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 JACK BEESON
Born 1921 in "Middletown, USA" (Muncie, Indiana) and, in part, of Native American lineage. Accordingly, perhaps, most of his ten operas are based on American subjects. Best known are Hello Out There and Lizzie Border, performed often in the US and in Europe. When not collaborating with Kenward Elmslie, William Saroyan, and Sheldon Harnick, he has fashioned his own libretto. He has composed a large amount of vocal music — songs and choral music — and some instrumental and orchestral music. He is presently MacDowell Professor of Music Emeritus at Columbia University, where he taught for half a century. He has served on the boards of many organizations that aid American composers, including the ASCAP Board (1991-95).
 DEREK BERMEL
Described by the Toronto Star as "an eclectic with wide open ears", Derek Bermel has been widely hailed for his creativity and theatricality as a composer and his virtuosity and charisma as a performer. Known for drawing freely from a rich variety of musical genres - including classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, and gospel - he filters the sounds of the world through his own musical palette, crafting a singular artistic vision. From the complex Bulgarian melodies in Tied Shifts, to Irish bagpipes coupled by Led Zepplin-inspired riffs in Voices, Bermel infuses his music with the rhythms and inflections of myriad folk traditions while maintaining a sophisticated and distinctive style of orchestration, harmony, and counterpoint.
As a composer of concert music, Bermel currently serves as the 2006-2009 Music Alive Composer-in-Residence of the American Composers Orchestra, curating its ongoing series Orchestra Underground: Composers Out Front. Projects during the 2006-2007 season included the world premiere of The Migration Series for Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in conjunction with ACO, and Thracian Echoes, performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. His commissions include works for the National, St. Louis,Pacific, and Pittsburgh Symphonies, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, eighth blackbird, WNYC radio, De Ereprijs (Netherlands), Jazz Xchange (U.K.), pianist Christopher Taylor, and cellist Fred Sherry. His premiere CD of chamber music, Soul Garden, was released last season to critical acclaim. "Soul Garden is a superb album of consistently winning chamber works that demonstrate how a brilliant musical vagabond..."(Sequenza 21).
As clarinetist, he has appeared throughout the U.S. and Europe, including recitals in New York, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Detroit, Jerusalem, The Hague, and Paris, and radio broadcasts on both sides of the Atlantic. He has premiered dozens of new works including his clarinet concerto Voices, which created a sensation at the Carnegie Hall premiere, and which he has since performed with the BBC Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, and others. In 2007, he returned to the LA Philharmonic as guest soloist, performing John Adams' Gnarly Buttons with the composer conducting, and he performed Voices with the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra at the Beijing Modern Music Festival. Bermel is also the founding clarinetist of Music from Copland House and co-artistic director of the Dutch-American interdisciplinary ensemble TONK. In addition, he rocks it with his Brooklyn-based band Peace by Piece as bandeader/singer/songwriter.
His upcoming musical Golden Motors - written with librettist/lyricist Wendy S. Walters - will be produced in Spring 2009 by Music Theatre Group. Bermel and Walters have also collaborated on The Good Life, a new work for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Mendelssohn Choir to be premiered by Leonard Slatkin in Oct. 2008. Bermel's many awards include the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Faber Music, and residencies at Tanglewood, Banff, Yaddo, Civitella Ranieri, Sacatar, Bellagio, and Aspen. As an educator, he is founding director of the New York Youth Symphony’s Making Score program for young composers, hosted by ASCAP and the League of American Orchestras, and he has taught masterclasses internationally. His music is published by Peermusic Classical (US) and Faber Music (Europe/Australia). To learn more about Derek Bermel, visit www.derekbermel.com.
 JOHN CORIGLIANO
John Corigliano, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Symphony No. 2, is internationally celebrated as one of the leading composers of his generation. In orchestral, chamber, opera and film work, he has won global acclaim for his highly expressive and compelling compositions as well as his kaleidoscopic, ever-expanding technique.
In 2000, Corigliano won another coveted prize: the "Oscar," the Academy Award, for "The Red Violin," his third film score. He was the second classical composer, after Aaron Copland, to be so honored.
In 1996, the recording of his string quartet, like that of the Symphony No. 1, won Grammy Awards both for Best Performance and again for Best New Composition, making Corigliano the first composer to win twice in the history of that award.
Corigliano attracted unparalleled international attention with the premieres, respectively, of his Symphony No. 1, and his opera The Ghosts of Versailles. In 1991, the Metropolitan Opera unveiled its centennial commission, and its first new opera in 25 years -- Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles. The symphony -- Corigliano's impassioned personal response to the AIDS crisis -- was commissioned and first performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Upon its premiere, it was immediately scheduled by virtually all of the leading orchestras in the country, and later captured for Corigliano music's Nobel Prize -- the 1991 Grawemeyer Award for Best New Orchestral Composition. Chicago's recording of the piece on the Erato label also won two Grammy awards.
