BAHLEST EEBLe readings COMPOSER FELLOWS 2024-2025

Carolina Calvache

Born in Cali Colombia, Carolina Calvache is a pianist and composer, winner of the 16th Independent Music Awards with her song “La última vez” featuring, Camila Meza. Since her selection for the 2011 Mary Lou Williams Woman in Jazz Festival for outstanding artists, Carolina brought attention at The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Legendary pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi described her music as “Extraordinary and Marvelous”. Following her widely praised debut release Sotareño (Sunnyside, 2014) — that earned a spot among the Best 10 Albums of 2014 by Latin Jazz Network — Calvache unleashes the resonating extent of her talent as a composer, orchestrator and formidable songwriter on her sophomore album Vida Profunda (Sunnyside, 2020). Engaging a range of guest artists — including legendary multidisciplinary artist, multi GRAMMY-winning singer Rubén Blades; DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star, vocalist Sara Serpa; and internationally celebrated singer and songwriter Marta Gómez.

Oswald Huỳnh

Oswald Huỳnh is a Vietnamese American composer whose music navigates Vietnamese aesthetics and tradition, language and translation, and the relationship between heritage and identity. His work is characterized by intricate contrasts of timbre and interweaving textures that are rooted in narrative, culture, and memory. Huỳnh has collaborated with artists like the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, American Composers Orchestra, Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Tacet(i) Ensemble. He has received honors from Luigi Nono International Composition Prize, New England Philharmonic, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, and Musiqa. Huỳnh holds a BA from Lewis & Clark College and MM from University of Missouri. www.oswaldhuynh.com

Udi Perlman

Udi Perlman (b. 1990) is an Israeli composer currently based in Berlin, Germany. Described as 'fascinating, surprising, rich, and colorful' (Haaretz), his chamber, choral, and orchestral music has been commissioned and performed in Europe, the United States, and Israel. Perlman is a recipient of the 2024 Pogorzelski-Yankee Award from the American Guild of Organists and the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was composer-in-residence at MacDowell, I-Park Foundation, and Herrenhaus Edenkoben, and was a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA. Perlman is a DMA candidate in composition at the Yale School of Music, where his doctoral thesis won the 2022 Friedmann Thesis Prize. He holds degrees from the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin (Artist Diploma) and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (B. Mus. & M.Mus.).

Isaac Santos

Isaac Santos (b.2000) is a composer of contemporary concert music currently based in New Jersey, and originally from Broward County, Florida. Much of Isaac’s current output is inspired by nature, existentialism, and everyday life. Through his compositions, he aspires to create deeply affective music that engages introspectively with some of our (humankind’s) most deep and poignant emotions.

His teachers have included Stephen Hartke, Elizabeth Ogonek, Jesse Jones, Michael Frazier, Jihyun Kim, and Maria Grenfell. Before coming to Oberlin, he studied privately for half a year with composer Andrew Boss while still living in Florida. In 2018, he was selected as a winner for the American Composers Forum Next Notes Composition Contest. In 2019, he was selected as a winner in the orchestral category for the National Young Composers Challenge. He has had premieres by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble under Timothy Weiss, as well as a commission for ‘Les Art Noveau Chalmeaux’-a large clarinet ensemble based in Miami. He received a commission for the soundSCAPE composition and performance exchange in 2021, and was nominated and chosen for the Lakes Area Music Festival as its inaugural composer fellow in 2022. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and will begin as a PhD candidate in Princeton University’s Department of Music in the fall of 2023.