MATA Festival Composer Bios
Ana Luisa Diaz de Cossio
Ana Luisa Díaz de Cossío is a performer-composer whose work traverses the space between social structures, individuality, spontaneity, and explores resonance in physical as well as cultural space Through extreme extended techniques, she challenges conventional instrument playing, exploring the possibilities and limits of sounds within an instrument Her music is informed by political, social, and cultural awareness of the systems constituting our societies
She has participated in experimental festivals and fellowships around the world, including Manifesté-IRCAM (FR), Darmstadt Summer Course (DE), OneBeat Taiwan (TW), Experimental Institute at Antenna Cloud Farm (USA), Ensemble Evolution (USA), Karp Kamina Residency (Togo), ANMA+NordPlus Music Forum (EE), Dark Music Days (IS), Time for Music (FI), and ActinArt (DK), among others. Díaz de Cossío holds degrees from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Listaháskoli Íslands. She is currently a doctoral student at the University of California, San Diego.
Anselm McDonnell
Anselm McDonnell (b 1994) is an Irish/Welsh composer whose music has been described as “abrasive and compelling” (Irish Times) “dazzling seductive eerie and disturbing” (Planet Hugill)“a feast for the senses ” (Morning Star) and “the cutting edge of musical creativity ” (Opera Journal) A diverse range of interests in cross-genre and multimedia art has led to collaboration with rap artists, lighting designers, poets, filmmakers, dancers, and actors, including the 5-star reviewed Politics of the Imagination, a rap opera commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra McDonnell’s works embrace musical and emotional contrasts that “evoke emotional territories indicative of our time’s unsettled state of menace, balanced with personal moments of fragile hope and stability ” (Get Classical NYC)
McDonnell has held residencies at the London Symphony Orchestra (Jerwood + composer for 2023/24), Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (Oct/Nov 23), Belfast City Council (2022) and TACETi Ensemble in Bangkok (Jun 23). International performers of his music include Rosetta Ensemble (Japan), GAMEnsemble (Russia), Ottawa Guitar Orchestra (Canada), Ensemble Offspring (Australia), C4 Ensemble (USA), and Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (Finland). In the UK and Ireland, he has been commissioned and performed by the LSO, BBC Concert Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC NOW, BBC Singers, Crash Ensemble, Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, Chamber Choir Ireland, and New Dublin Voices.
Bunita Marcus
Bunita Marcus, born in Madison, Wisconsin, was a well-recognized pianist and bass clarinetist when she began composing at the age of thirteen She worked in both electronic and instrumental mediums while at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison In 1981, she received a Ph D in Composition from the State University of New York at Buffalo where she held the Edgard Varese Fellowship in Composition and studied with Morton Feldman Ms Marcus' music has been consistently praised for its beauty and rare sensitivity Kyle Gann of the Village Voice has called her one of his favorite women composers of all time He applauds her piano work Julia for its "touching and unassuming depth," which "had the audience hushed under the impact of deeply communicated feeling " Los Angeles critic Alan Rich says her work Adam and Eve "states an eloquent case for the persistence of pure beauty in contemporary composition "
Bunita met Morton Feldman in 1976, beginning a long association that lasted until his death in 1987 For seven years they were inseparable Feldman and Marcus composed side by side, sharing musical thoughts and ideas In 1985 Feldman dedicated his new piano composition: "For Bunita Marcus " Today, Dr Marcus lectures, coaches and writes regularly on Morton Feldman's music
Bunita Marcus has written commissions for Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Kronos Quartet, Aki Takahashi, the Xenakis Ensemble, Morton Feldman and Soloists, Tokyo‚ "Sound-Space ARK" Ensemble, and others. Her music has received awards from the National Endowment of the Arts (Composer's Fellowship), the International Society of Contemporary Music/World Music Days, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the League of Composers' National Competition, and the coveted Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at Darmstadt.
From 1985-1990 Ms. Marcus produced the Salon Concert Series with painter Francesco Clemente in New York City. Today she is active as a composer, conductor and pianist, appearing in concerts and festivals around the world. Bunita Marcus' music is dedicated to stimulating both intellect and soul. Music that lights the spark of the divine in all of us. Bunita Marcus' music is a delight to listen to, taking you on a journey of wonder.
