bahlest eeble Composer Fellows
2021-23

Hannah Boissonneault

Hannah Jane Boissonneault is a composer-performer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Through her work as a composer, electric bassist and vocalist of her band Blank Slate, her multi-genre project Feels Like Honey, and the bassist and clean vocalist of metalcore band Spirit Breaker, Hannah strives to create music that interconnects various musical communities such as indie, folk, metal, rock, contemporary-classical, and jazz. She is an alumna of the 2019 Atlantic Music Festival, the 2019 Fresh Inc. Festival, the 2020 Collaborative Composition Initiative, and the 2021 Sō Percussion Summer Institute. She has participated in reading sessions with Roomful of Teeth and members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and has been commissioned by the Detroit Composers’ Project and various instrumentalists. Hannah recently completed her B.M. in Composition at Michigan State University. She is now pursuing her Master of Music in Composition at University of Michigan, studying with Kristin Kuster and Evan Chambers.
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Kenyon Duncan

Kenyon Duncan is a composer-performer from Northern California. Grounded in the sonic traditions of the Black diaspora, Kenyon’s creative practice engages questions around embodiment and homemaking. His original work has been heard in concert halls, gallery spaces, and theatrical productions. Recently, his sound installation Music for Strangers was featured at the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media. Kenyon is also a conductor and arranger and spent a year directing The Whiffenpoofs, programming over 200 concerts across 25 states and 26 countries. Kenyon’s experience as an ensemble leader has led to the production of 3 award-winning albums, and has brought him around the world to lead workshops on vocal performance and ensemble technique. Kenyon holds a B.A. in Computing & The Arts from Yale University, where he studied composition, computer music, and conducting. He is currently working on his debut solo recording project.

Seare Farhat

Seare Farhat strives to compose music that connects a listener to the visceral imaginations, energies, and transformations in narrative forms. Starting out his musical endeavors in Afghan folk music, he later built on these valued experiences in the western classical tradition along with other interests, such as mathematics. Seare has received commissions from the IU New Music Ensemble, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Quintessence Wind Quintet, and the Oberlin Sinfonietta, and served as the young composer-in-residence of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings in 2019. He has received honors such as FLUX Quartet's 2019 call for scores and being a finalist for Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra's 2019 call for scores. Seare holds a B.M. in Composition and B.A. in Mathematics from Oberlin College and Conservatory and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he holds the position of Assistant Director of the New Music Ensemble and studies under Aaron Travers.
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Jeremy Rosenstock

Jeremy Rosenstock is a performer-composer based in Los Angeles, California. His principal teachers and mentors include Michael Pisaro, Wolfgang Von Schweinitz, Tim Feeney, Clay Chaplin, Jonathan Dettling, Stan Link, Michael Slayton, Michael Alec Rose, Craig Nies, and Gabriela Lena Frank. His music has been read, recorded, and/or performed by the Isaura Quartet, Nathalie Joachim, Duo Cortona, Lucia Mense, and So Percussion.

Jeremy received his MFA in Music Composition from CalArts and his BM in Piano Performance (with a concentration in composition) from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. His artistic interests include the integration of natural objects into chamber music, field recording, feedback systems, and just intonation.

He recently participated in International Contemporary Ensemble’s Ensemble Evolution and Westben’s Virtual Performer-Composer Residency, where he co-lead a workshop on “Playing with Objects, Connecting with Place.” His album Abalone and after will be released in the fall of 2021 on People Places Records.
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Jonathan Mitchell

Jonathan Mitchell is a Chicago-based composer. He studied classical composition at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music with Michael Slayton, Michael Rose, Stanley Link, and Carl Smith, and graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor of Music in Composition. Since then, he has worked as a Content Creator at Edify Technologies, Inc., composing music and leading curricular development for Edify’s educational app MusiQuest.

Jonathan has had works performed by various players at the Blair School of Music; by Harvard University’s Choral Fellows, under the direction of Carson Cooman; and by La Banda de Conciertos de San José, under the baton of Thomas Verrier. He has also worked as a musical arranger and workshop leader with El Sistema Nacional de Educación Musical (SiNEM), an organization based in Costa Rica. Outside of composing, Jonathan spends his time listening to classic soul music, writing short bios, and trying to find pants that fit.

