His other commissions include I Will Rise by the New York Chapter of the National Association of Negro Musicians; Composer-in-residence for the Grady-Rayam Spirituals Foundation in 2011 (an honor that is bestowed every year to one arranger of spirituals including Uzee Brown, Joseph Joubert and Ronald Carter); and What Sweeter Music, a Christmas Cantata by the Queen Anne Methodist Church. His 2021 commissions include the American Spiritual Ensemble; and MADMAN, a song cycle based on the parables of the Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran that is scheduled to premiere at the Fort Worth Opera in 2024.

Dr. Amukele graduated from City College of the City University of New York, where he majored in Music Theory and Biochemistry.

In addition to original stories, Jarrod has worked in translating a deconstruction of Die Zauberflӧte (The Magic Flute) called Black Flute with playwright Sybil Roberts. In concert with writing and performing, Jarrod is the Education Associate for Maryland Opera, volunteers as the Director of Project Managers with the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts (CAAPA) and serves on the board of Baltimore Musicales. As an opera singer, Jarrod draws from his performance experiences when creating new stories for fellow artists. His works are rooted in his experience of being Black, Gay and American; adding to the canon of stories written by Black Americans which are rarely seen on the operatic stage. For more information: JarrodLee.com

Another musical placemaking work titled The Emigrants (2018), commissioned by the cello-percussion duo New Morse Code, tells the stories of seven musicians who emigrated to Queens, New York City and combines oral history recordings with live music for cello and percussion. Lam recently launched a new geolocation-based work titled Passage, supported by a two-year grant from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. The award provides approximately US$61,000 of funding toward a new oral history and geolocation-enabled app highlighting the stories of minoritized communities of Hong Kong. Current projects include Kiyoshi Kuromiya: Critical Path for solo clarinet and fixed media playback (commissioned by clarinetist Shawn Copeland) and a new collaborative theatrical work with choreographer Jeff Docimo and toy pianist Dorothy Chan.

Lam’s music has been featured at the Tianjin Juilliard School, the Kaufman Music Center, the 2019 Re:Sound Festival in Cleveland, the 2020 New Music Gathering, the 2021 Hot Air Music Festival, and the 2021-22 MATA Presents season. George served as the 2018 composer-in-residence at the Chautauqua Opera Company and a 2021-22 artist-in-residence at University Settlement in New York City. George Tsz-Kwan Lam is a founding member of the NYC-based new opera ensemble Rhymes With Opera. George Tsz-Kwan Lam has also previously served as Associate Professor of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University and Assistant Professor of Music at York College CUNY. For more information, please visit www.gtlam.com

An alumnus of The Second City Training Center in Chicago and the Primary Stages Playwriting School in Manhattan, he is a proud charter member of Musical Theatre Factory, the Latinx Playwright Circle, the Latine Musical theatre Lab, the PlayGround Experiment, Lone Star Theatre, and the son of a preacher man. His theatre works include MANUEL VERSUS THE STATUE OF LIBERTY: AN UNDOCUMENTED MUSICAL COMEDY (Dramatic Question Theatre, Princeton Univ, Gallery Players), AZTEC PIRATES, A LATINX FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES, PART ONE: THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE ON MARS (Lone Star Media), PART TWO: THE INEQUITY OF SACRIFICE (Brooklyn Cultural Arts Center), HOTEL PUERTO VALLARTA: A LEGITIMATE WORK OF DRAMATIC THEATRE (Houston Stages), PROMESA: A MARIACHI MUSICAL (Musical Theatre Factory), ANIMAL HUSBANDRY (Fringe NYC), SCISSORS UNDER THE HOUSE (Latinx Playwrights Circle), #52SONGS (The Underground, The Beachman), ADAN Y JULIO Y LA FRONTERA 2003 (Viva Theatre), THE PIÑATA (Indiana Univ, KCACTF), TALES FROM HIGHWAY 281 (Intar Theatre), THE MESQUITE TREE, AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY (Theatro Audaz), 1970’S COLLEGE SEX COMEDY (Indiana Univ), and more.

He is a Playwrights Horizons Artist Grant Recipient, a Roundabout Theatre Company SpaceJam Resident, a Primary Stages Rockwell Scholar, and a 2022 Disney TV Fellowship Finalist. Most recently, his streaming series MOST LIKELY TO premiered at the Warner Bros New York Latino Film Festival and won a prestigious Silver Telly award for excellence in film. In 2021 his song “Like a River” written with Jaime Lozano was recorded by Tejano superstar, Bobby Pulido, and released on Broadway Records. In 2024 his MFA thesis production VOX POP! A POST-DEMOCRATIC MUSICAL (Book, Music, & Lyrics) premiered at Indiana University. Follow him on social media at @davidodavila, or visit his website for more info: daviddavila.net.

He has been commissioned by notable performers and ensembles including the Cincinnati and Toledo Symphony Orchestras, Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra, Quince Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and more, with further performances by members of the Detroit, Seattle, and National Symphonies, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the American Brass Quintet, The U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” New Music Detroit, Fifth House Ensemble, Splinter Reeds, the Verb Ballets, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. His work has also been featured at festivals such as MATA, RED NOTE, Strange Beautiful Music, SEAMUS, the New Music Gathering, the Electroacoustic Barn Dance, the New York City Electronic Music Festival, and the New Music Festival at Bowling Green State University.

