BMP: NEXTGEN3 will be presented at 7:30PM on November 23rd, 2024, in addition to November 24th, 2024. Learn more about BMP: NEXTGEN 3 here.

First launched in 2017-18, the BMP: Next Gen was created to empower and inspire the next wave of visionary composers, singers, and artists. By bridging the gap between academic study and professional artistry, this program nurtures emerging talents, offering them the platform and resources they need to revolutionize opera and music-theatre.

SEMI-FINALISTS:

ANUJ BHUTANI

Described as “a force multiplier with more talents than time” (PATRON Magazine), whose music is “alternately celestial and dark” (John Schaefer, WNYC New Sounds), Anuj Bhutani is a quickly emerging composer, performer, vocalist, and producer whose music often features visceral grooves; ethereal, meditative spaces; a combination of acoustic instruments and electronics, narrative depth, and genre-fluidity. As a performer, Bhutani’s work is highly
interdisciplinary, engaging with theater, dance, and film while drawing on his musical background in classical, emo/screamo, ambient, singer/songwriter, and electronic music. As a composer, Bhutani seeks to create music that contextualizes classical music within his non- classical upbringing as a bassist/vocalist in metal and indie bands, resulting in wholly unique, genre-fluid pieces that that firmly situate the listener between multiple musical worlds at once. He’s won Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant and an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and been selected for American Composer’s Orchestra’s Earshot, NewAm Composer’s Lab, Banff Centre’s Evolution: Classical, and residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Atlantic Center for the Arts (#188 with Judd Greenstein, #191 with Missy Mazzoli), among others. He earned his master’s degree in composition at University of Southern California, with undergraduate studies at University of North Texas.

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PAUL COSME

Filipino composer/scholar Paul Cosme blends and breaks boundaries in his constant search for home. He combines media, forms, and sound worlds from Asian and Western traditions in collaboration with Classical, pop & rock, jazz, and traditional artists including the New Jersey Symphony, JACK Quartet Raven Chacón, taiko master Kenny Endo, shakuhachi player Christopher Blasdel, kulintang player Ronald “kulintronica” Querian, sheng performer Loo Sze Wang, koto player Maruta Miki, Sugar Hill Salon Collective, members of the Hawaiʻi Symphony and Minnesota Orchestras, Gugak musicians from Seoul National University, and artists he considers his friends. He was recently awarded the Hiraya Award for Contemporary Composition by the Asian Composers League and the Philippine National Commission on Culture and Arts. He is also the inaugural winner of the Nā Haku Mele Competition of the Hawaiʻi Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. Paul currently pursues a PhD in Composition at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and was a Graduate Degree Fellow at the East-West Center. He researches national constructions of the Philippines through contemporary and popular music which are published and presented in journals and international conferences. His teachers include Randy Bauer, Victoria Malawey, Donald Reid Womack, Takuma Itoh, and Thomas Osborne. paulcosme.com

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RACHEL EPPERLY

Rachel Epperly is a composer-performer, improviser, and performance artist. Rachel uses a wide array of mediums to create immersive performances. Her work spans solo opera, performance art, experimental improvisation, original text, and more. Through performance, she investigates rigid and oppressive cultural norms and systems and asks what it means to truly go beyond these systems and cultivate a more sincere
relationship to our bodies, the planet, ourselves, and others. Recent projects include her original solo electro-acoustic opera SPIDERLILY; a suit of armor made from 20,000+ recycled soda can tabs; a performance art installation in which she held five themed, staged poses for an hour at a time; and a narrative album in which she unpacks her empathy towards pumpjacks. While her primary focus as a musician is voice, she is also a pianist and accordionist. Rachel is a recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant in Composition, through which she learned pansori performance and composition for ten months in South Korea. She holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BM in Composition from the University of Michigan. She has completed residencies through Gabriela Lena Frank Academy of Music, VCCA, and Art Omi.

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ADELIIA FAIZULLINA

Adeliia (Adele) Faizullina (b.1988) is an Uzbekistan-born Tatar composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and quray player. As a composer, she explores cutting-edge vocal colors and paints delicate and vibrant atmospheres inspired by the music and poetry of Tatar folklore. The Washington Post has praised her compositions as "vast and varied, encompassing memory and imagination." Her recent commissions include works for Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra, Jennifer Koh, the Tesla Quartet, Johnny Gandelsman, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Her works have also been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Albany Symphony, Kronos Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, the Del Sol Quartet, Ashley Bathgate, Stephanie Lamprea, and Duo Cortona. Adeliia received her BM in Voice in Kazan, Russia, and a BM in Music Composition at Gnessins Russian Academy of Music. She holds an MM in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Music and Multimedia Composition at Brown University. Adeliia resides in Providence, RI. She also happens to be blind. She enjoys taking walks and being in nature.

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BOBBY GE

Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator whose work, often collaborative in nature, focuses on themes of home, communication, and hybridity. Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York
Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the U.S. Navy Band, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra, the Sioux City Symphony, Music from Copland House, the Bergamot, Tesla, and JACK Quartets, and Mind on Fire. He has created multimedia projects with the
Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Cape May Bird Festival, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from UCBerkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.