Aakash Mittal

As an artist I seek to heal my communities, music pedagogy and myself through my work. Through the intersections of improvisation, Hindustani raga music and western notation I strive to combat anti-Indian sentiments, challenge patriarchy and eliminate the harshness that is often prevalent in music education. This odyssey has led me to seek out mentors and elders within a variety of musical traditions. From 2013 to 2015 I studied Hindustani Raga Music with Prattyush Banerjee in Kolkata, India with a fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. My time in India inspired a series of new pieces titled Nocturne. Nocturne is my latest recording as a bandleader. The album was hailed as "a magical, evocative suite" by New York Music Daily. Upon moving to Brooklyn New York I began a long study of music, creativity, biology and healing with Milford Graves. It was during this time that I began to further explore the relationship between movement, imagination and sound in my work. 2021 marks twenty years of my work as a performer, composer and teacher. I live in Brooklyn, NY with my wife Jayanthi Bunyan. When I'm not making music I love to cook, play games and drink tea.
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Roydon Tse

Canadian-Chinese composer Roydon Tse (b.1991) is passionate about communicating to audiences from all backgrounds.  His music draws from the intersections of Eastern and Western traditions, the environment, psychology, places of being, and loss.  His music has been performed in 16 countries, by ensembles such as the Brussels Philharmonic, Shanghai Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and members of the Paris Opera and La Scala Orchestras.  He was named to the list of “Top 30 under 30” Canadian Classical Musicians by the CBC in 2017, and is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s NextGen composer for the 2021/22 season. 

 Born in Hong Kong, Dr. Tse studied in the U.K. and holds composition degrees from the University of British Columbia (BMus) and the University of Toronto (MMus, DMA).  He is based in Toronto where he splits his time between composing and teaching at the Canadian Opera Company and Regent Park School of Music.
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Anya Yermakova

Anya Yermakova is a composer, sound artist, and a historian/philosopher of logic. Trained originally in classical piano performance, her compositions work with somatic awareness and scientific embodied knowledge. Her recent works include a Concerto for Charango and Orchestra and an electro-acoustic album mytho-logicking. Anya holds a PhD from Harvard University in History of Science and in Critical Media Practice, was previously a professor of sound at Oberlin College, has held artist residencies at Djerassi, UCross and with the Ocean Memory Project, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St Louis.
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Che Buford

Che Buford (he, they) is an NYC-based artist whose work explores creating new narratives within the world of music while engaging in themes of memory and place. 

Che performs as a violinist in various musical settings such as traditional orchestras, chamber music, solo, improvisational performance, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Their own work explores the possibilities of timbre and acoustical phenomena and connects them to elements of place, memory, poetry, and the quotidian. Che has had the privilege of creating with artists such as Longleash, The Rhythm Method, New York Philharmonic, Castle of our Skins, mal sounds, Steph Davis, Adama Delphine Fawundu, and Deborah Jack. Their work has been presented and performed in spaces that include Roulette, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joe’s Pub, Antenna Cloud Farm, The DiMenna Center, and David Geffen Hall.

Che holds a degree from Boston Conservatory at Berklee as a presidential scholar in violin performance where he studied with Rictor Noren. In the fall, He will begin his DMA in composition at Columbia University. When Che isn’t interacting with music, he enjoys taking long walks, cooking vegan food, and thrifting.

Shane Cook

Composer and percussionist Shane Scott Cook (b. 1994) was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. His work has been performed by New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Joseph Morris, Ilan Morgenstern, Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak and tabla virtuoso Shawn Mativetsky. A 2017 summa cum laude graduate from Biola University and Torrey Honors Institute, Shane has enjoyed performances of his compositions across the nation, with recent collaborations in Hindustani and Western classical crossover leading to performances of his work in Mumbai, India. His work has won awards from the likes of Chorus Austin, Hot Springs Concert Band, and Biola Conservatory of Music. In addition to concert music, Shane frequently works as a film and media composer. His teachers in composition include Robert Denham, Reena Esmail, Alex Lu, and Mike Watts, with studies in percussion under Brent Kuszyk and Cliff Hulling. Shane is passionate about education, especially in the arts, and currently teaches percussion at Bolingbrook High School. When he is not teaching, composing, or performing, he enjoys literature, film, nature, and spending time with friends and family.
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Gala Flagello

Gala Flagello (b. 1994) is a composer, educator, and nonprofit director whose music is “both flesh and spirit, intensely psychological without sacrificing concrete musical enjoyment” (I Care If You Listen). She is the Festival Director and co-founder of the contemporary music festival Connecticut Summerfest.

Gala is the 2021 Promenade Opera Project Composer in Residence and was recently commissioned by the Albany Symphony, Hub New Music, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Keene State College Concert Band. Other accolades include first prize in the 2020 Sinta Quartet Composition Competition and the 2020 Michigan Music Teachers Association Commissioned Composer Prize.

