Theory / Composition

A specialist in Opera and Musical Theatre, Professor Richards teaches private composition students, Acting for the Singer (a course in which students learn to integrate their music theoretical/literary analysis with actor preparation), and the occasional course in Musical Theatre history.

He is an award winning composer/librettist whose creative works have resided at various addresses around the intersection of Jazz, Opera, and Musical theatre. His most recent opera, Blind Injustice (with librettist David Cote) premiered with direction by Robin Guarino at Cincinnati Opera in 2019 to a sold out run and national critical acclaim. The live CD/Album was cited by Opera News as one of the 5 Best New Opera Recordings of 2022 and was produced with great press fanfare by Montclair State’s Peak Performances in February of 2024.https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0jlhcq7q8cj1zo15hgc2d/PEAK-BI-NYT-Feature-Pring-021624.pdf?rlkey=pl9gt52dd8v1f5gy8afbuc523&dl=0

He has completed commissions for The Public Theater; The Rumble of Myth (with Marcus Gardley) and the TONY Winning Signature Theatre (VA) The Break (with Michele Lowe). The New York City Opera has performed two Richards works as a part of its Vox Festival of new opera; A Star Across The Ocean – Paris 1965 featuring Tony Award Winner, Chuck Cooper and Charlie Crosses the Nation, An Opera in Jazz Idiom. He was commissioned by Paulette Haupt, Artistic Director of The O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Musical Theatre Conference to compose A Thousand Words Come to Mind (with Michele Lowe) for the inaugural set of her Inner Voices one-person musical monologue series. Other musical theatre works include music for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing (written with Deborah Brevoort) directed by Molly Smith at Perseverance Theatre/produced by Stuart Ostrow in Houston) and the original score for A Christmas Story The Musical at Kansas City Rep.

His play-scores have been heard at resident theatres around the country including The Yale Rep, Alliance, Center Stage, Madison Rep, Powerhouse and New Federal.

Works for children include a number of commissions from Theatreworks U. S. A.; Corduroy (music, lyrics, orchestration), Sundiata! The Lion King of Mali (music, lyrics, orchestration), Island of the Blue Dolphins (orchestrations) and Junie B. Jones (orchestrations.)

As an actor, Mr. Richards originated the role of Sylvester (the stuttering nephew who almost ruins the recording session) in the historic original Broadway production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and assisted his father, Director Lloyd Richards in the origination and Broadway premieres of three other Wilson works.

A recipient of the Jonathan Larson, Frederick Loewe, Shen Family Foundation, Meet the Composer, and the NJ State Council on the Arts Composition Awards, he taught on the faculty of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program from 1997-2009 has remained a regular guest teacher.

As of today, he is hard at work on a new opera Robeson/Moscow with co-librettist David Cote which was workshopped at Cincinnati Opera’s Opera Fusion: New Works in 2023.

M. F. A. New York University Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program
B. A. Yale University

Aaron Helgeson uses transcription, adaptation, and collage to find new ways of engaging with old musical traditions. Described by Cleveland Classical as “eerily beautiful” and the New York Times as “virtuoso display and engaging instrumental drama,” Helgeson’s music has received awards from institutions like the Aaron Copland Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, and American Composers Forum. In 2016, he received an Ohio Arts Council Award for his Snow Requiem, an “anti-cantata” combining fragments of Norwegian-American folk music with sonifications of weather data, orchestral tone clusters, wordless vocal chorales, and percussive noise. His upcoming choral cycle, The Book of Never, for Grammy Award winning chorus The Crossing collages ancient hymns from the Novgorod Codex (a medieval book of Ukrainian psalm chant covered up with heretical sermons by an excommunicated Pagan missionary) and contemporary texts by writers in various states of exile. Other recent projects include a set of songs commissioned by soprano Susan Narucki and the Talea Ensemble using fragmented realizations of ancient Occitan troubadour poems, a woodwind quintet for Imani Winds on 19th-century French hunting calls and 20th-century American military signals, and an orchestral overture for Ensemble Dal Niente assembled from scraps of Baroque opera entr’actes and bits of Helgeson’s own previous music. Previously Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, he also taught as Assistant Professor of Composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, with other visiting appointments at the Hartt School of Performing Arts, University of Chicago, New York University, and the University of California Washington Center. A former Fletcher Jones Dissertation Fellow, he holds degrees in music and theater from the University of California San Diego (PhD, MA) and Oberlin College (BMus, BA).

