Ryan Suleiman was born to Lebanese and Mid-Western parents in
California. His music engages with dreaming, the natural world,
and the understated beauty of everyday life. His one-act chamber
opera, Moon, Bride, Dogs, was described by the San
Francisco Chronicle as “a gem” with “an aesthetic that is at once
so strange and so accessible.” While his artistic interests vary,
he seeks ways of conveying the simultaneity of beauty and dread
that characterizes our times.
Jonathan Favero is a doctoral candidate in Music
Composition and Theory at the University of California, Davis,
and a former Mellon Public Scholars Fellow. His research
interests include music in U.S. social movements, morality in
music, and arts education in the U.S. criminal and juvenile
justice systems.
Phil Acimovic is a composer and gamelan musician in Easthampton,
MA. He writes quiet, austere music for solo and chamber
ensembles. In 2018 he served as Artist-In-Residence at the Cold
Hollow Sculpture Park in VT. Acimovic’s music taps into abstract
emotional states, the quiet corners of the mind that are
obstructed in our hyperactive world. His most recent project is a
set of solo instrumental works inspired by abstract visual
artists and complementing the disquietude of the Covid pandemic.
His works have been performed by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble,
the Empyrean Ensemble, the St.
Ph.D. in composition and theory from UC Davis Bachelor's in Music from the Juilliard School
Chris Castro is a composer and double bassist from Brooklyn, New
York. His music has been described as “on par with Varèse,”
giving him the nickname “The New Colossus of Sound.” He is a
recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2021 Classical Commissioning
Award. His new work, Canções dos Desassossego (Songs of
Disquiet), will be written for the Lyris Quartet and soprano
Sharon Harms and premiered in 2023. His music has been performed
by Sharon Harms and the Composers Conference Ensemble under James
Baker (Two Songs from Brooklyn Narcissus), the St. Louis Symphony
under David Robertson (Choruses III), pianists Sarah Cahill and
Eric Zivian (IV-I), piano duo HereNowHear (Beethausenstro -
Castockhoven) and the Lydian String Quartet (Choruses IV). He is
the 2022 Guest Composer for the James Tenney Memorial Symposium,
composing and collaborating with the New Mexico Contemporary
Ensemble. He has lectured at UC Davis and Sacramento State
University and is currently faculty at Chapman University in
California. He has a Ph.D. in composition and theory from UC
Davis and a bachelor’s in music from the Juilliard School in both
double bass and composition.
Born in Taiwan, composer-performer Yu-Hsin CHANG earned her Ph.D.
in Composition and Music Theory from the University of
California, Davis. Since August 2024, she has served as a
full-time Assistant Professor at the Academy of Music at Macau
University of Science and Technology, where she teaches courses
such as Music Technology and Electronic Music Production. Prior
to her current position, Dr.
