Composer Chats

5-time Grammy nominee David Arkenstone has established himself as one of the best contemporary instrumentalists of our time. This visionary continues to create distinctive tracks that inspire the imagination. A musical storyteller, David is passionate about taking listeners on a journey, creating sonic tapestries that evoke every emotion. “I envision a place where I would like to go, or an adventure I would like to take, and let my imagination run free,” says David. “I’ve gotten countless messages from listeners who love to take these journeys with me. I’m sometimes surprised by how powerfully people respond to my music.”David enjoys touring and meeting his fans from around the world. “One of the most exciting things about performing live is the interaction I have with the audience. It’s very different than making a recording, where you’re not sure who will be listening to it. A lot of the roots of our musicianship come into focus in a live situation. You’re in the moment, you perform your best, and many times reach new heights – then it’s gone and on to the next show!”David loves to travel and enjoys photographing the world. His recent trip to Iceland, Switzerland and other parts of Europe will surely inspire new music.https://davidarkenstone.comhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuVV3dzZRRwC98-FftEBSng

Sheila Bristow is a composer, church musician, and collaborative keyboardist based in Tacoma, WA. She serves as Music Director & Organist at St. Barnabas, Bainbridge, and keyboardist for Harmonia Orchestra & Chorus. She is also in demand as an opera accompanist, vocal coach, and continuo performer.Sheila’s compositions are heard regularly in worship and concert. Recent awards include the American Prize, Third Place in the major choral works division, for "When Music Sounds" (for solo tenor, chorus, and orchestra). She holds degrees in composition and organ performance from Cornish College of the Arts and the University of Washington.https://www.sheilagailbristow.com

Emily is an educator, musician, composer in Washington State. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from the University of North Dakota and is currently pursuing a Masters of Film Scoring through Berklee School of Music. She is celebrating her 12th year in education and stays active as a performer in the Puget Sound region. Beyond her musical pursuits, Emily is also a visual artist and longarm quilter, adding a unique dimension to her creative expression. Emily’s goal as a composer is to craft pieces that resonate with every student, providing them with a part they love playing. As an educator, Emily strives to cultivate a space where students experience the joy and exhilaration of achieving something challenging together. Her compositions have been selected for Editor’s Choice on JW Pepper, and multiple state lists. She currently lives in Tacoma, Washington with her partner, and two cats.https://www.emharmonicmusic.com