Mr. Corigliano was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, an organization of 250 of America's most prominent artists, sculptors, architects, writers, and composers.
 JENNIFER HIGDON
Jennifer Higdon is active as a freelance composer. She has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters (two awards), the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the International League of Women Composers, Composers Inc. (the Lee Ettelson Prize), the University of Delaware New Music Competition, the Louisville Orchestra New Music Search, the Cincinnati Symphony's Young Composer's Competition, NACUSA, and ASCAP. In addition she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Music From Angel Fire Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Walden School, the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco (Continental Harmony Project), and currently with the Prism Saxophone Quartet. Her work, "Shine" (commissioned by the ASCAP Foundation), was named Best Contemporary Piece of 1996 by USA Today in their year-end classical picks.
Upcoming commissions include works for The Philadelphia Orchestra (one of their Centennial Commissions), St. Lukes' Chamber Ensemble, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, eighth blackbird, the Cypress String Quartet, the Verdehr Trio, the Vail Music Festival, the Atlanta Symphony, and the American Guild of Organists. Recent commissions come from groups that are as diverse as the Minnesota Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, the Curtis Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Women's Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Singers, pianist Gary Graffman and the Lark String Quartet , The Network for New Music, The National Flute Association, the DaVinci String Quartet, ZAWA! and flutist Carol Wincenc.
Ms. Higdon's works have been performed extensively around the country, including performances at the White House, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully, Carnegie Hall, and by such performers as Carol Wincenc, Jeffrey Khaner, Marc-Andre Hamelin, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Miami String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, The Pacifica String Quartet, The Prism Sax Quartet, Synchronia, Earplay, the Cleveland Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, the New England Philharmonic, and the Knoxville Symphony.
Her works have been recorded on 14 CDs. In the coming months, the following works will be released on various labels: "running the edgE" (Neuma), "wissahickon poeTrees" (Albany), "blue cathedral" (Albany), "Deep In The Night" (New World) and "Short Stories". As a flutist, she is recorded on the Access and I Virtuosi labels and as a conductor on CRI.
She holds a Ph.D. and a M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in composition, a B.M. in flute performance from Bowling Green State University, and an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her teachers have included George Crumb, James Primosch, Jay Reise, Ned Rorem, and Marilyn Shrude (composition), Judith Bentley and Jan Vinci (flute), and Robert Spano (conducting).
Ms. Higdon is currently on the composition faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She formerly served as conductor of the University of Pennsylvania orchestra and wind ensemble and has served as Visiting Assistant Professor in music composition at Bard College. She is published by Lawdon Press.
 TANIA LEON
Tania León is one of the most vital personalities on today's music scene. In demand as both a composer and a conductor, she has also been recognized for her significant accomplishments as an educator and as an advisor to arts organizations. León's latest orchestral work, Horizons, was written for the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg and was premiered there in July 1999, with Peter Ruzicka conducting. The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote: "Starting with a few short motifs that resembled bird calls, the piece built, swiftly to an intense shimmering chorus of many voices . . . The brief, highly compact composition makes one long to hear it again several times over." Her other recent commissions include Drummin', a major multimedia work premiered at the Lincoln Theater in Miami and subsequently performed in Hamburg.
In 1999, her opera Scourge of Hyacinths was given 17 performances to great acclaim by the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Switzerland, the Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine in France and the St. Pölten Festspielhaus in Austria. Presented under the direction of Robert Wilson and conducted by the composer, the work is based on a radio play by Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka. The Munich Biennale commissioned the opera in 1994, where it won the BMW Prize as best new work of opera theatre in the festival. The aria Oh Yemanja (Mother's Prayer) from Scourge was recently released by Nonesuch on Dawn Upshaw's CD "The World So Wide."
A brief discography of León's music includes Indígena, a CD of León's chamber music, released on CRI; the orchestral works Batá and Carabalí on the Louisville Orchestra's First Edition Records; Rituál, a solo piano work, on an Albany Records; an arrangement of the Cuban song El Manisero for Chanticleer on Teldec; and Journey for the Jubal Trio, also on CRI. Her music is also featured on the Newport Classic, Leonarda, Mode and Opus One labels. A 1999 recipient of an Honorary Doctorate degree from Colgate University, León has received awards for her compositions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Fund, NYSCA, ASCAP, and Meet the Composer, among others. In 1998 she held the Fromm Residency at the American Academy in Rome; she has also been to Yaddo, supported by a MacArthur Foundation Award, and to the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy.
Born in Havana, Cuba, León came to the U.S. in 1967. At the invitation of Arthur Mitchell, she became a founding member and the first musical director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969, and founded the Dance Theatre's music department, music school, and orchestra. She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series in 1978. Starting in 1993 she held a four-year position as New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic. Currently, she serves as Latin American Music Advisor to the American Composers Orchestra, where she co-founded the award-winning Sonidos de las Americas festival. León has held masterclasses at the Hamburg Musikschule in Germany, and has been Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Composition at Yale University, and most recently, Composer-in-Residence at The College of William and Mary, in Spring 1999. León is Professor of Music at Brooklyn College, where she has taught since 1985.
