Notes on Contributing Authors:

Dániel Péter BIRÓ is Associate Professor of Composition and Music Theory at the University of Victoria. From 1999-2004 he was a doctoral fellow in music and Judaic studies at Princeton University. His dissertation dealt with a comparison of early Jewish and Christian notation development. He was a Fulbright scholar in Germany. Awarded the Hungarian Government's Kodály Award for Hungarian composers, his compositions have been performed at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria, at the Bartók Festival in Szombathely, Hungary, at the Stuttgart Opera, and at the Hateiva Studio, Israel. In 2006 he was a featured composer and lecturer at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music. In May 2007 his electroacoustic composition Simanim (Signs/Traces), commissioned by the German Radio (HR) and done in cooperation with the Experimental Studio, was premiered by members of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2008 he was a featured composer and lecturer at the International Messiaen Week in Neustadt, Germany. In October 2009 his electroacoustic composition Kolot (Sounds/Voices) was premiered by Vancouver New Music. In May 2010 he will be a featured composer at the Mehrklang Festival in Freiburg, Germany.

Click here to sign the petition against arts cuts in BC: http://www.allianceforarts.com/speak-out-about-bc-arts-cuts

Suzanne FARRIN is Assistant Professor and Chair of the Music Theory and Composition department at the State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase.  Dr. Farrin completed her D.M.A. in Composition from Yale University in 2007.  She has been a featured composer at many music festivals in the US, Europe, and South America such as Carolina Chamber Music, Ernest Bloch Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Look & Listen, Music Mountain, Philadelphia Fringe, Music in Würzburg (Germany), Avantgarde Schwaz (Austria), Festival Nuevo Mundo (Venezuela), and Festival Musica y Arte Sonoro (Argentina).  She has received support from organizations such as Concert Artists Guild, the Wachovia Foundation, and Meet the Composer.  Her music can be heard on VAI, Signum Classics, and Albany Records.  She is currently working on a composition for Antoine Tamestit (France) and Markus Hadulla (Germany), which will be premiered at the Wor+Ton Festival in Winnenden, Germany in March 2010.

Simone HEILGENDORFF, born in Leverkusen-Opladen (Germany), is a musicologist and an accomplished violist. Currently she is University Professor of Applied Musicology and head of the Department of Musicology at Klagenfurt University (Austria) (http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/muwi/inhalt/1.htm).  She is also head of the study program in Applied Musicology (BA, MA), which is offered in cooperation with the Carinthian State Conservatory. Dr. Heilgendorff studied Musicology, Philosophy, and Psychology (Dr. phil., Humboldt University Berlin/Germany), as well as Viola (Master of Music, Univ. of Michigan Ann Arbor/USA) in Freiburg, Zurich, Ann Arbor, and in Berlin. Since 1993 she has been teaching in several colleges and universities with an emphasis on the mediation of scholarly and artistic practice. Simone Heilgendorff is on the advisory board of the John Cage Organ Project in Halberstadt (Germany) (http://www.john-cage.halberstadt.de). As a violist she is active as a founding member of the Berlin-based Kairos Quartet (http://www.kairosquartett.de/), which specializes in New Music. Dr. Heilgendorff's research interests as well as her publications (texts and CDs) are centered on New Music and music of the Baroque period, focusing on musical analysis, analysis of   cultural connotations,  performance practice, and the culture of musical interpretation.

Liza LIM's work is focused on the area of intercultural exchange, looking particularly at Chinese and Australian Indigenous art, aesthetics and ritual culture. Recent commissions include LA Philharmonic, Ensemble InterContemporain, ELISION, Salzburg Festival, Festival d’Automne Paris, Lucerne Festival, SWR and Bavarian Radio Orchestras.  Awards recognizing Lim's work include Australia's leading composition prize, the Paul Lowin Award for orchestral composition, the Fromm Foundation, the Ian Potter Foundation,  Australia Council Fellowships, and a DAAD Artist-in-residence grant to live and work in Berlin in 2007. Lim earned her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Queensland, her Master of Music from Melbourne University, and her Bachelor of Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her music is published by Ricordi (Milan, London & Munich).  She is Professor of Composition at the University of Huddersfield, UK.

Thmoas SCHÄFER, Director of Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt. Born 1967 in Hamburg. Studied Musicology, Literature and Philosophy at the University of Hamburg. PhD. 1997 at Humboldt University Berlin. 1998/99 postdoctoral studies at Hamburg University, simultaneously  producer for contemporary music at North German Radio in Hamburg. 2000-07 curator for the festivals Wien Modern, Hörgänge, and responsible for the new music activities at Konzerthaus Vienna (e.g., the concert series "generator").