The 2024 Grawemeyer Music Prize recipient ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV defines her work as an opportunity for healing, service, connection and a celebration of humanness. Her over a hundred works, diverse in aesthetics, genre, and medium, are often inspired by urgent personal concerns and explore themes of identity, place, and belonging.

Aleksandra Vrebalov’s works – ranging from concert music and opera  to music for modern dance and film – have been performed by the Kronos Quartet, Cincinnati and Glimmerglass Opera, Serbian National Theater, English National Ballet, Rambert Dance, Sybarite5, Gottinger Symphonie, ETHEL, Dusan Tynek Dance  Company, Ijsbreker, Moravian Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic, and Providence Festival Ballet, among others. Her works have been recorded for Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Innova, Centaur Records...(full bio) 

Puerto Rico-born composer and multi-instrumentalist ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN is known for playing with the unexpected intersection of classical and electronic music, unusual instruments, and found sounds. Upcoming premieres include a cello concerto performed by Yo-Yo Ma and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and a requiem for Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Recent commissions include works for Opera Philadelphia, New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the NY Botanical Garden, Kronos Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and her Carnegie Hall debut, for Sō Percussion. A guest curator for Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series (2025), a Lincoln Center Collider Fellow, the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize, and a teaching artist with NY Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program and Lincoln Center Education...(full bio)

The creative output of ANTHONY R. GREEN (b. 1984; composer, performer, social justice artist) includes musical and visual creations, interpretations of original works or works in the repertoire, collaborations, educational outreach, and more. Behind all of his artistic endeavors are the ideals of equality and freedom, which manifest themselves in diverse ways in a composition, a performance, a collaboration, or social justice work....(full bio)

Dr. BRICE SMITH has a deep passion for teaching and engaging communities through classical music. Smith held the Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra's principal flutist position and is a substitute for the Seattle, Milwaukee, Dallas, and Colorado symphonies. Additionally, Smith has performed with the New World Symphony Orchestra, 21st Century Consort, ÆPEX Contemporary Ensemble, and National Repertory Orchestra. Smith served as an Adjunct Professor of Flute at Adams State University and Assistant Artistic Director for Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music Flute Academy. As a soloist, he has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Longmont Symphony, Arkansas Philharmonic, University of Michigan Camerata Symphony Orchestra, 21st Century Consort, as well as other orchestras and bands. Additionally, Smith was a guest soloist for...(full bio)

CALEB PALKA is a composer from Portland, Oregon whose work is “inquisitive and creative in an unapologetic way” (Oregon ArtsWatch). He has been performed/commissioned by the Bergen International Festival/Norwegian Soloists’ Choir Academy, Britt Festival Orchestra, Cincinnati May Festival/Cincinnati Men’s Chorus, International Contemporary Ensemble, Opera Omaha, Eugene Symphony, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Mivos Quartet, Portland Piano International, and others. He has previously studied with Ryan Francis, Kenji Bunch, and Ellen Reid. Caleb currently attends the USC Thornton School of Music, studying with Donald Crockett, Camae Dennis, Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, and Veronika Krausas.

Dazzling audiences with her easy coloratura, storytelling, and passionate performances, CHELSEA HOLLOW loves finding new ways of connecting her art to the world around her. Recent operatic performances include Birds and Balls with Opera Parallèle, Dolores with West Edge Opera, and Albert Herring with Pocket Opera. Favorite traditional roles include Die Königin der Nacht, Zerbinetta, and Olympia. Concert appearances include Concerto for Two Orchestras (Gubaidulina) with the Berkeley Symphony, Carmina Burana (Orff) and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Golden Gate Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, she released her debut album, Cycles of Resistance, including 22 commissions in 8 languages chronicling international stories of human resilience. In recognition of this project, Chelsea presented on a panel hosted by the UN’ Office of Human Rights to discuss Art and Activism.

