Biographies

Maria Chavez

Born in Lima, Peru and based in NYC, Maria Chávez is best known as an abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ. Coincidence, chance and failures are themes that unite her work across mediums, including improvised performance, sound and marble sculpture, visual art, book objects and an extensive history with multi-channel installation. Her approach is rooted in Deep Listening, a form of embodied listening developed by her late mentor Pauline Oliveros. Maria's relationship with Oliveros was recently covered in a BBC3 radio episode of Afterwords, chronicling the late composers impact on a new generation of artists. She also graced the cover of The Wire in April 2023 with The Turntable Trio.

Maria is the only abstract turntablist in the world who performs with a rare needle known as the RAKE Double Needle. This special device contains two needles on one head, allowing it to read two different segments of a single record at the same time. Paired with her inimitable ability to create unforgettable sonic experiences from shards of broken records, each performance is truly unique.

Maria's practice is profoundly expansive, responsive and curious. Her work has been featured and supported by a myriad of institutions over the past decades including Rewire Festival, Counterflows Festival, Donau Festival, MoMA PS1, The Getty, DOCUMENTA 14, the JUDD Foundation, Cambridge University Press and many, many more. Chavez's 2012 book, Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable has garnered a reputation as both an academic resource on turntablism and a foundational text for a new generation of turntablists.

David Stenson

David Stenson (b.1982) completed an M.F.A. in Composition and Theory at Brandeis University. His first two formative years of composition study were spent with Nils Vigeland at the Manhattan School of Music, and he finished undergraduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, taking studio lessons in composition and electronics with John Mallia. David's compositional interests include microtonality, auditory perception, digital signal processing, algorithmic music, computer-assisted composition, and noise.

David is also the co-founder of Noise  Salon: www.noisesalon.com

Gleb Kanasevich

Gleb Kanasevich is a clarinetist and composer based between Detroit and the East Coast. As of July, 2022, he is a permanent member of Detroit-based Hub New Music, with whom he tours regularly and performed at many of the country’s most renowned concert series, venues and festivals. He is an active soloist and session musician, having recently worked with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, Cleveland-based death metal band Noxis, and on soundtracks for Netflix and A24 films. He has been closely working with the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City since 2021, frequently covering the festival’s electronic and live sound needs, concert production, and clarinet duties.

As a composer he is interested exploring expressive possibilities in very simple electronic processing, stark sonic landscapes, and extremely fine microtonality. Most recently, he was commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain, Callithumpian Consort, Ah Young Hong, Musique 21 at Michigan State University, Hub New Music, and No Exit New Music Ensemble. His newest solo record “We Only Have But A Moment” is set to be released in the spring of 2026 on Flag Day Recordings.

From 2013 until shutting its doors in 2023, he has been a core member of Ensemble Cantata Profana – a group based in New York City. After four years of co-directing Cantata Profana with Jacob Ashworth, he became the ensemble's Acting Artistic Director in 2022. From 2016 until Spring, 2019, Kanasevich also worked as a curator/video maker for the online new music database and audio/video/score resource ScoreFollower/Incipitsify.

Ken Ueno

A Rome Prize and Berlin Prize recipient, Ken Ueno is a composer, performer, sound artist, and scholar whose music is championed by leading performers and ensembles worldwide. His work Shiroi Ishi, written for the Hilliard Ensemble, remained in their repertoire for over a decade, while Pharmakon was toured internationally by Eighth Blackbird for several seasons. In 2011, MaerzMusik presented a portrait concert of his work. In 2024, he was featured guest composer at the Takefu International Music Festival, where the Arditti String Quartet introduced his latest string quartet and Tosiya Suzuki premiered his chamber concerto for bass recorder. This spring, he returns to MaerzMusik with Cybernetic Entanglements, a new work created with Viola Yip.

As a vocalist, Ueno is known for pioneering extended vocal techniques, particularly his use of the megaphone. He has performed his vocal concerto with major orchestras including the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, and the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra. He has collaborated with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ikue Mori, Du Yun, DJ Sniff, Wuki Suryadi (of Senyawa), Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Karen Yu, and Wukir Suryadi of Senyawa.

Ueno’s sound art installations have been exhibited internationally, including at MUAC (Mexico City), the Taipei Museum of Fine Arts, and the Telfair Museum. Daedalus Drones, an immersive fence-labyrinth animated by flying drones, premiered in Hong Kong in 2021. In 2025, C-Lab (Taipei) presented Roomba Calligraphy, in which robotic vacuums with custom 3D-printed speaker holders brush graphite dust across platforms while spatializing microtonal difference tones.

