Composers

Kirk O'Riordan's music has been referred to as “unapologetically beautiful” and is often praised for its uniquely “visual” qualities that depict a wide range of striking moods. Gramophone Magazine praised O’Riordan as “a composer for whom imagery is a defining inspiration. ...[He] is a deeply sensitive composer who savours going gently into the night.” O’Riordan (b. 1968) is an active composer, conductor, saxophonist, and teacher.

Dr. Leslie Odom is Associate Professor of Oboe and Music Theory at the University of Florida. Her teachers include Richard Killmer (Eastman School of Music), James Lakin (University of Iowa), Malcolm Smith, (Butler University), and Marion Gibson (Principal Oboe, Louisville Symphony Orchestra). Dr. Odom received her Bachelor of Music in Oboe Performance from Butler University, in Indianapolis, Indiana; her Master of Music in Music Theory and her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Oboe Performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York. She also received the coveted Performer’s Certificate during her doctoral work.

Composer Paul Osterfield's works have been performed throughout the United States and internationally by soloists and ensembles, including the Blakemore Trio, neoPhonia, the Stones River Chamber Players, and the Cleveland Orchestra at their "Family Key Concert" series. His music is available on the Equilibrium and Capstone labels. A recent artist at the MacDowell Colony, he has also received awards from BMI, ASCAP, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the Library of Congress. Paul Osterfield has served on the faculties at Middle Tennessee State University, where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Theory, and Ithaca College. He holds degrees from Cornell University, Indiana University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, having studied composition with Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Eugene O'Brien, Frederick Fox, and Donald Erb.

Composer Gemma Peacocke grew up in Hamilton, New Zealand, and she moved to the United States in 2014. She writes a broad range of music including art-pop songs, EDM-inspired tracks and orchestral music. She has a particular love of interdisciplinary work and often collaborates with artists, writers, and theatre designers.

Samuel Pellman has been creating electroacoustic and microtonal music for nearly four decades. Recently his music has been presented at festivals and conferences in Melbourne, Paris, Basel, Vienna, Montreal, New York City, Beijing, Capetown, Buenos Aires, Taiwan, and Perth. Pellman is also the author of An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music, a widely-used textbook. He teaches music theory and composition at Hamilton College, in Clinton NY, and is co-director of its Studio for Transmedia Arts and Related Studies (STARS).

David R. Peoples writes with a ginger ale in-hand on a balcony surrounded by a forest. It’s from Flowery Branch GA, surrounded by nature, that all his compositions begin before being released into and around the world. 

Peoples enjoys sharing his own and other composers’ new music in recitals. From April 2021 to May 2022, he presented recitals featuring over 100 composers in all 50 states through the National Association of Composers, Music Teachers National Association, Research on Contemporary Composition Conference, and Electrophonic Concerts. Peoples also actively composes new music with recent performances by soloists, Luna Nova Music Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Contemporary Chamber Players, West Point Band, and other performance groups — with premieres in North and Central America, Europe, and Asia. Additionally, he has enjoyed jazz premieres by the Jazz Surge with Randy Brecker, David Sanchez, Rufus Reid, and Gary Foster. 

Jean-Paul Perrotte is an American composer of French and Ecuadorian descent whose work includes compositions for electronics, acoustic instruments, voice, video, dancers, and improvisation using Max/MSP. His works have been performed internationally and presented in prestigious art galleries like the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha NE. Perrotte has also co-written a chapter with Brett Van Hoesen titled Sound Art - New Only in Name: A Selected History of German Sound Works from the Last Century from the edited volume Germany in the Loud Twentieth Century. Perrotte received his Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Iowa in 2013 and is currently Assistant Professor of Composition and Director of the ElectroAcoustic Composition Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Russell Pinkston (b. 1949) currently resides in Austin TX, where he is Professor of Music Composition and Director of Electronic Music Studios at The University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music. He holds degrees from Dartmouth College (BA 1975) and Columbia University (MA 1979, DMA 1984), where he studied composition with Jon Appleton, Jack Beeson, Mario Davidovsky, George Edwards, and Chou Wen-chung.

Stefan Poetzsch (b. 1963 in Magdeburg, Germany) began studying violin in his early youth in what was formerly East Germany. At the age of 16, he happened to catch a radio show broadcasting a piece focused on the music of Polish violinist Zbigniew Seifert and his subsequent death. Upon hearing Seifert's approach to the instrument, Poetzsch's interest in music from this moment on was forever changed. It instantly made the teenager look at the violin differently and how he approached the sound of its strings.

