“João Alegria is an essential figure in the Portuguese underground music scene. With a prolific career spanning over a decade, the guitarist – as he prefers to be called – embodies artistic commitment, resilience, and a deep devotion to crafting dark, experimental soundscapes. The numerous albums the Lisbon-based musician has released testify to a sonic vision akin to its object of study: unhurried and unperturbable, yet continuous and tempestuous."

— João Morado (Beats for Peeps, Cosmofonia, Jazz.pt)

“You paint for fame & status, I paint for freedom & awareness”, reads one of the vertical graffiti that Mr.Paradox Paradise painted on some Berlin building. Likewise, there is nothing in João Alegria’s art that is done with the intention of fame or likes. He spent more than a decade editing with recognition limited to the “community” of sound nomads. “I’ve been doing this for some time and I don’t have a very wide audience”, he admits. However, who knows, knows. And who knows, like it. João Alegria’s music is for connoisseurs. Perhaps that will always be the case.
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However, the unique contours of his art, combined with a stubborn aesthetic consistency and prolificacy, are the characteristics that simultaneously nest and vitalize it. The unconditional and obstinate way in which this “guitarist” – as he likes to be called – has created his work is a rare case of perseverance. His motivation? It’s not entirely explicit, but somewhere between the love of music and the physiological need to create lives the truth of João Alegria. If he lives because he breathes, he seems to make music because he has to live. One senses in his speech an inevitability of cathartic genesis that surreptitiously emerges between the lines like a figure wandering through the night.
João Alegria can also move through the shadows, but his music definitely points to the heavens, full of verticality” 

– João Morado (Beats for Peeps, Cosmofonia, Jazz.pt)

His music has been played internationally by several ensembles and soloists, including: The Riot Ensemble (UK), Quartetto Prometeo (Italy),  Latvian Radio Choir, Zeitfluss Ensemble (Austria), Platypus Ensemble (Austria), Ensemble Aleph (France), Ensemble Aventure (Germany), Ensemble Chromoson (Austria/Italia), Ensemble XX Jahrhundert (Austria), East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (USA), Duo Dillon-Torquati (Italy), Divertimento Ensemble (Italy), Rhythm Method Quartet (USA), Mise-En Ensemble (USA), L’arsenale Ensemble (Italy), Ensemble Reconsil (Austria), Antico Moderno Ensemble (USA), Richard Craig (UK), Haydée Schvartz (Argentina), Satoko Inoue (Japan), Nuntempe Ensamble (Argentina) and Ensamble Tropi (Argentina).
Also his music has been played at international music series and festivals like Tage für Neue Musik (Zürich, 2012); Wiener Konzerthaus (2017); MATA Festival (NYC, 2016), Spoleto Festival USA (Charleston, 2017); Gustav Mahler Music Weeks (Dobbiaco, 2018); New Directions Festival (Sweden, 2014); Dark Music Days (Iceland, 2018); music@villaromana (Firenze, 2018); Musica in Prossimità (Pinerolo, 2022); Mise-en Festival (NYC, 2018); Forum Wallis (Switzerland, 2019); “XXIII Festival Internacional de Música Contemporánea de la Habana” (Cuba, 2009); musica aperta series (Winterthur, 2011); L’Imaginaire Festival (Strasbourg, 2013); Music Current (Ireland, 2021); Teatro Argentino de La Plata (2012); Bahia Actual (Argentina, 2016); Pu Joa Jornadas de Música Nueva (Paraguay, 2017); Teatro SODRE concert series (Montevideo, 2009);  Mínimo un Lunes (Buenos Aires, 2022); Festival Guitarras del Mundo (Argentina, 2017), among others.
Selected ‘Composer in Residence’ at the Artists in Residence Programm organized by the Austrian Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt Österreich) in cooperation with the KKA (Kultur Kontakt Austria) for 2016.

Awarded with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship (for 2022, Italy) and the Fromm Foundation Composers Fellowship (USA, 2020).

He was selected Composer in Residence by The Riot Ensemble (UK) for the year 2015.

From 2007 to 2014 he worked as Assistant in Composition with Mariano Etkin at the National University of La Plata.

He received the “Diploma di Merito“ at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in 2014, award given by Salvatore Sciarrino.

Invited as guest professor and composer at the festival Pu Joa (Paraguay) on years 2016 and 2017.

Born in Argentina, growing up in Choele Choel.
Composition studies with Mariano Etkin, María Cecilia Villanueva and Salvatore Sciarrino. 

In the framework of different workshops, fellowships, residences and festivals for composers he attended classes with Salvatore Sciarrino, Georg Friedrich Haas, Linda Catlin Smith, Stefano Gervasoni, Tristan Murail, Michael Jarrell, David Lang, Joshua Fineberg, Lee Hyla, Michaël Lévinas, -and Toivo Tulev, among others.

