Mason Bynes

Mason Bynes is a composer and trained vocalist from Sugar Land, TX. In a post - modern tradition, she pulls from various stylistic sources, blurring the line between traditionalism and modernism. She received her undergraduate degree  at the University of North Texas, with a Bachelor of Music in Composition. Mason will graduate  from The Boston Conservatory with a Master of Music in Composition in May 2021. 

During her undergraduate studies, Mason has collaborated in projects for commercial music, concert music and media. As a film composer, her success includes being selected for the 2020 Fort Worth Indie Film Showcase for Priyanka Shah’s film, “Cross Roads”.  Mason has also written for a cappella pop vocal group, the UNT Green Tones, who performed her music in competition for the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella. 

 Ms. Bynes has been commissioned by various ensembles and composer led initiatives, including Kinds of Kings, Bass Players for Black Composers, The Westerlies & Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT), The Amorsima Trio and Ex-Aequo. Recently, Mason’s  music has been featured with  the North End Music and Performing Arts Center (NEMPAC), the International Society of Bassists, Dallas Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, BBC Radio 3,  IDAGIO Live, Green Leaf Music Podcast, and WWFM- The Classical Network in Trenton,  New Jersey. She has also appeared in different interviews with CBS, NBC -DFW and Fox 4 News. 

 Currently, Mason works as a Graduate Assistant in Employer Relations at the Berklee Career Center. Her  current projects includes a new collaboration with Lumedia Musicworks for  a new song cycle for  voice and guitar called,  "Dowland Impressions". Mason is also looking forward to:  the premier of a new art song as part of The National Association of Teachers of Singing  (NATS) and Cincinnati Song Initiative ; the premier of a new  work for classical guitar  with Ex-Aqueo ; a  new commission with WindSync , to be presented in October 2021;  a commission with New York based ensemble, Parlando. 

https://www.masonbynes.org

Thomas Flippin

Thomas Flippin is an original and versatile voice in the world of contemporary music. Whether premiering new works with his pioneering classical guitar ensemble, Duo Noire; performing avant-garde art songs on the theorbo as part of Alicia Hall Moran’s Black Wall Street; or plucking the banjo in the American Repertory Theater’s critically-acclaimed premiere of The Black Clown, Flippin’s playing has been hailed as "lovely" (New York Times), and "spectacularly precise" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

Flippin's 2018 album, Night Triptych, was released on New Focus Recordings as the culmination of a 2015 project he launched with the Diller Quaile School of Music to address the lack of women composers programmed in classical guitar concerts. Featuring new works exclusively by accomplished women composers, it was praised for being a "truly pathbreaking recording" (AllMusic), that is "astounding" for its "sheer musicality" and "goldmine of ideas and feelings” (Stereophile). It was named one of the Best Classical Music albums of 2018 by both All Music and I Care if You Listen.

Recent concert highlights include performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, The Metropolitan Museum, Beijing’s Peking University, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Flippin has performed in concerts featuring MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran, Renee Fleming, Imani Winds, and members of Eighth Blackbird and the Emerson String Quartet. Upcoming projects include a new commission for Duo Noire from GRAMMY-nominated composer Nathalie Joachim. 

Flippin graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, where he was awarded the undergraduate composition prize. He then earned Master of Music and Artist Diploma degrees from the Yale School of Music. He studied composition in courses taught by David Lang, Martin Bresnick, and Michelle McQuade DeWhirst. Additional composition studies were with Ingram Marshall and John Anthony Lennon. His primary guitar teachers were Benjamin Verdery, Denis Azabagic, and Dr. Julie Goldberg. He is currently on faculty at Concordia College Conservatory and the Diller Quaile School of Music. Flippin is an avid mountaineer and chess player. 

https://www.thomasflippin.com

Brian Nabors

Brian Raphael Nabors (b.1991, Birmingham, AL) is a composer of emotionally enriching music that tells exciting narratives with its vibrant themes and colorful harmonic language.

