Did Alaska create John Luther Adams' music or did the music create his Alaska? In his 16' x 24' cabin-studio outside Fairbanks, where Adams has worked for over two decades, the vastness of Alaska has swept through the distant reaches of his imagination and every corner of his compositions. In turn, the NEA and Rockefeller Foundation grantee - whose music Village Voice critic and composer Kyle Gann describes as "beautiful, shimmering, vast, luminous, ecstatic" - has used any means necessary to communicate the power of the elemental forces he experiences daily. Adams' methods have included percussion ensembles, Alaska Native voices, orchestral residencies, sound and light installations, and elegant prose writing collected in his book Winter Music. His music has been performed by Bang on a Can, the California E.A.R. Unit, and Percussion Group Cincinnati, among others.

Chaya Czernowin was born on 7 December 1957 in Haifa and was brought up in Israel. She commenced studies in composition at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv and from the age of 25 has lived in Germany, Japan, the USA and Austria. Thanks to her teachers Abel Ehrlich, Dieter Schnebel, Brian Ferneyhough and Roger Reynolds and also a series of scholarships and prizes, she was able to devote herself intensely to the development of her musical language. Czernowin’s compositions have been performed at more than fourty festivals throughout the world including the 20th Century Music Festival in Mexico, at the Wien Modern in Vienna, the Asia Pacific Triennial in Australia and in Huddersfield. She has been in great demand as a teacher due to her profound knowledge of experimental contemporary music. She taught composition at the Yoshiro Irino Institute in Tokyo in 1993/94 and at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt between 1990 and 1998. She was professor for composition at the University of California San Diego from 1997 to 2006 and taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna from 2006 to 2009. She received invitations to attend as a guest professor in Göteborg and Seoul. She has been the director of the International Summer Academy for young Composers in Schloss Solitude near Stuttgart since 2003 and was appointed professor for composition at the University of Harvard in 2009.

Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, Huntington, NY) is a Brooklyn-based composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic music. Recently praised as a "rising star" (The New Yorker) and "dangerously talented" (New Haven Advocate), Cerrone’s delicate, intricate works often evoke the many writers who have inspired him: Italo Calvino, Louise Glück, Kurt Vonnegut, Jorge Luis Borges. His music has been heard across the US and Europe, most recently at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and Carnegie Hall. His music has also been commissioned performed by New York City Opera, the New York Youth Symphony, the Orchestre National de Lorraine, violinist Hahn-Bin, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Loadbang, and the Yale Philharmonia, among others, and he is co-artistic director and composer-in-residence for the New York City-based ensemble Red Light New Music. He recently received the Charles Ives Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2010 and 2011 ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and three CAP Grants (2009-2010) from the American Music Center. Upcoming projects include a new work for Ensemble ACJW commissioned by Carnegie Hall and a new piece commissioned by a consortium of percussionists throughout the US. He is currently pursuing his doctorate at Yale University, where he also taught music composition and electronic music. www.christophercerrone.com

Vincent Raikhel is a composer currently living in Brooklyn, New York. His compositions often employ models and patterns extracted from the natural world, creating interacting processes and networks of musical dimensions. His works include solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces as well as installations and compositions that are performed in natural environments. In 2005 Vincent co-founded Red Light New Music with Scott Wollschleger, a contemporary music series and ensemble based in New York City. Vincent has been a member of the Red Light composer collective and has served as co-Artistic director of the organization since its inception. In 2010 Vince co-edited Original Tradition: The Influence of Nils Vigeland, Composer and Teacher, a compilation of essays and music with Liam Robinson. His 2009 composition Espejos for solo Vibraphone was supported by funds from Meet the Composer. Current projects include a cello concerto entitled Cirques and Moraines being written for Red Light cellist John Popham as well as a dramatic multi-media installation/composition for the percussion quartet for Matra Percussion. Vincent is currently collaborating with composers Bob Pierzak and Nicholas Deyoe in creating a collection of visual analyses of the late works of Morton Feldman. Recordings of his music are available on Carrier Records. Vincent received his Bachelor in Music from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Nils Vigeland and Reiko Füting. He received the Nicolas Flagello Composition Award upon his graduation. In 2006 Vincent moved to Berlin where he pursued his MeisterSchüler studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Walter Zimmermann. In 2010 Vincent received his Masters in the Arts from the University of California, San Diego where he studied with Philippe Manoury. www.vincentraikhel.com