Violinist/composer Lynn Bechtold, a native of Pittsburgh, has appeared in recital throughout the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Japan, and Switzerland. An advocate of new music, she has worked with composers such as Derek Bermel, Carter Burwell, Gloria Coates, George Crumb, Beatriz Ferreyra, John Harbison, and Morton Subotnick, and has premiered works on the Tribeca New Music Festival and the Princeton Composers' Series. In 2001, she gave the premiere of Violynn, a work for violin and electronics written for her by Alvin Lucier. All About Jazz noted her for her "virtuosity and technical expertise," I CARE IF YOU LISTEN pointed out her "brilliance of sound, technical mastery, and stunning expressivity," San Diego Story called her "unapologetically dominating," and Strings Magazine labeled her "impressive" and "close to the edge." She performs in groups including Miolina, Missing Link Ensemble, the SEM Ensemble, CompCord Ensemble, and N/S Consonance. Past groups include Zentripetal, Bleecker StQ, Quartet Metadata, Tenth Intervention, and NineLive. Other performances have been with Absolute Ensemble, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, Bleecker StQ, Carnegie Hall's Link Up Orchestra, DJ Spooky, East Village Opera Company, Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance, EnterArt, disco band Escort, Eternal Tango Orchestra, Glass Farm Ensemble, Lumina String Quartet, NY Symphonic Ensemble, Parsons Dance, Paul Taylor Dance Company, 10 Hairy Legs, Vermont Symphony, VisionIntoArt, VOX Opera Readings, and Pablo Ziegler. She has also performed with entertainers such as Jon Batiste, Andrea Bocelli, Boyz II Men, Sarah Brightman, Michael Bublé, Willie Colon, Sheryl Crow, Dead Can Dance, Darcy James Argue's Secret Society Band, Roberta Flack, Josh Groban, Cyndi Lauper, Left Banke, Smokey Robinson, J-Pop band SMAP, Donna Summer, Suzanne Vega, and Stevie Wonder. In a work by artist Derrick Adams, she was part of Performa '13, the performance art biennial. ​ An active performer, she has played at diverse venues such as the Blue Note, Bowery Ballroom, Carnegie Hall, Citi Field, the Frick Museum, the Harvard Club, Joe's Pub, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, Merkin Hall, The Met Museum, MoMA, National Sawdust, nublu, le Poisson Rouge, Radio City Music Hall, The Skyscraper Museum, The Smithsonian, St. John the Divine, and The Whitney Museum. Radio/TV broadcasts include CBC, NHK, WKCR, WNYC, CBS Morning Show, Good Day NY, 30 Rock, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Lynn received her Masters Degree from Mannes–The New School for Music, where she was a student of noted violinist Felix Galimir. Prior to that, she received a double-degree in Violin and English from New England Conservatory of Music and Tufts University. While at NEC, she worked with visiting composers John Cage, Gyorgi Ligeti, and Toru Takemitsu, among others. She has participated in festivals including Kneisel Hall, Meadowmount, Musicorda, Pacific Music Festival, Scotia Festival, and both Spoleto Festivals, as well as masterclasses with Pierre Amoyal, Lydian String Quartet, Orion String Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, and Frances-Marie Uitti. She composes acoustic and electroacoustic music. Her compositions have been performed on various series and festivals, including Access Contemporary Music, Birmingham New Music Festival, Circuit Bridges, Composers Concordance, COMPOSERSFest XIII, Composers Voice, JUMP, La Cupula Galeria de Arte Livestream Series, Music With a View, NWEAMO, Relevant Tones, Soft Series, Sonic Circuits Festival, Sound of Silent Film Festival, and Sound Traffic, and at venues such as the Austrian Cultural Forum NYC, Bohemian National Hall, Fundación Beethoven in Buenos Aires, Institut Finlandais in Paris, National Opera Center, Nordia House in Portland, and Universidad Nacional in Córdoba. Her works have been performed by performers such as CompCord Ensemble, EnterArt Dance, ETHEL, Miolina, Missing Link Ensemble, The Overlook Quartet, Two Sides Sounding, Zentripetal, cellists Daniel Hass, Nelly Rocha, and Anja Wood, and violinist Funda Cizmecioglu. As a composer, she's worked with chef Kurt Gutenbrunner and with tap dancer Max Pollak. With visual artist Cecilia Mandrile, their video collaborations have been exhibited at Meghívó: DIGITÁLIS AGORA - III, Digitális Müvészeti Triennálé Festival in Budapest, Hungary (2021-22); Impact: Art that Bears Witness, Bethany Arts in Ossining, NY (2022); Experimental Loop Festival on Governors Island, NYC (2023); La Visibilidad es una trampa at Usina Cultural in Villa Maria, Argentina (2023); Courts Carouge Festival in Carouge, Switzerland (2024); Scores Exhibition at Ubicua Gallery in London, UK (2025); 2nd Prize at Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh at Carnegie Museum of Art & August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh (2026); and at Public Shorts Festival in Berlin, Germany (2026). Live performances of their collaborations have taken place at Goddard-Riverside Center, Greenwich House Music School, Loft 393, National Opera Center, and Westbeth Arts (NYC); La Cúpula (Córdoba, Argentina); and Usina Cultural (Villa Maria, Argentina). In 2023, Cecilia and Lynn were artists-in-residence at Alfred University's Institute for Electronic Arts. Lynn is on the faculties of Greenwich House Music School and the Town School in NYC, and serves as a violin coach for the Norwalk Youth Symphony in CT. Since 2024, she has been a member of the summer faculty at Point Counterpoint Chamber Music Festival in Vermont. She is the recipient of grants from City Artists Corp, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York Foundation for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, Queens Theatre, the Leopold Schepp Foundation, and the Hilda Mesta Willis Fund. With her duo Miolina, she has also been awarded grants from American-Scandinavian Foundation, Japan Foundation NY, LMCC, New Music USA, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Women Composers, and Queens Council on the Arts. Active behind the scenes as well, Lynn is co-artistic director of violin duo Miolina. In 2018, she became a board member of New York Women Composers. Lynn was a co-director Ladies First, a concert series from 2012-2020, that highlighted female diversity in music and other fields.https://www.violynn.net