Polevaya’s journey as a musician began with classical training on several instruments. She then became immersed in more experimental forms of performance, in particular electroacoustic improvisation with effect pedals. Polevaya’s performance background ties closely with her compositional work, which is often infused with electronics, found objects, and theatrical elements.

Tom Prescott is an electroacoustic composer, researcher and software developer. He studied computer science and music technology at Keele University. He then went on to an MRes in music which investigated the application of interactive genetic algorithms to the control of granular synthesis and spatialisation techniques. This was followed by a Ph.D funded by the Keele Research Institute for the Humanities which involved the development of compositions and software that investigate a range of approaches to the application of interactive genetic algorithms to sound design, composition and performance. His compositions are inspired by nature and focus on explorations of the formation of planets and the evolution of life on Earth.

William Jason Raynovich uses (or rather abuses) computers to create musical repetition out of the idiosyncrasies of physical performances. With the open-source visual programming language, Pure Data, he creates interactive compositions with new notational systems and explores self-similarity systems with live audio processing. He is constructing a series of unconventional instruments to accompany these algorithmic compositions. The works in this series include tre’ for voice, instruments, and computer,and his cello solo piece, now for cello and computer.

Sarah Belle Reid is a performer-composer who plays trumpet, modular synthesizer, and an ever-growing collection of handcrafted electroacoustic instruments. Her unique musical voice explores the intersections between contemporary classical music, experimental and interactive electronics, sound installation, visual arts, noise music, and improvisation. Often praised for her ability to transport audience members through vivid sonic adventures, Reid’s sonic palette has been described as ranging from “graceful” and “danceable” all the way to “silk-falling-through-space,” and “pit-full-of-centipedes” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

Midwest-native composer Marga Richter grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota prior to moving to New York, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in composition from The Juilliard School. Her compositional output consists of over 150 works encompassing virtually every genre of classical music. Her orchestral music has been played by more than 50 orchestras including the Atlanta and Milwaukee Symphonies and the Minnesota Orchestra, and recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra.

John Ritz is a composer, improviser, experimental music performer, sound artist, and educator. He is a proponent of interdisciplinary arts and collaborates regularly with visual and performing artists. His recent concert music focuses on chamber music for instruments and interactive computer systems. He is an Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Creative Studies at the University of Louisville.

David Rosenboom is a post-genre composer-performer, interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator known as a pioneer in American experimental music. Since the 1960s, his multi-disciplinary work has traversed ideas about spontaneously evolving musical forms, languages for improvisation, new techniques in scoring, cross-cultural and large-form collaborations, performance art and literature, interactive multimedia and new instrument technologies, generative algorithmic systems, art-science research and philosophy, and extended musical interface with the human nervous system. He was Dean of The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts from 1990 through 2020, where he now holds the Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition.

David William Ross is a versatile musician with an embracing approach. He regularly performs classical repertoire but also works in jazz and other improvisatory styles. An advocate of new music, he has worked closely with composers and has recorded and premiered many works by composers from all over the world. Ross frequently collaborates with dancers, choreographers, and multimedia artists in creating original works. A producer and engineer, he has recorded and produced many projects, including his own.

Campbell Ross is a guitarist, composer and teacher who lives in Brisbane, Australia. He developed a passion for the guitar at an early age and almost immediately began writing for the instrument. Raised in New Zealand, Campbell won the Christchurch Guitar Competition before embarking on tertiary study at the Wellington Conservatorium of Music under the tutelage of Matthew Marshall.

Walter Ross (b. 1936), whose works have been performed in over 40 countries, is perhaps best known for his compositions featuring brass and woodwinds. Raised in Nebraska, he became a professional orchestral French horn player by the age of seventeen and went on to gain more performance experience in college as member of the University of Nebraska symphonic band, as a string bass player in a polka band, and as a flute player with a baroque ensemble. Currently he plays bass in the Blue Ridge Chamber Orchestra in Charlottesville VA.

Born in Moss Point, Mississippi, on July 9, 1953, Steve Rouse has composed and performed music since childhood. Growing up on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, his musical experiences and influences were wildly diverse. In addition to hearing the varieties of indigenous folk music of the area, his performing experiences included choirs, R&B, jazz, and rock bands (keyboards and woodwinds), and symphonic bands and orchestras (bassoon). In addition to formal training on piano, bassoon, and saxophone, he taught himself rudimentary to intermediate skills on many other instruments.