photo by Hugo Mantellato

Born in Bogota (Colombia), Felipe Nieto composes music that is rooted in a combination of lyricism and rhythmic complexity and intends to touch upon themes that range from political commentary to simple sound exploration. At the same time, he believes strongly in versatility and feels that his musical language is open to the exigencies of every piece he composes.

Felipe has received first price at the annual PubliqQuartet Composition Competition, first price at the Exit 128 Ensemble Composition Competition, Honorable Mentions at the Buffalo Chamber Players call for scores and the Boston Guitar Festival Composition Competition, and is a two times recipient of the Smadbeck prize for Music Composition at Ithaca College.

Recent engagements include his assignment as Assistant Artistic Director of “Las Americas en Concierto” (New York) and collaborations with “Brower Trio” (Spain), Vox n Plux (New York), and the Bogota Chamber Orchestra (Colombia). Felipe holds a bachelor degree in composition from Oklahoma City University where he studied with Edward Knight and a Masters of music from Ithaca College where he studied with Jorge Grossmann and Dana Wilson.

about Artesiana Sonora:

Artesania Sonora is a work conceived in the manner of an artisanal piece. The opening passages represent raw material from which all other elements of the piece emanate, through a process of constant transformation and growth. As in much artisanal work, form and content are earned and not exposed from the outset. I borrowed this idea from the aesthetic values I encountered in the artisanal work on gold in the indigenous cultures of South America, particularly that of the Colombian territory where I come from.

listen to Cantos Memoriales (2013) performed by the PUBLIQuartet

photo by Hye-Jung Jang

Jihyun Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1988. Studying Composition with Shinuh Lee, she graduated early from Seoul National University with a Bachelor of Music as valedictorian and then earned a master’s degree in Composition. Later, she graduated with a Master of Music from Indiana University where she studied with Don Freund, Aaron Travers and PQ Phan. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at Rice University, studying with Karim Al-Zand and Shih-Hui Chen.

Her composed pieces have been performed at the festivals in Korea such as the Korean Music Expo, the Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival, the Pann Music Festival, and the 2016 ISCM World Music Days. Her works have also been performed in the United States and Brazil, including the 2017 John Donald Robb Composers’ Symposium, the 2017 ISCM New Music Miami Festival, the 2016 LaTEX Festival, the International Symposium of New Music at Curitiba, the RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop, and the Midwest Composers Symposium. Additionally, she won the Libby Larsen Prize in the International Alliance for Women in Music 2015 Search for New Music Competition, the Merit Award in the 1st Lin Yao Ji International Competition for Composition in Hong-Kong, and second place in the Contemporary Music Society Competition for Composition in Korea.

about At Dawn:

At Dawn for orchestra portrays a silent village where church bells ring in the distance. For me, the two phenomena – light from the sun slowly brightening the village and the sound from the church bells slowly filling the air – look and sound similar, because these phenomena gradually change the environment. In this piece, the gradual shift from low light to brightness and meaningless noise to meaningful sound. In order to depict such imaginary scenery, I use the fundamental and the overtones from bell sounds.

listen to an excerpt of Consolation

Niloufar Iravani is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. She received the Bachelor of Piano Performance and the Master of Music Composition from University of Tehran, Iran. Iravani achieved several national honors including the second rank in the field of Musical Arts at the National Master Degree Examination before starting the PhD in Music Composition at Louisiana State University, under the supervision of Prof. Dinos Contantinides. She is now the graduate teaching assistant and the coordinator of the Composers Forum at LSU. Her Music has been performed in Iran, Greece, and the USA by great ensembles and soloists. Athanasios Zervas, Maria Asteriadou, Kostas Tiliakos, Angela Draghicescu, and Amalia Sagona, to name a few, are the soloists who performed Iravani’s music. Summer 2017 concert series at Baton Rouge libraries, conducted by Prof. Constantinides, featured her work, “Shadows in Chase”, for string quartet. The performance of “DIR”, for solo violin, at LMTA 65^th Annual Convention at the University of New Orleans and the performance of “Seven”, fixed media for seven channels, at the University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Festival, are part of Iravani’s recent activities.

about Fantasy:

Fantasy, for Symphonic Orchestra, is part of Niloufar Iravani’s final thesis for her Master degree in Music Composition. In this work, she tries to demonstrate her innovate and personal approach to the concept of fantasy as a musical genre. The work presents the meaningful imitation and development of the thematic ideas as well as the dynamic use of rhythm, register, and texture. The second and fourth intervals, as the main intervallic materials, are smoothly combined with larger intervals to provide a distinct impression of unity and diversity throughout the work.

listen to Shadows in Chase for String Quartet performed by Louisiana Sinfonietta String Quartet and conducted by Prof. Dinos Constantinides

photo credit: Kevin Madison

Robert Rankin (b. 1994) is an Indiana based composer of concert and theatre music. His works are characterized by colorful orchestration, a neoclassical nod to the past, and a deep love of narrative storytelling through music.

