Composer Chats

Composer, author, and filmmaker Jack Curtis Dubowsky works in concert music, improvisation, and live performance. His output includes three books, one documentary feature, and numerous musical compositions in film scoring, classical music, popular music, choral music, and other musical genres.

https://www.jackcurtisdubowsky.com/index.html

EMMY® Award-winning composer Alex Wurman is known for his versatility and broad musical range. He has collaborated with notable directors across various genres, including Steven Conrad (Ultra City Smiths, Patriot), John August (The Nines), Jill Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing), Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights), and Ron Shelton (Play It To The Bone) and more.

Wurman composed the majestic, ethereal score for the Oscar®-winning film March of the Penguins, as well as the vastly different, '70s-inspired comedy Anchorman. His signature scores include eerie piano melodies for Confessions of A Dangerous Mind, contemporary minimalist music for his Emmy award-winning score for Temple Grandin, and French impressionist interpretations for Thirteen Conversations About One Thing.

Born into a musical family, Wurman's father, Hans Wurman, was a classically trained composer and a pioneer in electronic music. His mother was a beloved violin teacher, and his older siblings are all musicians in their own right. Alex credits his musical understanding and approach to both nature and nurture. His passion led him to the Academy of Performing Arts High School in Chicago, followed by studies at the University of Miami and back to Chicago at the American Conservatory of Music. Moving to Los Angeles at the age of 22, he began his career by scoring student films at the American Film Institute, which eventually led to over 100 film credits in the highly competitive Hollywood movie business.

Recently, after completing two albums, The Classical Synthesizer (a tribute to his fathers pioneering of the Moog Synthesizer), and Pianos (a celebration of multi-piano approaches), Alex continues to expand his love for musical exploration with livestream concerts showcasing his dynamic playing and improvising abilities. These concerts have received significant positive reception, connecting with audiences worldwide. Alex continues to create new content with diverse artistic collaborations. His goal is to provide art that enhances his audiences' personal journeys.

https://www.alexwurman.com/

Described as “alluring” and “stirring” by The New York Times, the “arresting” (Gramophone), “irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “exhilarating” (Chicago Tribune) music of Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong (b. 1990) has been commissioned and performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, Kronos Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Sō Percussion, PRISM Quartet, and Dallas Winds, among many others. Cuong’s music has been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, NPR Music’s Tiny Desk, Kennedy Center, and PBS NewsHour, and his works for wind ensemble have garnered over a thousand performances worldwide, including at Midwest, WASBE, and CBDNA conferences.

A composer known for his imagination and colorful voice, Cuong strives to blend the whimsical with the profound, often finding new expressive possibilities through unexpected instrumental pairings and textures. His works thus include concerti for tuba and dueling oboes, percussion quartets utilizing wine glasses and sandpaper, and pieces for double reed sextet, cello octet, and solo snare drum. This eclecticism extends to the variety of musical groups he writes for, and he has worked closely with ensembles ranging from middle school bands to Grammy-winning orchestras and chamber ensembles. His wind ensemble works are widely performed, having been programmed by the world’s preeminent wind bands such as the Dallas Winds and military bands including the United States Navy Band, “President’s Own” Marine Band, “Pershing’s Own” Army Band, Army Field Band, Coast Guard Band, and Air Force Band. These works have also been performed by the top wind ensembles at academic institutions such as the University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of North Texas, Louisiana State University, University of Miami, and Michigan State University. Passionate about bringing all these different facets of the contemporary music community together, his notable works include Vital Sines, a concerto for Eighth Blackbird and the United States Navy Band; Re(new)al, a concerto for percussion quartet with a variety of ensemble accompaniments; and a saxophone quartet concerto entitled Second Nature.

Currently the Pacific Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence, Cuong was also the California Symphony’s Young American Composer-in-Residence from 2020-23. He has held artist residencies at Copland House, Yaddo, Ucross, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and at Dumbarton Oaks, where he served as the 2020 Early-Career Musician-in-Residence. His music has been awarded the Barlow Prize, William D. Revelli Prize, Frederick Fennell Prize, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, Barlow Endowment Commission, ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Award, Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Cortona Prize, New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, and Boston GuitarFest Composition Prize.

Cuong serves as Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he teaches composition, orchestration, and music theory. He has also served on the faculties of the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab and Juilliard Summer Composition. He holds degrees in music composition from Princeton University (MFA/PhD), the Curtis Institute of Music (Artist Diploma), and the Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM). His mentors include Jennifer Higdon, David Serkin Ludwig, Donnacha Dennehy, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Kevin Puts, and Oscar Bettison.

William Owens (b. 1963) is a native of Gary, Indiana. A seasoned music educator, he is highly active as a composer, clinician, and conductor throughout North America. His compositional style for young ensembles displays a keen, practical approach, which has firmly established him as a leader in the field. Since 1993, Mr. Owens has over 300 titles to his credit for concert band, string orchestra, and small ensemble. His music is performed and appears on required music lists nationally and abroad. Many of his works have been analyzed in educational texts and are staples of the young band repertoire.

