Jeffrey Derus is an award-winning American composer, producer, and musician. His music has gained a worldwide presence with commissions and performances from ensembles such as Choral Arts Initiative, The Jason Max Ferdinand Singers, Constellation Men’s Ensemble, Inversion Ensemble, KC VITAS, INSPIRARE, and the Nova Scotia Choral Federation. Hailed as “powerful, dramatic, lucid” (Sonograma Magazine) and “elegant” (Voice of OC), his music is “akin to that of Holy Minimalism.” (AllMusic)

Derus’ premiere concert work, From Wilderness: A Meditation on the Pacific Crest Trail, captures the transformative experience of traveling the Pacific Crest Trail. From Wilderness made its commercial debut in April 2022 with Director Brandon Elliott and Choral Arts Initiative along with cellist Kevin Mills. It ranked #3 on the Billboard Charts (Traditional Classical Albums), #2 Best Seller on iTunes Classical Charts, and #1 New Release Opera/Vocal Albums on Amazon. From Wilderness is praised for its “fascinating and multifaceted sound world.” (CD Hotlist) “It just doesn’t get much better than this.” (Take Effect Reviews) In 2023 he received two Gold Medals from the Global Music Awards for his work From Wilderness; for Creativity and Originality. From Wilderness most recently placed 2nd in Major Choral Works for The American Prize Pro Division.

Jeffrey is the winner of the 2023 ACDA Brock Prize for Professional Composers for his piece “I Will Go”. He is a recipient of a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico residency and a Britten-Pears and Holst Foundation residency in Aldeburgh, UK. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education from California State University, Fullerton and a Master of Arts degree in Education and Curriculum Design from Brandman University. Jeffrey is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, and the Recording Academy.

Published by Caribbean Blue Publishing, his music is available at Graphite Publishing.

Bold, dramatic, with an exquisite attention to detail, Ethan Soledad (b. 1999) is a Filipino-American composer whose work aims to express emotions in their most raw form. An experienced singer, he incorporates drama in his work, emphasizing the importance of silence and one’s perception of time. Ethan’s music draws from a wide palette of compositional styles and colors ranging from impressionism and neoclassicism to post-minimalism and the avant-garde.

He is the winner of the 2021 Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition, the 2022 Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York Emerging Composer’s Competition (choral division), the 2019 Rachel Moore Choral Composition Contest, and was honorable mention in New York Youth Symphony's First Music Commission 2022.

He graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in Music at Florida State University 2021 and is currently pursuing his Master of Music in Composition at Rice University as a Brown Fellow, studying under Pierre Jalbert, Shih-Hui Chen, and Karim Al-Zand.

His previous composition teachers include Liliya Ugay and Orlando Jacinto Garcia.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Adrian Wong is a composer who creates engaging and moving music that is full of imagery, drama, and unapologetic conviction. Adrian takes inspiration from a wide array of subjects, from the impending climate crisis to matters of identity, as well as the smaller things in life, from the lullabies his mother sang to the tastes and textures of his favorite food.

Adrian’s pieces have been performed or recorded by musicians and ensembles such as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, h2 saxophone quartet, Hub New Music, the Rhythm Method, Cong Quartet, NOĒMA, NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Baton Rouge New Music Choir, NOVA Ensemble, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, oboists Katherine Needleman and Philippe Tondre, bassoonist Daniel Matsukawa, pianist Jihye Chang, amongst others. Adrian is a winner of the 2022 RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Competition in the choral category with Absalom, and he is also a winner of the 2021 American Prize in Composition in the shorter choral works category (student division) with 赤壁 – War of the Red Cliff. In Hong Kong, Adrian was selected to participate in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Composers Scheme with his orchestra piece Wail – 問天, and he also won first prize in the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild’s Hong Kong New Generation 2019 Composition Competition with his mahjong-inspired string quartet piece 石林雀語 – Tiled City, which was then subsequently performed by Cong Quartet in Hong Kong and around the US. Adrian is also a published artist—his SATB unaccompanied choral piece Home is currently under the Eugene Rogers Choral Series with G. Schirmer/Hal Leonard.

Adrian is currently pursuing an M.M. in music composition at the Curtis Institute of Music where he is the Milton L. Rock Composition Fellow, studying with Amy Beth Kirsten, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Nick DiBerardino, Richard Danielpour, and Steven Mackey. Adrian received a B.M. in music composition with Highest Honors at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, studying with Bright Sheng and Kristin Kuster.