Nabors' music has been performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and ROCO Chamber Orchestra. His music has been performed at many events across the US, including the Texas Music Educators Association Conference (TMEA), the Midwest Composers Symposium, and the International Double Reed Society Conference (IDRS). He has also been performed by artists such as the Atlanta Chamber Players, Dallas's Voices of Change, Boston Musica Viva and the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings. His work has been featured in masterclasses with composers such as William Bolcom, John Harbison, and Lowell Liebermann.

With an eclectic musical palate and crafty compositional technique to match, Nabors’ music draws from combinations of Jazz Funk, R&B, and Gospel with the modern flair of contemporary classical music. This interesting blend of sound worlds is one that continues to craft his unique musical voice.

A charming southern upbringing exposed Nabors to many deep-rooted musical ideals, many of which are rooted in spirituality; one of the main principles that inspires Nabors’ music. Much of his music deals with new reflections on life, nature, and the human condition. This includes how music plays a psychological role in shaping the perception of a society, and how this can be used as a tool to inspire conversations on subjects such as prejudice, racism, and bigotry. As a pianist, he is proficient in many styles and plays in several groups, functioning as a church musician, keyboardist in a R&B/Neo Soul band, and classical artist. Having a hand in several genres plays a large role in the type of sound spaces that Nabors creates. It has also broadened his creative/technical facility in realizing his compositional ideas.   

He was named the 2018-19 Composer-in-Residence with the Castle of Our Skins organization in Boston, MA; a 2019 composer fellow in the American Composer’s Orchestra Earshot program with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; a 2019 composer fellow with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s Composer Lab; and 2019 cycle five grand prize winner of the Rapido! National Composition Contest by judges Robert Spano, Jennifer Higdon, and Michael Gandolfi. Nabors is also a 2020 Fulbright scholarship recipient to Sydney, Australia, studying with composer Carl Vine at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

​Nabors earned both a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degree in Composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where he studied with Douglas Knehans, Ellen Ruth Harrison and Miguel A. Roig-Francolí. Prior to graduate studies, he obtained a Bachelor of Music Theory & Composition degree from the School of the Arts at Samford University in Birmingham, AL, where he studied composition with Sarana Chou and piano with Kathryn Fouse. 

https://www.briannabors.com

Melika Fitzhugh

A native of Stafford, Virginia, Melika M. Fitzhugh (A.B. Harvard-Radcliffe: Music Theory and Composition, M.M. Longy School of Bard College: Composition) has studied conducting and composition with Thomas G. Everett, Beverly Taylor, James Yannatos, Julian Pellicano, Roger Marsh, Jeff Stadelman, and, most recently, Osnat Netzer and John Howell Morrison. Performed internationally, Mel's compositions have been commissioned by John Tyson, Catherine E. Reuben, John and Maria Capello, Laura and Geoffrey Schamu, and the Quilisma Consort, and have been performed by those artists as well as the B3:Brouwer Trio, the PHACE Ensemble, the Quarteto L'Arianna with guitarist Daniel Murray and double bassist Pedro Gadelha, the Radcliffe Choral Society, Berit Strong, Patricia R. Abreu, Miyuki Tsurutani, Libor Dudas, Aldo Abreu, and Sarah Jeffrey.

Mel was the 2020 winner of the PatsyLu Prize for IAWM’s Search for New Music, the 2020/2021 Composer-in-Residence of the Women Composers Festival of Hartford, and the 2014 winner of the Longy orchestral composition competition, and has performed with the Radcliffe Choral Society, Coro Allegro, the Harvard Wind Ensemble, the Village Circle Band, and WACSAC. The artist, who has composed music for film and stage, was a member of Just In Time Composers and Playersand is currently a member of world/early music ensemble Urban Myth and the early music ensemble Quilisma Consort, in addition to playing bass guitar with acoustic rock singer/songwriter Emmy Cerra, the ambient rock band Rose Cabal, the symphonic metal band Illusion's End, and the Balkan folk dance band Balkan Fields. Mel enjoys teaching and playing a variety of instruments for folk dance ensembles, including: violin/viola/violoncello/double bass; acoustic guitar/bass; recorders; flute; clarinet; saxophone; trumpet; hand percussion including dumbek/djembe/kahoun.

https://www.melikamfitzhugh.com

Nailah Nombeko

Nailah Nombeko, a native of New York, comes from a musical family. She attended the Preparatory Division of Manhattan School of Music, LaGuardia High School (Music and Art) and she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Mannes College of Music with additional studies in orchestration at The Juilliard School. Her compositions were performed by many top performers such as: Blair McMillan, Curtis Macomber, Keve Wilson, Tiffany DuMouchelle, Shannon Roberts, Quartet for a New Generation, Anthony Green and the Orfeo Duo among others.

