Grammy-winning composer Robert Livingston Aldridge (born:1954, Richmond,VA) has written over
eighty works for orchestra, opera, music-theater, voice, dance, string quartet, solo and chamber
ensembles. His music has been performed throughout the world. He has received numerous fellowships
and awards for his music from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Artist’s Foundation, the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund, Meet the Composer,
The American Symphony Orchestra League, the New Jersey Council on the Arts and the Dodge
Foundation.
Robert Aldridge’s opera, Elmer Gantry, based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis, with a libretto by
Herschel Garfein, was given its fully-staged world premiere by Nashville Opera in November, 2007, and
received unanimous praise from the New York Times (‘Behold! An Operatic Miracle’), The Wall St.
Journal and Opera News. Excerpts from Elmer Gantry were performed by New York City Opera on
their 2007 VOX Festival. He was commissioned by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra to compose a clarinet concerto for David Singer, which was premiered in April and
May, 2005, and was released on compact disc by Naxos International in 2010. It was hailed as ‘a brilliant
new concerto’ by Gramophone Magazine. His tone poem, Leda and the Swan, a commission from
the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and the Louisiana
Philharmonic Orchestra, was premiered in January, 2003 at the New Jersey Performing Center for the
Arts. His forty-five minute symphonic oratorio, Parables (written with librettist Herschel Garfein)
was commissioned and premiered by the Topeka Symphony for their 2010 season finale. Other 2010
season highlights include both professional and university performances of Elmer Gantry in
Milwaukee, Houston and Minnesota. A CD recording of Elmer Gantry (Florentine Opera/
Milwaukee Symphony) was released by Naxos International in 2011 and was ranked the #1 CD of the
year by Opera News Magazine. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra commissioned him to write an
Elmer Gantry Suite for orchestra, which was given its world premiere at the opening gala for their
2010-2011 season. His music has recently been conducted by Keith Lockhart, Jacques Lacombe and
performed by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich. Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein received a 2012
Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, only the third opera ever to receive this
distinction. In addition, the Naxos CD of Elmer Gantry received a Grammy for Best Engineered
Classical Album of 2012.
Robert Livingston Aldridge has been Composer-in-Residence at the Brevard Music Festival since 2006.
He has been a Meet the Composer/Music Alive Composer in Residence, and was 2010 Composer in
Residence at CU NOW in Boulder, Colorado. In April, 2012, he will be a composer-in-residence at the
University of Minnesota. He has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony on five occasions since 1987.
In 1989, he was chosen to represent the New York Foundation for the Arts in a solo concert of his music
at Lincoln Center. He was a founder of the Composers in Red Sneakers, a composer consortium which
achieved international recognition in 1980’s. In 1991 he received a National Endowment Recording
Grant for a compact-disc of his chamber music for saxophone. His compositions are exclusively
published by Edition Peters (CF Peters Corporation).
Robert Livingston Aldridge received a Doctorate in Composition from the Yale School of Music, a Master’s Degree in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Currently, he is a Professor of Music Composition and Theory at the John J. Cali School at Montclair State University. He was Founding Director of the John J. Cali School from 2006-2009, and Chair of the Music Department from 2005-2011. Most recently, he has been appointed Director/Chair of the Music Department at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University (July, 2012).
Professor Dzubay’s music has been performed in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Asia by the symphony orchestras of Aspen, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, Fort Wayne, Guangxi, Guiyang, Honolulu, Kansas City, Louisville, Memphis, Minnesota, Oregon, Oakland, St. Louis and Vancouver; the American Composers Orchestra, National Symphonies of Ireland and Mexico, New World Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, and New York Youth Symphony; and ensembles including the Grossman Ensemble, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Onix, Manhattan and St. Louis Brass Quintets, Voices of Change, the Alexander, Orion and Pacifica String Quartets, the League/ISCM, Earplay, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.
His music has been championed by conductors including James DePreist, George Hanson, Keith Lockhart, David Loebel, Michael Morgan, Eiji Oue, Richard Pittman, Iván del Prado, Mark Russell Smith, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Michael Stern, Carl Topilow, David Wiley, Kirk Trevor, Thomas Wilkins, and David Zinman.
Honors include two Fromm Music Foundation commissions; Guggenheim, MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House, and Djerassi fellowships; the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition, Utah Arts Festival Commission, William Revelli and Walter Beeler Memorial Prizes, Wayne Peterson Prize; and grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music for two portrait CDs.
Currently professor of music and director of the New Music Ensemble at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Dzubay was previously on the faculty of the University of North Texas in Denton. Since 2011, he has taught composition for three weeks each summer at the Brevard Music Center. From 1995 to 1998, he served as composer-consultant to the Minnesota Orchestra and during 2005-06, he was Meet the Composer/American Symphony Orchestra League Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra.