Robert’s music has been commissioned and performed by the Burning Coal Theater Company, the Lux Quartet, Split The Lark, and several middle school and high school wind ensembles across the country. He has attended the Atlantic Music Festival (2014) and the Brevard Music Center (2016, 17) where he worked as both a composer and teaching assistant. In addition, he has received several awards and honors including from New York’s Tribeca New Music in which he was named an “Emerging Composer” in 2015 for his Clarinet Quartet.

Upcoming premieres include a large scale flute sonata for Noah Cline,a second string quartet, and a new work for the Indiana University Symphonic Band set to premiere in mid 2018.

Robert is currently pursing a Masters Degree in composition from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

about Nijinsky Dances:

Nijinsky Dances is a piece that has been swirling around in my head for a number of years. I’ve always wanted to write a toe-tapping, pulsating, danceable concert opener. The hard part, of course, is being musically concise by making a big statement in a relatively short time frame. Pieces such as Dvorak’s Carnival, John Adam’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine, or Stravinsky’s Fireworks (and Oliver Knussen’s equally as brilliant Flourish with Fireworks) are constructed in such a way that the audience rides the wave of musical momentum and excitement up until the very end. Its a tough thing to do!

Concerning the title, Valslav Nijinsky has often been described as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. In addition, Nijinsky was arguably the greatest choreographer of the 20th century as well, choreographing such landmark ballets such as Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune, Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel, and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. Myself, along side countless other concert goers, rank these early 20th century ballets as some of our top pieces. In Nijinsky Dances, I create a quasi “pocket concerto for orchestra” that highlights each section of the orchestra doing what they do best while making subtle reference to the masterful orchestration of those famous ballet scores.

The work begins with the curtain rising on beat one, with a brash Russian-esque fanfare. Shortly afterwards, the orchestra becomes almost possessed or haunted by “ghostly” appearances of musical quotes from some of Nijinsky’s famous ballets. As the piece continues, the Russian gestures of the opening become infused with more driving and rhythmic motives, almost something along the lines of modern day pop music. The piece ends with both types of dance music lying on top of one another.

listen to an excerpt of Nijinsky Dances

photo by Photo Story

Sohwa Lee (Seoul, South Korea). Korean-born composer and theorist, Sohwa Lee got bachelor’s and master’s degree in composition at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul. Now she studies music composition and theory at Mannes School of Music in New York City. She believes a huge sense of humor about music. Under the proposition as human are social animals, she thinks interacting each other is the key aspect of music. She actively writes music to develop her career as a composer and lives with communicating in the joy of music every day.

about Palindrome:

Palindrome had the first premiere by Mannes School of Music Orchestra on March 10th, 2017. Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 47 in G major, III movement was nicknamed The Palindrome. Palindrome, like the name itself, this piece has a backward point in the middle of the music. The first section keeps up a tranquil mood and then follows a rhythmical passage. This piece has inspiration from Gamelan music and Asian themes and is arranged for Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra from the original piece.

listen to an excerpt of Palindrome

Nathan Kelly’s music reflects an eclectic mix of musical cultures and influences. From playing gospel piano in East Texas churches, to Broadway in pit orchestras in New York City, to sprinting leaps around the world playing in bands on cruise ships, to working in Hollywood with music producers and film composers, Nathan’s music draws from a variety of inspirations. His work seeks to situate between notions of pulses, ambiguity, virtuosity and quiet beauty.  He has orchestrated for artists such as Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Jackie Evancho, Andrea Bocelli, Jennifer Lopez; Broadway shows (Gypsy, Curtains, The Tony Awards); TV’s Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks on NBC, Audra McDonald on PBS and more; and was recently a Visiting Artist at The American Academy in Rome.

about Redwood:

Redwood opens with a “pedal point” on Ab, that expands in its intensity and stretches its melodic limbs ever-upward, frequently using intervals of the 7th and 9th in its mighty twists and turns, as it infuses brief contrasting moments of alternating powerful and delicate textures that display a somber and majestic dissonant beauty. The expansive tuttis mark  promiment, rentlessly unfurling musical material writhing and aching with intensity and passion that fearlessly clash branch out — above, below and in-between — balancing registral development with motivic seeds of growing contrapuntal figuration and ornamentation that evolve into dense, complex textures and overlapping, competing voices.  The churning and undulating fluidity of multiple stratifications of voices explore the enormous and awesome colorful   orchestral range and dark tessitura of the orchestra, like a fitting musical portrait of our towering national treasures, the great Redwoods.