Erich Barganier
Erich Barganier is a composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from St Petersburg, Florida who currently resides between New York City and Durham, NC He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores experimental technology, the edge of noise, improvisation, generative processes, and new forms of notation. His music has been released on New Focus Recordings, People Places Records, cmntx, [walnut+locust], Belts and Whistles Records, Infrequent Seams, Off Latch Press, Nebularosa Records, Pleroma Records, NOUS Records, and Janus Music and Sound.
Barganier's works have been presented by Bang on a Can, The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Gaudeamus, Mostly Modern Festival, The New Music Gathering, Roulette Intermedium, National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Diffrazioni Festival, The DiMenna Center For Classical Music, Spectra Malaysia, Arts, Letters, & Numbers, and McGill University, among others.
He has written for Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, current and former members of the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Sybarite5, Quince, loadbang, and Sandbox Percussion Ensemble, among others He has served as an artist-in-residence at The Conlon Collective (Utrecht, NL), CIRMMT (McGill University, Montreal, CAN), Westben Artist Retreat (Westben, CAN), and Oracle Egg (Los Angeles, USA) He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014 and taught English at the Belarus State University of Culture and Arts in Minsk while collecting regional folk songs and performing traditional American music across Eastern Europe
Barganier is a performing member of the electric guitar/clarinet/electronic experimental music duo Shutterspeed Duo with Ford Fourqurean and is an active soloist on the oud, electric guitar, and mandolin
Floriana Provenzano
Floriana Provenzano (1998) is an Italian composer Her music often originates from sound images and visual or physical sensations, unfolding into explorations of texture, brightness, and timbre She frequently employs instrumental preparations, metallic objects, and unconventional materials, aiming to expand the expressive potential of sound
Her works have been performed by ensembles and soloists such as zone expérimentale, Blaurenz Duo, Ensemble Sillages, Duo Dubois, mdi ensemble, and Giulia Zaniboni, and presented at international festivals including impuls (AT), IntAct (TH), Mixtur (ES), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (AT), Trame Sonore (Mantua, IT), Sound of Wander (Milan, IT), Musikàmera (Venice, IT), among others She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in composition at the Conservatory of Mantua, under the guidance of Zeno Baldi and Maurizio Azzan
Gillian Rae Perry
Gillian Rae Perry is a composer and songwriter whose work is dedicated to themes of mental health, vulnerability, and interconnectedness She grew up on a bird farm in rural Texas and her first compositions were written for the birds
Perry was the Vanguard Emerging Opera Composer with Chicago Opera Theater for the 2022-2024 seasons and is a 2025-2026 recipient of New Music USA's Creator Fund Grant Her grant with New Music USA provided funding for her latest album, gilly's garden, set to release April 3, 2026 Her work has been performed by the Chicago Philharmonic, Chicago Opera Theater, Atlanta Opera, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, among others Perry's work has been described as "sweet and sensitive" (Parterre Box) as well as "gentle, introspective, caring, important, and beautiful" (Music City Review).