A Professor at UC Berkeley, his writings have appeared in The Oxford Handbook, The New York Times, Palgrave Macmillan, The Drama Review (TDR), and Wiley & Sons. He co-edited East Asian Voices of Resistance Against Racism in Music and recently guest-edited Sonic Ideas, the journal of the Mexican Center for Music and Sound Arts (CMMAS), dedicated to AI and music. His monograph albums have been released on BMOP Sound (Talus—a collection of three orchestral concertos) and New Focus Recordings (Wavelengths—an anthology of three percussion works recorded by members of the Up:Strike Project).

Viola Yip

Viola Yip, born and raised in Hong Kong, now based in Berlin, is an experimental composer, performer, improviser, sound artist and instrument builder. In her practice, she develops unorthodox self-built instruments, compositions and performances that explore the complex and dynamic relationships between materiality, media, space, human body and machine body through sounds.

Her instruments and sound performances have been presented in music festivals and venues such as Issue Project Room New York, The New School NYC, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Cycling ‘74 Expo Hong Kong Arts Center, University of Huddersfield, QO-2 Brussels, Moers Festival, Center for Art and Media ZKM Karlsruhe, Academy of Media Arts Cologne, A L’arme! Festival, DARA String Festival, Heroines of Sound, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Blurred Edges Festival Hamburg, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, NEXT festival Bratislava and Serralves Contemporary Art Museum in Porto. Other than her solo career, she also works closely with guitarist, composer, sound artist and researcher of cybernetic aesthetics Nicola L. Hein as part of the duo Transsonic, investigating immersive performative cybernetic systems with sound, light, space and movement.

She is a recipient of Stip-4 Stipendienprogramm zur Künstlichen Intelligenz from musikfonds in 2024. She also received an Honorary Mention from Giga-Hertz-Preis 2021 at Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (ZKM) in Karlsruhe. Her work has been supported by the Electroacoustic Music Studio at Academy of the Arts Berlin, Elektronmusikstudion EMS Stockholm, NOTAM Oslo, Uncool Residency Poschiavo Switzerland, Harvestworks NYC, The Swedish Arts Council, Fonds Darstellende Künste, Project Stipend for Young Arts/New Media from the City of Munich, North Rhein-Westfalia (NRW) Ministry of Culture and Science, Initiative Neue Musik Berlin, Berlin Senate Department, Goethe Institut and Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Bert Van Herck

Bert Van Herck’s music has been performed in the US, and Europe among others by the Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Danish National Vokal Ensemble, Oxalys Ensemble, Garth Knox, Mario Caroli, Orchestre National de Lorraine (France), Jeremias Schwarzer, Ensemble Fa, Spectra Ensemble, White Rabbit, Talea Ensemble, Berten D’Hollander, Ian Pace, Ensemble Mosaik, Arditti String Quartet and Ensemble InterContemporain. He has been an active participant in several summer courses, such as the Acanthes summer courses in France, the Bartok Seminar in Hungary, the International Academy for Composition and Audio Art in Austria, the Wellesley Composers Conference, June in Buffalo, and Domaine Forget, all at which his music has been performed. There he has been able to meet many of today’s leading composers, such as Jonathan Harvey, Wolfgang Rihm, Pascal Dusapin, Marco Stroppa, Michaell Jarrell, Denis Smalley, Boguslaw Schaeffer, Mario Davidovsky, Martin Brody, Pablo Ortiz, Denis Bouliane, François Paris, Jean Lesage, David Felder, Charles Wuorinen and Roger Reynolds. He has also attended the Summer Course at IRCAM, the Tenso Seminar and the Darmstadt International Courses for New Music.

A native of Belgium, Bert Van Herck studied composition with Luc Van Hove and Luc Brewaeys before coming to Boston. He has written extensively for acoustic instruments, ranging from solo works to full orchestral compositions. He has been writing increasingly for electronics and instruments with live processing, and developed a great interest in microtonal music. He studied composition with Chaya Czernowin, Magnus Lindberg, Tristan Murail, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, and Julian Anderson;  electronic music with Hans Tutschku; orchestration with Joshua Fineberg; and choral writing with Elliott Gyger.

In addition to his compositional career, Bert Van Herck is active as a conductor and a pianist. Recent performances include a concert in Merkin Hall and a performance of Bach’s D minor keyboard concerto. As the conductor of the Dudley House Orchestra at Harvard University, he performs a wide repertoire from Mozart to today, with special attention for a balance between standard repertoire and lesser known works. Recent concerts have featured music by Beethoven, Stravinsky, Mozart, Tubin,  Rimsky-Korsakov and Sibelius.

