Leila Adu-Gilmore is an astonishing force in the space where electropop, avant-classical, and singer-songwriter meet. With roots in New Zealand, Britain, and Ghana, Adu-Gilmore is an international artist who has performed at festivals and venues around the world. She has been compared to Nina Simone and Joanna Newsom by WNYC, released five acclaimed albums, and given visionary solo performances on the BBC and WQXR. Her credits include Ojai Music Festival, Bang on a Can, New Jersey Symphony, Late Night with David Letterman, and composition for a Billboard-charted album. Adu-Gilmore was awarded a 2022 Charles Ives Composer Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She holds a PhD in music composition from Princeton University.
Jeffrey Brooks is an American composer living in Minneapolis. He began composing at an early age, and eventually went on to study at Tanglewood and Yale University, where he earned master’s and doctorate degrees. His primary teachers include Louis Andriessen, Gilbert Amy, and Martin Bresnick. Brooks has a considerable body of work composed for mixed chamber ensembles, and has written for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Alarm Will Sound, The Michael Gordon Philharmonic, Zeitgeist, Rose Ensemble, Bakken Trio, California EAR Unit, Present Music, Relache, Pianoduo, Icebreaker, and 5th Species. In 2014, Brooks composed After the Treewatcher, the first of three works for amplified chamber orchestra that were premiered during three residencies at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at MASS MoCA. The three works together comprise The Passion, a CD produced by Damian LeGassick and released by Cantaloupe Music and Innova Recordings in May 2019.
Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by The New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. She has been awarded grants by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2019) and 3Arts (2016), and received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2017. In 2015, Reid released her debut recording with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, a vibrant showcase for the cellist’s improvisational acumen as well as her dynamic arrangements and compositional ability. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in October 2019 on Cuneiform Records, was praised for its bold and lyrical songs and Reid’s elegant bow work. Reid has been a key member of ensembles led by legendary reed player-composers like Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, as well as a younger generation of visionaries, including flutist Nicole Mitchell, vocalist Dee Alexander, and drummer Mike Reed. She co-leads the adventurous string trio HEAR IN NOW with violinist Mazz Swift and bassist Silvia Bolognesi. Reid teaches at Mills College as the Darius Milhaud Chair in Composition.
Raised in the Trinidadian culture, Kendall K. Williams adopted the country’s national instrument, the steel pan, at the age of four. He studied music performance at Florida Memorial University and received his master’s in theory and composition at New York University’s Steinhardt School, where he studied with Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and Rich Shemaria, and performed in NYU Steel under artist–faculty member Josh Quillen. He composed music for steel pan and contemporary ensemble for Bang on a Can Marathons in 2013, 2015, and 2017, and in 2020, he wrote and performed a solo composition for the Online Bang on a Can Marathon. He recently composed a new work for the Brooklyn Philharmonic and steel-pan ensemble. He was the American Composers Orchestra’s 2014 Van Lier Fellow. He is currently a doctoral student in music composition at Princeton University, and he has lectured and led workshops at universities and grade schools across the US. Williams is a teaching assistant at Princeton University, and an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College and New York University, where he also teaches private lessons in steel pan.