CORINNE WHITAKER, aka the Digital Giraffe, has been a pioneering artist in digital sculpture and painting for 42 years. Beginning with the Apple IIe in 1978, she has developed a signature iconographic style that is unlike any other. In the realm of digital sculpture, she began with 3D models designed to up-end the idea of sculpture as a hard-edged geometric construct and instead to introduce organic curved forms into the medium. From New Delhi to Paris, and London to Santa Fe, New Mexico, her unique creations have stirred imaginations and instigated heated discussions about what sculpture is and how it changes our view of the world.

DARIAN DONOVAN THOMAS is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NYC. He tours the world with Arooj Aftab, Balùn, Wild Up, Moses Sumney, and as a solo artist. His classical compositions have been premiered by Ensemble Signal, Sō Percussion, Adam Tendler, and many others in countries around the global west. Darian is also a ferociously gay Blaxican from Texas. Being at the intersection of so many identities means having the opportunity to speak to and create for multiple people at once. His goal is to create spaces where everyone feels heard, acknowledged, and communicated to, to remind people–even if for just a moment– that they’re alive right now, and present in this moment.

Composer, flutist, and jazz and classical vocalist DAWN NORFLEET has been commissioned by American Composers Orchestra, University of South Carolina’s SPARC Grant, and Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM). She sang with Wynton Marsalis’ 2022 epic orchestral jazz masterpiece, ALL RISE! and records and performs frequently with saxophonist Kamasi Washington. A strong arts education advocate for under-resourced communities, Norfleet led composition lecture workshops for high school arts students through E4TT’s “Uplift” pilot project. She also serves as a mentor with Luna Composition Labs, providing mentorship to female and gender-expansive teen composers, and volunteers with NAACP’s ACT-SO program for outstanding high school students. Dr. Norfleet earned a B.A. in Music at Wellesley College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Composition and Ethnomusicology, respectively, at Columbia University.

DEVON LEE (b. 2007) is a composer and double bassist from New York City. Lee studies with Daniel Felsenfeld and Huang Ruo at the Juilliard Music Advancement Program and is an alumnus of the Luna Composition Lab and Very Young Composers Program. Lee has had their music played by organizations like the New York Philharmonic, Juilliard, the Knights, ChamberQUEER, and the New World Symphony, and has been featured on WQXR and in the Cincinnati May Festival. Lee loves to participate in musical communities and writes pieces that reflect how they experience the world in hopes that resonate with others. Alongside music, Lee likes to draw, knit, and crochet.

Born in Oakland and raised in Davis, composer ELINOR ARMER has spent her life on the West Coast, where she has taught piano, theory, composition, and music history at every level, in schools and universities, at her home in Berkeley as well as in master classes in the U.S. and abroad. For the last fifty years she has been affiliated with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where in 1985 she established the composition department, and where she continues to teach composition. Since 2014, the Conservatory has awarded the Elinor Armer Scholarship in Composition to qualifying women applicants. Armer’s music is widely performed worldwide and published by Subito Music Corporation. Among her best-known works is "Uses of Music in Uttermost Parts" a fantasy series created over a ten-year period with writer Ursula K. Le Guin. 

ERIKA OBA is a composer, pianist/flutist, and educator based in the SF Bay Area. As a composer she has written works for jazz ensembles, chamber groups, dance, and theater. She has been commissioned by groups such as the Del Sol String Quartet, Fresno Philharmonic, Shotgun Players, and Sharp and Fine. She is active as a performer on both piano and flute, and performs with her own groups the Erika Oba Trio, Rice Kings, and The Sl(e)ight Ensemble. She has performed in a wide variety of ensembles with musicians such as Meredith Monk, Peter Apfelbaum, Hitomi Oba, Lisa Mezzacappa, Jean Fineberg, Jon Jang, Francis Wong, and many other jazz and experimental musicians. In addition to her own private teaching studio, she is a private jazz piano instructor for UC Berkeley’s Music Department and a resident music director with Berkeley Playhouse’s Youth Conservatory Program...(full bio) 

Berkeley-born composer GABRIELA LENA FRANK has been Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia, Detroit, and Houston Symphony Orchestras. Founder of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM), she was included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history in 2017. She explores her multicultural heritage and identity through her compositions and has traveled extensively throughout South America in creative exploration. Her music often reflects not only her own personal experience as a multiracial Latina, but also refract her studies of Latin American cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. Frank has received the Heinz Award and a Latin Grammy as well as Guggenheim and USA Artist Fellowships.