Nora Bartosik is a classical pianist who has performed extensively as a soloist and in chamber ensembles in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is a laureate of international competitions in France, Germany, and Italy, and was a Piano Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival, where she also performed in the Festival of Contemporary Music. She has appeared in international festivals including the Saoû Chante Mozart Festival and the Festival des Nuits d’été in France, the HARMOS Chamber Music Festival in Portugal, and the Max Reger Forum in Bremen, Germany.
Nora is a devoted music educator who has taught piano, music theory and ear training to students of all ages and levels from pre-college through university for over a decade. She holds degrees from Harvard University (BA in Music and German Literature), the Mozarteum University in Salzburg (MA) and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig (Artist Diploma) and is currently completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She was a recipient of the DAAD (German Academic Exchange) Fellowship and is a former member of the artist roster of Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now, an international organization dedicated to bringing live music to audiences who otherwise would not have the opportunity to experience it. Nora currently resides in New York City, where she is also on the faculty of the 92NY School of Music and the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School for students with vision loss.

Kevin Eliot Brown, double bass and baritone, earned his M.M. in double bass performance (classical) and B.M. in Jazz Studies (double bass performance) from the University of North Texas, where he studied with Jeff Bradetich and Fred Hamilton. His performance and recording experience includes appearances with Marvin Hamlisch, Rich Little, Regis Philbin, Joan Rivers, Bob Newhart, Daryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels, David Sanborn, the Drifters, Monkeyworks, Mike Richmond, the Staten Island Symphony, the Capital Philharmonic, Metro Lyric Opera, Orchestra of St. Peter-by-the-Sea, the Paper Mill Playhouse, the New Jersey Pops, and the New Jersey Ballet. He holds faculty positions in the music schools of both Montclair State University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. At MSU, Mr. Brown has taught double bass, Music Theory, Audition Repertoire for double bass, Aural Skills, coached chamber music, taught Intro to Music for nonmajors, and directed the MSU New Music Ensemble. At FDU, Mr. Brown teaches Jazz History, History of Classical Music, World Music, and History of American Popular Music.

Patrick Burns (b. 1969) teaches courses in orchestration, counterpoint, and music composition at the Cali School, and also teaches instrumental music in the Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools. His compositions for symphonic band are performed by bands of every level throughout the country. The United States Army Band, “Pershing’s Own”, has performed his music in Washington, D.C. and at Carnegie Hall. His music has also been performed at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. He has been featured as guest conductor and clinician with public school, community, university and honor bands in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia and has recorded and, as director of Imperial Brass, has concertized with world-renowned brass artists Philip Smith, Warren Vache, Roger Webster and Chris Jaudes. Patrick’s music has appeared on Bandworld magazine’s Top 100 list of band compositions twice and is published by G. Schirmer, Daehn Publications, FJH Music Company, Wingert-Jones Music and TRN Music Publisher. The Instrumentalist and School Music News have also printed favorable reviews of Mr. Burns’ band music and The Classical New Jersey Society Journal has praised his chamber music. His music can be heard at his websites.

Murat Çolak is a Turkish-American composer, record producer, mastering and mixing engineer based in Manhattan. His compositions are immersive and luxe, they find their home in the spirituality and poise of Turkish art music and in the hazy, hypnotic coils of dub techno and trance.

Murat has collaborated extensively with some of contemporary music’s most prominent exponents, artists like International Contemporary Ensemble, Wet Ink, Ensemble Dal Niente, Distractfold, Ensemble Vertixe Sonora, Ensemble Surplus, Meitar Ensemble, and Scenatet. His work has been presented and supported by the BBC Radio 3, MATA Festival, New Music USA, the Yaddo Corporation, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Mise-en Festival, ISCM World New Music Days, Frequency Series Festival Chicago, Sonic Matter Festival, Avaloch Farms Music Institute and Festival of New American Music among others.

As an audio engineer and producer, Murat works with an international clientele of virtuoso musicians. He specializes in contemporary classical / electroacoustic music and uses this highly technical skillset to bring a unique and innovative sound to electronic dance music, jazz, and pop. His engineering work can be heard on labels such as KAIROS, Edition Wandelweiser, NEOS, Jazzland, Da Vinci Classics, New Focus, Halocline Trance as well as his own imprint GERYON.

Murat received his DMA in composition from Boston University, and he holds an MA in music composition and technology from Istanbul Technical University’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM). He teaches music technology, production, and composition at Montclair State University and the New York Philharmonic. He has been in residencies, given lectures and masterclasses at Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Simon Fraiser University, Pomona College, University of Baltimore, Kent State University, Bilkent University, and others.