Williams’ work can be heard on multiple commercial releases, including soprano Katherine Jolly’s critically acclaimed debut album Preach Sister, Preach. Gramophone Magazine described his song cycle Emily’s House as “wistful” and praised his settings of Emily Dickinson’s poetry as “ratherbeautifu[l].”

Williams has received awards and recognition from the American Prize, the National Federation of Music Clubs, ASCAP, Fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and in 2018, was chosen as the Detroit Symphony’s inaugural African-American Classical Roots Composer-in- Residence. He currently serves as the Steven R. Gerber Composer-in-Residence for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

Williams completed his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition with a cognate in Orchestral Conducting at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. There, he studied with Michael Fiday, Mara Helmuth, and Douglas Knehans, and served as a teaching assistant in electronic music. He holds a Masters degree from Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH), and a Bachelors from the Conservatory of Music at Lawrence University (Appleton, WI). His other primary teachers have been Asha Srinivasan, Joanne Metcalf, Christopher Dietz, Mikel Kuehn, and Marilyn Shrude. He has also received instruction in festivals, masterclasses, and lessons from composers Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, David Maslanka, Libby Larson, Evan Chambers, Stacy Garrop, Dan Visconti, and others. He has also trained at the Bard Conductors Institute and the Band Conducting and Pedagogy Clinic at the University of Michigan.

Originally from the Chicagoland area, Williams currently resides in Boston, MA, and serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at the Berklee College of Music, where he teaches composition, conducting, music technology, harmony, and counterpoint. He previously held teaching positions at Rhodes College, Lawrence University, Bennington College, and at The Walden School’s Young Musicians Program.

After her poem “For Colored Girls who Don’t Need Katy Perry when Missy Elliott is Enough” went viral, Missy Elliott was so moved she showed up at the poet’s house. Ashlee is the host of Moderne Renaissance, an educational podcast for creatives. Her sophomore book “SMOKE” was released April 20, 2020 with a second edition released May 2023.

Ashlee began writing at the age of ten, performing her first piece at a church Mother/Daughter Banquet. After that, writing became something she did almost daily. By age 15 she was regularly performing at public competitions and events. In 2006, she was the Grand Prize Winner of V-103’s “Got Word” Youth Poetry Slam and has participated in the art/sport ever since. In her senior year of high school, she served as co-president of South Gwinnett High’s Writers’ Society Club and had been published in three national publications. In August 2009, she made her first trip to the National Poetry Slam in which Java Monkey placed fifth in the nation. From 2009-2018 Ashlee competed and coached in National Poetry Slam Competitions across the country. Ashlee Haze holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Georgia State University, Atlanta. As of September 2016 she is a full-time poet and artist. In 2020, in response to the global pandemic, she created Philosophy Media Group, a boutique media production agency based in Atlanta, GA. Under this agency she has collaborated across genres with Atlanta-based artists as well as artists globally to produce film and audio stories that represent her lived experiences. Collaborators include Devonte Hines, Andrea Gibson, script-writer and poet sxr gripp, classical collective Ensemble Vim, the Band of Brothas, Dad’s Garage, Mexican artist Jiony, violinist Carey Durham, renowned bassist Tèja Veal, as well as many others. She spends her time watching cooking competition shows and telling the stories not often told.

Brazelton’s recording project “the world is not ending—we’ve been here before” brings six works—like “STORM”, a retranslation of 3rd-c. BCE Psalm 104 to face the rising seas, extreme weather, fires and floods of climate change—into immersive audio, with over 75 singers and instrumentalists recorded worldwide.

Premiered by L. A.-based all-woman Isaura String Quartet, Brazelton confronts the creeping erosion of identity in our algorithmic lives with I am not my Photograph (you cannot erase me). A cappella Essential Prayers Project quietly revisits the tradition of prayer in intimate house concert settings, making powerful words of hurt and hope accessible to everyone in the room.

Most recently, after leaving her professorship to compose full time, Brazelton teamed with digital multimedia MASARY Studios to create Recursion and Release— four hours of live a cappella choral music digitally transformed for FirstWorks Providence RI’s street festival. Brazelton’s vocal quintet sang newly composed polyphony, with text from American Buddhist Jack Kornfield’s guided “Meditation on Letting Go,” while thousands of attendees embarked on a physical journey through spatialized choral clouds of sound and light in the dark garden, chapel and sanctuary of an 1847 church.

“Brainy, boisterous and quintessentially downtown.”–Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

“impressive nerve”—Rolling Stone

“one of the more brilliant lights”— The New York Times

Mohan debuted off-Broadway songwriting debut Village Songs at Rattlestick Theater (Spring 2022) and is a writing consultant on White Rose (off-Broadway January 2024). As a Bharatnatyam performer and creator, Mohan creates pieces that stretch the genre and explore connections between disparate artforms. Mohan has performed at 54 Below, Greenroom 42, La Mama Theater, Lincoln Center, and Midnight Theater. She is a graduate of the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

She enjoys collaborating with technologists, musicians, and artists. Along with composing, Lauren enjoys playing classical music and jazz on the clarinet and piano, spending time in nature, spending time with family and friends, and traveling.

As a dramaturg she has supported the development of several new works, including Lynn Nottage’s CLYDE’S (fka FLOYD’S) at the Guthrie and Brittany K. Allen’s REDWOOD at the Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis; and Brian Grandison’s DIESEL HEART at the History Theatre in St. Paul. Current MFA candidate: Playwriting, Columbia.