Hailed by the LA Times as a “powerfully inventive” and “remarkably versatile L.A. musician with a penchant for crossing all over the musical place,” saxophonist and composer HITOMI OBA’s work emphasizes the integration of improvisation with pre-composed music. She has written for and performed in various jazz and classical new music settings, including commissions by the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series and the Seattle Symphony’s chamber series, and as a member of Kenny Burrell’s Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited and the Jon Jangtet. In addition to leading her own ensembles, ranging from trios to big band, Oba is a co-founder of the new music collective, LA Signal Lab, premiering and recording stylistically diverse new music including a collaborative, multi-genre cantata. Her second jazz album, “Negai,” released under... (full bio)

INTI FIGGIS-VIZUETA is a composer and educator who works to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & Indigenous futures. Described as a “rising new music star” (LA Times), with “smooth and serrated melodies” (New York Times) and an “intriguing…highly integrated sound” (Gramophone), “wrought from a language we’d do well to learn” (Washington Post), inti has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Attacca Quartet, Rothko String Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, violinist Jennifer Koh, and cellists Andrew Yee and Jay Campbell, among many others...(full bio)

ISABELLE TSENG is an award-winning composer and violinist from Florida. She draws inspiration from culture, language, and current events in her music, for which she has been recognized for by organizations such as ASCAP and Luna Composition Lab, with her works having been performed by GRAMMYs and other award winning ensembles as well as in festivals hosted by the American Composers Orchestra, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and Mannes School of Music, and many more.

Composer JONATHAN BAILEY HOLLAND has written music that has been performed across the country and around the world. He has been commissioned and performed by the orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, BBC, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kalamazoo, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New World, Philadelphia, San Antonio, South Bend, and others, as well as the Abeo Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Players, der/gelbe/klang, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Network for New Music, Present Music, Radius Ensemble, Plymouth Music Series, and more.  

He is currently the dean of the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music, as well as the Kay Davis Professor of Music, at Northwestern University. He has served on the faculty of Berklee College of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis Institute of Music, and Vermont College of Fine Arts, and...(full bio)

Radiant and transcendent,” the music of JUHI BANSAL (b. 1984) weaves together themes celebrating musical and cultural diversity, nature and the environment, and strong female role models. Her music draws upon elements as disparate as progressive metal, Hindustani music, spectralism, musical theater and choral traditions to create deeply expressive, evocative sound-worlds. Recent projects include Love, Loss and Exile, a song cycle on poetry by Afghan women commissioned by Songfest; Songs from the Deep, a new orchestral work inspired by humpback whale songs commissioned by the Oregon Mozart Players; Waves of Change, a digital experience on womanhood, identity and clash of cultures inspired by the story of the Bangladesh Girls Surf Club; and Edge of a Dream, an opera about Ada Lovelace, daughter of infamous poet Lord Byron and a 19th Century pioneer in computing commissioned by Los Angeles Opera.

LUCY CHEN (b. 2005) is a freshman at Stanford University who studies music composition with Wang Lu and previously Yiming Wu. Music has always been a huge part of Lucy’s life, and she loves playing music as well as creating it. She started studying composition in 2020, and has since been recognized in many national and international awards such as BMI’s Student Composer Awards (2021 and 2022), YoungArts Classical Music (2022), Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (2021 and 2023), and the National Young Composer Challenge (2021). Lucy was a Luna Lab Composition Fellow for the 2022-2023 season under mentor Nina Shekhar, and she was a composer apprentice for the 2023 season of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra (NYO-USA) program under mentor Sean Shepherd. She premiered Memoir of Morocco with NYO musicians in Carnegie Hall... (full bio)

MADELINE CLARA CHENG is a composer, saxophonist, and pianist from the San Francisco Bay Area, studying composition and business law as a Presidential Scholar at the University of Southern California. She is a 2023 YoungArts Award Winner and a recipient of the ICEBERG New Music and Lift Up Our Voices scholarships. As an alumna of Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid's Luna Composition Lab, Madeline has been awarded commissions by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's May Festival and the UUCWC Crossing Chorale.

