Thomas Wells

Ohio State University

Tom Wells, who studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kent Kennan and Hunter Johnson, is a member of Duo Contemporain, a viola and piano duo that specializes in the performance of contemporary music. His compositions have been performed by major orchestras in the U.S., and his computer music compositions have been performed internationally. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Pennsylvania Arts Council and the Texas Commission for the Arts, and was recipient of the 1990 Governor's Award for Outstanding Individual Artist in Ohio. Professor Wells' reviews and articles have appeared in The Journal of Music Theory, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, and Computer Music Journal, and he has been active in national and international conferences. His music has been recorded on CRI, and his book, THE TECHNIQUE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC, was published in 1981.

Greg Steinke

Dr. Greg A Steinke is retired, former Joseph Naumes Endowed Chair of Music/Art and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, Oregon; Associate Director, Ernest Bloch Music Festival (’93-97) and Director, Composers Symposium (’90-97) (Newport, OR); served as the National Chairman of the Society of Composers, Inc. (1988-97); currently Secty/Treas of Art Culture Nature, Inc. Composer of chamber and symphonic music and author with published/recorded works and performances across the U. S. and internationally; speaker on interdisciplinary arts, and oboist specializing in contemporary music. His most recent composition honors include: Finalist (of 4)- ’01 Seoul International Composers Competition. Winner of Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity Composition Competition, ’02. Honorable Mention - ’02 “Britten-on-the-Bay” Composition Competition Series XIII (Saxophone Quartet). Special Mention - ’03 USA International Harp Competition (Solo Harp). Finalist/Winner - ’04 of COMA Open Score Project in England (Generic Quartet). Honorable Mention - ’05, VIII International Composition Competition of the Corfu Festival (Guitar). Co-winner of First Prize - ’08 2008 Areon Flutes International Chamber Music Competition (Flute Duet).

James Paul Sain

University of Florida

James Paul Sain (b. 1959) is Professor of Music at the University of Florida where he teaches electroacoustic and acoustic music composition, theory, and technology. He founded and directed the internationally acclaimed Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival for 17 years. His compositional oeuvre spans all major acoustic ensembles, instrumental and vocal soloists, and embraces electroacoustic music. His works have been featured at major national and international societal events. He has presented his music in concert and given lectures in Asia, Europe, South America and North America. Dr. Sain is currently SCI Executive Committee chair and an American Composers Alliance board member. His music is available in print from Brazinmusikanta and American Composers Editions and on CD on the Capstone, Electronic Music Foundation, University of Lanus, Mark Masters and NACUSA labels.

Bill Ryan

Bill Ryan is active as a composer, conductor, concert producer, and educator. In April, 2004 his debut CD Blurred was released to critical acclaim on the Innova Recordings label. It has been broadcast on radio programs thoughout the country, including on NPR’s All Things Considered. Gramophone magazine described it as "...gritty and funky..." and further wrote, "Rarely has music this earthy been so elegant… Ryan's music constantly threatens to burst at the seams, were those seams not so artfully structured."

From 1997-2005 Bill founded and produced Open Ears, a quarterly new music concert series. The thirty concerts he produced received national recognition as the series won three Adventurous Programming Awards from ASCAP/Chamber Music America.

As a conductor Bill has led a variety of ensembles He has commissioned and premiered music from such stellar composers as David Lang, Evan Ziporyn, Phil Kline, Marc Mellits and Michael Lowenstern.

Bill currently teaches composition, produces the Free Play concert series, and directs the New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. The ensemble’s recording of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians has attracted critical acclaim world- wide and made many publications “Best of 2007” lists, including the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Weekly, and New York Magazine.

John G. Bilotta

A composer from the San Francisco Bay Area, John Bilotta collaborates with local performers and ensembles in performing his own works as well as the works of composers he admires. He is director of the San Francisco Chamber Wind Festival held every July at the San Francisco Conservatory and co-director of the Bay Area's Festival of Contemporary Music now in its sixth year.

