2023/24 Underscore Winning Composers

Chris Arrell’s music is characterized by its exploration of the intersection between humanity and technology, the blend of the natural and the digital, and the fusion of popular and experimental styles. Praised for their nuanced and unconventional beauty by New Music Box, Boston Music Intelligencer, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Arrell's compositions have garnered commissions from prestigious entities such as the Alte Schmiede (Austria), Boston Musica Viva, MATA, Spivey Hall, and the Fromm Foundation. His works have been performed by renowned ensembles including Alia Musica, Bent Frequency, the Bent Frequency Duo Project, Brave New Works, the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo, the Boston Musica Viva, the Boston New Music Initiative, Collide-O-Scope Music, newEar, Nextet, the Puget Sound Trio, Sonic Generator, and the Ensemble Sospeso, among others. Recently named a winner of Bent Frequency's 2023-24 Underscore Call-for-Scores, Arrell has also received accolades from the Ettelson Composer Award, Ossia Music, the League of Composers/ISCM, the Salvatore Martirano Competition, the MacDowell and ACA colonies, and the Fulbright Hays Foundation. His music is available through Beauport Classical, Electroshock Records, Navona, Parma Recordings, SCI, and Trevco Music. Arrell is an associate professor at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in music theory and computer music and directs the Holy Cross Laptop Ensemble Federation (H-CLEF). www(dot)chrisarrell(dot)com.

Currently pursuing graduate studies at the Yale School of Music, Colorado native Dayton Hare is a composer whose music often draws inspiration from the natural world and our relationship with it. He received bachelor's degrees in composition and English from the University of Michigan and fellowships from the National Orchestral Institute + Festival, the Écoles d’art américaines de Fontainebleau, and the Norfolk New Music Workshop. He's been invited to participate in numerous festivals such as the RED NOTE New Music Festival, New Music on the Point, and highSCORE. He is a current student of Martin Bresnick, and previously studied with David Lang, Katherine Balch, Evan Chambers, Roshanne Etezady, and others. Dayton has also worked extensively as a journalist, both as a writer and editor.”

Canadian composer Emilie Cecilia LeBel specializes in concert music composition, the creation of mixed works that employ digital technologies, and intermedia concert works.  Described as a creator whose music “reflects her intelligence and audaciousness” (Sir Andrew Davis), and is “restrained and beautifully coherent from beginning to end” (barczablog), as well as “impressively subtle and sensuous” (ConcertoNet), LeBel’s work inhabits sonic worlds that are primarily concerned with textural landscapes, resonance, and variances in colour.LeBel’s artistic practice has been recognized through several significant awards and appointments, including RBC Affiliate Composer with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (2018–2022), Composer-in-Residence with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (2015), TD SoundMakers Composer in Residence with Soundstreams Canada (2015–2016), Land’s End Ensemble Composers Competition (2016), Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award (2015), Canadian Music Centre Toronto Emerging Composer Award (2012), and Canadian Federation of University Women Elizabeth Massey Award (2012).LeBel’s compositions have been performed across North and South America, and Europe by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Mark Takeshi McGregor, Continuum Ensemble, Women on the Verge, Duo Nyans, Voices of the Pearl, Cecilia String Quartet, Plumes Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, Arditti Quartet, Land’s End Ensemble, Cheryl Duvall, Luciane Cardassi, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Onyx Trio, and junctQín keyboard collective, among others.  LeBel’s work appears on twelve commercial recordings, including LeBel’s debut album of chamber music, field studies - released on Redshift Records in May 2023.  LeBel is Composer Advisor with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and a faculty member at MacEwan University, Faculty of Fine Arts and Communication. LeBel holds degrees in music composition from the University of Toronto (DMA) and York University (MA, BFA Hons.), and in audio engineering and music production from the Harris Institute for the Arts (Dip. Hons).

Anna-Louise Walton is an American composer of chamber, orchestral, and electronic music. In her music, she explores concepts of mimicry, the notation of improvisatory rhythms, and the utilization of household objects. Her works have been performed by ensembles such as Hypercube Ensemble, Ekmeles, TAK Ensemble, the Bergamot Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Trio Catch, Fonema Consort, Quatuor Diotima, Mivos Quartet, Surplus Ensemble, Ecce Ensemble, Switch~ Ensemble, Versipel Collective, and the Wooster Symphony Orchestra. Her music has also been featured at Musikprotokoll, MATA Festival, IRCAM’s ManiFeste, Darmstadt International Summer Course, Royaumont Voix Nouvelles, Heidelberger Frühling Festival, Schloss Summer Academy, impuls Festival, VIPA Festival, Electric LaTex Festival, New Music on the Bayou, and highSCORE Festival.In 2020, Walton served as a mentor for young composers in MATA Jr. She has received a BMI Student Composer Award (2019), the Walden County Promising Young Composers Competition Award (2021), the IAWM Choral/Vocal Ensemble Prize (2021), and the Martirano First Prize Award (2023). Recent commissions include works for Trio Zukan and for Proton Bern.Walton received an M.A. in music composition from Tulane University in 2018, where she studied with Rick Snow. She then went on to study Sonology at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague. She is currently a DMA candidate in music composition at Columbia University, where her primary mentors are Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, and George Lewis.

Amir Khalaf, born in Cairo, Egypt. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts in Cairo and studied composition at the University of Birmingham.

In his music, Amir explores the notion of deficiency and decay as well as the limited sonorities of musical instruments. He is interested to transform motion into sound objects by creating ephemeral and insufficient acoustic environments inspired by Nature, folk music, and electronic music.

He attended masterclasses and individual lessons with Pierluigi Billone, Kaija Saariaho, Frank Bedrossian, Dieter Ammann, Oscar Bianchi, Raphaël Cendo, and Mark Andre. He participated in Festivals such as Impuls, reMusik, Sound of Wander, Festival Mixtur, Young Euro Classic Festival, Etchings festival. He worked with ensembles such as Quatuor Bozzini, Ensemble Linea, Quartetto Maurice, mdi ensemble, The Callino Quartet, Vertixe Sonora, and AYPO Philharmonic Orchestra.

Charles Peck is a composer whose work has been called “daring” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “wild and shimmering” (Broad Street Review), and “substantial, personal, genuine” (Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music). His music, spanning a range of chamber and large ensembles, has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Albany and Columbus Symphonies, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the JACK Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, and Contemporaneous. Recently awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Peck has also received commissions from the Barlow Endowment, the McKnight Foundation, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Alarm Will Sound, the Bergamot Quartet, and Ji Hye Jung and has been named a winner of composition competitions with the New York Youth Symphony, ASCAP, the Lake George Music Festival, Frame Dance, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Symphony in C, the Tribeca New Music Festival, and the Boston New Music Initiative, among others. His music has been featured at a variety of venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cabrillo Festival, the Mizzou International Composers Festival, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Cultivate at Copland House, and the New Music Gathering. This year, Peck has also become a member of the composition faculty at the University of Pittsburgh.