Ms Nombeko’s music has been performed at Symphony Space, Columbia University, St Peter’s Church, Queens College, Lewis University as well as other venues. Her songs were featured on Classical Discoveries 103.3 FM, Radio Arts Indonesia, What’s Next Radio 91.1 FM, Hildegard to Hildegard, Kath Fraser's "Gathering Her Notes" and Radio Monalisa in the Netherlands. Ms Nombeko's  sound art was featured in the Museruole festival in Italy.

​Her most recent projects were with international opera star Karen Slack for Sparks and Wiry Cries where she was commissioned to write a piece. Another large scale project was a commission from Ethel Quartet. They will premiere her string quartet entitled “Multifarious Aggressions” in December 2019 at National Sawdust.

https://www.nailahnombeko.com

Quinn Mason

Quinn Mason (b. 1996) is a composer and conductor based in Dallas, Texas.  Quinn has been described as “a brilliant composer just barely in his 20s who seems to make waves wherever he goes.” (Theater Jones) and "One of the most sought after young composers in the country" (Texas Monthly). 

 His orchestral music received performances in concert by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, New England Conservatory Philharmonia, Orchestra Seattle, New Texas Symphony Orchestra, and the Mission Chamber Orchestra. 

 His compositions for winds has been performed by the Cobb Wind Symphony, Metropolitan Winds, and bands of Southern Methodist University, University of North Texas, Texas Christian University, Penn State, Purdue University, Seattle Pacific University and others throughout the United States and Canada. 

 His chamber music has been performed by the American Composers Forum,Voices of Change, loadbang, MAKE trio, Atlantic Brass Quintet, UT Arlington Saxophone Quartet, and the Cézanne, Julius and Baumer string quartets and his solo music has been championed by distinguished soloists such as David Cooper (principal horn, Chicago Symphony), Holly Mulcahy (concertmaster, Wichita Symphony) and Michael Hall (viola soloist).

 A multiple prize winner in composition, he has received numerous awards and honors from such organizations as the American Composers Forum, Voices of Change, Texas A&M University, The Diversity Initiative, the Dallas Foundation, Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble, the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, the Heartland Symphony Orchestra and the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Quinn was named by the Dallas Morning News as a finalist for 'Texan of the Year'.

​Quinn’s mission is to compose music for various mediums “Based in traditional western art music and reflecting the times in which we currently live”.  Quinn has studied with Dr. Lane Harder at the SMU Meadows School of the Arts, Dr. Winston Stone at University of Texas at Dallas and has also worked with renowned composers David Maslanka, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, David Dzubay and Robert X. Rodriguez. 

​As a conductor, Quinn has led Orchestra Seattle, the Brevard Sinfonia, and the Texas Christian University Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted world premieres of his own works as well as several world premieres written by his composer colleagues and standard orchestral repertoire. Currently, Quinn serves as Apprentice Conductor of the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. Quinn has studied conducting with Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra), Dr. Germán Gutiérrez (TCU), Will White (Orchestra Seattle), and Jack Delaney and Paul Phillips (SMU). He also counts Richard Giangiulio (Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra), Edwin Outwater (SFCM) and John Axelrod (Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla) as mentors.

​Upcoming world premieres include his 'Symphony in C Major' with the Heartland Symphony Orchestra, Symphony No. 4 "Strange Time" by the Meadows Wind Ensemble and 'Princesa de la Luna' by the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and conductor Brett Mitchell. Upcoming guest conducting appearances include concerts with the MusicaNova Orchestra and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. 

 An avid and passionate writer, Quinn maintains his own classical music blog and contributes guest articles to other blogs. Quinn is a member of ASCAP and the Conductor's Guild.

