety of styles. He has composed film scores, music for television, news, and commercials, and also has experience as a jazz session musician and a teacher of piano, music history, and improvisation.

 As a performer, Nicholas enjoys playing and improvising with small ensembles with his cherished Korg Minilogue Synthesizer, Stacy. He is an advocate community-based music making and in-depth collaborations that yield a multitude of possibilities.

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Hannah Ishizaki (b.2000) of Pittsburgh PA, is the youngest female composer ever to have a world premiere with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO). Her composition City of Bridges was played by the PSO at a Fiddlesticks concert in February 2017. The Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra (PYSO) also played City of Bridges in 2017, once at Heinz Hall in May and three times during their tour of Spain in June 2017.

​In February 2018, Hannah was named an Emerging Composer in the Tribeca New Music’s Young Composer Competition Division II for Prism, which was commissioned by Kamraton and premiered by the group on October 15, 2017. In 2016 and 2017, Hannah was also named an Emerging Composer in the Tribeca New Music’s Young Composer Competition Division II for her chamber works: Chronicles, and The Hypothetical Machine.

 Hannah is also a violinist and an aspiring conductor. She was selected as a Solo Winner in the Pittsburgh Concert Society’s (PCS) Young Artist Competition and performed at the Young Artist Winner Recital on March 18, 2018. Since the 2016-2017 season, she has been a co-concertmaster of PYSO, which she has performed with since 2013. Hannah won the PYSO 2015-16 Conducting Competition judged by Maestro Leonard Slatkin. She is both the youngest person and the only female to win that competition since it began.

​Hannah is currently in the studios of Dr. Robert Beaser for composition and Areta Zhulla and Ronald Copes for violin at the Juilliard School. Her teachers have included Dr. David Ludwig and Chris Massa for composition and Hong Guang Jia of the PSO for violin. She also studied composition at the European American Musical Alliance in 2019, the Yellow Barn Young Artist Program in 2018 and 2019, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival during the summer of 2017, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute in 2016, and at the Curtis Summerfest in 2014 and 2015.

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Alex Marthaler is a composer, pianist, and educator based in Pittsburgh, PA. His own compositions have been praised for their “color and translucency,” and are frequently inspired by physical spaces: both natural and man-made structures and phenomenon. Compositions often combine harmonic and rhythmic elements from music around the world, a result of his study of tabla (an Indian classical drum) with renowned player Samir Chatterjee and his own performances of Eastern European folk music with the University of Pittsburgh Carpathian Ensemble. Recent premieres include his piece for wind ensemble “Turning in Air,” his orchestral piece “Concrete Cathedrals,” and incidental music for the play “Eurydice.”

​

In February 2017, he collaborated with choreographer Rubén Graciani on “Tethers, Capsules, and Collisions,” a new piece that premiered at Point Park University. In addition to composing, he is a pianist for dance classes and private lessons at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and Point Park University, and also serves as an administrative assistant for several arts non-profits. He is on faculty at the Carnegie Mellon University Prep-School where he teaches group music classes to children that combine composition, improvisation, and storytelling. After completing his BA at West Chester University, Alex Marthaler studied with Nancy Galbraith at Carnegie Mellon University where he graduated in 2016 (MA).

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Cullyn D. Murphy (b.1993) is a composer, conductor, vocalist, and educator from Champaign, Illinois. His music has been performed by the JACK Quartet, Longleash Trio, Thompson Street Opera Company, New Music Gathering, Concrete Timbre Series, Atlantic Music Festival, New Music On the Point Festival, Illinois State University's Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Louisville University Symphony Orchestra, Hillary LaBonte, Wm. Riley Leitch, and many others. Murphy's music has been described as “theatrical," "riveting and inventive,” and "push[ing] the idea of what music and musical organization is." (Composer's Toolbox) His music draws from his experiences in absurdity, theater, and current events. 

Murphy received his B.M.E. in Music Education-Choral and his B.M. in Theory/Composition from Illinois State University, M.M. in Music Composition at the University of Louisville where he was a recipient of the Bomhard Fellowship, and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh where he received the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In the fall of 2017, he co-founded AmiEnsemble (an experimental trio) for whom he regularly composes, directs, and performs. Murphy has been invited to lecture at Illinois State University and Parkland Community College. He has participated in master classes with Joan Tower, Lee Hyla, Steven Stucky, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, George Lewis, Ted Hearne, Kate Soper, and Andrew Norman. His private studies include Roy Magnuson, Carl Schimmel, Martha C. Horst, Steve Rouse, and Eric Moe.