Dzubay has conducted at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and June in Buffalo festivals as well as the National Symphony of Columbia, Grossman Ensemble, League of Composers Orchestra, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Music from China, and Voices of Change.
Greg Simon (b. 1985) is a composer and jazz trumpeter hailing from California, by way of Oregon and Colorado. Greg’s music has been praised for its “high energy, lovely solo turns, and upbeat personality” (Fanfare Magazine) and called “thoughtful composition, full of beauty that satisfies audiences of all experience levels” (Saxophonist Magazine). Drawing its inspiration from jazz, funk, Balinese gamelan, Chilean folk song, and street art (among many other sources), his music explores heritage and intersection, aiming to create a common space between the myriad communities it reflects.
Greg is currently Associate Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he also directs the Flyover New Music Series. During the summer, he serves on the composition artist-faculty at the Brevard Music Center. He also currently serves as co-chair of Region VI for the Society of Composers, Inc.
Greg’s works have been performed by ensembles and performers around the world, including the Ju Percussion Group, Alarm Will Sound, the Moanin’ Frogs, and the Nu Deco Ensemble. He has presented work at conferences for the Percussive Arts Society, the College Band Directors’ National Association, the World Saxophone Congress, and the North American Saxophone Alliance, and been commissioned for new works by organizations including the Nebraska Music Teachers’ Association; and faculty at Hope College, the University of Arizona, Midwestern State University, and Florida State University.
Radio and digital broadcasts of Greg’s music or interviews have included features on NET Radio’s “The Verge,” the “Relevant Tones” program from WFMT, and podcasts “Adagio for Things” and “We Are Not Beethoven.” His collaborations with violinist Hyeyung Yoon and dancer Hye-won Hwang became the subject of the documentary Madang – A Creative Journey, recorded with 360-degree cameras and produced by Nebraska Educational Television. Greg’s compositions have been recorded on labels including 4Tay, MSR Classics, Blue Griffin, Equilibrium, Open G, SMS Classical, and Terpsichore.
Greg is the recipient of awards for achievement in composition from the Zodiac International Music Festival, the Moscow Conservatory, National Association of Composers/USA, the Esoterics, and others. He has also received recognition for his work from Phantom Brass, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, and CBDNA, among others. Greg was a featured composer at the 2013 Mizzou International Composers’ Festival and was the 2013-14 young composer-in-residence for the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings.
A passionate educator, Greg regularly writes on pedagogy and his practice of teaching compositional concepts through literary narrative designs. His pedagogical writings are published by the College Music Symposium and the Oxford Online Handbook on Music Assessment, and he has presented it at national conferences for the College Music Society and the Society of Composers, Inc. In 2020 he was announced the winner of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Award for Curriculum Development.
As a jazz musician, Greg has studied with Bill Lucas, Ellen Rowe, and Brad Goode. He’s performed with the Marcus Lewis Big Band, the Shawn Bell Quartet, the Rhythm Society Orchestra, the Jodi-Renee Band, and many others, at venues ranging from Dazzle Jazz Club to the Jewell of Omaha; and played in the bands of The Temptations, Hannah Huston, and Andrew Dost of fun. As part of his ongoing efforts to bridge the classical and jazz worlds, he’s premiered and presented works for improvising musicians by a variety of composers, including Stephen Rush, Hunter Ewen, Michael Theodore, and himself. Currently, Greg plays trumpet/flugelhorn alongside his colleagues in the UNL Faculty Jazz Ensemble and serves as the director of the UNL Jazz Orchestra. Greg has taught jazz with the Detroit Symphony Civic Jazz Orchestra and Omaha Performing Arts Academy, and served as guest clinician at the Westside Jazz Festival and the Nebraska State Band Association’s Jazz Festival.
Greg is a fluent performer in the Balinese gamelan tradition, having spent five years with Denver’s Gamelan Tunas Mekar. In 2020, alongside colleagues Dave Hall and Lynne Elkins, he directed the world premiere of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s gamelan angklung ensemble.
Greg studied composition with Evan Chambers, Michael Daugherty, Kristin Kuster, Carter Pann, Daniel Kellogg, and Robert Hutchinson. He holds a D.M.A. from the University of Michigan, an M.M. from the University of Colorado, and a B.A. from the University of Puget Sound. Prior to his appointment at UNL, he taught at Concordia University Ann Arbor, the Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the University of Colorado. When he’s not composing or playing, Greg enjoys hockey, bourbon, and short stories.