With degrees in both film and music composition, as well as growing up a theater kid, Perry actively integrates art forms outside of music into her artistic practice. Perry is also influenced by text and poetry and she
released her first collection of poetry, What Will I Wish for Now?, in 2024 Perry holds an MFA in music composition from The California Institute of the Arts and is currently a DMA candidate at the Peabody Institute
Jennifer Gersten
Jennifer Gersten is a violinist and writer from New York City A former tenured section violinist in Helsingborg Symfoniorkester (Sweden), she instigates avant-garde and improvised music projects in the US and Scandinavia As a journalist, Jennifer has contributed feature reporting, essays, and music criticism to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, Gramophone, The Wire, and The Washington Post, among other publications
As a music-maker, Jennifer is primarily engaged with the question of what the violin could do if it only tried, lately with her improvising groups Hvidovrefjell (with Ole-Henrik Moe and Kari Rønnekleiv) and Goal Weight (with Maggie Cox); the latter released its debut record, Keep Telling Yourself That (Relative Pitch), this March Forthcoming projects include solo violin works created with composer-musicians Jo David Meyer Lysne (NO), Inga Margrete Aas (NO), and Luis Fernando Amaya (MX/NO), among others An avid chamber musician, Jennifer has performed with TAK Ensemble, the Norwegian Radio Broadcasting Orchestra, and Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra
Jennifer is a Fulbright and two-time American Scandinavian Foundation grant recipient for journalism- and performance-based research on Norwegian experimental music She holds a DMA and MM from Stony Brook University, where she was a winner of the concerto competition, and a BA in English from Yale
Jessica Shand
Jessica Shand is a flutist, producer, composer, and researcher based out of Providence, RI She merges contemporary experimental classical, jazz, and electronic performance practices with mathematics and computer science to (de)construct sound as a relational interface between and among humans and machines Her debut release, a solo album entitled Transmutations (February 2025), unravels vast perceptual landscapes out of flute sound to probe the boundaries of auditory perception
An inaugural fellow with the Steve Jobs Archive (2023-24), Jessica’s work spans live performance, studio recording, sound design for film, gallery installations, academic publications, and community workshops At 20, she became one of the youngest-ever invited speakers at the annual joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and Society for Music Theory (AMS-SMT), where she presented her early writing on artificial creativity and improvising machines. She has since co-authored publications for the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) as well as the inaugural creative AI track at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).
Jessica has been a Wm S Haynes Co International Young Artist since 2016 and has received recognition as a flutist from organizations and ensembles worldwide, including first-prize awards in competitions hosted by the National Flute Association, NPR’s From the Top, National YoungArts Foundation, Music Teachers National Association, and more She has performed with such ensembles as the American Modern Opera Company, American Repertory Theatre, International Contemporary Ensemble, Aspen Music Festival and School, and National Youth Orchestra of the USA Her original work has been commissioned and presented by the Harvard University New Music Ensemble, Berggruen Institute, Non-Event, PVD Fringe, New Ear :: SPATIAL, and more
Passionate about equity and sustainability across local and global arts ecosystems, Jessica has held positions with the Artistic Freedom Initiative, Advisory Board for the Arts, and Density Arts She has been invited to give talks and community workshops at the MIT Museum, Interlochen Center for the Arts, UMass Amherst, RIOT! RI, and more.
Originally from Colorado, Jessica holds an M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2024) and a B.A. in Mathematics and Music from Harvard University (2022). While at Harvard, she studied flute performance with Paula Robison as part of the highly selective joint program with the New England Conservatory. Other cherished mentors include Claire Chase, Vijay Iyer, Esperanza Spalding, Miguel Zenón, and Brook Ferguson. She is now further developing her work at Brown University, where she is a second-year PhD student in music and multimedia composition.
Kaleena Miller
Kaleena Miller is a sound-focused dance artist (tap dancer, choreographer, improvisor, educator, and deep listener) whose work has found form as live performance, video, sound installation, written scores and wood works Named one of DANCE Magazine’s 25 to Watch, a McKnight Dancer Fellow, and a MacDowell Fellow, her work has been presented in Minneapolis, New York and Chicago, including commissions from the American Tap Dance Foundation, Cowles Center for Dance, and Walker Art Center.
Born and raised in Minnesota, Miller toured internationally with Rhythmic Circus’ Feet Don’t Fail
Me Now! for 10 years, co-directed the acclaimed Twin Cities Tap Festival from 2015-2021, and founded Kaleena Miller Dance, a tap dance company that produced new work and provided mentorship She has performed in works by Roxane Butterfly, Joe Chvala, Heather Cornell, Michelle Dorrance, Derick Grant, Lisa La Touche, Michael J Love, Sandy Silva, Jumaane Taylor and Laurie Van Wieren
Now living in New York, and having recently completed a Deep Listening Certification from the Center for Deep Listening as well as an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Miller has founded LOUNDOVING projects (a portmanteau of listening + sounding + moving), dedicated to highlighting the nuance, variation, and possibilities of percussive dance work.
