Jason Thorpe Buchanan is a tri-continentally active composer, intermedia artist, and technologist. His works explore multiplicity, causality, behavior, and the integration of live performance with technology. In 2025, he was appointed Professor für Komposition mit digitalen Medien at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg, Germany, and leads the graduate program in Komposition mit neuen Medien as director of the Studio für experimentelle elektronische Musik. He has been recognized internationally through fellowships and commissions from the Fulbright Foundation (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, 2010-11) as a visiting scholar, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, EMPAC, Royaumont (France, 2016 & 2017), TIME SPANS (NYC), the Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF, 2013), the International Horn Society, Eklekto Percussion (Switzerland), Tetractys New Music (Austin), Tzlil Meudcan, the Earle Brown Music Foundation, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards (2014 & 2015), Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, as winner of Iron Composer (2014), the Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize (2014) and more, including selection as Artist-in-Residence at USF Verftet (Norway), the Embassy of Foreign Artists (Geneva), the Brush Creek Foundation (Wyoming), nomination for the 2015 Gaudeamus Prize, as a 2024 Aaron Copland Bogliasco Fellow (Italy), and as an SWR Experimentalstudio Fellow (Germany, 2026). His works have been described as “an unearthly collage of sounds”, “sharply-edged”, and “free jazz gone wrong—in a good way.”
     Commissions and performances have included collaborations with Alarm Will Sound, the Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Interface (DE), Ensemble Nikel (Israel), Linea (FR), Insomnio (NL), EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble (UK), Slagwerk Den Haag (NL), Eklekto Percussion (CH), the Mivos Quartet (USA), Iktus Percussion, wild Up, the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble, TACETi (Thailand), the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, and Line Upon Line. Scenes from his multimedia opera Hunger have received performances at the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, The Industry’s FIRST TAKE in L.A., and MATA (NYC) with the [Switch~ Ensemble]. “Hunger is a kind of training session in mental disintegration… An ungodly opera needs ugly music, singers who produce primal sounds, an electric guitar that sounds scraped raw, a wailing orchestra effects, cuts the ear like a knife. Buchanan delivers.” – L.A. Times
     He serves as Artistic Director of the [Switch~ Ensemble] since 2012, Artistic Associate and Lecturer in New Media and Digital Technologies for Music at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Carl Maria von Weber’ Dresden, Germany within the Hybrid Music Lab (DE) since 2022, and Faculty Artist of the IntAct Festival’s International Composition Institute of Thailand since 2019. Prof. Thorpe Buchanan has formerly served as 2022 Managing Director of the New Music Initiative at the University of Missouri (USA), 2020 Visiting Lecturer in Composition and Interim Director of the UT Austin Electronic Music Studios at the Butler School of Music, University of Texas at Austin, 2018-2022 Department Chair/Lecturer in Composition, Theory, and Electroacoustic Music at Mahidol University (Thailand), 2015-17 Executive Director of the VIPA Festival (Valencia, Spain), and Curator for the San Francisco Center for New Music. His mentors have included Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Steven Takasugi, Pierluigi Billone, Chaya Czernowin, and Georges Aperghis.
     He holds a Ph.D. in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, and is widely sought as a collaborator and guest composer by institutions such as the University of Chicago, Stanford University, TRANSIT Festival (Belgium), TIME SPANS Festival (NYC), the MATA Festival (NYC), the Grieg Academy at the University of Bergen (Norway), Yong Siew Toh Conservatory (Singapore), the SinusTon Festival (Germany), the Bergen Center for Elektronisk Kunst, UC Santa Barbara, and dozens of Universities throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Current projects include a cello concerto for the TACETi Ensemble and Mariel Roberts, and the development of new technologies for an upcoming collaboration with Nadar Ensemble using generative audiovisual processing systems, wearable technology, and machine learning/listening for real-time analysis and reactivity.

