INTERNATIONAL ilSUONO CONTEMPORARY MUSIC WEEK
An Annual New Music Academy in Italy
PARTICIPANTS 2026
COMPOSITION
Fully Active Participants
-MIXED MEDIA CATEGORY-
Kei Wing Chan (Hong Kong, 1994)
Kei Wing Chan is a composer and multimedia artist from Hong Kong, currently based in New York City. Her music draws inspiration from nature, the humanities, and psychology, with a distinctive focus on timbre shaped through spectromorphology andspatialization. Her work spans solo, chamber, orchestral, electroacoustic, and sonic art installations. Chan’s music has been performed in Festival Mujeres en la Música Nueva (FMMN), LunART Festival, New York City
Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival (IWCMF), the Etching Festival (ECCE), Mixtur Festival, and so on.
Chan is a graduate student at Stony Brook University, where she studies with Daria Semegen, Daniel Weymouth, and Margaret Schedel. She completed her Master of Music degree at Mannes School of Music and received her Bachelor of Music degree in music composition and theory at Xinghai Conservatory. Her primary teachers were Dong Yan, Yujia Zeng, Joan La Barbara, and John Mallia.
Bryan Donghyuk Lee (South Korea, 1996)
Bryan Donghyuk Lee is a composer that resides in Seoul, South Korea.
He holds a Bachelor of Music from Chugye University for the Arts (Bachelor of Music) in music composition and is currently pursuing Master's studies in instrumental and electronic music composition at Seoul National University.
He has presented works inside and outside the local boundaries including cities such as Seoul, Daegu, New York, and Shenzhen. Bryan has a deep interest in systems that
can expand the possibilities of art that utilize sound as a medium and the ways of its sensorial experience, with a particular focus on the semantic interplay between sound and space within a musical context. Alongside this pursuit, he is continually asking himself how music that remains true to his own artistic voice might resonate meaningfully with others.
Julian Stuart-Burns (USA/The Netherlands, 2000)
A Rochester and NYC-based composer & pianist, Julian Stuart-Burns writes music that focuses on the juxtaposition of discrete musical objects, sharp and unexpected contrast, and on drawing connections with literature and current events. His writing is informed by labor organizing and radical politics, with recent works drawing heavily on leftist perspectives of Cuban revolutionary history. He is inspired deeply by sounds, images, and writings related on the one hand to crystals, shimmers of light,
and comic relief, and on the other to desolation, tragic prophesy, and apocalypse. Julian’s music has been featured at NYCEMF, VIPA, soundSCAPE, and Longy Divergent Studio. He has been awarded the 2025 Bernard Rogers Memorial Prize for his solo piano sonata Toward the Surface, and his sinfonietta piece In a Few won a Belle S. Gitelman Award in 2024. Julian’s work has been performed by Mivos Quartet, loadbang, Musica Nova, and the Eastman Graduate Composers’ Sinfonietta. His music has been presented at the Sheen Center in New York City, the Paul Hindemith Center in Blonay, Switzerland, and Field Recital Hall in Chicago. An avid teacher, Julian has taught composition and music theory at Eastman School of Music and Eastman Community Music School. He has also given lectures on orchestration to classes of undergraduate students at Eastman. Having received his M.A. in composition from Eastman, Julian is currently a labor organizer at 1199SEIU, the United States’ largest healthcare union. He also maintains a studio of in-person and zoom students in composition.
Ana Beyron (Spain, 1999)
Ana Beyron is a Spanish composer, interested in multidisciplanary works and new music formats. Recently one of her works has been selected by the Soundtrack Committee of the Cannes Music Festival with the ASM (Association of Music Supervisors) to be part of one of their playlists and has recorded a symphonic piece with the RTVE Spanish Orchestra at the Monumental Theatre, Madrid.
Furthermore, She has won the 1st prize of the winners of the VIII International Composition
Competition María de Pablos for her piece “The White Stork” for soprano, amplified scissors and prepared piano. (The jury was formed by Marisa Manchado (National Prize of Music), José María Sanchez Verdú (National Prize of Music) and Patricia Kleinman among others. She has been awarded as well the 1st prize of Los Angeles Music Competition for the 2025 Edition. She has won ath Composition Contest “Teatro de la Zarzuela IV “for her work “Izoliteco” and won the 1st Prize at the Festival of Narnia, “Scoring Action Movies”. Moreover, She has taken part in the Music Residencies precept.concept.Percept in which her work “Coelecanthus fossils” will be rehearsed at Bled Contemporary Music's Week.