Chelsea Komschlies’ music, called “otherworldly” and “uncanny” and praised for its “vivid storytelling” (Chicago Classical Review), blends the familiar and strange in mysterious ways. She prioritizes perception of her music by the human brain and shared experiences among listeners. Her compositions, each a distinct fantasy world, evoke vivid multisensory imagery and a range of psycho-emotional landscapes, from whimsical nostalgia and camp to eerie disquiet, and from altered states of consciousness to glittering spiritual awe. A 2023 Virginia B. Toulmin Commission recipient through the League of American Orchestras, she premiered Mycelialore for orchestra and electronics with the Tucson Symphony in 2025. She joins the Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps in the 2025-26 season, during which time she will compose several new works for the orchestra. She is expanding her work into immersive VR and has initiated a partnership with Louisville Makes Games, a local nonprofit game developer community, to create musical compositions that are both visually immersive and gamified.Ms. Komschlies’ work has been commissioned and supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the Hermitage, Fromm, and ASCAP Foundations, the Alfred Casella Award (Curtis Institute), and Copland House. Presenters include Alarm Will Sound, Bozzini Quartet, Quasar Saxophone Quartet, the Louisville Orchestra, Tucson, Omaha, Vermont, Pittsburgh, Steamboat, and Lima Symphonies, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, TIME SPANS Festival, Grant Park Music Festival, Choral Arts Philadelphia, Fifth House Ensemble, Codes d’accès, Le Vivier, the Boulanger Initiative, Make Music Chicago, and Star Trek: The Cruise.A Ph.D. candidate at McGill University under Jean Lesage, she has received McGill’s Andrew Svoboda Prize for Orchestral Composition and the Research Alive Student Prize. Her thesis on musically encoding shared multisensory information is supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec, which recognized it as the top-ranked music research project in the province.https://www.komschlies.com

Mary Bichner (b. 1982) is an American orchestral composer of opera and ballet with sound-to-color synesthesia — a neurological condition that allows her to “see” splashes of specific colors when she hears their corresponding pitches sounded. Her work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, BBC Music Magazine [UK], La Nouvelle Republique [France], and on NPR; and she has collaborated artistically with numerous organizations in the United States, France, and Greece. Noted commissions and projects include serving as composer-in-residence at The Vasilicos of Santorini, Greece (where she was commissioned to compose a new string quartet work inspired by the colors of the world-famous Santorini sunset); serving a two-year composer residency at the historic Mount Auburn Cemetery of Cambridge, MA, USA (where she was commissioned to compose two orchestral suites inspired by the cemetery's breathtaking landscape and landmarks); serving as composer-in-residence at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico and Marble House Project of Vermont; and more. She has recently finished her first full-length opera, "The Memoirs of Antonina", inspired by Marie Antoinette.https://www.marybichner.com

Zemlinsky Prize winner and eight-time winner of The American Prize, composer Martin Hebel (b.1990) works at the intersection of music, advocacy, and interdisciplinary collaboration, responding to global challenges with socially-conscious music to spark positive change and strengthen communities. Hebel was inducted as Honored Artist of The American Prize in 2025.Hebel’s Uplifting Unheard Voices project, an international initiative pursuing humanitarian advocacy through music, amplifies words of refugees he interviewed with a series of new compositions to motivate listeners to end conflicts refugees flee. With support from the Presser Foundation’s Graduate Music Award, he interviewed refugees fleeing conflicts in Africa, Ukraine, and the Middle East, facilitated by refugee agencies, community advocates, and guidance from the Vatican’s Migrants and Refugees Section.Hebel’s music has been performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the American Composers Orchestra EarShot program, and by Columbus Symphony in Ohio, Riverside Symphony in NYC, Filharmonie Brno in the Czech Republic, and the Lincoln Trio, among others, at renowned venues across the U.S. and Europe including NYC’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Cincinnati Music Hall, and the Ohio Theater in Columbus, Ohio.With discography published by Ablaze Records, Centaur Records, and the USAF Band of the Golden West, Hebel’s portfolio includes orchestral and wind ensemble works, instrumental and vocal chamber music, choral music, multimedia compositions, and collaborations with other artists.Martin Hebel earned his DMA in composition from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2021 and his MM in 2018. He graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut in 2015 with degrees in composition and trumpet.Martin Hebel currently serves as Lecturer of Composition and Music Theory at the University of North Alabama in Florence, AL, USA. During the summer, Hebel serves as Instructor of Music Theory in the Summer Arts Camp at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, MI, USA.PRO Membership: ASCAP - American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishershttps://www.martinhebel.com