William is a 1985 graduate of Chicago's VanderCook College of Music and the recipient of numerous awards and grants for composition. Principal commissions include those from the South Plains College (TX) Department of Fine Arts, Phi Beta Mu International, and the American Bandmasters Association. Professional memberships include the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA), the Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB), and Phi Beta Mu International Bandmasters Fraternity. He is recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by his alma mater and a recipient of the Texas Bandmasters Association’s Meritorious Achievement Award.

In 2014, William formally retired from duty as band director in Texas after 30 years of service. His spare time interests include traveling, U.S. Presidential history, and being a proud Chevrolet Corvette owner/enthusiast. William resides in Fort Worth, TX, with his wife and best friend, Georgia.

Bobby Ge* (b. 1996) is an American-born, Shanghai-raised composer and media artist whose work engages with themes of communication, home, and hybridity. Described as “expressive and gripping” (Financial Times) and “exciting, frenzied, unpredictable” (CityNews CBR), his work is filled with shimmering textures and restless motion, often undergirded by a wry sense of humor.

Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has completed a diverse array of projects ranging from experimental short films to large-scale orchestral commissions. Recent highlights include a symphony for the Albany Symphony, a saxophone concerto for the US Navy Band, a song for soprano, ensemble, and electronics premiered by Mind on Fire, and a keyboard/percussion piece featuring live video and electronics for the icarus Quartet.

The coming 2025-26 season sees several notable premieres, including a violin concerto for Keila Wakao and the Albany Symphony, a mixed sextet commissioned by saxophonist Shivam Patel, and an electroacoustic work for Alarm Will Sound. Ge additionally serves as the Sound Investment Composer for the Reno Chamber Orchestra for the year, developing a new work for them over multiple workshops. Other engagements include performances with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New England Philharmonic, the US Army Band, Modern Medieval Voices, Third Angle New Music, Mycelium New Music, and the Aruna Quartet.

In previous years, Ge has received fellowships from the MATA Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program. He was named the Composer of the Year by the Sioux City Symphony, the grand prize winner of the New York Youth Symphony’s Jon Deak First Music Award, and a winner of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s call for scores. Ge has received further award recognition from ASCAP, the Society of Composers, Inc., and New Music USA. He was the recipient of a Copland House Residency Award and has held additional residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Millay Arts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Ge is an avid collaborator and has had the good fortune of sharing his work with a growing list of presenters that ranges from the unorthodox - the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NJ Audubon - to the cutting edge of new music, including Beth Morrison Projects, the Attacca Quartet, Music from Copland House, Khemia Ensemble, Tesla Quartet, Blackbox Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and So Percussion. His experimental short film You Have Entered the Public Domain has screened at film festivals including the Festival L'Europe autour de l'Europe, Focus Wales, Golden State Film Festival, and the Short. Sweet. Film Festival. A dedicated educator, Ge believes firmly in the value of the arts as an expressive and uniting force, and he has collaborated with numerous educational ensembles including the New York Youth Symphony, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Westside Chamber Players, and the St. Olaf Band.

He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (M.M.) and the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.). His primary teachers include Donnacha Dennehy, Nathalie Joachim, Juri Seo, Dan Trueman, Tyondai Braxton, Kevin Puts, Harold Meltzer, and Cindy Cox.

https://www.bobbygemusic.com/

Composer and performer Shruthi Rajasekar is a McKnight Composer Fellow with the American Composers Forum, Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music (ARNCM), winner of the Global Women in Music Award from the United Nations, and recipient of the Marshall Scholarship from the Government of the United Kingdom. Shruthi’s music draws from her deep roots in the Carnatic (South Indian classical) and Western classical traditions. Her work highlights identity, community, and joy. Globally, Shruthi’s compositions have been featured at the Royal Albert Hall (London, UK), the Cannes Film Festival (France), the National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai, India), Victoria Hall (Singapore), and the United Nations’ COP 26 (Glasgow, UK). She has been a performing artist and artist-in-residence at Britten Pears Arts, Tusen Takk Foundation, and Norway’s Kampenjazz. Shruthi lives in Minnesota and serves on the Board of Directors of the Anderson Center and of chamber ensemble Zeitgeist.

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https://www.shruthirajasekar.com/

Dennis Tobenski is a composer, singer, and die-hard advocate for living composers. As a composer and performer, he embraces emotional complexity and honesty, and never shies away from vulgarity or a good laugh (no polite chuckles, please). Whether he’s behind the microphone as the host of the Music Publishing Podcast or working as the creator and driving force behind the NewMusicShelf Anthologies of New Music, he lifts his colleagues up, and works to build structures and communities that he wished he’d had as a young musician. Dennis lives in NYC with his husband Darien Shulman and their cat Pistachio.

https://dennistobenski.com/

Daniel Kidane‘s music has been performed extensively across the UK and abroad as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 3, described by the Financial Times as ‘quietly impressive’ and by The Times as ‘tautly constructed’ and ’vibrantly imagined’.

