Composers
Cycle Six Finalists Announced!
Benedikt Brydern, Santa Monica, CA
IONS 2020
Benedikt Brydern studied violin and piano at the Richard-Strauss Academy of Music in Munich, Germany. He undertook private composition studies with Romanian composer Stefan Zorzor.
He was selected out of 1000 applicants for Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival to perform in the Festival Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Bernstein in 1988. He returned to the Festival in 1990 to be part in the TV series "Orchestra!" hosted by Sir Georg Solti and Dudley Moore.
After graduation in 1992 he received a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to continue his studies in the United States where he completed the Advanced Studies Program "Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television" at the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. His teachers included David Raksin, Elmer Bernstein and Bruce Broughton. He won two Marmor Composition Awards sponsored by the Stanford University Music Department, the 2002 William Lincer Foundation Chamber Music Competition and in 2004 the Composer’s Symposium at the Bach Festival in Eugene, Ore., commissioned BB to compose a string trio in honor of George Crumb’s 75th birthday. The Oakland East Bay Symphony in conjunction with the James Irvine Foundation commissioned a new piece for their 2010/11 season. His compositions have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Sacramento Philharmonic, the Oakland East Bay Symphony and many chamber music ensembles worldwide. His music has been published by Ries& Erler, Mel Bay, Edition Kossack and Peer Music International. As a Past President of the Rotary Club of Hollywood and a past board member of the Harmony Project, a non profit organization providing free music lessons to low income children in the Los Angeles area, he connects with the community and shares his passion and love for music.
Ashley Floyd, Athens, GA
Breath Marks
Ashley Floyd (b.1982) is a Georgia based composer and music educator. His works have been performed across the United States and Europe, by musicians and ensembles such as the Lydian String Quartet, Bent Frequency, flutist Angela Jones-Reus, and the East Coast Composers Ensemble. Recent notable performances of his music occurred at the World Saxophone Congress, the Charlotte New Music Festival, and the SoundNOW Atlanta Festival. In 2019, his concerto for alto sax and wind band was named a finalist for the American Prize. He has received additional awards and commissions from the Southeastern Composers League, Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity, as well as school and community bands and ensembles. Floyd earned his DMA in music education at the University of Georgia where he was awarded the John Corina Scholarship in Composition. He holds degrees in composition from Brandeis University (MFA) and the University of Georgia (BMus). His instructors have included such composers as Leonard V. Ball, Adrian Childs, David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, and Yu-Hui Chang. More information can be found at www.ashleyfloyd.com
Benjamin Krause, Chicago, IL
Notes From Inside
Benjamin Krause’s work has been recognized through commissions, awards, and residencies by the Copland House, Houston Symphony, Network for New Music, Oregon Community Foundation, Presser Foundation, the Music Teachers National Association, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, ASCAP, Da Camera of Houston, and The American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. His piece Pathways for chamber orchestra was named the winner of the Houston Symphony’s inaugural Young Composer Competition and was described as “attractive…the composer craftily reconstituted orders of events to create a compelling dramatic arc. Krause’s excellent control of dissipating energy for the serene ending of the work was most impressive” (concertonet.com). He was recently commissioned by the Delgani String Quartet, with support from an Oregon Community Foundation Creative Heights grant, to compose his 30-minute String Quartet No. 1 "Cascades", a four-movement work inspired by the landscape atop the McKenzie Pass in the Oregon Cascade Range. Delgani has recently released a recording of the work on their album Distant Monuments. An artist with diverse interests, Krause has collaborated with photographers, dancers, architects, and filmmakers in his creative work. He was a Young Artist of Da Camera (2011—2012) and was the recipient of the 2012 Presser Award, enabling a summer of study in Europe at the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau, where his work was awarded the Prix Marion Tournon Branly. In the 2018-19 season he was in residency at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (WY) and, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award, at Aaron Copland's historic home in Cortlandt Manor, NY. He was named the 2018 Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association for his work Taxonomies of Pulse, and received an Honorable Mention in the 2019 NATS Art Song Composition Competition for his cycle Six Lowell Songs for soprano and piano.
Krause's music is characterized by its visceral rhythmic drive, tight motivic control, and colorful, dense harmonies reminiscent of jazz. His music draws freely and fluently from many historical traditions and aesthetics, both improvisational and carefully controlled, often creating new sound worlds through the absorption and synthesis of varied musical idioms. His Night Tides (2011) for flute and piano "simultaneously established and explored a detailed, individual musical landscape. Mr. Krause performed the work fantastically, engendering his expressive and densely atonal textures with clear structures and a palpable rhetorical/narrative arc" (Sequenza 21). Other works, such as Uv'Chein Variations (2012) for violin and piano, and Suite for Bari Sax and Piano (2016) explore connections between classical forms (theme and variations, Baroque dance suites) with folk and popular sources. Just as often, as in Beach Scenes (2013) and his first string quartet (2017), his music evokes a sense of the mystical, depicting expansive landscapes and environments through lush textures and an impressionistic sense of sonority and color. More recently, his music has increasingly focused on issues of rhythm, resulting in such works as Taxonomies of Pulse and the forthcoming Cycles & Interludes for flute and bass. Current projects include a work for solo piano for Peter Gach, a piano trio for the Uinta Trio, and a set of pieces for flute and bass (for bassist Paul Cannon of Ensemble Modern).