It has been an honor to serve, first as assistant-editor, then as editor of SCION over the past five years. SCION, the Society of Composers, Inc., Online News is a web-based listing of opportunities for composers available on the SCI website. SCION has undergone a lot of changes in that time--from a plain text email sent once a month to members to an online publication updated continuously thanks to the hard work of Mike McFerron, our webmaster. A brief monthly email reminds members to check online for recent updates.

If you are advertising a call for scores, competition, commission, fellowship, residency, open position, or other opportunity for composers, SCION can help get the word out to SCI's membership. All submissions will be considered.

To submit your opportunity, send the information by e-mail to scion@societyofcomposers.org. Preferred formats are plain text e-mail, HTML, Word, or Adobe Acrobat (pdf). The reminder email to SCI members is scheduled for the first day of each month so if you want to be sure that your item is already online when the email goes out, send your information a week before the end of the previous month.

SCION tries to publish submissions in relatively complete form, understanding that some announcements include a great deal more detail than we might be a ble to include. So some cuts may be necessary, particularly background, historical, or promotional text. We want to provide enough information that our members can get a clear idea of what the announcement is about with references to websites or contacts for further details. Once listed, opportunities will be repeated until the deadline passes. Items with no deadline will be listed in several consecutive issues. Ongoing calls with no deadline may be resubmitted once every year. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to three of our SCI members who have volunteered to serve as assistant editors: Mark Connor, Helena Michelson, and James Sproul. Their assistance is invaluable and has allowed us to greatly expand the size and completeness of SCION.

Bruce J. Taub

Bruce J. Taub was born in New York City. He studied composition with Mario Davidovsky, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Jack Beeson and Chou Wen-chung at Columbia University School of the Arts where he was one of the first two recipients of the Doctor of Music Arts degree. He also studied Indian classical music with Ravi Shankar. His music is published by C.F. Peters Corporation and the Association for the Promotion of New Music. Mr. Taub was Head of Publishing for C.F. Peters Corporation from 1978-2000 and is currently a freelance editor, proofreader and engraver. For more information see brucetaub.com.

I have been the Editor/Production Coordinator of the SCI Journal of Music Scores (an anthology or music by our members) for over 30 years. It is my responsibility to prepare the typesetting and camera-ready copy for our publisher, European American Music.

Thomas Wells

Ohio State University

Tom Wells, who studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kent Kennan and Hunter Johnson, is a member of Duo Contemporain, a viola and piano duo that specializes in the performance of contemporary music. His compositions have been performed by major orchestras in the U.S., and his computer music compositions have been performed internationally. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Pennsylvania Arts Council and the Texas Commission for the Arts, and was recipient of the 1990 Governor's Award for Outstanding Individual Artist in Ohio. Professor Wells' reviews and articles have appeared in The Journal of Music Theory, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, and Computer Music Journal, and he has been active in national and international conferences. His music has been recorded on CRI, and his book, THE TECHNIQUE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC, was published in 1981.

Lee Hartman

University of Central Missouri

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Delaware (BM '02 Music Education-Instrumental and Composition) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (MM '05 Composition, MM '08 Musicology, DMA '08 Composition). In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of Arts in Reykjavik, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. His most recent commission came from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art for a live-performance film score to the 1920 silent film "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In June 2008 he recorded his first CD of original compositions for percussion.

As Submissions Coordinator for SCI, I have the privilege of facilitating SCI composers' endeavors to be published and recorded. Annually, I coordinate the calls for the SCI Journal of Scores and SCI CD Series.

These products are meant to showcase current trends of musical expression through member compositions, and I am pleased with the artistic excellence across a variety of styles and genres. Typically, these two internal calls will be announced in November with submission dates in February with results announced in June. I am also charged with procuring the judges for these two calls, and I make every effort to pick from a diverse pool of knowledgeable professional composers.

My goal is to assist you in receiving the best possible music for yourself or ensemble. If you or your group wishes to sponsor a composition competition, would like assistance in wording a call for submissions, or would simply like suggestions as to how to keep everything pertaining to your event organized, please feel free to contact me.

