composing earth
cohort IV
(2024-2025)
Seo Yoon Soyoona Kim
Seo Yoon Soyoona Kim 김서윤 (b.1988) writes music to spotlight and cherish underrepresented stories while exploring time, harmony, and texture in interdisciplinary settings. She employs voice, acoustic and electronic instruments, as well as found sounds in her music to realize the soundscape she imagines.
Highlights include a performance of her orchestra piece Rain, Thunder, Lightning at the Johns Hopkins University East Asian Cultural Expo, which engages her memory of Jangma, the rainy season in Korea; four performances of her theatrical piece Give me my leg back!, that retells her favorite childhood story in her way; a performance of her opera Dear Father, which explores the longing for the education of Korean women; and two visual album release - Hearing Stars and The Ocean's Cry, a product of collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Center, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and her composers' collective CNSNC.
Angela Morris
If Brooklyn’s music circles draw a venn diagram, Angela Morris thrives in the loop between avant-jazz, new music, and pop. As composer and multi-instrumentalist, (known mostly as saxophonist, she grew up playing violin) she has performed throughout North America and Europe everywhere from basements to arenas.
The Webber|Morris Big Band, her 18-piece jazz big band, performs original compositions by Morris and co-leader Anna Webber. The New York Times praised their “ambitious original compositions” and “jagged-edged band that has begun to turn musicians’ heads.” Their debut recording Both Are True (Greenleaf Music) was released in 2020 and featured on several Best of 2020 lists including The New York Times, Bandcamp, and NPR Jazz Critics Poll.
Ivette Herryman Rodríguez
Ivette Herryman Rodríguez holds a B.M in Music Composition from the Instituto Superior de Artes, in Havana, a M.M in Music Composition from Baylor University, and a M.M in Music Theory and D.M.A in Music Composition from Michigan State University.
Ivette’s music has been described as “absolutely exquisite” and “breathtakingly beautiful” (Kevin Noe-Artistic Director of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the UMKC Conservatory of Music). She is the composer of a bestseller piece for women’s choir, and the winner, among other awards, of a Cubadisco Special Award, and a Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition.
Ivette’s most recent commissions include new works for the Lantana Brass (University of North Texas) and Michigan State University's Symphony Band. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam.
Read More
Nina Shekhar
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), and an “orchestral supernova” (LA Times), her music has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Albany Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, New York Youth Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, The Crossing, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, ETHEL, violinist Jennifer Koh, saxophonist Timothy McAllister, Ensemble Échappé, Music from Copland House, soprano Tony Arnold, Third Angle New Music, The New York Virtuoso Singers, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Lyris Quartet, Ray-Kallay Duo, and New Music Detroit. Her work has been featured by the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Walt Disney Concert Hall, National Gallery of Art, National Sawdust, I Care If You Listen, ScoreFollower, and WNYC/New Sounds (New York), WFMT (Chicago), and KUSC and KPFK (Los Angeles) radio.
Read More
Roydon Tse
Named one of CBC Music’s Top “30 under 30” Canadian Classical Musicians, Dr. Roydon Tse is an award-winning composer and educator based in Toronto. His music has been commissioned & performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, & members of the Paris Opera and La Scala Orchestras, among others.
Roydon teaches for the Canadian Opera Company and is a resident faculty for the Lunenburg Academy of Music Composition Program. He is the winner of the 2023 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize.
Ben Finley
Ben Finley is a collaborative and solo performer-composer, singer, improviser, and writer grounded in creative acoustic and electric bass playing. He leads and co-leads several ensembles that cross compositional boundaries, drawing inspiration from chamber music, song forms, improvisational music making, electronics and the sound worlds of local environments.
He grew up on a music festival farm (Westben) where he witnessed many ways of making music, entwined with land and creatures. Ben is the co-founder and creative director of the Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity's Performer-Composer Residency, which since 2018 has welcomed many diverse sound explorers to collaborate, share creative music and exchange perspectives. He is a current Ph.D. candidate in the Critical Studies in Improvisation program at the University of Guelph, studying music festivals and creative music practices as sites of eco-cultural regeneration.
Read More