Karen Power

Karen’s compositions utilise two primary sources; acoustic instruments and everyday sounds, spaces and soundscapes. Her works are experienced as concert music, sound art, expanded instruments, real+imaginary sonic environments and as multi-sensory moments.

Everyday environments and how we hear everyday sounds lies at the core of Karen Power’s practice with a continued interest in blurring the distinction between what most of us call ‘music’ and all other sound. She has found inspiration in the natural world and how we respond to spaces we occupy. She continually utilises our inherent familiarity with such sounds and spaces as a means of engaging with audiences. Resulting works challenge the listeners memory of hearing while simultaneously shifting focus and presenting new contexts for such sounds. 

In 2009 Karen completed a PhD in acoustic and electroacoustic composition at SARC (Sonic Arts Research Centre), Belfast, with Prof. Michael Alcorn. Throughout her PhD, Karen’s works focused on the commonalities and individualities of both acoustic and electroacoustic composition aiming to develop a more integrated language, which acknowledges and utilizes such strengths.

{Photo by Frida Sjögren}

Gabriella Smith

Gabriella Smith is a composer whose work invites listeners to find joy in climate action. Her music comes from a love of play, exploring new instrumental sounds, and creating musical arcs that transport audiences into sonic landscapes inspired by the natural world. An “outright sensation” (LA Times), her music “exudes inventiveness with a welcoming personality, rousing energy and torrents of joy” (NY Times).

Lost Coast, a concerto for cello and orchestra, written for her longtime collaborator Gabriel Cabezas, received its world premiere in May 2023 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. This work joins her organ concerto, Breathing Forests, written for James McVinnie also premiered by the LA Phil, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Other current projects include a large-scale work for Kronos Quartet, commissioned in celebration of their 50th anniversary season, and an album-length work for yMusic featuring underwater field recordings. In December 2023, her work Tumblebird Contrails was performed on the Nobel Prize Concert by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Her first full-length album, titled Lost Coast, was recorded with Gabriel Cabezas and producer Nadia Sirota at Greenhouse Studios in Iceland and named one of NPR Music’s “26 Favorite Albums Of 2021” and a “Classical Album to Hear Right Now” by The New York Times. Gabriel and Gabriella, as a cello-violin-voice-electronics duo, have performed together around the world, including in Reykjavík, New York City, and Paris.

Gabriella grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area playing and writing music, hiking, backpacking, and volunteering on a songbird research project.

John Luther Adams

For John Luther Adams, music is a lifelong search for home—an invitation to slow down, pay attention, and remember our place within the larger community of life on earth.

Living for almost 40 years in northern Alaska, JLA discovered a unique musical world grounded in space, stillness, and elemental forces. In the 1970s and into the ’80s, he worked full time as an environmental activist. But the time came when he felt compelled to dedicate himself entirely to music. He made this choice with the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to change the world. Since that time, he has become one of the most widely admired composers in the world, receiving the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy Award, and many other honors.

In works such as Become Ocean, In the White Silence, and Canticles of the Holy Wind, Adams brings the sense of wonder that we feel outdoors into the concert hall. And in outdoor works such as Inuksuit and Sila: The Breath of the World, he employs music as a way to reclaim our connections with place, wherever we may be.

A deep concern for the state of the earth and the future of humanity drives Adams to continue composing. As he puts it: “If we can imagine a culture and a society in which we each feel more deeply responsible for our own place in the world, then we just may be able to bring that culture and that society into being.”

Since leaving Alaska, JLA and his wife Cynthia have made their home in the deserts of Mexico, Chile, and the southwestern United States.

{Photo by Pete Woodhead}

Kari Besharse

Continuously exploring the myriad ways that music intersects with science, nature, and the human world, Kari Besharse’s compositional output spans various facets within the field of contemporary music, fully engaging new technological resources as well as traditional instruments and ensembles. Her works, which incorporate sounds from acoustic instruments, found objects, the natural world, and sound synthesis, are often generated from a group of sonic objects or material archetypes that are subjected to processes inspired by nature, physics and computer music. Kari was awarded the Bourges Residence Prize for her electroacoustic work Small Things and has received additional honors from the Tuscaloosa New Music Collective, Look and Listen Festival, the ASCAP Young Composers Competition, and the INMC Competition.

Recent projects include everyone…everything for toy piano trio, and Verklingend, a work for haegeum and chamber ensemble for ensemble mise-en. Her music has been presented by Loadbang, Accordant Commons, Alarm Will Sound, cellist Craig Hultgren, The Empyrean Ensemble, The California Ear Unit, The East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Society of Composers, Inc., ICMC, SEAMUS, Bourges, Pulse Field, trombonist Benjamin Lanz and violist Michael Hall. Currently an instructor at University of New Orleans, Dr. Besharse has also taught at Southeastern Louisiana University, Illinois Wesleyan and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kari’s education includes undergraduate studies at UMKC (B.M.), and graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin (M.M.) and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (D.M.A.). Kari is director of Versipel New Music in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Joanna Bailie

The British composer Joanna Bailie was born in London and now lives in Berlin. She studied composition with Richard Barrett, electronic music at the Institute of Sonology, Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, and in 1999 won a fellowship to study at Columbia University. She completed her PhD at City, University of London in 2018.

Her music has been performed by groups such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Contrechamps, The Ives Ensemble, Ensemble Nadar, Ictus Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, Asamisimasa, L’instant Donné, EXAUDI, Ensemble Mosaik, Explore Ensemble, Ensemble Musikfabrik, KNM Berlin, Zwerm, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and The SWR Vokalensemble. She has written solo pieces for Mark Knoop, Francesco Dillon, Heloisa Amaral and Gunnhildur Einarsdóttir.

She has been programmed at events such as the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Musica Strasbourg, Darmstadt, ECLAT, Wien Modern, Huddersfield, SPOR Festival, MaerzMusik, Rainy Days Festival Luxembourg, Venice Biennale, November Music, Borealis Festival, and Ultima.