Awards include the First Prize in the Cantabile Composition Competition, the Adelbert Sprague Composition Award, the Boott Prize for Choral Composition, the Kaske Fellowship, and the ‘Attestato di Merito’ in Torneo Internazionale di Musica, Rome. Additional recognition for his music came through the selection for performances at the ISCM World Music Days: In 2009 his ‘7 Chansons sur textes de Maurice Maeterlinck‘ were premiered in Växjö, Sweden; and ‘Spectra‘ was performed in Sidney, Australia in 2010.

Bert Van Herck presented his work in music theory on international conferences. At the Hull University MAC, he presented his work focusing on Olivers Knussen’s compositions and at the 11th Conference of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory his topic was ‘Feria‘ by Magnus Lindberg. He attended several master classes at the Orpheus Institute, and has his article on spectral music published in ‘Spectral/World Musics – Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference’.

For his dedication as a teacher, he has been awarded the ‘Certificate of Distinction in Teaching’ at Harvard University.

Philipp A. Stäudlin

Philipp A. Stäudlin joined Boston Conservatory in 2016 and is an assistant professor of saxophone in both the standard degree and contemporary music programs.

Stäudlin is an award-winning virtuoso saxophonist who has performed hundreds of concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. His characteristic tonal qualities, deep sense of phrasing, and superb technical skills make him one of the most unique voices in today's classical saxophone world.

A native of Friedrichshafen, Germany, Stäudlin has appeared as a soloist with the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Sound Icon ensemble, White Rabbit Ensemble (former ensemble-in-residence at Harvard University), Niederrheinische Sinfoniker, Callithumpian Consort, Bielefelder Philharmoniker, Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, Tufts University Orchestra, Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and the Providence Singers. He has also performed with the Harvard Group for New Music, EQ ensemble, ECCE ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Steamboat Switzerland, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble White Rabbit, Ludovico Ensemble, IGNM Basel, Alea III, Back Bay Chorale, and many others.

A graduate of Musikhochschule Basel, Stäudlin received a Soloist Diploma, having studied with Marcus Weiss and Iwan Roth. He was awarded a full scholarship two years in a row from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study with Kenneth Radnofsky at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, where he received an Artist Diploma as well as the Victor Rosenbaum Medal. 

Stäudlin currently has 15 CD recordings available on the New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Suspicious Motives, New Focus, Navona, and Newport Classics, Enja, and Ars Musici labels. He is a member of the Sound Icon, Callithumpian Consort, and EQ ensembles. Stäudlin has premiered more than 100 works. 

He lives with his wife, pianist Yoko Hagino, and their daughter in Melrose, Massachusetts.

John Mallia

John Mallia is a composer living and working in the Boston area. In his electroacoustic music, source material often includes field recordings and other originally recorded sound sources including prepared objects/instruments, and analog modular synthesizers. His compositional process is informed by spatial constructs and concepts, and a fascination with presence, ritual, and the thresholds standing between states of existence and awareness. In addition to composing chamber music and works combining acoustic instruments with electronics, he creates fixed media compositions, and collaborates with visual artists on multimedia works, including installation.

He has been a member of the full-time college Composition faculty at the New England Conservatory since 2005, where he also directs the Electronic Music Studio and is Chair of the Music Technology Concentration. Additionally, he is a current and founding member of the Composition Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts at CalArts. Recently, he served as Music Director of the 50th annual International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) and was the Music Chair of the 2024 Technology in Notation and Realization (TENOR) international conference.

Victoria Cheah

Victoria Cheah is a composer and performer whose work concerns boundaries, transitions, sustained effort, and intimacies within social performance rituals. Her work has been commissioned and/or featured by ensembles and presenters including TAK ensemble, PinkNoise, Talujon, Either/Or, Non-Event, Switch Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Rhythm Method, Roberta Michel, New Thread Quartet, Han Chen, andPlay, Yarn/Wire, Wavefield Ensemble, MATA Festival, Ensemble Dal Niente, Vertixe Sonora, Marilyn Nonken, PRISM Quartet, and others. Recordings of their music can be found on Dinzu Artefacts, New Focus Recordings, and XAS Records. Cheah currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music, as well as Director of Production of Talea Ensemble.

mousekid (Omari Spears)

mousekid: is a Boston-based electronic music artist whose work consists primarily of sample-based beats and noise. Recordings for the project began in 2020, and over the past few years it has expanded to live performances.

Albi Biba

Albi Biba is a Boston-based film director, art installation curator, visual/sound designer, and performance artist. His work often delves into the connecting vector between the abstract and the mundane. His performance art focuses on high risk public outbursts and attention drawing actions, reflecting on the nature of visibility within the digital age. For contact, email: albibiba080@gmail.com