-ACOUSTIC CATEGORY-
Benjamin Marshall (Australia, 2003)
Queensland Music Awards finalist Benjamin Marshall is a Meanjin based composer whose works have been described as being “distinguished by maturity, humour and well-thought-out structure” (Glissando, 2025). Having received the Silver Harris & Jeff Peck Composition Prize in 2024, Benjamin’s current works are centred around the world of Composed Theatreand how writing in this area helps inform personal compositional understanding. Benjamin
specialises in writing for specific performers and spaces, working collaboratively with ensembles through the entire compositional and rehearsal processes to create unique live experiences. In 2025 he was appointed as co-artistic director of Brisbane-based organisation Nexus New Music.
His premieres for 2025 include performances in the USA, Vienna and Queensland from new music ensembles such as Ensemble Platypus and the winner of the Australian Lieder Competition. Benjamin is also a member of Meanjin based jazz trio 2Nil and experimental
three-piece slump. When not composing, Benjamin conducts the St Andrew’s Community Orchestra with an emphasis on programming new Australian works. Benjamin was awarded his Bachelor of Music (Honours) with first class under the supervision of Dr Gerardo Dirie in 2025 from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.
Hermod Bentsen (Norway, 1996)
Hermod Bentsen is a Norwegian composer based in Oslo. In his portfolio one finds solo, chamber and orchestral music. He has also created electronic music, music for video and interdisciplinary artistic expression, such as experimental music theatre and performance.Inspiration for his music is drawn from a variety of art forms and philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific theories related to art and music. Curiosity, expectation, friction, ambiguity and playfulness are central
playfulness are central themes in his artistic output.
His works have been performed at Festspillene i Bergen, Ultima festival, Ung Nordisk Musikk and Les Bestiviés in France. Among the ensembles he has written for, one finds Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, SISU, Microtub and Rugle, an ensemble (with flute, saxophone, percussion and double bass) that he co-founded in 2020.
His education is from the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), where he received a bachelors and masters degree in composition.
During his bachelor, he spent a year at Universität der Künste in Berlin as an exhchange student. In the spring of 2024 he did an internship in composition in Paris with Marco Stroppa as mentor.
Christoffer Håård (Sweden, 1997)
Christoffer Håård is Gothenburg-based composer of contemporary music. His music can often be characterized by an exploration of musical spaces between the vulnerable and the banal, where fragile and unstable ranging to abrasive sounds are allowed to live, breath, develop and die out - as well as playful musical idioms, displaying great naïveté, exist in juxtaposition.Born 1997 in Jönköping, Sweden, he finished his Masters in composition at the Norwegian Academy of
Music in Oslo in 2025. This following Bachelor studies at the same institution as well as studies at the Gotland School of Composition (Visby, Sweden) pre-bachelor program. He also spent a year on ERASMUS exchange at Hochschule für Musik Dresden, Germany. His previous composition teachers include, among others, Asbjørn Schaathun, Trond Reinholdtsen, Mark Andre, Eivind Buene, Stefan Prins, having also received tutorage and masterclasses from Chaya Czernowin, Manos Tsangaris, Oscar Bianchi, George Lewis, Lisa Streich among others.
Christoffer’s works have been performed by ensembles and musicians such as Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble Fractales, Norrbotten NEO, Malva Quartet, Ensemble LIME, Jonas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson and Birgitta Elisa Oftestad and by conductors such as Patrik Ringborg, Magnus Loddgard and Ingar Bergby. His works have been performed in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Belgium.