Daniel was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Prize in 2013 and in 2016 received a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. He received an honorary doctorate from Coventry University in 2022 and is currently a Visiting Tutor in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music and Cambridge University.

Daniel began his musical education at the age of eight when he started playing the violin. He first received composition lessons at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and then went on to study privately in St Petersburg, receiving lessons in composition from Sergey Slonimsky. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the RNCM under the tutelage of Gary Carpenter and David Horne.

His orchestral works include Woke, which was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Sakari Oramo at the Last Night of the Proms in September 2019; Zulu premiered by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Breakbeat written for the CBSO Youth Orchestra, and inspired by Grime music; and Sirens, written for the BBC Philharmonic orchestra, motivated by the eclectic musical nightlife in Manchester.

Other commissions include Tourbillon for Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) and Michala Petri (recorder) premiered at WIgmore Hall and released on CD; Jungle, a piano duo written for the Cheltenham Festival which draws inspiration from Jungle music and a new type of vernacular; Songs of Illumination, a song cycle commissioned by Leeds Lieder and setting setting the poetry of William Blake; and a setting of the words of Martin Luther King for orchestra and chorus entitled Dream Song premiered by baritone Roderick Williams and the Chineke! Orchestra which was played at the reopening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2018 (a US premiere of the work is planned by the Seattle Symphony, postponed from Spring 2020).

As a member of the London Symphony Orchestra's Jerwood and Panufnik Composers Schemes he has written several works for members of the LSO, which have focused on multiculturalism.

Works premiered during the Covid-19 lockdowns include The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash for Huddersfield Choral Society with text by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage; Dappled Light for violinists Maxine Kwok and Julian Gil Rodriguez for the London Symphony Orchestra's Summer Shorts series; Christus factus est for Merton College Choir recorded for Delphian; and Be Still for the Manchester Camerata, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and received further international premieres by the San Francisco Symphony, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. His most recent work Revel, inspired by Manchester Carnival, was commissioned by the BBC Proms for the Kanneh-Mason family, and premiered in August 2021.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of Sun Poem, premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2022, subsequently performered at Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Grafenegg Festival and the Sydney Opera House, receiving 5-star reviews. The piece was co-commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, with the US premiere conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in October 2022 at Mondavi Center for Performing Arts and Davies Symphony Hall.

Mark Orton is a composer working in the mediums of film scoring, concert music, and radio/podcast. He is both a multi-instrumentalist and a collector of antique and unusual instruments, performing on all manner (and era) of guitars, keyboards, and percussion. He is the co-founder of Tin Hat, an internationally renowned composer/improviser collective with seven critically acclaimed albums. Mark has written scores for dozens of films – documentary, narrative feature, and fine art – and has composed music for modern dance, theater, experimental radio, video/art installation,podcast, the circus, and the concert hall.

https://markortonmusic.com/

• 20+ Yrs Music for Film, Stage & TV • Producer Of Musical Productions • Versatile Across All Musical Genres • Orchestrator • Conductor • 20+ Years of DAWs - Digital Performer, ProTools etc. • Proven Natural Leader, Dependable & Reliable • Self-starter, Fast Turn Around Times • Experienced Producer of Scoring / Recording Sessions - respected among musicians, expertly managing time-frames & budgets • Great team player, calm with sense of humor!!! • Clients include: Disney, Sony Pictures, Epcot, Netflix, Amazon & many Independent Production Companies.

My magnificent musical journey has taken me from being a Smurf (my first professional recording at age 11 for the UK album Underland) through the realms of Award-Winning children’s stage productions, writing & producing musical theater (George Orwell’s, ‘Animal Farm’), TV Theme Tunes (ITV Telethon), commercial & jingle writing (Wiskas, Cadbury, Marmite), song writing (”I Hate This Job” Muppets), children’s television series (Mystery Of Black Rose Castle), family episodic programming (Monkey Life), feature film scoring (The King’s Daughter, Sleeping Beauty) and composing for Disney & EPCOT (short films & theme-parks). In the immersive world I have designed and built a range of experiences from haunted houses to Winter Wonderland Walkthroughs, designing interactive attractions under the magic of enchanting light displays. In every arena my greatest joy is knowing that my work has awoken, enlightened and fueled the minds of those who experience it. And this is exactly what I do for the every audience for whom I write.

Besides being a composer, conductor, orchestrator, producer and creator, I am a team leader who sets my own high standards that motivates the very best in the talent that surrounds me. As original founder of Sum Of All Music & The Budapest Scoring Orchestra I am quick to recognize talent and attract musicians at the very top of their game. I regularly lead music collaborative teams and training including other musical directors and respected musicians (such as Benny Rietveld - Santana’s MD & Bassist, Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens - Paul McCartney’s MD & Keyboardist, Steve Shepherd - Kenny G’s engineer, Rafael Gayol - Lenny Cohen & A-ha drummer... to name but a few) and have produced several albums, music libraries & music videos. My network of composer’s, songwriters and musicians has been built on a reputation of the non-competitive, pro-collaborative approach that I instill in my teams.

https://www.josephmetcalfe.com/