Theodore Front, Santa Clarita, CA (2026)

06/04/2026

Our June Composer of the Month is Nicky Sohn. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Selected as one of the “Cool 100” by Houston CityBook Magazine alongside icons such as Simone Biles and Megan Thee Stallion, composer Nicky Sohn is a versatile and sought after voice in contemporary classical music. With a distinctive style characterized by jazz inspired, rhythmically driven themes, her work has been praised internationally as “undoubtedly the crowd pleaser of the evening” (YourObserver), “dynamic and full of vitality” (The Korea Defense Daily), showcasing “colorful orchestration” (NewsBrite), and evoking “elegant wonder” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

A winner of the 2026 American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, other recent highlights include the premiere of Sohn’s guitar concerto with the Albany Symphony featuring guitarist Bokyung Byun, followed by a sinfonietta performance at the 2025 Tanglewood Music Festival. She also composed a large scale ballet for BalletCollective, premiered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in collaboration with choreographer Alysa Pires and visual artist Linn Meyers. Additional projects include a cello concerto commissioned by the University of Iowa and recorded by the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, and Galaxy Back to You for the Balourdet Quartet, commissioned following their Avery Fisher Career Grant win and featured on their debut CD.

Sohn has three recent orchestral premieres by the Atlanta Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, and Orchestra Lumos, and is currently composing a new orchestral work for the Amarillo Symphony for their 2026–27 season.

05/01/2026

Our May Composer of the Month is Michael Ippolito. View all his available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Praised by the New York Times for his “polished orchestration” that “glitters, from big-shoulders brass to eerily floating strings,” Michael Ippolito’s music has been performed by leading musicians in venues around the world. Drawing on a rich musical background of classical and folk music, and inspired by visual art, literature, and other art forms, Ippolito has forged a distinctive musical voice in a body of work spanning orchestral, chamber, and vocal music.

His orchestral music has been conducted by Edo de Waart, Marin Alsop, and Michael Francis in performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and The Florida Orchestra. His chamber music has been performed by the Miro Quartet, Attacca Quartet, Hub New Music, and Altius Quartet, and his vocal music has been championed by sopranos Joèlle Harvey and Lindsay Kesselman, mezzo-soprano Daveda Karanas, and baritone Will Liverman. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall and Chamber Music America.

Ippolito is currently Professor of Composition at Texas State University. He studied with John Corigliano at The Juilliard School and with Joel Hoffman and Michael Fiday at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

04/03/2026

Our April Composer of the Month is Shuying Li. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Praised as “a real talent” (The Seattle Times) with “vivid, dramatic” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “enjoyable” (Gramophone Magazine) scores, and “an incredible span of compositional tool box” (American Record Guide), Shuying Li’s compositions have been performed by major orchestras and ensembles worldwide, including the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Santa Rosa Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, West Edge Opera, Ningbo Symphony Orchestra (China), and The President’s Own United States Marine Band. Her music is also championed by prominent chamber groups such as Windscape, Chinook Winds, Argus Quartet, Donald Sinta Quartet, and the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, as well as international ensembles including Orkest de ereprijs (Netherlands), Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (Finland), ICon Arts Ensemble (Romania), Cecilia Quartet (Canada), 15.19. Ensemble (Italy), Ascanio Quartet (Italy), and Atlas Ensemble (Netherlands), among others. In addition, her works are widely performed by collegiate and professional wind ensembles and concert bands across the United States. Shuying has received awards or grants from OPERA America, Alice M. Ditson Fund, Fromm Music Foundation, Copland House Residency Award, China National Arts Fund, ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, The American Prize, International Antonin Dvorak Composition Competition, New Jersey Composers’ Guild Commission Competition, International Huang Zi Composition Competition, Melta International Composition Competition, among others.

Originally from China, Shuying holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Hartt School. A passionate educator, Shuying has taught and directed the Composition/ Music Theory Program at Gonzaga University. She joined the faculty as the Assistant Professor of Music at California State University, Sacramento, in Fall 2022. Shuying is the founder and artistic director of the contemporary ensemble and non-profit organization Four Corners Ensemble and its annual festival, Operation Opera. For more information, please visit http://www.shuyingli.com.