Polish Composer (M.A., 2002, "F. Chopin" Academy of Music in Warsaw,  Prof. Zbigniew Baginski's class), music theorist (M.A., 2000, "F. Chopin" Academy of Music in Warsaw, under Prof. Maria Piotrowska), musicologist (Ph.D., 2005, University of Warsaw, under Prof. Zbigniew Skowron), researcher, lecturer.
So far he has written 128 pieces: 12 symphonies (2017-2024), 3 symphonic poems (2001-2011), 4 concertos with orchestra (organ, piano, two pianos, flute, 2002-2025), 22 string quartets (2001-2025), 17 sonatas for different solo instruments with piano (violin, cello, oboe, trombone, etc.), chamber music as Piano Trio (1998), Piano Quartet (2021), Piano Quintet (2003), String Trio (2021), numerous songs for voice and piano, sacred works, e.g. Mass for soloists, choir, organ and orchestra (2002, rev. 2024), and electronic music.  
The stylistic and technical parameters describes the text below:
https://pawelstrzelecki.wixsite.com/music
The author of the crucial, first and original book (used as academic manual and present in many libraries) on "New Romanticism" in Polish music after 1975, containing interview of the author with Krzysztof Penderecki (2022, English Language Edition).
https://www.peterlang.com/document/1282565?fbclid=IwAR1Pm40flHnsqH07OsvXdXwV1ZwLeVLOmfrxkqe3wxL5rsJioluBL-2FQ9M#document-details-anchor
Polish edition (2006):
https://mi.pl/pl/p/Pawel-Strzelecki-Nowy-romantyzm-w-tworczosci-kompozytorow-polskich-po-roku-1975/59

The book was quoted in: Andrea Bohlman: "Musical Solidarities. Political Action and Music in Late Twentieth-Century Poland". Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 208, 266. The link to the quotation (p. 208):
https://books.google.pl/books?id=uNnBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA208&dq=bohlman+nowy+romantyzm&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjoyL-x-Lf4AhXOk4sKHUWMChUQ6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=bohlman%20nowy%20romantyzm&f=false

for more information please visit: 
https://ashkanbehzadi.com

Contact: 
behzadi.ashkan@gmail.com

Ashkan Behzadi, a recipient of 2025 Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize and a 2021–2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition, is an Iranian-Canadian composer based in New York. He earned his DMA in composition at Columbia University, where he studied with Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, and Georg Friedrich Haas. Prior to this, he graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s degree in composition and music theory, studying composition with Chris Paul Harman and Brian Cherney. Ashkan also holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Tehran University, where, at the same time, he took composition and music theory lessons with Alireza Mashayekhi.
Ashkan’s music has been commissioned and performed by various international performers and ensembles, including Ensemble Recherche, TAK Ensemble, Oerknal Ensemble, Ensemble Mosaik, Yarn/Wire, JACK Quartet, Grossman Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, Ensemble Alternance, Ensemble UnitedBerlin, Exaudi, Ekmeles, Wet Ink, Talea Ensemble, and le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM). 
His work has also been recognized with awards, artist residencies, and participation in festivals such as the Koussevitzky Foundation, Fromm Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Graham Sommer Second Prize, the Prix de Composition at Fontainebleau, the MacDowell Fellowship, the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Divertimento Ensemble Composers Meeting, the Dialoge Festival at Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, the Manifeste Festival at IRCAM, and the CIRMMT New Music Series.
For the 2019–2020 academic year, Ashkan Behzadi joined the Department of Music at the University of Chicago as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Center for Contemporary Composition. Since september 2023, he teaches at the Manhattan School of Music as a faculty member in Music Composition.
The issue of genre identity or genre-blurring, along with the dialectical relationship between modernist lyric poetry and contemporary music, has formed the core of Ashkan’s aesthetic concerns in recent years. Structurally, his music demonstrates a great attention to detail, conveying a miniaturist and gentle lyrical landscape. By employing techniques of allusion and pastiche as the foundation of his craft, his music ultimately seeks to invoke the collective memory of folklore music.

I am a composer of electroacoustic and concert pieces working in Denton, TX.

I'm always interested in collaborating with other artists and musicians, so feel free to reach out. 

My Website: https://www.garrisongerard.com

Amorsima Trio is a contemporary ensemble comprised of violinist Mia Detwiler, violist Michael Capone, and cellist Kourtney Newton. The three met while members of the University of North Texas’ NOVA Ensemble. Through their shared passion for new music, they founded Amorsima Trio in 2016 with the goal of expanding the repertoire of the string trio genre through a commitment to commissioning new works. The trio performs music written within the last one hundred years, with a focus on works by living composers.

Parsa Zandi – Persian Composer (b. 2004, Tehran, Iran)



Parsa is deeply drawn to the expressive potential of microtonality, blending delicate melodies with rich textures. Intuition and emotion play a central role in his music, guiding a natural balance between structure and expressivity. He strives to create an immersive musical experience where melody and atmosphere come together with sincerity and depth.

He studied composition with Mohammad H. Javaheri and Karen Keyhani in Iran. Parsa later studied composition with Beat Furrer and is now continuing his studies under the supervision of Annesley Black. He was also an Erasmus student at the University of the Arts Berlin (UDK).

Parsa Zandi has had lessons with notable composers such as Chaya Czernowin, Franck Bedrossian, Iris ter Schiphorst, Johannes Maria Staud, Klaus Lang, Mark Andre, Mathias Hinke, Pierluigi Billone, Samir Odeh Tamimi, Clemens Gadenstätter, and Artur Kroschel.

Parsa Zandi's compositions have been performed in several countries, including Austria, Canada, Germany, Iran, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, the USA, Poland, and others. His works have been featured in festivals and programs such as Open Call Nodus 2022, Residencia Artística en Les Coves de Vinromà 2022, FestMus 2023 Castello, ICCS Young Talents 2023, Roadrunner Academy 2024, ClarinetFest 2024 in Dublin, Brass Academy Musikfabrik 2025, In Situ Graz, and the 54th International Contemporary Music Festival Poznań Musical Spring 2025.

His compositions have been performed by renowned ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Zeitfluss, Ensemble für Neue Musik Graz, Sepia Ensemble, CSMC Brass Band & Contemporary Ensemble, and the Roadrunner Trio. Additionally, musicians like Thomas Piercy, Elena Arbonies Jauregui, Kathryn Vetter, Mario Porcar Rueda, and others have collaborated with him.

Gregory Rowland Evans is a classical cellist and composer.

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