Kristupas Bubnelis
Kristupas Bubnelis is a Lithuanian composer based in New York His work explores microtonality, timbre, and temporal processes, often combining acoustic instruments with electronics His music frequently draws on architectural thinking about sound, shaping slowly evolving textures and resonant harmonic structures
His works have been performed internationally by ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Wet Ink Ensemble, Caput Ensemble, and Quasar Saxophone Quartet, and presented at festivals such as the ISCM World New Music Days and the Lucerne Festival Academy His work has also been featured at the International Rostrum of Composers and the International Young Composers Academy Ticino
Bubnelis is currently pursuing a DMA in composition at Columbia University, where he studies with Georg Friedrich Haas, Marcos Balter, and Zosha Di Castri He previously studied at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating with distinction and receiving the DipRAM Award for an outstanding portfolio
He is a nominee of the Prince Pierre Foundation Musical Springboard Award (2025) and a prize winner of the Eduardas Balsys Young Composers’ Competition (2021) Recent projects include collaborations with the International Contemporary Ensemble and performances at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall
Laila Arafah
Laila Arafah is a London-based composer whose work explores fragile systems, sonic processes, and forms emerging from interruption, interaction and temporal instability At nineteen, she received a commission from the London Symphony Orchestra through the Panufnik Composers Scheme, and has since been commissioned by BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra, London Contemporary Music Festival, the London Mozart Players, and Explore Ensemble
Her music has been performed internationally by Ensemble MusikFabrik, Talea Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, and Quatuor Bozzini, and venues including Aldeburgh Festival, King’s Place, Bold Tendencies, Westminster Abbey, St John’s Smith Square, Bowdoin Music Festival, and KM28 Berlin
She has held fellowships at Aspen Music Festival (2024, 2025), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, and IMPULS Festival Her work has been recognized with awards including the Frank Abell Composer's Award, Leverhulme Grant, Faber Music Grant, International Guitar Foundation, and CoMA Composer-in-Residence (2024). Through these opportunities, she has engaged with composers such as George Lewis, Judith Weir, Hans Abrahamsen, Olga Neuwirth, Chaya Czernowin, and Nico Muhly. Laila is pursuing a Bachelor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music.
Upcoming projects include a chamber work premiering at the Frick Museum in New York, a string quartet for
the Britten Pears Summer Academy, premiere at REDNOTE festival with Trio Diorama, a new work for Ensemble Intercontemporain at IYCA, and participation in the composer-conductor fellowship at Grafenegg Music Festival’s Ink Still Wet programme
Laura Raquel Cetilia
As a daughter of mixed heritage, Mexican-American musician, laura cetilia is at home with in-betweenness, straddling multiple worlds as cellist / composer / educator / artist while working within acoustic / electronic / traditional / experimental sound practices Her compositions have been described as “unorthodox loveliness” (Boston Globe) and “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” (Sequenza 21) Her works have been performed by San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, TAK Ensemble, loadbang, Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Dog Star Orchestra, a pe ri od ic, LCollective, Tacet{i) Ensemble, and others Laura plays with Mem1 (established in 2003 with M Cetilia, modular synth), Ordinary Affects, LCollective, and the all-female groups Moons, n/ether, and noeplace In Fall 2024 Laura returned to teaching cello and experimental music at Community MusicWorks, an organization that provides free instruments and lessons in underserved areas of Providence, Rhode Island
Liann J Kang
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Liann J Kang is a composer and vocalist who writes music that brings out imagery and sensory responses that can be stimulated uniquely through the time-based auditory experience of music, inspired by her experience of synesthesia
Kang is a 2025 Tanglewood Music Center Composition Fellow and has been named 2025 ICMC Best Student Music Award, First Prize winner of the 2024 Sweetwater/SEAMUS Commission Competition, and winner of the Twenty-Third Annual 21st Century Piano Commission Competition at the University of Illinois She is also the recipient of 2024 Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship
Her works have featured internationally at events and conferences including SEAMUS, MA/IN Festival, NYCEMF, EMM, ICMC, Napoleon Electronic Media Festival, CHIMEFest at University of Chicago, Chosun Daily National Debut Concert in Seoul, South Korea, Sound Spaces in Malmö, Sweden, and the highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy
Her primary teachers have included Philippe Hurel, Yan Maresz, João Pedro Oliveira, Eli Fieldsteel, and has previously had masterclasses led by Kaija Saariaho and John Harbison She earned a Bachelor of Music in composition with honors from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Currently, Kang is a doctoral candidate in composition-theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she also earned her Master of Music.