03/06/2026

Our March Composer of the Month is Gity Razaz. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Her music hailed as “ravishing and engulfing” (New York Times) and herself named a “Rising Star” by BBC Music Magazine, Iranian-American composer Gity Razaz writes music ranging from solo concert pieces to large symphonic works. Her compositions have earned numerous awards, including American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Andrew Imbrie Award that “is given to a composer of demonstrated artistic merit in mid-career.”

Recent programming highlights include a world premiere with San Diego Symphony under the direction of Rafael Payare, a commission from MacArthur Award-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein and her “Fragments” project, a commission from BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sakari Oramo for Last Night of the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, a song cycle for Israeli Chamber Project and GRAMMY Award-winning tenor Karim Sulayman, an upcoming commission from Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition’s Grossman Ensemble, and an upcoming concerto for flutist Sharon Bezaly and United Strings of Europe. Other commissions have included a full-length ballet for Ballet Moscow, which still receives regular performances ever since its 2017 world premiere in Moscow, her first short opera commissioned by Washington National Opera and premiered at the Kennedy Center, and new music for international soloists including violinist Jennifer Koh, former cellist of the Kronos Quartet Jeffrey Zeigler, cellist Inbal Segev, and violinist Francesca dePasquale. Ms. Razaz’s debut album, “The Strange Highway,” which was released on Sweden’s preeminent BIS Records, has garnered international praise.

Ms. Razaz received her Bachelor and Master of Music in Composition from The Juilliard School. She has studied with Samuel Adler, Robert Beaser, and John Corigliano.

02/04/2026

Our February Composer of the Month is Allison Loggins-Hull. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Celebrated as a musical “powerhouse” (The Washington Post), Allison Loggins-Hull is a composer, flutist, and producer whose work defies genre, ranging from symphonic music to film scores, chamber music, and electronic music.

Her signature style of composing for orchestra is characterized by unique sonic effects that echo contemporary music production techniques. Her works are profoundly influenced by Black American music, creating a vibrant and kaleidoscopic sonic palette. Thematically, her compositions are deeply rooted in the experiences of community, culture, and life, offering a rich and evocative musical narrative. Her artistic reflections on Black stories, music, and experience have led to works aligned with Afrofuturism, a movement that imagines alternate realities and a liberated future viewed through the lens of Black cultures.

Recent and upcoming highlights include premieres performed by the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony, The Knights, Third Coast Percussion, Apollo Chamber Players, and the National Orchestral Institute.

Loggins-Hull has served as Resident Artistic Partner to the New Jersey Symphony since September 2024. The 2024–2025 season marked the last of her three years as the Lewis Composer Fellow with The Cleveland Orchestra, an engagement that focused on the narratives and history of Cleveland through the prism of one of the world’s great orchestras, culminating in three world premieres and two portrait albums due in 2026. She also received a 2025 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and has been in residence at The Hermitage Artist Retreat.

01/07/2026

Our January Composer of the Month is Viet Cuong. View all his available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Described as “alluring” and “stirring” by The New York Times, the music of Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong has been performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Sandbox Percussion, Kronos Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Dallas Winds, among many others. Cuong’s music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center, as well as on NPR Music’s Tiny Desk and PBS NewsHour, and his works for wind ensemble have garnered over a thousand performances worldwide. In his music, Cuong also enjoys exploring the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. His works thus include concerti for tuba and dueling oboes, percussion quartets utilizing wine glasses and sandpaper, and pieces for double reed sextet, cello octet, and solo snare drum. This eclecticism extends to the variety of musical groups he writes for, and he has worked closely with ensembles ranging from middle school bands to Grammy-winning orchestras and chamber ensembles. He is currently the Pacific Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence and serves as Assistant Professor of Music Composition at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Cuong holds degrees from Princeton University (MFA/PhD), the Curtis Institute of Music (AD), and Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM).

12/01/2025

Our December Composer of the Month is Mary Kouyoumdjian. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Mary Kouyoumdjian is a GRAMMY®-nominated composer and documentarian with projects ranging from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first generation Armenian-American, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, interest in music as documentary, and background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new.

A finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Roomful of Teeth, among others. In May 2025, her Pulitzer-nominated music-documentary, 'Paper Pianos,' in collaboration with Alarm Will Sound was performed at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center after originally premiering in 2023 at EMPAC.

