Joseph Norman recently completed the Doctoral Degree in Music Composition at the University of Iowa where he also had been Research Assistant/Composer/Sound Technician to the Department of Dance for three years. Dr. Norman was advised by Dr. David Gompper. Previously, Dr. Norman studied with Dr. Joshua Levine, Dr. Nomi Epstein, and Dr. Lawrence Fritts. Dr. Norman has participated in private lessons with Laura Elise Schwendinger, Richard Causton, Mikhail Malt, Grégoire Lorieux, Ketty Nez, Dimitri Papageorgiou, Elanie Lillios, David Lang, Joseph Dangerfield, Augusta Read Thomas, and Louis Karchin. 

Dr. Norman's music has been performed at the Exchange of Midwest Collegiate Composers UMKC and University of Colorado in Boulder, the Midwest Composers Symposium in the University of Michigan and the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, SCI at the University of Iowa, and the Alba Music Festival in Alba, Italy. He has also had works read and premiered by the JACK Quartet, Accroche Note, LIGAMENT, Sonic Apricity, the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa, and LOUi, the Lap Top Orchestra also from University of Iowa. Additionally, Dr. Norman has composed collaboratively with actors, dancers, choreographers, and filmmakers. He is also active as a performer with experimental music duo Aligned at Variance and has taken part in IRCAM's Electroacoustic workshop in 2017.

Dr. Norman completed his Master's Degree in Music Composition at the University of Maryland while under the tutelage of Dr. Thomas DeLio and Dr. Lawrence Moss. Prior, he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music Composition and Classical Guitar Performance from St. Mary's College of Maryland. While there Mr. Norman studied composition with Dr. David Froom and Dr. John Leupold, and classical guitar performance with
Dr. Orlando Roman.

Dr. Norman explores novel formal conceptions that involve organizations/transformations of multiple conceptual strata. These strata differentiate, recontextualize, and evolve towards individuated trajectories over the course of each piece. Each strata can comprise one of myriad parameters from pitch, timbre, time, texture, space, register, to density. Aesthetically, he values music that is evocative of visceral reactions and represents sonic transformation.  Dr. Norman's influences include: Chaya Czernowin, Rebecca Saunders, Brian Ferneyhough, Tristan Murail, György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giacinto Scelsi, and Anton Webern.

Bernard Short is a PhD in Music Composition student at the University of Iowa.  Born in Harlem, NY and raised in Far Rockaway Queens, NY he earned a BA in Music with a Composition focus at Morehouse College in 2007, and a Masters in Music Education at The University of Georgia in 2012.  From 2008-2014 he was a Director of Bands and Orchestra Director at Cross Keys High School in Atlanta, GA.  To Mr. Short, music is the expression of a person's soul that is best used as a way to communicate with someone without allowing words to obliterate the message.

Joshua Marquez is a Philadelphia-based Filipinx-American composer, guitarist, and sound artist whose music explores the liminal space between tone/noise and digital/analog as a means to investigate the complexities and duality of Asian American identity.  Searing a sonic imprint of cultural identity, his explorations of the noise spectrum represent alienation and assimilation through the fusion and fission of disparate timbres.  Joshua’s music is described as “upsetting and calming in equal measure” with atmospheres that “sink into your skin” (Prism Reviews).  Hailed as "cutting-edge" (The Gazette), “expertly crafted” (We Write About Music), "haunting" (The Daily Iowan), and "creepy" (Fanfare Magazine), Marquez's polemic deconstruction and disintegration of sound aims to present music through a decolonized lens.

Marquez's music has been performed and recorded, internationally, by ensembles and musicians such as the Arditti Quartet, JACK Quartet, Brno Philharmonic, Carmine Marcello Rizzi (violin), Iwona Glinka (flute), Akropolis Reed Quintet, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, University of Iowa Center for New Music, Gate City Camerata, Quintet Sirocco, Duo Charango, and the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia. 

His work has been awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency as an Arts Fellow, a Recycled Artist In Residency (RAIR), a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency as a CSG Fellow, a Millay Colony for the Arts Residency, a Brush Creek Artist Residency, a Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts Residency, a New Music USA Grant, the Arts in Wilmington Artist of 2019 Award, a 2016 Sayat Nova International Composition Competition Prize, a North Carolina Arts Grant, an Iowa Social Justice Grant, and an Iowa Arts Across Borders Grant in addition to other honors.

Recent performances include the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYC), the National Student Electronic Music Event (GA), Birmingham New Music Festival (AL), Brave New Works (CA), Fulcrum Point New Music (IL), SCI Concerts, Stony Brook Premieres! (NYC), Circuit Bridges (NYC), New Music Gathering (MN), John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium (NM), An Art Artistry (GR), Electroacoustic Music Festival Ecos Urbanos (MX), and the International Ferienkruse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (DE) in venues such as Symphony Space (NYC), Abron Arts Center (NYC), the Englert Theatre (IA),  Open House Chicago (IL), Detroit Opera House (MI), Weatherspoon Art Museum (NC), Elsewhere Museum (NC) the Canada International Film Festival, the Lightworks Film Festival (MI), and the Utopia Film Festival (MD), among others. 

Recordings of Marquez's music have been released on ABLAZE Records (USA), RMN Classical Records (UK), Sarton Records (PL), E.M.P.i.R.E.S Records (USA), 910 Noise (USA), and Bahay Records (USA). 

Marquez holds a PhD in composition from the University of Iowa in addition to an MM from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Joshua currently serves as a Resident Composer for the Saint Mary's College Summer Composition Intensive in Notre Dame, IN (2013-2021), having previously taught at the University of Iowa and the Preucil School of Music.

He has studied with  David Gompper, Josh Levine, Mark Engebretson, and Alejandro Rutty in addition to private studies with Samuel Adler, Derek Bermel, Michael Harrison, Laura Kaminsky, David Lang, and Augusta Read Thomas.

Bernard Short is following