Website: muratcolakmusic.com
Instagram: @muratcolak.nyc

Max Grafe writes music characterized by “jagged declamations and muffled filigree” (Gramophone) with the aim of striking a distinctive balance between the stylistic immediacy of modernism and the dramatic power of romanticism. Grafe’s music has been performed by a wide range of prominent and emerging ensembles—including the New York Philharmonic, Contemporaneous, ekmeles, Yarn/Wire, Hypercube, and Quince Ensemble—and has been featured at numerous music festivals across the country, including the Tanglewood Music Center, the Resonant Bodies Festival, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, which commissioned his 2018 Quintet. Grafe is a founding member of the New York composer collective ICEBERG New Music, which is preparing to launch its fifth season in collaboration with Bent Knee and Ayanna Witter-Johnson. Grafe’s music appears on commercial recordings by the New York Philharmonic, harpist Emily Levin, and pianists Mika Sasaki and Jenny Lin, and has received recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Tanglewood Music Center, the American Composers Orchestra, BMI, and ASCAP. Grafe has been a member of the music faculties at Hofstra University, the Juilliard School, and the Kaufman Music Center, and holds degrees from the Juilliard School and Indiana University.

Trevor Haughton is a music theorist with research interests in both tonal and post-tonal repertoire. He holds degrees from Colgate University (B.A.), Boston University (M.M.), and the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D.), and has extensive experience teaching written theory and musicianship in both university and pre-conservatory settings.

Michael Mahadeen is an orchestrator/arranger, conductor, composer, educator, multiple-woodwind instrumentalist, and music engraver in the NY/NJ metropolitan area.  Select Broadway/NYC credits: On the Twentieth Century (Roundabout); The Christmas Spectacular Starring The Radio City Rockettes (Radio City); Show Boat (NY Philharmonic).  Film/TV: The Hip Hop Nutcracker (Disney+).  Off-Broadway/Regional: Pamela’s First Musical (Two River Theatre); Hadestown (NYTW); Sweeney Todd (Barrow).  Select orchestrations: Jarrod Spector; Kelli Barrett; Erika Henningsen; Jenn Colella; Eric Petersen; Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra; Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra; Czech Radio Orchestra.  His piece Winter Lights was chosen as the winner of the 2006 Colonial Symphony Composition Contest, and he has written scores to several installments in the Wing Commander video game series.  At its launch in 2022, Michael joined the team at Full Circle Artists as a collaborator, actively orchestrating and arranging shows and concerts for their performing artists.

Michael is a graduate of Montclair State University, recipient of the NJ Distinguished Student Teacher Award, and studied at the New York Conducting Studio under Dr. Gary Fagin.  He serves on the music faculty at Caldwell University, Montclair State University, and Mendham Township School District.  Affiliations: AFM 802, ASCAP, NAfME, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Eagle Scout.  His music is published by Bandworks Publications.

Marla Meissner holds degrees from Ithaca College (BM), Montclair State University (MA), and New York University (PhD). Her training includes electronic music composition studies with Peter Rothbart; acoustic music composition with Ting Ho and Ruth Schonthal; saxophone studies with David Henderson, Steven Mauk and Daniel Trimboli; music theory and analysis studies with Lawrence Ferrara, John Gilbert and Marc Holland. She has studied and has extensive knowledge of the music and performance practices of the Lenape Indian. Her CD, Selections from the Kaleidoscope, was released in 1999. Dr. Meissner’s compositional output includes an eclectic variety of electronic, electroacoustic and traditional compositions for various types of instrumental ensembles as well as film soundtracks, theater music, rock and jazz compositions. Her music has been performed in various venues including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and New York City’s Angelika Film Center.

Amir Mortezai graduated from NYU Steinhardt in 2016 with a Master’s Degree in Theory and
Composition where he studied both concert music and film scoring with Paul Chihara and took
courses with Pulitzer Prize Winner Julia Wolfe. In 2018 he was the recipient of the ASCAP
Henry Mancini Fellowship. He’s scored numerous short films and in 2022, he scored the music
for the animation film “Louis I. King of the Sheep” which was played in animation film festivals
across the world, including the Berlin Film Festival and the Annecy Film Festival. His concert
pieces have been performed internationally in France, Italy, Prague, and Iran and has
collaborated with the JACK Quartet, Collailm Duo, the NYU Symphony, and guitarist Flavio Virzi.
Initially self-taught as a composer, he attended the EAMA Summer Music Program in Paris
where he studied counterpoint and harmony with Dr. Philip Lasser of the Juilliard School, his
primary teacher. As a songwriter, he’s taken part in master classes with Roseanne Cash, Glenn
Frey, and Phil Galdston. He’s also attended the highScore and CASMI composition festivals. His
bachelor’s degree is in Classical Piano Performance from Rutgers University