Kari Juusela

Berklee College of Music

Kari Henrik Juusela is a Finnish/American composer, performer and educator who is presently the Dean of the Professional Writing Division at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to his work at Berklee College of Music, Juusela served as the Associate Dean, Director of Composition and Almand Chair of Composition at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.

Juusela's compositions have won awards in numerous competitions including the 1995 Vienna International Full-Length Opera Competition directed by Claudio Abbado; First Prize, 2003 International Red Stick Composition Competition; First Prize for mixed ensemble, London Chamber Groups 2003 "Piece of the Year Competition" Second Prize, 2004 San Francisco American Art Song Competition Established Professional Category; First Prize, 1989 GASTA String Quartet Composition Competition; Grand Prize and First Prize in 1998, and five awards in both the 1996 and 1990 Composer's Guild Composition Contests; and numerous awards from ASCAP. He was awarded the 1997 Stetson University Hand Award for Faculty Research and Creativity, received a 1997-98 Florida Council for the Arts Individual Artists Music Composition Fellowship, and has been the recipient of many other composition honors. Recent works include: String Theory, for electric cello and video commissioned in 2004 by the Daytona Beach News Journal ; Varjot, a work for orchestra chosen by the Jacksonville Symphony for its 2002 Fresh Ink readings, Night Calls, cello dodecanet commissioned by Cellobration 2002, Myths of the Sub-Tropics, a multi-media theater work commissioned by the CORE Ensemble, Bliss for cello quartet (commissioned by cellist David Bjella), Anandkari , for santoor and chamber orchestra, and Premasutra, for santoor, cello, and orchestra (both co-composed with Indian santoor virtuoso Nandkishor Muley. Recent recordings include: An American Prelude and Fugue, for wind trio, on Tres Vientos, (Lakeside Records);Crossing Twilight , for computer-generated tape, on Stages, a University of Maryland CD; Ilta Pala(a), for solo guitar, on Chamber Works , (Capstone Records); Mill Town Johnny, for Chorus, cello, bass and piano, on Tip O? the Hat II , a Stetson University School of Music CD. His works have been performed internationally by ensembles and organizations including the Cuartetto Latinoamericano, The CORE Ensemble, London Chamber Group, Jacksonville Symphony, violinist Beth Newdome, guitarist Stephen Robinson, organist and harpsichordist Boyd Jones, Contemporary Composers Forum, Capital Composers Alliance, College Music Society, Florida Electro-Acoustic Festival, Society of Composers Inc., SEAMUS, Southeastern Composers League, and many professional and university orchestras and chamber ensembles. Dr. Juusela holds degrees from The University of Maryland, Georgia State University and Berklee College of Music. His composition teachers include Mark Wilson, Tom Delio, Charles Knox, and T.J. Anderson. Juusela has studied African music with Komla Amoaku, Indonesian music with Lewis Peterman, Indian music with Nandkishor Muley and Rusty Gillete, and improvisation with Wadada Leo Smith.

Juusela's music is published by ISG Publications and Yelton Rhodes Music. He serves as the Region IV Co-Chair of the Society of Composers, Inc. and is on the Board of Directors of the Asian Cultural Society of Orlando.

Anne Kilstofte

Phoenix, Arizona

Anne Kilstofte primarily writes for ensembles such as orchestras, choirs, chamber groups (string quartets, brass quintets, and woodwind quintets, to name only a few), and for audiences both young and old. Her compositions for voice are thought by some to be her true metier.

Dr. Kilstofte was raised in Colorado by a visual artist and structural engineer and was immersed in classical music from a very early age. She began piano studies at age 4, and performing professionally at the age of 12, as a pianist, organist, and singer.

Nickitas Demos

Georgia State University

Nickitas Demos is an Associate Professor and the Coordinator of Composition Studies at the Georgia State University School of Music in Atlanta, GA (www.music.gsu.edu). He is also the Artistic Director of the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble. He has served on the National Council of SCI and has hosted the 1998 Region IV SCI Conference as well as the 2008 National SCI Conference.

the webteam is here to help you stay in touch with SCI. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to email either me (webmaster@societyofcomposers.org), Matthew McCabe (admin@societyofcomposers.org), or David Drexler (webcontent@societyofcomposers.org) Our immense thanks to Tony Reimer for his expertise, hard work, and good humor. On behalf of the webteam, thanks for browsing!