Gala holds a BM in Composition degree from The Hartt School, MM in Composition degree from the University of Michigan, and is currently pursuing a DMA in Composition at the University of Michigan.
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Meilina Tsui

Meilina Tsui (b. 1993) is an award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, radio producer & presenter and advocate for youth artistic development. Born in Kazakhstan and raised in Hong Kong, Meilina writes music that uniquely combines elements of Eurasian and South-East Asian cultures. She is the first Chinese classical composer of Dungan descent (an underrepresented ethnic minority group from Central Asia) to have received international recognition. Her music, described by The Aspen Times as "irresistible, and emotionally convincing," has been performed and read by leading soloists, ensembles and orchestras across Asia, Europe, North America and in the Middle East. Meilina often tries to enrich the abilities of the Western instruments by inventing new compositional techniques and imitating the sounds of traditional Central Asian instruments. Meilina has also been a pioneer in combining Kazakh, Chinese and Western instruments in her music. Recipient of many awards and scholarships Tsui earned her B.A. in Music from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, M.Mus. in Composition from King’s College London, and D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Profs. Bright Sheng and Michael Daugherty.
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Erin Busch

Erin Busch is a composer and cellist residing in Philadelphia. She has been commissioned and performed by the Composers Conference, So Percussion, the Albany (NY) Symphony, Yarn/Wire, Quartet Iris, the American Composers Forum, Pennsbury Middle Schools, the TAK Ensemble, the Amorsima Trio, Orchestra 2001, the Philadelphia Charter – A String Theory School, Matthew Levy of the PRISM Quartet, and Network for New Music, among others. Erin recently received her PhD in composition from the University of Pennsylvania with advisor Tyshawn Sorey.

Named one of Yamaha’s 40 under 40 music educators, Temple University’s 30 under 30, and Philadelphia Magazine’s 2022 “Luminary Leader,” Erin is the Founder and Executive Director of Wildflower Composers (formerly known as the Young Women Composers Camp), a 501c3 nonprofit in Philadelphia that serves female, transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer composers. She also serves as the Director of the Gabriela Ortiz Composing Studio at OAcademy and the Director of Music Ministry at the Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing. Erin currently teaches composition at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance.
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Ivette Herryman Rodríguez

Ivette Herryman Rodríguez holds a B.M in Music Composition from the Instituto Superior de Artes, in Havana, a M.M in Music Composition from Baylor University, and a M.M in Music Theory and D.M.A in Music Composition from Michigan State University.

Ivette’s music has been described as “absolutely exquisite” and “breathtakingly beautiful” (Kevin Noe-Artistic Director of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the UMKC Conservatory of Music). She is the composer of a bestseller piece for women’s choir, and the winner, among other awards, of a Cubadisco Special Award, and a Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition.

Ivette’s most recent commissions include new works for the Lantana Brass (University of North Texas) and Michigan State University's Symphony Band. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam.
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Liza Sobel Crane

Liza Sobel is a Chicago based composer and soprano.  Her compositions are often influenced by social issues.  Venues her music has been performed in include Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Symphony Space, Bang on a Can, Aspen, Creative Lab, Aldeburgh Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, Norfolk New Music Workshop, Brevard, and Bowdoin.  Performers that have played her music include: Orchestra of St. Luke's, Minnesota Orchestra, Ensemble Dal Niente, Spektral Quartet, Cygnus Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Nouveau Classical Project, and Ekmeles. Current commissions include: new orchestral works for New York Youth Symphony’s Carnegie Hall performance and for Texas State University's orchestra.  Liza was a Fulbright scholar to the UK. As a singer, Liza performs standard and new repertoire, and numerous composers have written pieces for her.  Liza recently performed George Crumb's Apparition in Chicago's Ear Taxi Festival in September, 2021.
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Sakari Vanderveer

A Fromm Foundation Composer Fellow and an alum of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra EarShot New Music Readings, Sakari Dixon Vanderveer seeks to incorporate the unique artistry of her collaborators in each of her compositions. Her latest premieres include works for the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, Derek Bermel, HOCKET, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and the Irving M. Klein International String Competition.

Her desire to empower youth remains a catalyst behind much of her work. A Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Composer Teaching Artist Fellow, she founded the You(th) Can Compose! Summer Workshop, a personalized, online intensive program for beginners ages 10-18. 

Vanderveer’s aim is that children from all walks of life will gain access to contemporary music and composition, allowing them to develop a better appreciation and understanding of concert music – new and old – so that they, too, can cherish it and engage with it throughout their entire lives.
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