My name is Eric Lane Barnes. I am a composer, writer, lyricist, pianist, director, conductor, performer, teacher, and advocate for LGBTQ rights.I live to explore all the ways music can connect people with themselves, with one another, and with the world around them.https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-museum-of-really-interesting-things1https://www.ericlanebarnes.com

Evan VanDoren is an in-demand music composer regularly commissioned to create engaging & award-winning music for marching bands and concert ensembles at all skill levels. Evan’s music is regularly performed around the country, including premiere performances at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention and the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. In 2025, Evan was recognized as a National Finalist for The American Prize in Composition for his works, Luminosities & Prophetic Dances. Evan serves as the brass composer & arranger for the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps, based in Santa Clara, California. Additionally, Evan is an active clinician and has presented for Drum Corps International, the Music Educators National Convention, the Texas Bandmasters Association, the Texas Music Educators Association, and Music for All. He regularly consults with music programs nationwide.Before devoting his life to creating music, Evan was a band director at Cedar Park High School in Cedar Park, Texas. During that time, the band was awarded multiple marching state championships and national recognition. He received a Bachelor's in Music Education with Honors from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Currently, he lives in Cedar Park, Texas, with his wife, Katie, daughters Anna & Sara, and their dog, Cooper.https://www.evanvandoren.com