Webmaster

Mike McFerron

Lewis University

Mike McFerron is professor of music and composer-in-residence at Lewis University and he is founder and co-director of Electronic Music Midwest (http://www.emmfestival.org). A past fellow the MacDowell Colony, Ucross, June in Buffalo, and the Chamber Music Conference of the East/Composers’ Forum, honors include, among others, first prize in the Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition (2002), first prize in the CANTUS commissioning/residency program (2002), recipient of the 2005 CCF Abelson Vocal Music Commission, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “First Hearing” Program (2001). McFerron’s music can be heard on numerous commercial CDs as well as on his website at http://www.bigcomposer.com.

Executive Designer

Matthew McCabe

University of Florida

Composer Matthew McCabe completed his undergraduate work at the University of Richmond in 2001, and served on the music department staff there until 2003. In 2005 he completed his Master of Music in Composition at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Matthew is now a Ph.D. student in composition at the University of Florida where he teaches the introductory Music Technology class and acts as one of three technical directors for the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival.

His music has been performed all over the US and in Scotland. Though focusing primarily on electroacoustic music, he also writes acoustic music and mixed media pieces. His other music-related activies have included serving as the BGSU SCI chapter president, co-directing BGSU's Threshold student electroacoustic music festival, acting as the technical director for the Third Practice festival at Richmond, and serving on the Executive Council of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Web Content Manager.

Matt is also an active songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, bouzouki, and banjo in many venues around Gainesville. He currently plays bass with the alt-country band Wishful Drinkin' and collaborates on songwriting projects with friend and roommate Rick Dietrich. Recently his interests have included homebrewing root beer and expanding his palate for fine wine and Belgian ales.

Web Content Producer

David Drexler

David Drexler's music has been performed on three continents by groups such as L'Ensemble Portique, The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Synchronia, Sound--The Alarm!, The Dutch Tuba Quartet, the May in Miami Festival, and the EmergOrchestra, and has been broadcast on Wisconsin Public Radio and many new-music radio shows around the country. He has received grants and commissions from the Oakwood Chamber Players, Music St. Croix, the Madison Chapter of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers, the Wisconsin Arts Board, and others. His work Liberal Media was recorded by the Oakwood Chamber Players and appears on their CD Scenes. He has served on the board of the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers and WAC's Madison Chapter, and as editor of the Society of Composers, Inc. Online News.

Web Development Manager

M. Anthony Reimer (Ex officio)

Composer and sound designer M. Anthony (Tony) Reimer is interested in investigating the inherent contrasts, tensions, and expectations of intimate everyday sounds in ways that invite the audience to appreciate them not as ordinary everyday noise, but as transcendent objects worthy of thoughtful attention.

In Summer Smoke: Final Wisps, an introspective concert hall work begun the summer Reimer quit smoking, the composer integrates the intimate sounds of the habit into the piece: the crackle of cellophane, the packing of the cigarettes, inhalations and exhalations. Contributing to the nostalgia of the piece, the sounds of summer (cicadas, bees, and geese) are heard as if through a morning haze. The result is a challenging commentary on habits and the transformative experiences that lead us from one compulsion to the next.

The Last Straw provides another example of the way in which Reimer makes use of small commonplace sounds in his music. Here, a coffee stirrer is transformed into the aural content of the piece. But further, the distinctive rhythm produced by bending the tip of the stirrer gently, and then releasing it to oscillate back and forth serves as the blueprint for the composition’s structure, nesting inside itself like a set of Russian dolls.

Reimer’s concert music has garnered performances across the country and at festivals such as Electronic Music Midwest, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, and the national conference of the Society of Electro Acoustic Musicians in the United States.

Outside the concert hall, his work extends into a wide variety of domains including theatre, film, video games, and interactive experiences. It is perhaps in these collaborative efforts that Reimer finds his greatest pleasure.

