The music of Benjamin Dean Taylor (born 1983), has been described as “elegant and energetic” (Kenneth Thompson) and “powerful and direct with delightful surprises in each work.” (Marilyn Shrude) Having grown up as a performer in jazz, rock, ska, country, and concert bands as well as in choirs and orchestras, Taylor is driven to write music that highlights the strengths of each performing ensemble. His catalog of more than 100 works covers a large range of styles and genres including music written for orchestra, wind band, opera, choir, jazz big band, gamelan, chamber ensembles, and soloists with live electronics. Further, Taylor has written music for multimedia collaborations with dancers, filmmakers, poets, and visual artists.
Taylor has received commissions from ensembles including the Calidore String Quartet, Omaha Symphony, Solaire Saxophone Quartet, New World Youth Symphony, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Civic Wind Symphony. His music has been performed by ensembles around the world including the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Kenari Quartet, L’ensemble Itineraire, Nurnberg Hochschulorchester and has been championed by soloists Keith Kirchoff, Zach Herchen, and Scotty Stepp. As a sought-after composer for wind band, Taylor has been commissioned by over 100 band directors of players at all educational levels.
Recently named a recipient of a commission from the Barlow Endowment, Taylor’s prizes and honors include Winner in the 2013 Ticheli Composition Contest, a grant from the Indiana Arts Council (2015), Dean’s Prize in Composition from Indiana University (2013), BMI Student Composers Award (2011), Winner in the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings (2012), and an ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award (2011). His music has received performances at festivals including the College Band Directors National Association Conference, Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States National Conference, Society of Composers National Conference, International Society of Bassists Conference, International Double Reed Society Conference, Scandinavian Saxophone Festival, and international jazz festivals in Edinburgh, Marlborough and Birmingham. His compositions have been featured on the radio and television including NPR’s “Says You.”
Benjamin Taylor completed a doctorate degree from Indiana University and holds degrees from Bowling Green State University (MM) and Brigham Young University (BA). His principal teachers have included David Dzubay, Don Freund, Claude Baker, Jeffrey Hass, Marilyn Shrude, Elaine Lillios, Christian Asplund, Neil Thornock, and Steven Ricks. When not composing, Taylor can be found playing in his Dixieland jazz band, leading community bucket drumming groups, hiking, running, cooking, and camping with his family.
Explore his music at benjamintaylormusic.com
Ronald Beckett has had numerous compositions performed by ensembles throughout Ontario. He has written three operas that constitute a trilogy: Ruth, John, and I Am…. that have been given fully staged performances by Arcady and Queens Student Opera. Ruth, due largely to its length (72 minutes) and facility of staging, has received some twenty performances since its premiere in 1996. Ron’s catalogue of compositions includes a number of additional large-scale works for orchestra or orchestra and chorus and an abundance of chamber music and pieces for piano and organ. Since 2008, he has written a great number of songs and music for youth, specifically for the Arcady Youth Singers.
Ron is Founding Director of Arcady, an organization that was established in order to encourage outstanding young musicians by providing for them a bridge between their student and professional performing careers. Most of Arcady’s work is in two areas: period performances of early music repertoire and the works of Ronald Beckett. The ensemble offers 20 to 30 programs ranging from small ensemble to full choral-orchestral performances in Ontario each year. Arcady has released three CD recordings on the Crescendo label: A Baroque Messiah (1999), Welcome Yule! (2001), and Ruth (2007). Welcome Yule! is a collection of original Christmas compositions and Beckett arrangements. Ron also arranged and conducted Ruby Productions’ CD entitled Peace on Earth (2000). In 2002, Phoenix Records released the CD A Beckett Miscellany – a sampling of Ron’s instrumental music performed by The Essex Winds and Arcady.
A Summa Cum Laude graduate from McMaster University in History and Theory, Ronald Beckett is an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Music (Piano Performance), and also holds a Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Western Ontario. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to music and community, he was inducted into the McMaster Alumni Gallery in 2004.
Ron is a member of SOCAN and has recently become an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre. His works are frequently heard on classical radio in North America and Europe.
This information was taken from www.ronaldbeckettmusic.com where more information on his music and career can be found.
Tony is a composer and orchestrator living in Petoskey, MI, providing a multi-layered and sensory experience through expressive, colorful orchestration and warm melodies. He adds new perspectives to stories, environments, and everything in between through massive orchestral productions, as well as intimate atmospheres.