These massive pillars of old are unmovable monuments that harbor in their sheer enormity a wisdom and fine delicately detailed history of the ancient universe, conveying a solemn strength that seemed to call for great breath and thunderously shaking moments of musical roots that grow hellishly deep and downwards, yet are invisible to us as we only see their incredible topography above the soil. This is a work of contrasting shimmering, delicate moments and also a relentless, constantly yearning, dissonant ascent towards clangourous climaxes and long melodic limbs.

listen to an excerpt of the 2nd mvt. of Leaves

photo by Alessandra Tinozzi

Violinist Elena Urioste, hailed by The Washington Post as “a drop-dead beauty who plays with equal parts passion, sensuality, brains and humor,”  has given acclaimed performances with major orchestras throughout the US as well as in Europe and the UK; has performed as a soloist in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and in recital at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall, among many other venues; and has been a featured artist at such music festivals as Marlboro, Ravinia, La Jolla, Sarasota, and Switzerland’s Sion-Valais International Music Festival. An avid chamber musician, Elena regularly performs in a piano trio with pianist Michael Brown and cellist Nicholas Canellakis, as well as in recital with Michael Brown and pianist Tom Poster. Among her many honors are top awards in the Junior and Senior divisions of the Sphinx Competition, first prize at Switzerland’s Sion International Violin Competition, and the inaugural Sphinx Medal of Excellence. Elena is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and completed graduate studies at The Juilliard School.

photo by Briana Blasko

With his adventuresome spirit and vast musical gifts, violinist Tim Fain has emerged as a mesmerizing presence on the music scene. Fain is seen and heard in the film Black Swan, and gives “voice” to the violin of the lead actor in the hit film 12 Years a Slave, as he did with Richard Gere’s violin in Fox Searchlight’s feature film Bee Season. Most recently, Fain collaborates with Google on a virtual reality (VR) music and film project RESONANCE that introduces VR capability for YouTube to the world.

Launching his career with Young Concert Artists and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has performed with the Baltimore Symphony with conductor Marin Alsop, at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Fain has also appeared with the Mexico City, Tucson, Oxford (UK), and Cincinnati Chamber Symphonies; Brooklyn, Buffalo and Hague Philharmonics; the National Orchestra of Spain; and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in a special performance at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. In addition, he was the featured soloist with the Philip Glass Ensemble at Carnegie Hall in a concert version of Einstein on the Beach, which he performed again this season in South Korea, and he continues to tour the US and Europe in a duo-recital program with Philip Glass.

His multi-media evening Portals premiered in New York, Los Angeles, at its mid-western debut at Omaha’s KANEKO, and at Australia’s Melbourne Festival and Le Lieu Unique in France. The centerpiece of the evening is Partita for Solo Violin, a new work written especially for him by Philip Glass; the production also features collaborations with Benjamin Millepied, Leonard Cohen, and filmmaker Kate Hackett, with radio personality Fred Child appearing on screen.

Tim performs a repertoire ranging widely from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Aaron Jay Kernis and John Corigliano. Fain’s discography features River of Light (Naxos); Arches; The Concerto Project IV with the Hague Philharmonic featuring Philip Glass’s Double Concerto for violin and cellist Wendy Sutter, and Tim Fain Plays Phillip Glass (both on Orange Mountain Music); and most recently First Loves (VIA Records)

Fain has collaborated with such luminaries as Pinchas Zukerman, Richard Goode, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Mitsuko Uchida, and Jonathan Biss, and has appeared with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Seán Curran Company, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. In addition, he performed onstage with the New York City Ballet alongside the dancers in the acclaimed premiere of Benjamin Millepied’s “Double Aria.” Never limited by genre, Fain has also worked with jazz pianists Billy Childs and Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus), Joanna Newsom, Bryce Dessner (The National), guitarist Rich Robinson (Black Crowes), Matchbox Twenty singer-songwriter Rob Thomas (in an appearance at Jazz at Lincoln Center), James Blake, and rappers Das Racist and Rahzel.

A native of Santa Monica, California, Tim Fain is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko; and The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. He performs on a violin made by Francesco Gobetti, Venice 1717, the “Moller,” on extended loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society of Chicago.