A veteran of professional theatre with over 20 years experience, Reimer has composed music and designed sound effects for close to 200 productions across the United States and abroad. While based in Miami, FL, he earned multiple nominations and twice won the Carbonell award for Best Sound Design, South Florida’s version of the “Tony”.

For over 10 years, Reimer has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Coral Gables’ New Theatre and artistic directors Rafael DeAcha and Ricky Martinez. Included among the 30+ productions Reimer has composed and designed for at New Theatre are several world premieres and over a dozen productions of Shakespeare’s works that have become a staple of their summer season. A highlight of his relationship with “the New” came when he served as composer and sound designer for the world premiere of Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, the play that won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Reimer also enjoyed an extended relationship with Playmakers Repertory Company (PRC) in Chapel Hill, NC. In over six years with the top-tier regional theatre, Reimer composed music and designed sound for over 20 shows at PRC working with notable directors such as David Hammond, Mark Wing-Davey, Jeff Hayden, and Gene Saks.

Since 2007, Reimer has worked with Chicago’s Organic Theatre Company on over a dozen productions and continues to freelance with a variety of other companies across the country.

In the domain of film, Reimer got his start in 1999 with a short that appeared at the Miami Jewish Film Festival entitled The Wandering Jew. Since then, he has collaborated with Vancouver’s Black Forest Productions Company on a number of projects including the action/adventure web series entitled Libelle. Other recent work includes a sound design/score for a set of short documentary films examining the state of food production in Illinois and the score for a feature named The $30,000 Bequest.

In recent years, designing sound effects and writing music for video games and interactive experiences has become a passion of Reimer’s. He serves as the audio director and composer for Mutiny Games, an independent game company producing innovative titles for PCs and mobile platforms. Reimer has also designed and implemented several solo and collaborative interactive art installations and data sonification projects presented at the Krannert Art Museum and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign-Urbana, IL.

Reimer also serves as a researcher at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications for projects that aid in collaborative efforts between artists. These include a generalized framework for the development of multi-user virtual worlds and support for telematic performances. He is the backend programmer and database administrator for the Society of Composers, Inc. website and consults on a number of non-profit websites.

In any spare time he has left, Reimer enjoys the arts of bread-making and candy-making. In the same way that ordinary, common sounds inspire his artistic output, the process of turning combinations of everyday ingredients such as flour, sugar, and water into new concoctions is endlessly fascinating to him.

Jorge Elias Variego

University of Florida

Gerald Warfield

Gerald Warfield has degrees from the University of North Texas and Princeton University. He was an instructor at Princeton from 1968 to 1971 and Associate Director of the Index of New Music Notation at the New York Public Library from 1971 to 1975. In 1974 he was on the program committee of the International Conference on New Music Notation held in Ghent, Belgium.

He was chairman of the program committee of the 2nd National Conference on Music Theory, 1977 and chairman of the 9th ASUC Annual Conference in 1974. From 1976-1985 he was editor of the Longman Music Series which published professional books in music including the English translation of Heinrich Schenker's Free Composition (die Freie Satz). He was chairman of the SCI Executive Committee, 1972-1974 and the founding editor of the ASUC (SCI) Journal of Music Scores. In 1977 he became General Manager of SCI, a post he has retained until the present except or a brief two-year hiatus. He was treasurer of the American Composers Alliance from 1979 to 1996 and conference chairman for the College Music Society in 1981.

His music includes Three Movements for Orchestra, premiered by the Dallas Symphony and Variations and Metamorphoses, recorded on the first disk of the ASUC Record Series. His books include Layer Analysis (1976), How to Write Music Manuscript (1977), and Layer Dictation, with Richard Brooks.

He began writing in 1985 and has published 15 books in music, finance, and feng shui. In 2000 he returned to Texas where he writes fantasy novels. Currently he is chairman of the Advisory Board of the Boyce Ditto Public Library. He manages SCI from his office on the second story of his house on SW4th Ave. in Mineral Wells Texas where he looks out at trees and his fish pond.

If you need anything, please email me at secretary@societyofcomposers.org.