GABRIELLA SMITH: WORLD PREMIERE OF A BRAVO! VAIL COMMISSIONED WORK

Gabriella Smith is a composer from the San Francisco Bay Area whose music is described as “high-voltage and wildly imaginative” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “bold, original and suggests exciting new directions for American music” (Giancarlo Guerrero), and “You really get the Pacific Ocean, man!” (Cabrillo Festival audience member). Her music has been performed throughout the U.S. and internationally by eighth blackbird, Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, PRISM Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, and yMusic, among others. Upcoming season highlights include the world premiere of a new work for Roomful of Teeth and Dover Quartet at Bravo! Vail Music Festival, and performances of Tumblebird Contrails by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in January 2019, conducted by John Adams.

During the 2016-17 season, Gabriella was the Nashville Symphony’s inaugural Composer Lab & Workshop Fellow. Other recent residencies include two months as an artist fellow at Instituto Sacatar on the island of Itaparica in Bahia, Brazil and a Copland House Residency at Aaron Copland’s home in Cortlandt Manor, New York. 

She has received commissions from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition for a new work for yMusic, the People’s Commissioning Fund for Bang on a Can’s Field Recordings project, the Pacific Harmony Foundation for the 2014 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the New York Youth Symphony as part of their First Music Program, Tucson Symphony, yMusic, the Barnes Foundation for the opening of their 2015 exhibition Order of Things, Friction Quartet, One Book One Philadelphia in celebration of their 2012 book selection Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat, Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival for their 2012 season opening concert, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble for their 9th Annual Young Composers Concert, the Rock School of Ballet in Philadelphia, and Monadnock Music in collaboration with poet Marcia Falk, among others.

Gabriella is a recipient of the ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award (2014),  three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, a winner of the American Modern Ensemble Ninth Annual Composition Competition (2015), the Theodore Presser Foundation Music Award (2012), and the First Place Prize in the 2009 Pacific Musical Society Composition Competition.

She is currently a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, where she has studied with Steve Mackey, Paul Lansky, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Donnacha Dennehey, and Ju Ri Seo. She received her Bachelors of Music in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with David Ludwig, Jennifer Higdon, and Richard Danielpour. After graduating, she returned to the Curtis Institute of Music as an ArtistYear Fellow for the 2015-16 season, dedicating a citizen-artist year of national service in the Philadelphia region. 

When not composing, she can be found backpacking (playing trail songs on her ukulele along the way), birding, playing capoeira, working on small-scale organic farms and environmental projects around the world, and recording underwater soundscapes with her hydrophone.

EDGAR MEYER: OVERTURE FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA

Equally at home in the worlds of bluegrass and classical, eclectic bass virtuoso and Grammy-winning composer Edgar Meyer writes music that swings and sighs, offering category-defying ruminations on what America sounds like, brimming with foot-tapping energy that is both folksy and stunningly virtuosic.

ROBERTO SIERRA: DOS PIEZAS PARA ORQUESTA

One of the world’s finest orchestral colorists, Puerto Rican-born composer Roberto Sierra’s lively and idiosyncratic music infuses vibrant Latino eruptions into time-honored classical forms. From fandango to calypso, lush string textures to sassy, brassy percussion breaks, this is melting-pot music of the highest order.

GUILLAUME CONNESSON: LE TOMBEAU DES REGRETS

At just 47 years old, Connesson brings together the imaginatively diverse range of influences you might expect from a child of the 70s and 80s, from the rich musical traditions of his native France to the movie music of Bernard Hermann and John Williams, innovators like John Adams and Steve Reich, even the get-down funk of James Brown. As Gramophone magazine noted, his “retro, razzle-dazzle eclecticism knows no bounds.”

JULIA ADOLPHE: WHITE STONE

In a 2013 interview, Julia Adolphe noted, “in the music industry there’s a strict divide between pop and classical music, but they can be fused in the right way for a perfect combination on the stage.” Still not yet 30 years old, White Stone is the second work that Adolphe has been commissioned to write for the New York Philharmonic. Her music is thoughtful, sophisticated, and full of complex layers, yet infused with a luminous clarity.

DAVID LUDWIG: PANGAEA FOR PIANO AND STRINGS

David Ludwig has an illustrious pedigree, coming from several generations of eminent musicians. (His uncle is pianist Peter Serkin, his grandfather was the pianist Rudolf Serkin, and his great-grandfather was the violinist/composer Adolf Busch.) According to Fanfare magazine,  “Ludwig orchestrates with the skill and sophistication of a Ravel, and generates the power and thrills of a John Williams adventure film score.”  Resourceful and relentlessly curious, his music draws on an eclectic array of inspirations from space exploration to Ladino folk songs.