With performances and readings from renowned ensembles such asApollo Chamber Players, the University of Cambridge Concert Band, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Tony's music has been played across the nation and is now published through both MusicSpoke and New Music Shelf. Actively bringing new music to his Northern Michigan home, Love Awakens: for concert band was commissioned by the Mackinac Arts Council and premiered by the Straits Area Concert Band, celebrating Henry David Thoreau'sbicentennial birthday. He was also the local Bay View Music Festival's first-ever composer-in-residence for the 2018 summer season, working with the Woodwind Quintet Faculty on his character piece,WHOA!. The same year, Tony made his way to Symphony Number One's Fourth Call for Scores as a semi-finalist. Other recent awards include Brazosport Symphony Orchestra's Composer Competition, the inaugural Texas A&M University’s Composition Competition and Symposium, and a Merit Award in the Tribeca New Music Young Composer Competition.
He also lives the life of a video game composer, creating sonic spaces and emotionally-driven tracks to enliven each game's world. Current soundtracks include Kharon's Crypt and Call of Saregnar. Continually branching out into various styles, two of his 2017/18 projects involved sacred music: the full, orchestral score for Saint Luke Productions' latest drama, "Tolton: From Slave to Priest," and a Concert Band piece commissioned by Holy Ghost Preparatory School in Bensalem PA, "Rejoice in the Holy Spirit," premiering in September 2018.
Born and raised near Philadelphia, PA, Tony graduated from Temple University with a degree in Music Composition. During his time in college, he had the blessing of meeting Maria - a young equestrian from Northern Michigan - via his blog dedicated to mental health awareness. Ever since that was the spark for their marriage, he continually advocates those who suffer from mental illness. As an example, his latest opera, Ghost Variations — commissioned by OperaRox Productions — depicts the hardship Clara Schumann endured while her spouse, Robert, suffered through severe psychological sickness. It is set to premiere in New York City in August 2019.
Recent performances include Suite from Kharon's Crypt, premiered by the Temple Composers Orchestra, and At the Breaking Point: for solo violin by Catie Rinderknecht.
-Bio taken from www.manfredoniamusic.com
Mr. Manfredonia spoke to the Composers Guild via Skype in the spring of 2018.
Mark Rheaume is an active composer, trombonist, and writer. He currently serves as the Adjunct Low Brass Instructor for Illinois College and the University of Illinois-Springfield. He also assists the Illinois Symphony Orchestra as Music Librarian and teaches a studio of young brass students in the Springfield area.
Mark’s compositions have been performed by the Illinois Symphony, the American Trombone Quartet, the UIS Chamber Orchestra, and various festival ensembles. His works have been featured at the Southeast Trombone Symposium, the Midwest Trombone and Euphonium conference, and at the International Trombone Festival.
In addition to composing, Mark enjoys performing and conducting. Recent engagements included conducting the premiere of his newly-orchestrated American Suite with the University of Illinois-Springfield Chamber Orchestra, premiering Pastorale for double-bell euphonium, and directing his Contrapunctus I for trombone octet at the 2017 Midwest Trombone and Euphonium Conference. He also presented his compositions to students at Illinois College, various Symphony Guilds, and to the composition studio at Morton High School.
He holds a Master of Arts in Music Composition and a Bachelor of Music in Trombone Performance from Eastern Illinois University. While a student, Mark conducted premieres of his ballet, The Earth Without Water and his Symphony no. 1. He won various awards, including the Graham R. Lewis Memorial Poetry Award, the James K. Johnson Creative Writing Award, two concerto competitions, and four Honors Recital invitations. In Spring 2015 he was inducted into the Hamand Society of Scholars, a selection made from the Distinguished Graduate Students at EIU. His graduate thesis earned the Thesis Award of Excellence in the College of Arts and Humanities.
Mark's primary teachers have included Brad Decker, Jemmie Robertson, Allan Horney, and Peter Hesterman.
Mark currently lives in Springfield, IL with his wife, Sarah, and their two cats, Abbey and Lily.
Dr. John Orfe is an Assistant Professor at Bradley University where he teaches Music Theory, Ear Training, Composition, and Piano. Dr. John Orfe has won a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Tanglewood Fellowship, a Morton Gould Award and nine Standard Awards from ASCAP, the William Schuman and Boudleaux Bryant prizes from BMI, and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has fulfilled commissions for Duo Montagnard, Dez Cordas, Alarm Will Sound, the NOVUS Trombone Quartet, the Two Rivers Chorale, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, Ludovico, the Music Institute of Chicago, the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Lila Muni Gamelan Ensemble. His works have been performed in Thailand, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Central and South America, and throughout the US; his percussion trio Dragon has received performances by over fifty different ensembles. Ensembles that have performed his music include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Dinosaur Annex, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.
