Addie Camsuzou is a composer and violinist from the central coast of California. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in music theory/composition from Sacramento State University, where she studied composition with Dr. Stephen Blumberg, and violin with Ian Swensen and Anna Presler. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition.
Josiah Tayag Catalan is a Filipino-American born in New York City and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a degree from The Sacramento State School of Music where he studied composition with Stephen Blumberg and Leo Eylar and violin with Anna Presler and Ian Swensen. During his studies at The Sacramento State School of Music, he was chosen to represent the music department for the annual One World Initiative campaign to raise awareness around current global issues.
Samuel Clark-McHale (b. 1992) is an American composer currently residing in Davis, CA. His works have been performed by, among others, Ensemble Signal, Quartetto Indaco, and the Illinois Modern Ensemble at venues and festivals including June in Buffalo and the highSCORE New Music Festival. His piece metallic cocaine bebop for Pierrot ensemble was a 2015 ASCAP Morton Gould Award Finalist.
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.
Born and raised in central Illinois, Daniel Godsil (b. 1982) is a composer of chamber, orchestral, vocal, electronic, and film music, currently pursuing his PhD in Composition and Theory at the University of California, Davis. He holds an MFA in Music Composition from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he studied with John Fitz Rogers, John Mallia, and Jonathan Bailey Holland. He also holds a BM in Music Composition from Webster University.
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida Shirazi is a PhD student in composition and works with Pablo Ortiz. Shirazi’s music is described as “well-made” and “affecting” by The New Yorker.
She holds her B.A. in classical piano from Tehran University of Art (Iran), and her B.M. in music composition and theory from Bilkent University (Turkey). She studied santoor (traditional Iranian dulcimer) with Parissa Khosravi Samani.
A Sacramento native, Ryan Suleiman was born to Lebanese and American parents. His music aims to explore new worlds both sonically and expressively, incorporating “impressionistic textures and large melodic gestures” (SF Classical Voice), resonant sonorities, and lively rhythms. Ryan is deeply inspired by the wonder of natural world and the tremendous beauty and complexity of everyday life.
Sarah Wald was born in Chicago. She attended Columbia University in the City of New York for her bachelor’s degree in music with a focus in composition. While at Columbia, Sarah studied composition with Tristan Murail and Arthur Kampela, as well as with Robert Lombardo in Chicago. She also studied flute with Sue Ann Kahn. Sarah then studied with Conrad Susa and David Garner at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for her master’s degree in composition. For her master’s thesis, she composed and produced Elegy for a Lady: a Music Drama in One A