Mark Simpson (b. 1988) is a UK-based composer of an acclaimed body of work and an internationally-renowned clarinettist, whose programmes champion music new and old. His music for the stage, orchestra, voices, and chamber forces has been celebrated by leading conductors, instrumentalists, and ensembles ; across a myriad of forms, poetic intensity is matched by technical assurance and expressive generosity.Much of Simpson’s music takes place after dark. When Simpson finished his chamber opera Pleasure the clock read five am. Pleasure is set in the toilets of a gay nightclub. In that nocturnal space confessions are made and lives come into focus; it sees Simpson unleash music of mystery and abandon by turns. Night Music was the title of a taut and elusive disc of chamber works released in 2016 on NMC.The somnolent world of dream and hallucination has shaped numerous pieces: Israfel for orchestra comes from the candle-burning poetry of Edgar Allan Poe; two works under the title Darkness Moves - for clarinet (2016) and horn (2024) respectively - take their names from the hallucinogenic imagination of Henri Michaux. The Immortal , an oratorio, finds a creative wellspring in the induced trances of Victorian mediums and occultists, who drew the curtains, lit the candles, and tried to channel the spirit world. Simpson has long come alive at night - as a youngster in Liverpool attending concerts at the Philharmonic Hall he sneaked into the Royal Box with his friends after the house lights went down. Listening to his music is not far from taking his hand in a séance.As the first ever winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year prizes in 2006, Simpson’s career has always reflected the indivisibility of his composing and performing selves. This national acclaim led to a precocious Wigmore Hall debut, as well as his first major works as a composer, now published worldwide by Boosey & Hawkes. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Oxford, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Julian Anderson.A stint as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award-winner followed, succeeded in turn by a position as BBC Philharmonic Composer-in-Association. He composed sparks for the 2012 Last Night of the Proms. A debut chamber opera Pleasure (2016), to a libretto by Melanie Challenger, was commissioned by Opera North, Britten-Pears Arts, and the Royal Opera House.Israfel premiered with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Litton in 2014. The 12-minute piece evokes a Koranic angel imagined by Edgar Allan Poe, whose heart strings are a lute and who sings with the utmost sweetness. It captures Simpson’s fascination with the otherworldly, and, as its subject is a lyre, recalls Orpheus, the source of all music. “I wanted to write a piece that sang, floated, morphed, moved, moved us, lifted us, had power, had fragility, had hope, uncertainty, beauty”, Simpson writes. Its opening sets out the liquid transformations and elevated sensuality that preoccupy his work.Whilst his music searches out transcendental territories, Simpson’s demotic opera Pleasure turns back to the guts of the world. The touring debut production, directed by Tim Albery, saw Lesley Garrett play a toilet cleaner in a gay nightclub who sees, channels, and sings the largest of feelings, meeting a pair of lost souls and a ketchup-covered drag queen. “It turns out to be the perfect operatic subject”, Alfred Hickling wrote in The Guardian, “squalid and earthbound yet imbued with a radiant, almost mythic quality.” It received its German premiere in 2023 at Theater Erfurt.Simpson’s tone poem A mirror-fragment (2008), written for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, was his first exploration of Melanie Challenger’s writing, inspired by the opening poem of her collection Galatea. At 11 minutes, A mirror-fragment opens concerts rather than collections of poetry, and captures a style that is both nervily present and plugged into the depthless, mythic past. It was unfinished artistic business. Simpsons suggested the scenario for Pleasure the first night they met - another nocturnal mission.The Immortal arose in turn. Commissioned by the Manchester International Festival and premiered by the BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Chamber Choir, EXAUDI, and baritone Mark Stone, it is is an anguished forty minute span, drawing on texts from the Society of Psychical Research, showing the contortions of the spirit as it confronts the abyss of mortality; The Guardian called it an “anti-Gerontius”. Its ‘Lachrymosa’ sees strings and voices wrung out as exhausted tears flow, before a wounded baritone solo. It won the Southbank Sky Arts Award for classical music in 2016. The same searching quality belongs to his motet Ave Maria (2016), written for ORA Singers, and featured on their album Stella - fitful music of a sleepless consciousness.Simpson’s Cello Concerto (2016-18), written for Leonard Elschenbroich and the BBC Philharmonic, follows a recognisable fast-slow-fast pattern, but, like The Immortal, leans on achingly expressive unfurling melodic lines from the soloist, offering music that is both emotionally compelling as well as mysterious. The Times called it "airborne, kaleidoscopic, swirling with life..contemporary music with a pulsing heart…irresistible”.A Violin Concerto followed in 2021. At 38 minutes it is among Simpson’s most substantive orchestral statements, and its five-movement structure gives the concerto a symphonic richness and complexity in the handling of its material. It is “full-on, big-hearted…a delirious outpouring” (The Scotsman); the Financial Times called it “a concerto that will blow the mind”. The emotional effusiveness that struck reviewers all takes place within a keenly wrought structure. It is a ruthlessly inventive and virtuosic tour de force for its champion Nicola Benedetti, who debuted the work with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda in spring 2021. It was co-commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and has since appeared at the Concertgebouw and Usher Hall.The emotional range across its five interlocking parts shows Simpson’s expressive confidence and open-heartedness. “If a concert really grabs me”, Simpson said in an interview, “I can feel the part of my brain that’s on fire”. The tarantella finale of the concerto must’ve been composed with this in mind. It’s a roof-raising final peroration, swept along by castanets, that also turns back towards the lamentation and introspection that began the work.“It’s music that’s pitched at a level of sustained emotional intensity”, Tom Service wrote of Simpson’s work in The Guardian, “a heightened, dangerous, disorienting place where Simpson wants to take his listeners.” This is exemplified in Ariel (2009), one selection from an outstanding body of chamber compositions. Scored for the same instruments as Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, with textural nuance provided by basset clarinet, it takes its title and energies from Slyvia Plath. The 15-minute work has a tender melodic motif at its heart, which appears in fractured and partial ways. Its final minutes see it realised in an intense and sensuous release, before dissolving and collapsing into darkness again.Plath’s poem ends by looking at the sun - a “cauldron of morning”. Simpson’s Geysir for wind ensemble, composed as a companion work to Mozart’s “Gran Partita” Serenade, is a cooking vessel all of its own. An award-winning recording released on Orchid Classics, it draws on Mozart’s...