Madeline’s compositions have been performed by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Bergen International Festival, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. She is an alumna of the Tanglewood Institute, for which she received a full scholarship, as well as the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program. When she’s not composing, Madeline can be found music directing a show or building escape rooms.

MARCUS NORRIS’ (b. 1991) first foray into making music came in the form of producing rap beats on pirated software, installed on a Windows 98 computer that he Macgyvered together from spare parts while lying on the floor of his childhood bedroom. He came to composing concert music later in life and transferred that same imagination to writing music fusing all kinds of influences. Called a “New Musical Talent in our Midst” by Chicago’s N’digo Magazine, Norris was selected as an inaugural Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Philharmonic from 2021- 24 and for the 2020 LA Philharmonic’s National Composers Intensive. In 2020 he founded South Side Symphony - the only orchestra that would perform “Back That Thang Up” on the same concert as Beethoven.

MONICA CHEW (she/her) is an Oakland pianist and composer. In 2017 she released her first solo album, Tender and Strange. A “gifted player with an affinity for deeply sensitive expression” (Whole Note, June/July/August 2018), her playing is “wonderfully delicate, like tissue” (International Pianist, July/August 2018). She has been a featured artist on KVMR, KPFA and radio stations across the United States. She started composing in 2017 and couldn’t be happier about it. Her work has been featured as part of the Gabriela Lena Frank’s Creative Academy for Music’s #GLFCAMGigThruCovid initiative, Hot Air Music Festival, and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s Intersection program. Her first string quartet, Delayed Send, was premiered by Friction Quartet in November 2020 and reviewed as “monumental” and “stunning” by San Francisco Classical Voice. She loves playing chamber music...(full bio)

NICOLÁS LELL BENAVIDES’ music has been praised for finding “…a way to sketch complete characters in swift sure lines…” (Anne Midgette, Washington Post) and cooking up a “jaunty score [with] touches of cabaret, musical theater and Latin dance.” (Tim Smith, OPERA NEWS). He is a 2024-25 Guggenheim Fellow and has received commissions from groups like The New York Philharmonic/The Juilliard School, the LA Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, Eighth Blackbird, New Century Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Hope, SFCM Orchestra with Edwin Outwater, West Edge Opera, Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Music of Remembrance, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Fry Street Quartet, Friction Quartet, Brightwork newmusic, and Khemia Ensemble. His music has received support from organizations such as the American Composers Forum, The Barlow Endowment, New Music USA, Opera America... (full bio)

NINA SHEKHAR is a composer and multimedia artist who explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter to create bold and intensely personal works. Described as “tart and compelling” (New York Times), “vivid” (Washington Post), an “orchestral supernova” (LA Times), and a “rare composer who opens our ears a little wider each time” (Chicago Tribune), her music has been commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, The Crossing, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her work has been featured by the Hollywood Bowl, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art... (full bio)

PAMELA Z is a composer/performer and media artist making works for voice, electronics, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video. She has toured throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. Her work has been presented at venues and exhibitions including Bang on a Can (NY), the Japan Interlink Festival, Other Minds (SF), MoMA (NY), the Venice Biennale, and Dakar Biennale. She has composed scores for dance, film, and chamber ensembles (including Kronos Quartet and Eighth Blackbird). Her awards include the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MIT McDermott Award, the Guggenheim, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

