Composers

As a composer, Elliott Miles McKinley’s music has been performed in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Commissions include those from the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Music Society, the SOLI Chamber Music Ensemble, the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, and the Martinu String Quartet. The Minnesota Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and the Czech Radio Symphony. He is a recipient of a number of awards, grants, and fellowships including those from BMI, ASCAP, SCI, Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, and Indiana University. Also active as a performer and improviser, McKinley is a founding member of the electroacoustic improvisation ensemble, earWorm. McKinley holds a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz studies from the New England Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Minnesota. In the fall of 2014 he will join the faculty of Roger Williams University as Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition

Farmer received his Bachelor of Music degree in composition from the Boston Conservatory in 1969, where he studied with Avram David. In 1967 he attended the Ferienkurz fur Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany where he participated in composing and performing 'Ensemble', a cooperatively composed orchestral work under direction of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Farmer has an MM and DMA in composition from the University of Michigan, where he studied with William Albright, William Bolcom, George Wilson, and Leslie Bassett. Since then he has taught at Berklee College of Music, Lowell State University, and is currently part time teaching (via Skype) at Indiana State University. He has recorded and continues to record most of his music in Eastern Europe, through his association with William Thomas McKinley and his son, Elliott McKinley, and has been quite prolific in his orchestral and chamber music output.

Stephen James has performed for the Tanglewood Music Center Chamber Series, the WICN Radio concert series at Mechanics Hall (Worcester, MA), the Omnibus Series at Boston University, the American Repertory Theater, the Asparagus Valley Contemporary Music Ensemble, and on many other concert series in New England. He holds a masters degree in piano from Boston University.

Gary William Friedman is a versatile composer best known for his groundbreaking score for the Tony-nominated, OBIE award winning musical “The Me Nobody Knows.” Born in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Brooklyn College where he completed post-graduate studies in education. He studied electronic music composition at Columbia University with Vladimir Ussachevsky, and advanced classical composition privately with Hall Overton and Jan Meyerowitz. His orchestral, operatic and dance works have been commissioned and performed at venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Lancaster Music Festival and the Columbus Symphony.

Marc Rossi's music has been performed here and abroad and recorded by The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, SinfoNova, concert pianists Jeffery Jacob, the New England String Quartet, soprano Margot Emery and pianist William Merrill, cellists Emmanuel Feldman, Rafael Popper-Keizer and Felix Simonian, Indian classical guitarist Prasanna, sitarist Peter Row, Indian violinist Krishnan Lalgudi, santoor player Satish Vyas, the Jimmy Giuffre 4, Stan Strickland and Ascension, and the Berklee Faculty Jazz Orchestra to name a few. Rossi has been on the faculties of Tufts University and New England Conservatory, as is now a full time Professor at the Berklee College of Music where he has taught since 1989.

David Bennett Thomas is a composer living in the Philadelphia area, where he teaches composition, theory, and piano at The University of the Arts. He holds degrees from West Chester University and The Peabody Conservatory; and studied privately with Lukas Foss. Thomas has composed music in many genres, most prolifically for chamber music and voice. Several recordings have been released of his works, on the Capstone Records label. Thomas is also enjoys a second life as an active jazz pianist.

J. Windel Brown has been a teacher at Northern Essex Community College since 1971 where he has taught in the Mathematics Department. Many of his works have been performed locally and throughout Europe. He has written 6 pieces for ECMP that have been performed since 2001. A CD containing his Piano Concerto has been released on the MMC label. The MMC Recording Company is currently broadcasting the last movement, Ritmico, from his piano concerto over the web at mmcrecordings.com.

One of the most highly regarded and well-known composers of his generation, William Thomas McKinley has been likened to “Ives on steroids” (Fanfare) and “Stravinsky gone mad” (Gerard Schwarz). He learned both classical and jazz piano at a very early age, becoming the youngest member of the American Federation of Musicians at just twelve years old. To date, he has composed over 350 works, is listed in Groves' Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and has received commissions from the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Fromm Foundation, and the Naumburg Foundation.

Elaine Erickson received a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from Drake University. She has won numerous awards, fellowships and residencies, including from the Ford Foundation (Contemporary Music Project), Meet the Composer, the Charles Ives Center (4 times, the National League of American Pen Women (including the $1000 Music Composition Award), the Pyle Commission Award from the Iowa Composers Forum, among others.

Influenced by both Jazz and Classical music, acclaimed composer Ronin L. Øye has written a diverse body of works, including Suite for Viola (2002); A Game for Two (for oboe and bassoon); Textures (for horn and percussion); For They are Women’s Children (Score for dance-drama based on the 1913 Michigan Copper Strike, 2013). He's also written choral works, a wind quintet, works for flute, and arrangements, and a setting of a Shakespeare sonnet for soprano and piano.