 STEPHEN PAULUS
Composer Stephen Paulus has been hailed as "...a bright, fluent inventor with a ready lyric gift." (The New Yorker) His prolific output of more than two
hundred works is represented in many genres, including music for orchestra,
chorus, chamber ensembles, solo voice, keyboard and opera. Commissions
have been received from the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra,
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Dallas Symphony
Orchestra, The Houston Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, with
subsequent performances coming from the orchestras of Los Angeles,
Philadelphia, St. Louis, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Radio
Orchestra. He has served as Composer in Residence for the orchestras of
Atlanta, Minnesota, Tucson and Annapolis, and his works have been
championed by such eminent conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur,
Christoph von Dohanyi, Leonard Slatkin, Yoel Levi, the late Robert Shaw, and
numerous others.
Paulus has been commissioned to write works for some of the world's great
solo artists, including Thomas Hampson, Håkan Hagegård, Doc Severinsen,
William Preucil, Cynthia Phelps, Evelyn Lear, Leo Kottke and Robert McDuffie.
Chamber music commissions have resulted in works for The Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center, Friends of Music at the Supreme Court, the
Cleveland Quartet and Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. He has been a
featured guest composer at the festivals of Aspen, Santa Fe, Tanglewood,
and, in the U.K., the Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Festivals.
As one of today's pre-eminent composers of opera, Paulus has written eight
works for the dramatic stage. The Postman Always Rings Twice was the first
American production to be presented at the Edinburgh Festival, and has
received nine productions to date. Commissions and performances have come
from such companies as the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Washington Opera,
Boston Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Berkshire Opera Company,
Minnesota Opera, and Fort Worth Opera, among others, as well as many
universities and colleges.
His choral works have been performed and recorded by some of the most
distinguished choruses in the United States, including the New York Concert
Singers, Dale Warland Singers, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Robert Shaw
Festival Singers, New Music Group of Philadelphia, Master Chorale of
Washington DC, Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, Mormon Tabernacle
Choir, and dozens of other professional, community, church and college
choirs. He is one of the most frequently recorded contemporary composers
with his music being represented on over fifty recordings.
A recipient of both Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, Paulus is also a strong
advocate for the music of his colleagues. He is co-founder and a current
Board Vice President of the highly esteemed American Composers Forum, the
largest composer service organization in the world. Paulus serves on the
ASCAP Board of Directors as the Concert Music Representative, a post he
has held since 1990.
Paulus' music has been described by critics and program annotators as
rugged, angular, lyrical, lean, rhythmically aggressive, original, often
gorgeous, moving, and uniquely American. He writes in a musical language
that has been characterized as "...irresistible in kinetic energy and haunting in
lyrical design." (Cleveland Plain Dealer) "Mr. Paulus often finds melodic
patterns that are fresh and familiar at the same time.... His scoring is invariably
expert and exceptionally imaginative in textures and use of instruments." (The
New York Times)
 MELINDA WAGNER
Melinda Wagner was born in Philadelphia and received graduate degrees in Music Composition from the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania. Her teachers included Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, and Jay Reise.
Commissioned by Paul Lustig Dunkel and the Westchester Philharmonic, Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion received its premiere in May 1998 and was awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Falling Angels, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 1993, was performed by the American Composers Orchestra in 1995, and again by the CSO in 1996 under the AT&T American Encore series.
Ms. Wagner's works have also been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, the Society for New Music (Syracuse), Orchestra 2001, and other leading organizations. Commissions have come from the Chicago Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Barlow Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, the Ernst and Young Emerging Composers Fund, the American Brass Quintet, and guitarist David Starobin. She is the recipient of numerous honors including a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a 1996 Howard Foundation Fellowship, three ASCAP Young Composer Awards, resident fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, and an honorary degree from Hamilton College. A CD of her Sextet appears on the Opus One label, performed by the Society for New Music. Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion is recorded on the Bridge label with Paul Lustig Dunkel as soloist with the Westchester Philharmonic, Mark Mandarano conducting.
Ms. Wagner's Piano Concerto, Extremity of Sky, a commission from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with support from the Prince Charitable Trusts, will be premiered with soloist Emanuel Ax, in May, 2003. Ms. Wagner is also working on a Koussevitzky commission for Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia; a work for Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops for the 2002-2003 season; and a work for soprano and ensemble to be premiered by Christine Brandes and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Recent performances include several performances of Brass Quintet by the American Brass Quintet in their November, 2001 tour, and a performance of Wick by the New York New Music Ensemble as part of their 30th anniversary celebration in Spring, 2002. She was Lehar Visiting Professor at the University of Pittsburgh in January, 2002, and was a Class of 1960 Fellow at Williams College later that year.
Melinda Wagner has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Syracuse University, and Hunter College. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, percussionist James Saporito, and their children.
Melinda Wagner's works are published by the Theodore Presser Company.
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