​https://www.masonianmusic.com

Cecil Alexander

Cecil Alexander is a guitarist, composer, and arranger from Muskegon, MI. He graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2016 with a B.M. in Jazz Composition. He is a recent graduate (2019) of the Jazz Performance M.M. program at William Paterson University. In 2016, he co-founded the folk group Visen, which released its first EP, Shoulder Deep, in 2017. Cecil was the 1st place winner of the 2017 Wilson Center Jazz Guitar Competition and the 2018 Lee Ritenour Six String Theory Competition. As of recently, Cecil was one of 3 finalists in the 2019 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Guitar Competition. Some of his greatest influences include Peter Bernstein, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jesse Van Ruller, and John Coltrane. Cecil is currently based in New York City and recording music for his first full-length Jazz album, as well as a new full-length album by Visen.

https://www.cecilalexander.com

Jessica Mays

Jessica Mays is a composer, pianist, and singer-songwriter currently residing in New York City.

Born in Denver, CO, Mays’s music has been performed both locally and abroad, including  the New York Philharmonic, the Playground Ensemble, Nebula Ensemble, Ensemble Paramirabo, Ensemble Lunatik, Thin Edge New Music Collective, The Labo de musique contemporaine de Montréal and many others. She has been featured by a variety of festivals as composer and performer including the Chelsea Music Festival, Loon Lake Live, and the Cluster Music Festival. She has also written arrangements for both large and small forces on variety of projects with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Her music has received praise from such major publications as the Boston Globeand the Boston Musical Intelligencer.

Mays currently manages the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers (VYC) program. 

https://www.jessmaysmusic.com

Nick Dunston

Nick Dunston is an acoustic and electroacoustic composer, improviser, and bassist. An “indispensable player on the New York avant-garde" (New York Times), his performances have also spanned a variety of venues and festivals across North America and Europe. He's performed, toured, and recorded professionally with bands led by artists such as Marc Ribot, Ches Smith, Imani Uzuri, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Webber, Amirtha Kidambi, and Vijay Iyer. In 2019 he released his debut album, Atlantic Extraction, which “features the unusual instrumentation of double bass, drums, electric guitar, flute, [and violin]- and his compositions put that configuration to imaginative use” (The Wire Magazine). In 2020, he released his sophomore album, Atlantic Extraction: Live at Threes, which "presents the musician’s command of his mercurial compositions. The unconventionally configured quintet nimbly shifts among stately chamber melodies, combative free passages and exhilarating steeplechases” (Downbeat Magazine). In addition to three studio albums released under his name, he has also been commissioned by artists such as Bang on a Can, Ex-Aequo, Johnny Gandelsman, T R O M P O, and Clifton Joey Guidry III.

His current projects as a leader include:

-Skultura, a Berlin-based quartet consisting of Cansu Tanrikulu on vocals and electronics, Eldar Tsalikov on woodwinds, Liz Kosack on synthesizers, and Nick Dunston on bass and electroacoustic sound sculptures.

-banjer, a solo project for prepared banjo and manipulated samples played back through the banjo via audio transducers. This project not only explores, deconstructs, and transfigures sonic meditations of the Afro-diasporic history of the instrument, but it also seeks to embody the ubiquitous roles Black people and other socially marginalized peoples have played in the development of sample-based music.

-La Operación, a trans-media-opera-in-progress that debuted at Roulette Intermedium (NYC) in 2019. Inspired by the 1982 documentary of the same name by Ana María García, La Operación is an abstracted digestion of a historical phenomenon involving racism and colorism in Puerto Rico, eugenics, medical malpractice, second-wave feminism, and American colonialism. La Operación is a chamber opera, involving an electroacoustic, dynamic cast of improvisers and live film.

-Atlantic Extraction, an internationally-based quintet consisting of Louna Dekker-Vargas on flutes, Ledah Finck on violin and viola, Tal Yahalom on guitar, Nick Dunston on bass, and Stephen Boegehold on drums. Atlantic Extraction has two critically-acclaimed releases under its name, Atlantic Extraction and Atlantic Extraction: Live at Threes.

https://www.nickdunston.org

Listen to the album!

Changing the Canon is now available on all streaming platforms.