Yu Xu (China, 1995)
Yu Xu is a composer based in New York City. She works across acoustic instruments, live
electronics, and interdisciplinary performance, developing projects in collaboration with dancers, sculptors, directors, and visual artists. Her pieces are presented in both concert settings and site-responsive contexts, where sound engages directly with movement, objects, and architectural space. Sound is treated as material, placed, moved, layered, and
reconfigured across environments, so that
each work changes according to its performers and site. Xu studied composition with Dr. Reiko Füting at the Manhattan School of Music, and with Prof. David Garner at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Partially Active Participants
Genie Alvarado (USA, 2005)
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Genie Alvarado enjoys exploring nuances in sounds through her composition. With a rich performance background–including
various orchestral, jazz, marching band, chamber, and choral ensembles–her experience has informed her unique perspective on timbre, influencing her approach to composition. She is interested in incorporating movement and physicality into her works in order to explore changes in sonorities.
Alvarado’s works have been performed in venues such as the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto , Jordan Hall, and Mixon Hall and with performers such as Thomas Weaver, Nina Dante, and Dalia Chin. She also co-directs the student-led monthly
concert series Tuesday Night New Music at New England Conservatory, where she is currently studying Composition under the tutelage of Efstratios Minakakis. She has also had past experience with Nick DiBerardino, Reiko Füting, and Maya Miro Johnson.
Anian Wiedner (Germany, 2001)
Anian Wiedner is a London-based composer and organist originally from the Alpine countryside in southern Bavaria. His music often explores the spatial possibilities of music through physical, temporal and harmonic space. He is equally at home in writing for voice(s) as well as instrumental and electro-acoustic music. He has collaborated extensively with dancers and choreographers from various institutions, including the London
Contemporary Dance School and the
Central School of Ballet.
During his studies in composition and organ at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School he has won a number of prestigious prizes and awards, namely the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal and the RCM Large Ensemble Composition Competition (2022 for his orchestral piece Sesquialtera, 2023 for his Violin
concerto Waterfall Night).
Important composition teachers were Julian Anderson, Paul Newland, Simon Holt, Alison Kay, and Jonathan Cole. He deepened his studies at the Dartington International Summer School, the Impuls Academy, as well as the Mixtur Festival where he received tuition from Carola Bauckholt, Lisa Streich, Caspar Johannes
Walter, Rebecca Saunders, and Gavin Bryars.
His works have been performed and recorded widely by ensembles such as EXAUDI, Plus-Minus, and the Fidelio Trio. His musical development has kindly been supported by the Gerald Finzi Trust, Help Musicians Fast Track, and the Guildhall School Trust.
In 2025 his music sees performances in Austria by the Müncher Flötenduo, in Cardiff by ORA Singers, at Festival Mixtur in Barcelona by Soprano Jessie Chen, and at the University of Leeds in collaboration with Leeds Song.
In addition to his work as a composer, Anian is an active organist. He previously held the position of Director of Music at St Mark's, Wimbledon and is now active as a freelance organist. He is a dedicated advocate for new music, with his premier recording of Jonathan Cole's Templum released by October House Records in 2023.
Anian also regularly performs as an improviser, creating new soundtracks for silent films. He studied the organ at the Royal College of Music with David Graham and Andrew Dewar and has played on organs such as St Bavo in Haarlem, St Sulpice and
La Trinite in Paris as well as a variety of organs across Germany. He regularly gives recitals in the UK and Germany, championing both new works, as well as traditional repertoire in new formats.
Wan Heo (South Korea, 1992)
Wan Heo is a Korean-born composer based in Chicago. Her works have been performed internationally in South Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Spain, and throughout the United States. Her percussion solo Unveiled Future is published by Alfonce Production.
Wan’s music has been commissioned and featured by Darmstädter Ferienkurse,
SEAMUS, Yarn/Wire, Unheard-of Ensemble, line upon line, New Music on the Point,
highSCORE Festival, and the Valencia International Performance Academy (VIPA),
among others. She received an Honorable Mention for the Christine Clark/Theodore Front Prize in the IAWM New Music Search.
Her doctoral dissertation explores the vulnerability of South Korea’s sonic environments through field recordings made at Buddhist mountain monasteries. This research has been supported by two research awards from Northwestern University: the Graduate Research Grant and the Buffett Institute’s International Dissertation Research Travel Grant. Works from this project have been presented at NYCEMF, the Composition in Asia Conference, the Society of Composers National Conference, the North American
Saxophone Alliance Regional Conference, the National Student Electronic Music Event (NSEME), and the University of Miami’s Composition Colloquium.