​NAT 28 will perform his work Come to/Hypnic Jerk for piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion.

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Shaped by sonic sensitivity from a young age, Pittsburgh based composer/performer Devon Osamu Tipp creates unorthodox musical environments from ostensibly incompatible realms. A PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh, Tipp’s music draws influence from his Japanese and Eastern European roots, his experiences as a jeweler and painter, and his studies of gagaku and hogaku in Japan and the US. His compositions focus on rhythmic and timbral transmutation of cyclical materials, ranging from the orchestral, to string basses prepared with honey stirrers, to concerti for traditional Japanese instruments. He received his BMus from Montclair State University, where he studied composition and microtonal music with Dean Drummond, and shakuhachi with Elizabeth Brown. His music has been performed by microtonal specialists Kjell Tore Innervik, Veli Kujala and Tolgahan Çogulu. He has also worked with Rarescale, the Thin Edge New Music Collective, the Sudbury Guitar Trio, and members of Avanti! Chamber Orchestra. His compositions have been featured at the Soundscape Festival, Bowdoin Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Sävellyspaja Summer Composition Masterclasses, and the Tokyo International Double Reed Society Conference. For more information, please visit www.greengiraffemusic.info.

​NAT 28 will perform his work Blood on the Pavement 1984 for bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano.

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Xinyang Wang, a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, is a multiple-prize winner of various composition competitions and has his compositions frequently played around the world.

NAT 28 will perform his work San-Guei for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, and cello.

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Iran-born composer Ramin Akhavijou is a graduate composition student of Carnegie Mellon University where he is currently working on microtonal sounds. The dialectic interrelation between sounds has always been one of the main concerns and motives for his compositions and research works, according to which he is investigating, scientifically, the sound of nature in an interdisciplinary project in order to translate some non-musical elements into music.

He has received several awards for his compositions including the Iranian Music Association (Tehran, Iran, 2013 & 2015), ACIMC (Paris, France, 2014), IMHM (London, England, 2014), ConTempora (Skopje, Macedonia, 2015), Orient/Occident (Lviv, Ukraine, 2015), ABLAZE Records (Cincinnati, USA, 2016), Bruno Maderna (Lviv, Ukraine, 2016).

NAT 28 will perform his work "Miniature Sounds (Quintet No. 3)" for flute, oboe, clarinet, violin and piano.

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Brian Riordan is a composer, performer, improviser, producer, and sound artist originally from Chicago, IL. He is currently an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow and a PhD candidate in Music Composition and Theory at University of Pittsburgh, where he pursues interests in delay-based performance, real-time digital signal processing, and laptop performance aesthetics. Riordan comes from a very diverse musical background and creates music that reflects the eclecticism that he has experienced. He has also studied folkloric drumming in Havana Cuba, and Morelia Mexico. As an avid collaborator, he has performed in numerous ensembles ranging from rock, jazz, classical, and experimental throughout the United States. His compositions have been performed by The JACK Quartet, Wet Ink Ensemble, The Meridian Arts Ensemble, Kamraton, The H2 Quartet, Alia Musica, Wolftrap, and his compositions have been featured at STEIM, SICPP, New Music On The Point, SPLICE, and The Walden Creative Musicians Retreat. 

Visit Brian's website: www.brianriordanmusic.com

Program note:
K. was Composed for the 2015 New Music On The Point Festival. It’s about a bureaucratic stalemate.

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Chatori Shimizu (b. 1990) is a Pittsburgh based composer, shō performer, and sound artist, who constructs his works for a wide range of mediums concerning sound and space. Ranging from orchestral works to sound installations, all of his works engage in repetitive patterns of sound motifs, which aims for the slightest change in the pattern or a silence to act as an accent. As the First Prize Winner of Malta International Composition Competition, Shimizu's works have been performed and exhibited throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, China, and Europe. He has been awarded fellowships from Columbia University School of the Arts, Institute of Medieval Japanese Studies, the Mitsubishi Foundation, Omi International Arts Center, Soundstreams, Toshiba Foundation, Yaddo, among others, and his music scores are published from United Music & Media Publishing, Belgium. Shimizu obtained his MFA in Sound Arts from Columbia University, New York City, and received his BA in Computer Music from Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, as a recipient of the Arima Prize; the highest honor bestowed upon the graduating class. He is currently a doctoral candidate in composition and theory at the University of Pittsburgh.