Hailed as a “composer with a career to follow” by the Ridgefield Press, Paul Frucht is an American composer whose music has been acclaimed for its “sense of lyricism, driving pulse, and great urgency” (WQXR) and “excellent orchestration” (Ridgefield Press). His music has been commissioned and performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, Chelsea Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Weill-Cornell Music and Medicine Orchestra, Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra, American Modern Ensemble, Asian American New Music Institute, Euclid Quartet, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, LONGLEASH Trio, New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, Utah Arts Festival, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and the Eastern Music Festival among numerous other performing ensembles and organizations.
Upcoming projects include a set of songs for the Boston Opera Collaborative, a new string quartet for the Ulysses Quartet, and the premiere of an orchestral song cycle to be written for bass-baritone Kenneth Kellogg, commissioned by Yuga Cohler and the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra.
Paul has been the recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Brian H. Israel Prize from the Society of New Music, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, Juilliard’s Palmer Dixon, Arthur Friedman, and Gena Raps Prizes, the American Composers Orchestra’s 2016 Audience Choice Award and has been recognized for his work by the American Modern Ensemble, the Nashville Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Red Note New Music Festival, Chelsea Symphony, and Periapsis Music and Dance.
 Paul prioritizes cultural engagement in his music and artistic leadership activities. He is the artistic director of the Charles Ives Music Festival (CIMF) based in Ridgefield, CT, a position he has held since he founded the program in 2015. CIMF explores the rich history of Ives and his legacy, American music, through dynamic artist concerts and interactive educational events, with a particular focus on presenting the works of living American composers. In addition to CIMF, these goals have been realized through his role as the organizer and director for the 2016 Danbury Concert Across America to End Gun Violence, his representation of the Juilliard School and the United States at the Kyoto International Music Festival, and through his work, Dawn, which was written in memory of Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal, Dawn Hochsprung. The work has received over 15 performances and has been heard around the United States. He has also appeared for interviews with the Hartford Courant, “Fifteen” Questions, and CT NPR and his writing has appeared in NewMusicBox, an online publication.
A passionate educator of all ages, he has been a faculty member at New York University’s Steinhardt School since 2015 and before that was a music theory teaching fellow in Juilliard’s College Division and an instructor in Juilliard’s Pre-College Division. From 2014-15, he was composer-in-residence at the pianoSonoma Music Festival for amateur adult musicians and in 2015, founded the Chamber Music Intensive, for both children and adults, which is now part of the Charles Ives Music Festival. He was also the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence for the 2017-18 season, where he worked with student musicians and led readings of student composers’ orchestral works. Paul received his doctoral of musical arts and master of music degrees at the Juilliard School and a B.M. from New York University. His two primary teachers have been Robert Beaser and Justin Dello Joio.

Smart, transcendent, and immersive, Kirsten Volness’ emotive soundscapes integrate electronics and modern composition techniques with jazz and pop influences. “Irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “nothing short of gorgeous.” (New York Arts), each of her compositions reveals “an exquisite sound world” (New Classic LA) inspired by nature, myth, spirituality, and environmental and sociopolitical issues. With commissions from the World
Future Council Foundation, ASCAP/SEAMUS, BMI Foundation, and The American Opera Project, Volness received MacColl Johnson and RISCA Fellowships. She holds composition degrees from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota, and has taught at Reed College and the University of Rhode Island.

Forget what you thought you knew about classical music, and leave your preconceived notions at the door! Co-hosted by Naomi Barrettara, Elspeth Davis, and Kyle Homewood, Opera After Dark is a journey into the surprisingly wild, sometimes sexy, ALWAYS weird world of classical music. Join us as we settle in, open a bottle of wine, get tipsy, and discuss and share the crazy stories and bizarre facts about the “high art” that we love.

Donato Cabrera is the Artist Director and Music Director of the California Symphony, and was the Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra  2009-2016.

The driving force of opera is in small opera companies with independent producers. Indie Opera is the place to go to for news about where opera is headed, in companies that are creating new operas and who are presenting the classics in new ways for wider audiences.

The podcast was created in 2011 and focused on the heart and soul of opera production, in the trenches where new work is created and the future opera is being openly debated. Please become a regular listener and if you have projects that we need to know about email us at: comments@indieopera.com

Reinaldo Moya is a Venezuelan-American composer of chamber, orchestral, and vocal music.

AOP's mission is to develop and present new and innovative works of lyric theater, provide a creative home to emerging and established artists, and engage contemporary communities in a transformative operatic experience.

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