Pauline Kim Harris
Pauline Kim Harris also known as PK or Pauline Kim is a boundary-defying violinist, award-winning recording artist, composer, curator, and producer Equally at home in a concert hall or an experimental art space, she has performed across the U S , Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia as a soloist, collaborator, and music director
Best known as half of the classical avant-punk duo String Noise, Pauline has also toured extensively with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, performs regularly with leading new music ensembles in New York City, and is a member of the American Symphony Orchestra
A fierce advocate for innovation, Pauline’s creative work lives at the intersection of sound, movement, and visual art blending electronics, media, film, and dance into powerful interdisciplinary experiences She has premiered and recorded works by visionary composers including Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Philip Glass, Tyondai Braxton, Steve Reich, Catherine Lamb, Du Yun, and George Lewis, among many others. Her collaborations have extended to dance, including featured performances for choreographers David Parker (The Bang Group), Pam Tanowitz, and John Heginbotham.
Her debut solo album, Heroine (Sono Luminus, 2019) a bold reimagining of Bach’s Chaconne alongside Ockeghem’s Deo Gratias was followed by Wild at Heart in 2021, further cementing her status as a genre-fluid artist of rare vision. Her recordings appear on labels including Decca, Tzadik, Northern Spy, Nonesuch, New Focus, Unseen Worlds, Cold Blue, and more. Her performances have been broadcast on PBS, BBC, NPR, WQXR, WNYC, WKCR, and WFMU.
Pauline serves as Executive Director of Music at the Anthology (MATA Festival) and was the inaugural Music Director for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. She has held residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Mabel Residency, The Stone – New School, and was awarded the EtM Con Edison Composer Residency at Bloomingdale School of Music. In 2021, she was commissioned to compose the score for Coco Fusco’s Your Eyes Will Be An Empty Word, featured at the Whitney Biennial.
Sami Seif
Lebanese composer and music theorist Sami Seif (b. 1998) has been praised as “ a distinctive voice” who creates “intoxicating soundworld[s]” (Carla Rees, Pan Journal of the British Flute Society). Described as “ very tasteful and flavorful” with “beautiful, sensitive writing!” (Webster University Young Composers Competition), his music is inspired by aesthetics, philosophies, paradigms and poetry of his Middle-Eastern heritage. His latest musical concerts center around the phenomenology of time and of differing degrees of focus.
An enthusiastic collaborator, Seif has worked with numerous renowned musicians. Previous and upcoming collaborators include Mary Kay Fink and Stanley Konopka of The Cleveland Orchestra, Carla Rees, Josh Modney, ETHEL, Vinay Parameswaran, Marcelo Lehninger, The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, TAK
Ensemble, Earplay, the Odin Quartet, TEMPO Ensemble, Ensemble 126, Ensemble Metamorphosis, Juan Riveros, Drew Hosler, and Dustin White, among others Seif’s music and has been recognized internationally by various institutions such as ASCAP, SOCAN, the Society for New Music, the RED NOTE New Music Festival, the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York, the New York Composers Circle, the Stamford Music and Arts Academy, the Foundation for Modern Music The Ohio Federation of Music Clubs the Cleveland Composer’s Guild and more
Additionally, he was selected as a finalist for the 2019 Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra call for scores from a pool of more than 2200 applicants from more than 90 countries In 2020, he was selected asian from a larger pool of almost 8000 applicants Seif has been accepted to multiple prestigious residencies, including MacDowell and Millay Arts
Originally from the small town of Ashkout in Mount Lebanon, he was born to a non-musical family in Abu Dhabi and he is fluent in Arabic, French and English. He started out at the age of twelve as a self-taught musician, composing and playing on microtonal keyboards, specially designed for Arabic music. Not having had access to formal music education, Seif taught himself how to read and write music by reading theory textbooks. He later formally studied piano, composition, audio engineering, and sound synthesis.
Seif completed his undergraduate studies in composition and music theory at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he was honored with the Donald Erb prize in composition and the Beth Pearce Nelson award in music theory upon graduation. He is currently a doctoral fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center, studying with Douglas Geers, David Fulmer, Steve Everett, Suzanne Farrin, Yayoi Uno Everett, Jason Eckhardt, Bruce Saylor, and Dave Schober.