Visit Chatori's website: www.chatorishimizu.com

Program Note:
Being a Hermit tries to promote a new insight on the introverts’ minds. In Western cultures, quietness is often times associated with negative connotations such as awkwardness, gloominess, repression, and in some cases, lifelessness. But I believe that a quiet character of one can be carefully carved out to mold a unique and clear voice. This is what is sounding in my mind.

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Alex Marthaler is a composer, pianist, and educator based in Pittsburgh, PA. His music has been praised for its “color and translucency,” and is frequently inspired by physical spaces: both natural and man-made structures and phenomenon. Compositions often combine harmonic and rhythmic elements from music around the world, including Indian classical drumming (tabla) and Eastern European folk music. In addition to composing, he is an improvisatory pianist for modern dance and ballet classes at Point Park University. Alex Marthaler studied with Nancy Galbraith at Carnegie Mellon University where he graduated in 2016 (MA).

Alex's program note:

"(Un)organized Lightning has at its center, an incisive, nearly violent obsession with rhythm. Clashing accents tumble forward in asymmetrical groupings, when suddenly the ensemble arrives at a tutti rhythm that lurches and drags uneasily. In the middle section, a tangled counterpoint between the flute and clarinet dances along while the piano and vibraphone trade echoes. The music loses momentum briefly, fizzling out with the strings before jumping immediately back into time. When the final rhythmic section arrives, the ensemble threatens to lose control, the register continually widens. The entire piece is meant to be unpredictable yet inevitable, with the pointed power of electricity."

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Brian Riordan is a composer, performer, improviser, producer, and sound artist originally from Chicago, IL. and is in his fourth year as a PhD student in music composition and theory at University of Pittsburgh. His research interests involve real-time digital signal processing, and laptop performance aesthetics. He comes from a very diverse musical background and creates music that reflects the eclecticism that he has experienced by attempting to fuse traditionally separate sound worlds generated by interaction of instrumental performers and computerized gestures. He has also studied folkloric drumming in Havana Cuba, and Morelia Mexico. As an avid collaborator, he has performed in numerous ensembles ranging from rock, jazz, classical, and experimental throughout the united states. His compositions have been performed by The JACK Quartet, Ensemble, Linea, Wet Ink Ensemble, The Meridian Arts Ensemble, The H2 Quartet, Alia Musica, Kamraton, and Wolftrap. His music has been featured at SICPP, New Music On The Point, SPLICE, NSEME, and The Walden Creative Musicians Retreat.

Website: http://www.brianriordanmusic.com

Bandcamp: https://brianriordan.bandcamp.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/guaguanco127

​Brian's program note:

"The Moon Is Drifting Away From The Earth, Don’t Think About It was composed for Ensemble Linea for their Residency in Pittsburgh in 2016. The title comes from a discussion I overheard on a local radio station."

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Adam Shield is a composer, sound designer, and audio engineer specializing in both concert and film music. He completed his Master's in Music Composition at Carnegie Mellon University where he also studied as an undergraduate. Recently, he returned from additional studies in Scoring for Film and Visual Media at Pulse College in Dublin, Ireland. He has worked extensively under renowned composer Prof. Reza Vali and audio savant Prof. Riccardo Schulz.

Adam has composed a vast array of concert music in many different styles often exploring rich timbral and rhythmic complexity, aggressive drive, and surrealistic undertones. His first album "Sonic Eugenics" is available to purchase on Amazon. He has composed the score and provided audio work for multiple films and video games. He is currently working as the composer sound editor for the upcoming documentary “Life in Decay.” Adam has written for contemporary dance and has specialized in electronic music, even designing his own electronic instrument and a sound art installation at Kennywood Park. For music and other information, visit adamshieldcomposer.com.

Adam's program note:

"Intersubjectivity is an experimental work for chamber ensemble and electronics that cannot be performed with a conductor. Each player is performing at different, unrelated tempos which often change independently. The ensemble is coordinated through individual click tracks fed to their headphones. I designed this approach so that I could create extremely complex rhythmic counterpoint within the music while still writing clear and more simplistic lines for each individual part. The final result is a constantly evolving soundscape of controlled chaos that is further supplemented with the chaotic electronic sounds."

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