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‍FELIPE HOYOS-GONZÁLEZ

Felipe Hoyos-González (Cartagena, Colombia) is a composer passionate about the creative dialogue of musical composition across various disciplines: from opera, chamber music, and orchestra to film music, electroacoustic music, video games, and art installations. Some of his notable works include INSIDE, an installation by artist Celine Daemen with music by Hoyos-González, selected for the Fast Forward Staatsschauspiel Dresden curatorship (2020), and Opúsculo Caribeño (2015), performed by the Medellin Philharmonic Orquestra at the Cartagena
Music Festival. Felipe is a co-founder of La Nueva Escena, a collective of Latin American artists, with whom he has premiered two operas with librettos by Venezuelan writer and filmmaker G. Galo, Melpómene (2017) and Disparatismo o cómo acabar con el arte (2019), as well as the experimental film ventalla (2021), which was nominated for Best Experimental Film at the XIX BOGOSHORTS (2021). He is a co-founder alongside soprano Emily Venturella of Huitaca Ensemble, a musical duo that explores the intersection of the human voice and new technologies. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a master's degree in music from Conservatorium Maastricht (NL), and an undergraduate degree in music from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá (COL).

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JULIA MOSS

Julia Moss is a composer and violist whose work explores the subconscious through surrealist storytelling. She is interested in intersecting systems of power and how that affects human connection. Her music is emotionally gripping, thought-provoking, and vulnerable. She loves working in theatrical spaces on projects that examine the systems we are a part of and dig into the complexity of our relationships and inner lives. She has collaborated with various choreographers and dancers from USC’s Kaufman School of Dance. Julia is a Composer Teaching Artist for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), and has worked at the Aspen Music Festival as Orchestra Manager of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE) for the past two summers. She recently graduated from her Masters in Music Composition at the University of Southern California (USC) Thornton School of Music , under the instruction of Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, and Donald Crockett. She was a 2024 Fellow at the Blackbird Creative Lab, hosted by Eighth Blackbird. Julia is also a violist and often premieres new works throughout Los Angeles. Prior to her musical journey, Julia earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Tufts University in music and premedical studies.

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SEPEHR PIRASTEH

Sepehr Pirasteh is a composer, conductor, and interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Shiraz, Iran. His compositions draw on Persian classical and folk traditions, as well as contemporary classical music vocabularies, to express his deep concerns about the political and social realities of the world. Through his art, Sepehr reflects on his personal journey as an immigrant and his commitment to activism. He has been commissioned and performed by ensembles, including the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, MISE-EN Ensemble, Network for New Music, Arcana New Music Ensemble, ENA Chamber Opera Company, Pacific Chamber Orchestra, Argus String Quartet, PRISM Saxophone Quartet,
and Unheard-of Ensemble. Sepehr has also received fellowships from Harvard University's Fromm Foundation (Composers Conference) and the Presser Foundation. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition at Temple University, where his research focuses on political music, diaspora, dynamics of hegemony in performance arts, the intersectionality of art and activism, and the role of music under totalitarian regimes. Sepehr is based in Philadelphia and plays Persian Kamancheh and Tanbour. He is the co- founder and artistic director of the Shiraz Ensemble, a contemporary Iranian music ensemble. www.sepehrpirasteh.com

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HARRIET STEINKE

Harriet Steinke is composer from Detroit, Michigan. She has been commissioned by orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and soloists across the U.S. and her music is regularly performed around town. In 2023 she was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has also received composition fellowships from the Norfolk and Tanglewood summer festivals. During the 2023-2024 season, she premiered new works including The Slow Movement with the Albany Symphony Orchestra; Marimba Concerto with the Civic Orchestra of New Haven & Makana Medeiros, Marimba; and Second Suite for two cellos with the Toledo Symphony’s Chamber Music Series (Kellen Degnan & Elizabeth Rice, cellos). Last year also included the premiere of her 50-minute song cycle Hymnal, a ten-song cycle written for the vocalist Molly Yuko McGuire setting the
poetry of Indianapolis-based poet Alessandra Lynch. Upcoming in 2024-2025, she will premiere works with the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, the Bowling Green State University Wind Symphony, and the Akropolis Reed Quintet. She studied music and english at Butler University where her
primary mentor was composer Michael Schelle and later completed her graduate studies in music composition at the Yale School of Music where she studied with composers Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Chris Theofanidis.

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SAM WU

Sam Wu's music deals with the beauty in blurred boundaries. Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life. Selected for the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot readings and the Tasmanian
Symphony’s Australian Composers’ School, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and First Prize at the Washington International Competition, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Prize. Sam’s collaborations span five continents, notably with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Sarasota, Melbourne, Tasmania, Macao, and Shanghai, the New York City
Ballet, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Sydney International Piano Competition, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Dina Gilbert, and Benjamin Northey, violinist Johan Dalene, and sheng virtuoso Wu Wei. From Melbourne, Australia, Sam holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Rice. He is currently on faculty at Whitman College as their Visiting Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition. Sam’s teachers include Tan Dun, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Chaya Czernowin, and Richard Beaudoin.