Tristan Kasten-Krause
Tristan Kasten-Krause is a bassist and composer living in New York City, whose work enlarges the minutiae of close tones and subtle gestures. As a bassist he has been credited with providing his “low-end authority to vital New York institutions” (the New Yorker) such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and The Whitney Biennial, as well as across the globe at LA’s Disney Hall, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Ruhrtriennale.
He has performed with many of the world’s top modern music ensembles including The Bang on a Can All-Stars, Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Contemporaneous, and Ensemble Signal.
Over the last decade Tristan has worked with forward-thinking artists such as Sigur Ros, Alvin Lucier, Sarah Hennies, Julia Wolfe, Sarah Davachi, Caroline Shaw, David Lang, Ichico Aoba and Steve Reich. He has performed on Broadway in Gypsy with Audra McDonald (2025), Justin Peck’s Illinoise (2024) and Daniel Fish’s
Oklahoma! (2019-2020), and can be heard on television in Netflix’s The Witcher, PBS’s Frontline and Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle
As a composer, Tristan has been praised for his “heavenly” (the Guardian) original music His work has been showcased at Issue Project Room, The Stone, The Hudson Basilica, the Cleveland Uncommon Sounds Project, Black Mountain College Museum and the University of Chicago’s Grey Sound series He has recently been the recipient of the 2024 Copland Fund, and is a 2025 NYSCA grantee In 2026 his duo with Sarah Hennies premieres their new electroaccoustic work at the Groupe de Reserche Musicale (GRM) in Paris Their debut album The Quiet Sun was released May 2nd on Dinzu Artifacts to critical acclaim
Tristan is the bassist for the extreme metal band Scarcity and holds a masters in music from The Hartt School where he studied with Robert Black
Yifan Guo
Yifan Guo is a Chinese composer, performer, and intermedia artist who specializes in the innovative exploration of multidimensional music perception experiences, employing both sonic and non-sonic elements in performance Embracing a range of compositional practices from music theater to acoustic music, electro-acoustic music, sound installation, performative installation, and intermedia performance, Guo seeks to contribute to the innovative landscape of theatrical stage works.
Supported by institutions such as UC San Diego, Yu Long Studio, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Opera House, Parkland Foundation, and AEP-CHINA, Guo's artistic endeavors have graced renowned festivals and venues across East Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. Highlights include performances at festivals such as Beijing Music Festival (China), Ticino Musica Festival (Switzerland), Festival Mixtur (Spain), Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), Le Domaine Forget de Charlevoix (Canada), June in Buffalo (USA), and venues such as David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Qualcomm Institute (USA), Château de Fontainebleau (France), Guangzhou Xinghai Concert Hall, and the Guangzhou Opera House (China), amongst others.
Recent projects include "Molo," a series of intermedia performances; "Puppet," a percussion installation/performance; and "Assembled Diary," a music theater for actor, pianist conducted ensemble, electronics, and video.
Guo's collaborative efforts extend to esteemed ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Arditti Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, Ensemble l'Itinéraire, PinkNoise Ensemble, Black Page Orchestra, United Instruments of Lucilin, Alinéa Ensemble, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Vertixe Sonora Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Moscow
Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ensemble Paramaribo, and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, as well as renowned artists including percussionist/conductor Steven Schick, percussionist Yongyun Zhang, multimedia artist Shihua Ma, flutist Xiaoyu Lin, clarinetist Vasko Dukovski, violin virtuoso Ruifeng Lin, piano virtuoso Han
Chen, double bass virtuoso Bowen Qian, soprano Tony Arnold, computer music researcher Zehao Wang and Han Zhang, and lighting designer Shee Hoe Low
As an advocate for contemporary music and music technology, Guo shares his expertise through lectures and workshops at institutions such as the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, Xinghai Conservatory of Music, South China Normal University, East China Normal University, Shenzhen Technology University, and the Guangzhou DaoHe Institute He also teaches regularly at the X-Institute in Shenzhen
Guo earned degrees from Mannes School of Music (B M with honors) and New England Conservatory of Music (M M ), and is currently pursuing a Ph D at the University of California, San Diego, under the guidance of Michelle Lou He has also received mentorship in composition from Huang Ruo, Stratis Minakakis, John Maillia, Kaija Saariaho, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Lei Liang, Marcos Balter, Rand Steiger, and Chaya Czernowin In conducting, he has been mentored by Daye Lin, Bill Drury, and David Hayes. Guo's creative works have been recognized with awards such as the Prix Marion Tournon Branly, the Carl Schachter Award, the Ise-Shima International Composition Prize, and finalist placement in the 11th Mivos/Kanter String Quartet Composition Prize.