As a pianist, Krause is active in contemporary music, jazz, and the traditional classical repertoire, with performances at Carnegie Hall, Zilkha Hall (Houston), the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Menil Collection, and in collaboration with such artists as Molly Barth (Eighth Blackbird), Jeffrey Zeigler (the Kronos Quartet), Timothy McAllister (PRISM Saxophone Quartet), and Ronald Feldman (the Boston Symphony). In both solo performances and collaborations with many ensembles, he has premiered and performed over fifty new works in a wide variety of venues, in addition to performing the works of major 20th and 21st century composers such as George Crumb, Louis Andriessen, John Cage, and Pierre Jalbert. As a jazz pianist, he has appeared as a soloist and in performances with saxophonists Woody Witt and Horace Alexander Young, the VU Faculty Jazz Trio, and the Paul Ingram Jazz Quintet (San Diego, CA). Krause holds composition degrees from Rice University (D.M.A.) and the University of Oregon (M.M.). As an educator, he has designed and taught university courses in composition, orchestration, music theory, aural skills, and jazz, and, while Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Valparaiso University (2015 - 2018), he founded and directed VUNUMU (Valparaiso University New Music Ensemble), coaching and leading performances of the work of leading contemporary composers as well as of that of student composers. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he teaches composition, theory, and piano. His primary teachers include Pierre Jalbert, Anthony Brandt, Richard Lavenda, Robert Kyr, and David Crumb, with additional summer studies under Kevin Puts, Allain Gaussin, Francois Paris, and Robert Aldridge. He studied piano with Brian Connelly, Joseph Bognar, and Peter Gach.
Ben Robichaux , Thibodaux, LA
Mass for Voiceless Numbers
On Sunday, Atlanta hosted the national Ben Robichaux is a dedicated composer whose interest for expanding his compositional style has always been a top priority. His chamber works have been featured at the International Saxophone Symposium, the National Gallery of Art, the Rapido! Composition Competition, the Alba International Music Festival, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Society of Composers, Incorporated Student National Conference, the SEAMUS National Conference, the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, the Electrobrass II Conference, the Society of Composers, Incorporated Region IV Conference and the NACUSA/SCI Snapshot Conference among others. His choir music has been performed by the Academy of Voices of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Dekalb Choral Guild of Atlanta, Georgia and the Repertory Singers of the University of Georgia. As a recipient of a James E. Croft Grant for Young and Emerging Wind Band Composers, his wind ensemble works have been performed nationally. He was selected as a participant in the National Band Association Young Composers and Conductors Mentor Project, which included a recording and performance with the United States Air Force Band in Washington, D.C. While participating in this project, his principal mentor was renowned composer Frank Ticheli. While a student, he was appointed to the Society of Composers, Incorporated student council where he helped implement initiatives that increased student member involvement across the United States. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Georgia in 2018, a Master's Degree in Music Composition from the University of Georgia in 2016, and a Bachelor's Degree in Instrumental Music Education at Nicholls State University in 2014. He studied composition with Natalie Williams, Leonard V. Ball, Peter Van Zandt Lane, Adrian Childs, and Emily Koh. Additionally, he has been involved in masterclasses and private lessons with Frank Ticheli, Mark Camphouse, Brian Balmages, Jesse Jones, Melinda Wagner, Paul Koonce, Ben Hjertmann, David Ludwig, Pierre Jalbert, Ken Ueno, Nils Vigeland, Donald Crockett, George Tsontakis, Hannah Lash, Robert Cuckson, Jennifer Jolley, Joseph Dangerfield, Elliott McKinley, Luke Dahn, Robert Paterson, Xi Wang and Mari Kimura. He is published by Murphy Music Press, LLC and Noteworthy Sheet Music, LLC and is affiliated with BMI. He is currently the Assistant Band Director at Thibodaux High School in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
Nicky Sohn, Houston, TX
Toad Toad
From ballet to opera to Korean traditional-orchestra, the wide-ranging talent of composer Nicky Sohn is heard across the US, Europe, and Asia. Sohn’s work has been described as “like John Adams’ ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine’ on steroids” (YourObserver), “dynamic and full of vitality” (The Korea Defense Daily), and having “elegant wonder” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). Characterized by her jazz-inspired, rhythmically driven themes, Sohn has enjoyed commissions and performances from the world’s preeminent performing arts institutions, including Stuttgart Ballet, National Orchestra of Korea, Minnesota Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, Aspen Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet. The 2020-21 season highlights consist of premieres and commissions by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, violinist Lucia Lin (Boston Symphony), string quartet commission for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Latitude 49, and Atlanta Chamber Players. Sohn recently received fellowships from The DACAMERA Young Artist Program, UCross Foundation, and MUSIQA Houston. Prior to this year, her music has been featured at renowned music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, Perlman Music Program, Les Ecoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, Ars Nova with Unsuk Chin and the Seoul Philharmonic, and Chelsea Music Festival with Ken-David Masur, among others. Nicky Sohn is currently pursuing a fully-funded doctoral degree at the The Shepherd School of Music of Rice University and holds degrees from Juilliard School and Mannes College of Music.