Wan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University. She holds a B.M. in Composition from Ewha Womans University and an M.M. in Composition from Florida State University. She is currently ABD in the Ph.D. program in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University, where she works under the guidance of Alex Mincek, Stephan Moore, and Jay Alan Yim.
Katie Hoi-ching Tang (Hong Kong, 2003)
Katie is a composer-performer born and raised in Hong Kong.
Her music ranges from acoustic solo, chamber, choral, and orchestral to electronics, and she collaborates with interdisciplinary projects such as film and dance.Her interest in the composition
includes exploring humanity, and nature, and expressing her deep, raw expression with her personal experiences.
Katie has participated in various music festivals and her music has been performed
internationally. She represented her school, HKAPA and performed her work at the National Taiwan Normal University (Taiwan) and DIVERSONICS Sound Festival at Taiwan Contemporary Cultural Lab. Katiewas part of the improvisation collaboration performance, “Delight – Fluid Spaces of Participation” with other composers and performers in Time of Music 2024 (Finland). She participated in the International Young Composers Academy 2023 (Switzerland) and her music was recorded by Ensemble Musikfabrik. She also took part in Darmstadt 2023 (Germany), ManiFeste-2024 IRCAM (France), and SoundMine 2022 (Belgium). Her tutelage includes Cathy Milliken, Oscar Bianchi, Clara Iannotta, Lisa Streich and more.Her musical background includes playing the piano, organ, Dizi (Chinese Flute) and voice. Notably with her expressive character, she performed musically and acted in her compositions and otherpremieres.
PERFORMANCE
-CHAMBER MUSIC CATEGORY-
FES Ensemble (The Netherlands)
FES ensemble is a contemporary chamber music collective based in Rotterdam. The ensemble is dedicated to modern music, with a particular focus on commissioning new
works and expanding the repertoire for this instrumentation.
They have performed in
Rotterdam at venues like De Doelen Theatre, and they have participated in festivals like IMPULS Festival in Graz (AT) and Darmstädter Ferienkurse in Darmstadt (DE), where they also led a composition workshop with composers on new pieces for saxophone and cello.
Martina Madini (Italy) - saxophone
Pedro do Carmo (Portugal) - cello
Le Réveil Profond (Italy)
Le Réveil Profond, founded in 2025, is a modular ensemble specializing in late-20th-century and contemporary music. Its core formation consists of harp, double bass, and percussion. The ensemble’s artistic activity includes close collaboration with
living composers, as well as the development of original arrangements and improvisation practices, exploring new timbral possibilities within its instrumentation.
Rocco Castellani (Italy) - double bass
Virginia Vignera (Italy) - harp
Alessio Cavaliere (Italy) - percussion
Sinthomo Ensemble (Italy)
Sinthomo Ensemble was founded in 2025. The name comes from a key concept in Lacanian late writings: sinthome, an original invention of the subject to keeps together its three dimensions, real, symbolic, imaginary and remain psychically consistent through a
creative act. The project has received support from composers since its very beginning, commissioning new works to Giorgio Colombo Taccani and Davide Tramontano. We are applying to various festivals for our first project, Cuts of Light, coming from wider repertoire research which will be the base to further programs and collaborations.
Alessia Scilipoti (Italy) - flute
Lorenzo Pusterla (Italy) - piano
Stefano Giudice (Italy) - percussion
Trio Limen (Italy)
Trio Limen was born from the meeting of three emerging Italian musicians at the "Benedetto Marcello" Conservatory in Venice, Italy, where they decided to pursue a shared musical path, united by a profound artistic and human affinity. A formation now obsolete
in the chamber music scene, the trio of flute, violin, and piano has become for Trio Limen not only an original choice of timbre, but also a true field of artistic exploration. The Trio's mission is twofold: on the one hand, to enhance and disseminate a repertoire still reserved for a limited audience, with the aim of highlighting the Ariadne's thread that exists within musical tradition. And on the other, to offer a new perspective on iconic pieces of the chamber music repertoire through this dialogue between past and present.
In this dialogue between rediscovery and reinterpretation, Trio Limen aims to offer an original listening experience, capable of combining musical rigor, intellectual curiosity, and a strong expressive identity.
Sara Valle (Italy) - flute
Aurora Ferro (Italy) - violin
Chiara Di Crescendo (Italy) - piano