SAGE SHURMAN (b. 2005) is a composer, orchestrator, and multimedia artist from Los Angeles. She is interested in art as a sensory experience and is known to create driving emotional narratives. Amongst other awards, Sage is an ASCAP Morton Gould winner, a John Green Prize winner, and a YoungArts winner. She has been commissioned by groups including Hub New Music, the Taos Chamber Music Group, the Cincinnati May Festival, and ChamberQUEER. Additionally, her works have been performed by ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic String Orchestra, members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Southeast Symphony, Sandbox Percussion, the Thalea Quartet, the Parker Quartet, Ensemble 4 These Times, members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), NKCC, Triple Helix, and Recap Percussion Quartet... (full bio)

Recently featured in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra EarShot New Music Readings, SAKARI DIXON (b. 1992) seeks to incorporate her collaborators’ unique artistry in each of her works. Her piano quintet Obsidian, rippled in moonlight, gleams and her string octet Fire Season, both written for Salastina, embody stark contrasts that convey her fascination with metamorphosis as a natural element of life. Described as “thrilling and powerful” (Journal of the American Viola Society), El príncipe sombrío y los recuerdos de su niñez remains a popular choice among violists. Her suite of unaccompanied works, Bagatelles for Strings, was commissioned for the 36th Annual Irving M. Klein International String Competition, where it premiered on The Violin Channel. Other recent premieres include commissions for Derek Bermel, HOCKET, and...(full bio)

SEA NOVAA is a Bahamian-American composer and multi-disciplinary artist. Their compositions and sonic sculptures are deeply influenced by the avant-garde aesthetic, electronic music, Taoism, and their Afro-Caribbean roots. Novaa's works explore themes of nature, spirituality, Afro-futurism, and self-exploration, and they seek to create sound worlds that fuse together acoustic and electronic means of expression. Currently, Novaa is traversing the nexus between sound, generative art, and abstract painting. Their influences are Harold Budd, Alice Coltrane, Eliane Radigue, Toru Takemitsu, Mark Rothko, and Jesse Murry.

URSULA KWONG-BROWN is a composer, sound designer and arts technologist, originally from NYC but recently located to Los Angeles. Described as “atmospheric and accomplished” by The New York Times, her work has been performed in the United States, Europe, and Asia in diverse venues including Carnegie Hall, le Poisson Rouge, Miller Theatre, the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.  Honors include ASCAP and NACUSA awards, a Berkeley Symphony Composer Fellowship and grants from Chamber Music America and the Sloan Foundation. Ursula received her B.A. in Music & Biology from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Music Composition & New Media from the University of California, Her scores are published by Ursa Minor Music.

Drawing from an eclectic range of influence, VALERIE LIU's compositions are inspired by her strong connection to the natural world, visual arts, literature, and ancient cultures. A San Francisco Conservatory of Music graduate, Valerie has received honorable mention in The American Prize, special mention at the Maurice Ravel International Composition Competition, and honorable mention at the IAWM Search for New Music Competition. Her chamber work was featured at the Alba Music Festival, her duet work was premiered by flautist Alexandra Urfer, and her orchestral work was performed by the Brazilian National Theatre Claudio Santoro Symphony Orchestra at the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival. 

JUNO Award-winning composer VIVIAN FUNG has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. NPR calls her “one of today’s most eclectic composers,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer praises her “stunningly original compositional voice.” Upcoming season collaborations include the continuation and creation of Fung’s first opera, My Family // Cambodia, 1975, in collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek; a new song cycle song cycle for Andrea Núñez with Vavrek, as part of a residency at National Sawdust; a Del Sol Quartet commission for their project Songs of the Diaspora; and research to Guizhou, China with violinist Nancy Zhou. Born in Edmonton, Canada, Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School and currently lives in California. 

Hailed as a “composer of energized and soulful music,” Zanaida Stewart Robles is an award-winning artist whose vibrant works have been performed worldwide by choirs and ensembles of all levels. A sought-after composer, vocalist, and educator, she blends rich harmonies, rhythmic drive, and influences from gospel to progressive rock, creating music that connects deeply with performers and audiences alike.