Zihan Wu
Zihan Wu (b 2001) is a Chinese composer and pianist Her music is often praised for its sophisticated and imaginative crafting of personal soundscapes and gestures, and she is interested in exploring how the manipulation of musical parameters allows energy to transform into personal temporal and sensory resonances She is currently based in Cologne, Germany, studying Konzertexamen in composition at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln in Miroslav Srnka's class
Her works have been featured at festivals such as the ECLAT Festival (Stuttgart), Rondò Season (Milan), and CEME Festival (Tel Aviv). She has also been selected as a composition fellow in the “Ink Still Wet” Composer-Conductor Workshop at the Grafenegg Festival, DeGaetano Composition Institute, Diotima Quartet Academy, Aspen Music Festival, and many others. Her current project involves a new orchestral work for the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra to be premiered at the Lucerne Festival in summer 2026.
She has collaborated with orchestras and ensembles such as Orchestra of St. Luke's, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, Meitar Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Fabrik Quartet, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Impronta Ensemble, Yale Philharmonia, Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble, Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, Ossia New Music Ensemble, and many others, with performances across Europe, North America, and Asia.
Her works have received several awards, including First Prize in the Matan Givol International Composers Competition, First Prize in the MusicOn Composition Competition, Winner of the Biennale “Annamaria Strano”
Call for Scores, First Prize in the MaestrosVision International Composition Competition, and First Prize in the Beijing International Composition Workshop She has also received the Eduardas Balsys Composers Competition Award, Impronta Ensemble Composition Competition Award, Yale Ezra Laderman Prize, Eastman Student Composition Award, Eastman Bernard Rogers Memorial Prize, Louis Lane Prize, among others
She holds a Master of Music in composition from the Yale School of Music, a dual Bachelor of Music in composition and piano performance from the Eastman School of Music, and graduated from the Music Middle School Affiliated to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music
Zosha Warpeha
Zosha Warpeha is a composer-performer working in a meditative space at the intersection of contemporary improvisation and folk traditions Using bowed stringed instruments alongside her own voice, her long-form compositions explore transformations of time and tonality She performs primarily on Hardanger d’amore, a sympathetic-stringed instrument closely related to the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle Her current work is informed by the cyclical forms, rhythmic elasticity, and the physical momentum of Nordic folk music
Warpeha’s solo debut silver dawn (Relative Pitch Records) has been lauded as a “breathtaking dialogue between Warpeha and her instrument” (I Care if You Listen), with her compositional process “subverting tradition not as a political act, but as a point of departure” (Peter Margasak)
Notable performances have taken place at the Emanuel Vigeland Museum, Newport Jazz Festival, Vesterheim Museum, The Stone, Detroit Institute of Arts, Greenwood Cemetery Catacombs, and Duluth-stämman Nordic Music Festival Warpeha has collaborated with artists including Eyvind Kang, Shahzad Ismaily, Elori Saxl, Kaïa Kater, anna rg, Anne Hytta, and Unni Løvlid Ongoing collaborations include duo projects with Bolivian composer Mariel Terán, percussionist Carlo Costa, instrument-builder Webb Crawford, ambient winds player Craig Schenker, and bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause
Warpeha is currently based in Brooklyn, NY and is a 2025 Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room Her work has also been supported by the US-Norway Fulbright Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund She holds bachelor’s degrees from the New School of Jazz & Contemporary Music and Eugene Lang College in New York City and a master’s degree in Nordic folk music performance from the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo She performs with instruments and bows built by Salve Håkedal, Paul Wilson, Timothy Jansma, Niels Røine, and Andreas Grütter