In 2010 The Northwestern College Choir (MN) toured Latvia, Estonia, and Finland with Orfe’s O Crux. The Bradley Chorale (IL) sang Orfe’s Crown of the Righteous on its tour of Denmark. The New York Times hailed his Cyclone for two violas as “the most striking and momentous work on the program” of a Carnegie Hall concert in March 2007. Oyster, commissioned by Ohio University’s School of Music and School of Dance, was premiered in June 2008 and performed at the North Carolina School of the Arts in January 2009. Chamber Symphony, commissioned by Alarm Will Sound and Ludovico, was performed by AWS in 2008 to critical acclaim in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, and London, England in 2010. His Dowland Remix (2009) received glowing mention in Die Welt and the Hamburger Abendblatt following performances in Hamburg and Bremen, Germany.
As a pianist Dr. Orfe has performed across the US and in Central and South America in such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Mandel Hall in Minneapolis, the World Financial Center in New York, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and Hertz Hall in Berkeley. His performances have been described as 'breathtaking' and 'hypervirtuosic' by such sources as LAWeekly, the New York Times, the Deseret News and the San Francisco Chronicle.
-biography taken from www.bradley.edu
Craig Fitzpatrick holds a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he studied composition with Stephen Heinemann. He obtained his Masters in Music Composition in 2003 from the University of Illinois in Champaign. While there, he studied composition under Stephen Taylor and Rick Taube and also served as a teaching assistant, instructing undergraduate theory and ear-training courses. Since then Craig has had the opportunity to work closely with Jack Stamp, David Maslanka, and David Holsinger.
In 2001, Craig won the Creative Division of the Bradley University Research and Creative Achievement Exhibition with Subliminal Designs, a composition designed using music notation through alternative visual representations. Craig was also a finalist in the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards in 2001 and 2003. In 2005, he was chosen as a participant in the National Band Association’s Young Composer Mentor Project sponsored Bands of America. Craig was also a finalist in the 2nd International Frank Ticheli Composition Contest with his work “Re-Connected” for wind ensemble. In 2014, Craig’s commission “A Light Still Remains” was a finalist in the National Band Association’s Merrill Jones Composition Contest for Concert Band. Craig has been commissioned to write concert band literature for various Midwest Jr. High and High Schools. His compositions for band, orchestra, choir, soloists, and small ensembles have been performed across the country. Craig is also a published composer with Alfred, TRN, and FJH Music Publishers.
Since 2001, Craig has arranged music and written drill for competitive high school marching bands across the country. His clients have been State Class Champions, Band of America (BOA) Super Regional Finalists, BOA Grand National Semi-Finalists, and BOA Super Regional Class Champions. Additionally, Craig has served as a marching band adjudicator throughout the Midwest. Craig marched with the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps baritone line in 1998 and worked with the Cavaliers brass staff in 2001. He has taught competitive marching brass and arranged for Morton High School, who have been named the 2005 through 2016 class 2A Illinois State Champions. Craig also maintains an extensive private brass studio, teaching trumpet, French horn, trombone, euphonium, and tuba lessons to students of all ages. His students regularly attend the IMEA district and state festivals in the orchestral, jazz, and band divisions. During the 2005-06 school year, Craig served as assistant director of bands at Washington Community High School. During this time, the Washington High School Symphonic winds were selected to compete at the 2006 Illinois Superstate Concert Band Festival for the first time.
Craig studied trombone with Hugo Magliocco at Bradley University and Elliot Chasanov at the University of Illinois. He currently performs with the Prairie Wind Ensemble, and resides in Morton, Illinois with his wife, Katrina.
You can check out Fitzpatrick's music at his website: http://www.fitzpatrickmusic.net/
In 2014, David McGrew was the Music Director at Grace Church in Morton. Previously, he had been a professor of Music Composition and Theory at Baptist Bible College in Pennsylvania. After McGrew visited the MHS Orchestra to sightread several of his original sketches, Mr. Getz invited McGrew to speak to the Composers' Guild. McGrew gave an inspiring talk about the creative process and even took snapshots of his own piece at its various stages that he was writing for In Their Own Write. His piece, "Let's Tri," was premiered at In Their Own Write in 2014.