Kouyoumdjian's opera 'Adoration', adapted from Atom Egoyan’s 2008 film, was premiered by Beth Morrison Projects in NYC before receiving its West Coast premiere at LA Opera. The world premiere recording was released on Bright Shiny Things in August 2025 and has been nominated for a 2026 GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording, making history as the first opera by an Armenian composer in the category. Her debut portrait album, 'WITNESS', featuring the Kronos Quartet, was released through Phenotypic Recordings in 2025.

Kouyoumdjian holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in Composition at Columbia University, an M.A. in Scoring for Film & Multimedia from New York University, and a B.A. in Composition from UC San Diego. She is on faculty at The New School and is based in Brooklyn, NY.

11/03/2025

Our November Composer of the Month is Jasmine Arielle Barnes. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Jasmine Arielle Barnes is an Emmy award winning composer and acclaimed vocalist who has performed and had her music performed worldwide. Her music has been described as “precisely imagined” by the Washington Post, “refreshing..,engaging…,exciting” by San Francisco Classical Voice, "memorable" by Houston Press, and “the best possible blend of Billie Holiday and Claude Debussy” by Boston Globe. She is a multifaceted composer who embraces any writing style of music using a variety of instruments and specializes in writing for the voice. A full-time composer, Barnes is managed by UIA talent for her work as a composer and is a resident artist for Opera Theater of Saint Louis' New Works Collective. She has held residencies with American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program 2021-23 season, as a composer fellow at Chautauqua Opera 2021 season, and a residency with All Classical Portland 2021. Barnes has been privileged to be commissioned by numerous organizations such as NY Philharmonic and Juilliard Pre College, The Washington National Opera (in celebration of the Kennedy Center's 50th anniversary), Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and School, Baltimore Choral Arts, Aural Compass Projects, Resonance Ensemble, Tapestry Choir, CityMusic Cleveland, LyricFest Philadelphia, Burleigh Music Festival, Symphony Number One, Baltimore Musicales, Anima Mundi Productions, amongst others.

10/01/2025

Our October Composer of the Month is Nicolás Lell Benavides. View all his available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Nicolás Lell Benavides has been praised for being “dramatically tight and musically transporting” (SF Chronicle) as well as “resourceful and wonderfully eclectic” (Joshua Kosman). In 2024 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has also received commissions from The New York Philharmonic/The Juilliard School, Eighth Blackbird, New Century Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Hope, Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, West Edge Opera, Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Music of Remembrance, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Fry Street Quartet, Friction Quartet, and Khemia Ensemble. His music has received support from the American Composers Forum, The Barlow Endowment, New Music USA, Opera America, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Leading the 2025–26 season is the world premiere of his opera Dolores, about civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, with libretto by Marella Martin Koch, presented by West Edge Opera, San Diego Opera, The Broad Stage, and Opera Southwest. In the same season, Benavides serves as Composer-in-Residence with the San Francisco Girls Chorus; receives the premiere of a new orchestral work with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel as part of Dudamel’s The Great Wall of Los Angeles Project, alongside a film by Alejandro G. Iñárritu; writes a new work for Grammy® Award-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and SOLI Chamber Ensemble; and releases his album Canto Caló on Aerocade Records.

09/02/2025

Our September Composer of the Month is Susie Ibarra, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Music. View all her available works on our website: www.tfront.com

Susie Ibarra is a Filipinx-American composer, percussionist, and sound artist. Her interdisciplinary practice includes composition, performance, mobile sound-mapping applications, multichannel audio installations, recording, and documentary. She is the founder of Susie Ibarra Studio and, with artist-musician and engineer Jake Landau, co-founded the label and publisher Habitat Sounds. She works to support Indigenous and traditional music cultures, like musika katutubo from the Philippines, advocates for the stewardship of glaciers and freshwaters, and supports initiatives in addressing water and desert climate, and women and girls’ education with Joudour Sahara, Morocco. Ibarra leads several ensembles including Talking Gong Trio with Claire Chase and Alex Peh. She has recorded over 40 albums and performed in events and venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Olympics, and the Sharjah Biennial.

Recent honors include a 2025 Pulitzer Prize in music, 2025 Creative Capital Artist Award, 2025 Callie’s Studio Residency in Berlin, 2024-2025 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program fellowship, for which she is based in Berlin, and 2024 Charles Ives Fellowship with the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2022 Music Fellow, United States Artists 2019 Music Fellow, TED Senior Fellow 2014, and National Geographic Explorers Storyteller 2020.

Susie Ibarra is a Yamaha, Zildjian, and Vic Firth Drum Artist.

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