Described by the Washington Post as “revitalizing the world of contemporary music” with “jaw-dropping virtuosity,” Jonny Allen is a Brooklyn-based percussionist whose passion for music is contagious. He has won prizes at both the International Chamber Music Competition and the International Marimba Competition in Salzburg, giving respective performances at Carnegie Hall and Schloss Hoch in Flachau, Austria. Allen has also performed as a drum set soloist with Ghana’s National Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre in Accra. He performs across the United States and internationally with his percussion quartet, Sandbox, and his jazz trio, Triplepoint, and is the percussion director at Choate Rosemary Hall. (more…)
The Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group was launched in 1981 under composer-in-residence and Philharmonic percussionist William Kraft, as one of several contemporary music projects envisioned and organized by the Philharmonic’s Managing Director at the time, Ernest Fleischmann. Praised for its imaginative programming and expert and enthusiastic performances, the New Music Group is recognized as one of the leading performing groups of its kind in the country.
Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as a soloist and with groups including Camerata Pacifica, 
Julie Smith Phillips, principal harpist of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is one of the most prominent American harpists today, performing as both an orchestral musician and concert artist. She is a two-time medalist in the USA International Harp Competition having received the silver medal in 2004cand bronze in 2001. She made her National Symphony Orchestra debut in 2003 and has been honored in numerous other competitions throughout the country.
Pianist Joanne Pearce Martin was appointed to the Los Angeles Philharmonic by Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2001. She holds the Katharine Bixby Hotchkis Chair. A native of Allentown, PA, and a graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute, she balances
Julie Tumamait-Stenslie has traced her family lineage from her father, Vincent Tumamait, to at least 11 known Chumash villages and as far back as the mid-18th century. Ms. Tumamait-Stenslie has worked as a cultural resource consultant from Malibu to Santa Barbara to the Channel Islands, providing guidance for private groups and state, county, and city regulatory agencies, including the Ventura and Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s offices. She is well known throughout Ventura County and beyond for her Chumash cultural education 
is the Principal Harpist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Bronze Medal Winner of the 9th USA International Harp Competition. Her playing has been praised for its “communicative, emotionally intense expression” (Jerusalem Post) and the Herald Times commended her “technical wizardry and artistic intuition.” As a soloist, orchestral musician, and chamber collaborator, Levin brings the harp to the forefront of a diverse musical spectrum, using her instrument to connect with all audiences.
Composer, conductor, and creative thinker – John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of music. His works stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes; his stage compositions, many in collaboration with director Peter Sellars, have transformed the genre of contemporary music theatre. Spanning more than three decades, works such as Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, El Niño and Nixon in China are among the most performed of all contemporary classical music. 
Recently named a Guggenheim Fellow, Samuel Adams (b. 1985, San Francisco, CA) is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. His work has been hailed as “mesmerizing” and “music of a composer with a personal voice and keen imagination” by The New York Times, “canny and assured” by The Chicago Tribune and “wondrously alluring” by The San Francisco Chronicle.
Timo Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Nonesuch Records artist, his album of orchestral works, Home Stretch, has been hailed for its “playful intelligence and individuality,” (The Guardian) and of his 2010 debut album for two pianos Shy and Mighty (performed by himself and duo partner David Kaplan), Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker that “it achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene… more mighty than shy, [Andres] sounds like himself.”
Grammy award-winning Attacca Quartet, as described by The Nation, “lives in the present aesthetically, without rejecting the virtues of the musical past”, and it is this dexterity to glide between the music of the 18th through to 21st century living composer’s repertoire that has placed them as one of the most versatile and outstanding ensembles of the moment – a quartet for modern times. 
American violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson delights audiences with her expressive playing of a large range of 
Dylan Mattingly’s work is fundamentally ecstatic, committed to transformative experience. His music has been described as “gorgeous” by the San Francisco Chronicle, “transcendent” and “the most poignantly entrancing passages of beautiful music in recent memory” by LA Weekly, and “in the pantheon of contemporary American composers” (Prufrock’s Dilemma) and is often informed by his scholarship on Ancient Greek music and poetry.
Gabriella Smith is a composer from the San Francisco Bay Area whose music is described as “high-voltage and wildly imaginative” (
Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson’s remarkable originality and powerful musical conviction have seen him, in just a few years, take the music world by storm to become one of the most sought-after artists of today. He made an unforgettable impact with the release of his three albums, Philip Glass Piano Works (2017), Johann Sebastian Bach (2018) and Debussy Rameau (2020) on Deutsche Grammophon, for whom he is an exclusive recording artist. Debussy Rameau has already surpassed 21 million streams, bringing Ólafsson’s total streams to over 125 million and leading the Daily Telegraph to call him “The new superstar of classical piano.”
