2015/2016 SEASON COMPOSER COMMISSIONS AND PORTRAITS
 

TETRACTYS COMMISSIONS

ALEX HEPPELMANN

The music of Austin, Texas based composer Alex Heppelmann is performed on the concert stage throughout the United States. It includes a wide range of musical styles, from contemporary classical, to jazz and film. His classical compositions range from large ensemble works to small chamber and vocal pieces. Alex describes his own music as colorfully haunting, expressive, and cinematic.

As a jazz pianist and saxophonist, Alex has performed throughout the country. At Penn State, Alex was the President of the Jazz Educators, as well as the Penn State Jazz Festival Director from 2009-10. Alex Received the 2011 Marjorie Jane Brewster Memorial Scholarship in Music at Penn State, and was recently among the finalists for the 2014 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Alex has also worked as music copyist for the Miró String Quartet, based in Austin.

Alex received a B.M. in music composition from The Pennsylvania State University in 2011, and an M.M. in composition from The University of Texas at Austin in 2013. He is currently pursuing a DMA in composition from UT Austin as well. His composition teachers include Paul Barsom, Donald Grantham, Dan Welcher, Russell Pinkston, Yevgeniy Sharlat, and John Mills.

ELIZABETH ANNE COMNINELLIS

Elizabeth Anne Comninellis is a composer, singer, and pianist. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in music composition at the University of Texas at Austin where she studies with Yevgeniy Sharlat and Russell Pinkston. She holds a master's degree in music composition from the University of Colorado- Boulder, and a bachelor's degree in music composition, with emphasis in vocal and piano performance, from the University of Missouri- Kansas City.

Ms. Comninellis is a recipient of the Kent Kennan Fellowship at the University of Texas. Her percussion trio, “Bringing in the Boat”, was chosen for the Women Composers of Hartford's 2015 international score call. She is also the recipient of the Edward J. Levy Graduate Composition Prize for her song cycle “a man said to the universe…”

Ms. Comninellis has studied with many acclaimed composers of modern art music, among them Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Carter Pan and Dan Kellogg. She is also active as a teacher and performer. She currently holds a studio in voice and piano at the Orpheus Academy of Music in Austin, TX.

JON FIELDER

Jon Fielder is a composer of electroacoustic and acoustic music, all of which shows a strong interest in timbre, texture spatialization and narrative. His music is often inspired by his love of natural landscapes, various topics of science and mathematics  (Markov chains, sieves, algorithmic composition) manipulations of the voice - spoken, sung and recorded - and from literature. Jon is also active as a researcher and music theorist with specialization in music associated with the New Complexity school of composers (specifically Brian Ferneyhough and Franklin Cox) and music cognition. In addition to composing and researching Jon also runs a new music blog called KLANG dedicated to topics of experimental and avant garde music in America. 

Jon’s music has been presented nationally and internationally at conferences and festivals including the SEAMUS conference, ICMC, the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium Electronic Music Midwest, the Electroacoustic Barn Dance, the International Double Reed Society conference, NASA conference, N-SEME, KcEMA, LATEX and the Northern Ohio Music Exchange and Something Said Only Once (SSOO). His music has been performed by Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, Noa Even, Liz Pearse, Alex Sramek, Patchwork (Noa Even and Stephen Klunk), Katie Woolsey, the University of Texas New Music Ensemble, the Bowling Green State University New Music Ensemble.

Jon holds an MM in composition from Bowling Green State University and BM degrees in both composition and music theory from Ohio University. He is currently living in Austin, TX pursuing a DMA in composition at the University of Texas at Austin. His composition teachers include Russell Pinkston, Elainie Lillios, Bruce Pennycook, Mikel Kuehn, Mark Phillips and Chris Dietz. His theory teachers include Elizabeth Sayrs, Allyn Reilly, Edward Pearsall and William Lake.

COMPOSER PORTRAIT