inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993) writes magically real musics through the lens of personal identities, braiding a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools—in Chocolate City (DC)—with direct Andean & Irish heritage and a deep connection to the land. Her music has been praised by The Washington Post as “haunting” and “raw, scraping yet soaring”, The New York Times as “alternatively smooth & serrated”, and The National Sawdust Log as "all turbulence" and “quietly focused”. inti is the recipient of the 2020 ASCAP Foundation Fred Ho Award. inti maintains a private studio in NYC with regular guest composition workshops and presentations of her practice at music programs around the country. She focuses on queerness, indigenous forms of transmission, and connecting diaspora to musicmaking as well as expanded notational systems and non-linear forms. inti has been commissioned by JACK Quartet, Crash Ensemble, National Sawdust, The Phillips Collection, Music from Copland House, Jennifer Koh’s Arco Collaborative, and cellists Matt Haimovitz, Amanda Gookin, and Andrew Yee, among many others. www.inticomposes.com

Nina Shekhar is a composer who explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter to create bold and intensely personal works. Described as “vivid” (Washington Post) and “surprises and delights aplenty” (LA Times), her music has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, LA Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, JACK Quartet, ETHEL, and violinist Jennifer Koh. Her work has been featured by Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Walt Disney Concert Hall (LA Phil’s Noon to Midnight), Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, National Sawdust, National Flute Association, North American Saxophone Alliance, I Care If You Listen, WNYC/New Sounds (New York), WFMT (Chicago), and KUSC and KPFK (Los Angeles) radio, and ScoreFollower. Current projects include works for the Albany Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, The Crossing, 45th Parallel Universe, saxophonist Timothy McAllister, and cellist Matt Haimovitz. Aside from composing, Nina is a versatile performing artist as a flutist, pianist, and saxophonist. She has performed in the Detroit International Jazz Festival and been featured by the National Flute Association.Nina is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is a Composer Teaching Artist Fellow for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and is on faculty at Idyllwild Arts Academy and Brightwork newmusic‘s Project Beacon initiative. She served as an inaugural Debut Fellow of the Young Musicians Foundation, mentored by violinist and social activist Vijay Gupta. http://ninashekhar.com/

Carolina Heredia is a composer of acoustic and electronic Classical New Music, as well as an Intermedia producer and artist. Her works have been commissioned and performed in the United States, South America, and Europe by several esteemed musicians and ensembles, including JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Oberlin New Music Ensemble, Alex Fiterstein, Derek Bermel, Tesla Quartet, and Khemia Ensemble, among others. Her music has been featured at the SONIC Festival NYC, Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowling Green New Music Festival, the Mizzou International Composers Festival, SEAMUS, Strange Beautiful Music, among many others. Her work Ius in Bello (2014), for clarinet and string quartet, was released in 2019 in an album titled Joy and Desolation, recorded by Alexander Fiterstein and the Tesla Quartet and produced by Orchid Classics. Heredia’s 2015 Fromm Music Foundation Commission supported the creation of her work Ausencias/Ausências/Absences, for string quartet and fixed media, which was premiered by the JACK Quartet in March 2016. Ausencias/Ausências/Absences was awarded several prizes, including the 2018 International New Music Competition John Corigliano Grand Prize, and the 2019 Lake George Music Composition Competition, among others. She was awarded a Barlow Endowment General Commission for the creation of an intermedia work for New York-based the Duo Axis, in 2021. www.carolinaheredia.com

Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant folk vocalist who explores corners and colors of the voice frequently deemed to be "untrained" and not "classical.". Described as “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) and “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian), her music erupts from the embodied power of the human voice and is communicated through mediums ranging from orchestral and operatic works to unaccompanied folk ballads and unapologetically joyous Dolly Parton covers. Annika writes extensively for her own voice, including composing a growing repertoire of “feminist rager-lullabies” titled Don’t say a word, which serves to confront centuries of damaging lessons taught to young children by retelling old lullaby texts for a new, queer era. Annika has taken Don’t say a word on the road, performing with a number of ensembles including Eighth Blackbird, Albany Symphony Dogs of Desire, Knoxville Symphony, and Latitude 49. Her research focuses on contemporary vocal music, using the music of Dolly Parton to create a pedagogical approach to composition that is inclusive of a wide range of vocal qualities, genres, and colors. She is Assistant Professor of Composition and Artistic Director of Pendulum New Music at the University of Colorado Boulder and is a 2020 - 21 Gaudeamus Award Nominee. She holds her PhD in Composition from Princeton University. www.aksocolofsky.com

Tanner Porter is a composer-performer and songwriter. In her “original art songs that are by turns seductive and confessional” (Steve Smith, The New Yorker), Tanner explores her passion for storytelling, often framing her music and words within the context of the natural landscapes she grew up in—the canyons, tides, and wildfires of the California coast. Tanner’s recent works have been commissioned and performed by the Albany Symphony with conductor David Alan Miller, the American Composers Orchestra (Connecting ACO Community, a new song for Aoife O’Donovan cellist Eric Jacobsen), the New York Youth Symphony with conductor Michael Repper, and Miami-based chamber orchestra Nu Deco Ensemble with conductor Jacomo Bairos. Her works have been presented at Carnegie Hall, the Prototype Festival at the HERE Arts Center (Magdalene, a new opera featuring Danielle Birrittella and Ariana Daub with direction by Zoe Aja Moore and music direction by Mila Henry), and New Music Gathering. Her most recent album, The Summer Sinks, was recorded with LA-based studio Oak House Recording and can be heard on all streaming platforms. Tanner received a BM in Music Composition from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance, where she studied with Evan Chambers, Kristin Kuster, and Michael Daugherty. She received her MM in Composition from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Hannah Lash, Christopher Theofanidis, Aaron Jay Kernis and David Lang. www.tannerporter.com

Xuan is a new media artist, filmmaker, and pianist working at the intersection of music, visual art, and technology. Her work includes experimental animation, abstract scenography, narrative documentaries, music videos, interactive installations and real time audio-visual programming. With a background as a contemporary classical pianist, she actively develops innovative, cross-disciplinary projects that broaden the immersive scope of new music through technology. She has collaborated with artists such as Glenn Kotche, Pierre Jodlowski, Michael Burritt, Gemma Peacocke, Annika Socolofsky, Nina Shekhar, Eighth Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, Rubiks Collective, and Ensemble Garage, which have led to performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MCA Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution, University of South Carolina, Carnegie Mellon University, Constellation, SF Jazz, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Indie Grits Film Festival. Recent projects in interactive design have been exhibited at the ErsterErster Gallery in Berlin, DE, the ibug Urban Art Festival in Reinchenbach, DE, and Design Biennale 2019 in Zürich, CH. Xuan is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and has studied Media Spaces at the BTK University of Art and Design in Berlin. She’s currently teaching experimental filmmaking as an Adjunct Professor of Humanities at Eastman and works as a freelance video artist. www.xuanfilms.com