Bruce Adolphe

Composer Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, which has been broadcast weekly on Performance Today since 2002 — has created a substantial body of chamber music and orchestral works inspired by science, visual arts, and human rights. Mr. Adolphe has composed several works based on writings by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: Body Loops (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and string quartet); Self Comes to Mind (solo cello and two percussionists); Obedient Choir of Emotions (chorus and piano); and Musics of Memory (piano, marimba, harp, guitar). Yo-Yo Ma premiered Self Comes to Mind in 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. 

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Mr. Adolphe’s other science-based music include Einstein’s Light for violin and piano, recently recorded by Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke on Sony Classical, and his tribute to NASA scientist and astronaut Piers Sellers, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is, which received its world premiere at the Off the Hook Arts Festival in Colorado in 2018 and was performed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in March, 2019. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists. 

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Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including The Mind’s Ear (OUP). He contributed the chapter on music to the forthcoming book Secrets of Creativity (OUP), an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists.

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Jonathan Dawe

Composer Jonathan Dawe was born in Boston and has received awards from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation (Library of Congress), New York State Council on the Arts (commission grant), Fromm Foundation Grant (Harvard University), the 1997 Presser Award (Presser Foundation), Charles Ives Scholarship (American Academy of Arts and Letters), Bearns Prize (Columbia University), two ASCAP prizes, two BMI awards, a commission grant from the David Cinnamon Prize, and the Herbert Ellwel Prize (Oberlin College). He has received commissions from conductor James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Brentano String Quartet, Cygnus Ensemble, New Juilliard Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble, Manhattan Percussion Ensemble, Phoenix Ensemble, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. His music is recorded on the Furious Artisans label. 

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Dawe holds a BM from the Oberlin Conservatory and an MM and DMA from Juilliard where he was a student of Richard Hoffmann and Milton Babbitt. He has been on the Juilliard College faculty since 1995 and has also taught in the Evening Division. 

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Cynthia Folio

Cynthia Folio (born December 24, 1954) is an American composer, flutist, and music theorist. She is a professor of Music Studies at Temple University, where she was honored with the Creative Achievement Award in 2012 and the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1994. Cynthia’s compositions have been described as “confident and musical in expressing ideas of great substance.”  In addition, her work has been regarded as “intriguing and enjoyable,” and “imaginatively scored.”  Folio earned her Ph.D. in music theory and a Performers Certificate in flute from the Eastman School of Music. 

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As a flutist, she has performed extensively as a soloist in the Philadelphia area with Latin Fiesta, David’s Harp, the Silver and Wood Trio, the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, and Glaux, a contemporary music ensemble based at Temple University.  As a theorist, she has published many music theory articles, reviews, and book chapters on topics that focus primarily on the analysis of jazz, contemporary music, and the relationship between analysis and performance. 

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Folio has received commissions from organizations such as Network for New Music, the Relâche Ensemble, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Music Teachers National Association, and the National Flute Association. She has earned 17 consecutive ASCAP Awards for composition.

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Louis Karchin

Hailed as a composer of “fearless eloquence” (Andrew Porter, The New Yorker), Louis Karchin has been honored with performances of his music throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East. He has been championed by such organizations as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Fort Worth Opera, the Center for Contemporary Opera, Tanglewood, the Guggenheim Museum, the Louisville Orchestra, the Group for Contemporary Music, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the New York New Music Ensemble, and many more. His music is recorded on Bridge, Naxos, New World, Albany and CRI labels, and his compositions are published by C. F. Peters Corporation and the American Composers Alliance. Mr. Karchin is the recipient of numerous awards for his work including Koussevitzky, Fromm and Barlow Foundation Commissions, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Active as a conductor, he has founded or co-founded noted performing ensembles including the Harvard Group for New Music, the Chamber Players of the League-ISCM, the Washington Square Ensemble, and most recently, the Orchestra of the League of Composers. He is Professor of Music at New York University.

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Jihyun Kim

Jihyun Kim's music has been featured in prestigious venues around the world, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Harris Hall in Aspen, DiMenna Center, Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence Italy, and Seoul Arts Center in Korea.  Jihyun’s works have been performed by eminent ensembles such as American Composers Orchestra, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Cornell Festival Orchestra, Tanglewood New Fromm Players, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Asciano Quartet, Switch Ensemble, Karien Ensemble, and Chanticleer LAB Choir, and have been featured in the Underwood New Music Reading, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Mayfest, USF New Music Festival, Midwest Composers Symposium, and Korean Music Expo. 

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Jihyun was selected as the winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, the League of Composers/ISCM Composers Competition, the American Prize in Orchestral music, the Libby Larsen Prize, PUBLIQ Access, Florence String Quartet Call for Scores, the 32nd Chang-ak Composition Competition, the Otto R. Stahl Memorial Award/ Russell Distinguished Teaching Award from Cornell University, and received honorable mentions from Red Note New Music Composition Competition, TEMPO New Music Ensemble Call for Scores, among many others.

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​Jihyun is currently a doctoral candidate in Composition at Cornell University.

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Vasiliki Krimitza

Vasiliki Krimitza (August 27, 1989, Athens) was introduced to music in her early childhood and exposed to a diversity of cultures through singing byzantine music and playing the piano, flute and tambouras.  Her works have been performed in concerts in USA, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Albania, in Festivals such as the “Darmstaedter Kurse fuer Neue Musik” in Darmstadt, “June in Buffalo”, “Next Generation” concerts in ZKM Karlsruhe, “Acht Bruecken Festival” in Cologne, “IMPULS Festival” in Sachsen Anhalt, “Aspekte Festival” Salzburg, “Dialoge Festival” Salzburg, by the Grammy Award winning members of Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, ICE, Talea ensemble, OENM, MACE, ensemble Signal, members of the Bavarian Opera Orchestra, MAM. Manufaktur für aktuelle Musik, ensemble Phorminx, NAMES, Eduard Brunner, Cecilio Perera, Carlos Cordeiro and others, and have been broadcasted by BR Klassik (DE), WDR 3 (DE) and ORF (AUT).

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Vasiliki has been invited to give colloquiums about her music in symposiums, master classes and seminars in USA, Germany, France and Austria. Her Solfeggio for flute was chosen to be published by the Musikakademie Rheinsberg in 2012. She has been finalist and winner of awards and composition competitions, among others “Dimitris Dragatakis Composition Competition” (2014) Athens, “Franz Liszt Scholarship” (2014) Weimar, “Musikstipendium der Landeshauptstadt Muenchen” (2015) Munich, “Next Wave LAPQ Composer Initiative” (2016) Los Angeles, “League of Composers/ISCM Composition Competition” (2017) New York, “Acht Bruecken Composition Competition” (2018) Cologne. She got commissions for new works among others from the Salzburg Museum (2014), City of Munich (2015), FSMA Strasbourg (2015), Hofhaymer Gesellschaft Salzburg (2015), Aspekte Festival Salzburg (2016), Dialoge Festival Salzburg (2016), IMPULS Festival Sachsen Anhalt (2016), Los Angeles Percussion Quartet (2017), Acht Bruecken Festival (2020).

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Vasiliki is currently a PhD candidate in composition at the New York University, GSAS with Louis Karchin.