Ania Vu is a Polish composer-pianist of Vietnamese descent whose music explores the intersections of language, time, and the sounds of nature. Her method, which she describes as “composing text to write music,” involves crafting her own texts in Polish and English, which guide the sound, form, and character of her compositions. Praised by the Boston Globe as showcasing “artful vocal writing [that] ranges from percussive whispers to glinting, pure-voiced lines,” Ania’s work has been recognized the American Opera Project, ASCAP, Copland House, Tanglewood, the Boston New Music Initiative, and ISCM. She was the 2024 Composer-in-Residence at the Chelsea Music Festival and the 2022-23 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago. Ania currently lectures at both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, and has taught at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.M. in composition and theory from the Eastman School of Music. 

Will Stackpole was born in 1990 and raised in a small town outside Manchester, NH. He began as an electric guitarist and audio engineer. In the last decade he has emerged as one of the most exciting new voices in American concert music. He is noted for his visionary approach to orchestral music, winning the 2019 Rudolph Nissim prize, alongside his dynamic works for chamber ensembles. His music has been performed nation-wide by notable ensembles like the American Composers Orchestra, the NJ Symphony, and Attacca Quartet.

Stackpole has the unique ability to transform his sound between projects according to their themes. The result is music which teeters at the edge of tonality and has been called, "Lively… interesting… and possessing a savage charm.” (NY Times)

Stackpole holds MM and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School. He lives in New York and is a lecturer and composition instructor at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Marc Migó was born in 1993 in Barcelona. He studied piano privately with Liliana Sainz and music theory with Xavier Boliart, leading to his acceptance in the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya where he studied with Salvador Brotons. He has since received his Masters and Doctorate of Musical Arts from Juilliard whilst studying with John Corigliano.

While at Juilliard, Marc was awarded the 2018 Orchestral Composition Prize, and would win the prize again in 2021. He later received a commission from UrbanArias in Washington DC to compose an original opera with librettist John de los Santos as part of the Decameron Opera Coalition, resulting in “The Roost,” an opera whichwas inducted into The Library of Congress’ Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection.

Marc’s music has premiered and been performed in prestigious venues around the world, including Bunka Kaikan (Tokyo), Alice Tully Hall and National Sawdust (New York City), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Palau de la Musica (Barcelona), L’institut de France (Paris), and Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Moscow). He has received the Pablo Casals Award (2019), the George Enescu Prize (2020), Organ Taurida Competition’s First Prize (2021), the inaugural Dominic Argento Fellowship for Opera Composition (2021), and the Leo Kaplan Award (2023.) Marc currently divides his time between Barcelona and New York City.

Sean Friar (b. 1985, Los Angeles) is a composer-pianist whose music blends the energy of his early experiences in rock piano improvisation with an expansive classical sensibility that is “refreshingly new and solidly mature… [taking] joy in the process of discovery… suspense and surprise that good classical music has always championed.” (Slate Magazine).  

A Rome Prize winner, Friar has been commissioned by the Los Angeles and Berlin Philharmonics, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Modern, Chamber Music America, and Fromm Foundation. An active pianist, he performs with Estonian bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann and saxophonist Jeff Siegfried. His album, Before and After, was recently released on New Amsterdam Records to international critical acclaim.

Friar is Chair of Composition at the University of Denver and previously taught at USC and UCLA. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton and undergraduate degrees in Music and Psychology from UCLA.