Eric Olsen holds two Master of Music degrees, in Piano Performance (with High Distinction) and Jazz Studies, from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance with a minor in Organ Performance, magna cum laude, from Syracuse University.  He has crafted a distinguished career in both jazz and classical music, as a pianist and composer, harpsichordist, synthesist, organist, conductor, and accompanist.  He has recorded twenty albums to great critical acclaim, with artists Randy Brecker, Ted Nash, George Garzone, Don Braden, Ratzo Harris, Tim Horner, Peter Olsen, Bucky Pizzarelli, Lou Caimano, Jan Carden, Kevin Maynor, and Larry Newcomb, and performed with jazz luminaries Billy Hart and Eliot Zigmund. He has appeared in concert from Carnegie Hall to Birdland, with orchestra in Taiwan, throughout the United States, and overseas in France, Germany, India, the Fiji Islands, and New Zealand.  He is on the faculty at Caldwell University, Montclair State University, Lindeblad School of Music, and the Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts, and is Music Director at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Linden, NJ.  More information is available at www.olsensoundscape.com.

Amy Reich holds a BFA from New England Conservatory and a PhD from Harvard University. Her principal teachers were William Thomas McKinley, Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner. Her compositions have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, including performances by the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Chamber Collective, Dinosaur Annex, Josquin Cage, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Chamber Series, Composers in Red Sneakers (of which Ms. Reich was a founding member), Ciao! Intergenerational Orchestra, and the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey. Ms. Reich has received grants and fellowships from Meet-the-Composer, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the American Harp Society, Harvard University. and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Tyler J. Rubin is a NYC/NJ based composer, copyist, and music educator. Rubin’s music lives at the intersection of opera and musical theatre. His works include Ten Minutes in the Life or Death of… and I Celebrate (libretti by Marella Martin Koch), How To Create A Young Girl (libretto by Laura Barati), and most recently, Nightlife (libretto by Deepali Gupta), praised for its “deft combination of sultry jazz and angular modernism” (National Sawdust) which premiered at the Stonewall Inn as part of a collaboration between NYU and American Opera Projects for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. His compositions have been performed in NYC at St. Luke’s Theatre, Don’t Tell Mama, the PIT Loft, the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning and the Celemente Soto Velez Cultural Center as well as Columbia University, New York University, Muhlenberg College, and Montclair State University. He obtained his M.F.A. at NYU Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and his B.M. in Music Theory/Composition with a concentration in clarinet from Montclair State University where he studied under Scott Davenport Richards, Robert Livingston Aldridge, and David Singer.

Joseph Turrin is active as a composer, orchestrator, conductor, pianist and teacher. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. His works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Academy Orchestra. Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Baltimore Symphony, Gewandhaus-orchester (Leipzig, Germany) and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Turrin has appeared as a conductor with the Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Orleans, Detroit and New Jersey Symphonies; he has performed as a pianist on many recordings and as orchestral pianist for the New Jersey Symphony. His compositions for film and theater include scores for Alan Alda’s film A New Life, Little Darlings, Weeds (with Nick Nolte), Tough Guys Don’t Dance (Directed by Norman Mailer), Verna-USO Girl (with Sissy Spacek and William Hurt and nominated for three Emmy Awards), Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Kingdom of Shadows (narrated by Rod Steiger), Broken Blossoms (1919 silent film classic directed by D.W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish) and for the restoration of the silent film classic Sadie Thompson. Other silent film classics that he has scored include, Diary of a Lost Girl, Intolerance and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His work in musical theater includes performances on Broadway with Michael Feinstein as well as the score for Frankie, with a libretto by Broadway legend George Abbott.

Seth Velez is an accomplished conductor, bass-baritone, and educator within the choral spheres of Los Angeles and New York. As a singer, Seth has performed extensively with choirs touring the United States, the U.K., South Korea, and much of Europe. He has competed and headlined in international competitions in Wales, France, Germany, and Italy, and has a solo background that encompasses both Classical and Musical Theatre styles. Seth’s conducting and teaching portfolio includes positions at Montclair State University, Syracuse University, Azusa Pacific University, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Dessoff Choirs, and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus.  Seth also runs a private voice studio in Manhattan serving clients of all ages and ability levels. His research interests primarily revolve around the flexibility and versatility of the human voice. Seth holds both a MMus in Choral Conducting and a MMus in Voice Pedagogy from Syracuse University as well as a BM in Performance from Azusa Pacific University. He is an inducted member of Pi Kappa Lambda and is an active member of the American Choral Director’s Association, The National Association of Teachers of Singing, and The College Music Society.

Connor Elias Way is a composer based in Brooklyn, NY whose music explores resonance through carefully wrought networks of imitative counterpoint and a spectrally informed approach to sonority and timbre. His music has been performed by groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, JACK Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Contemporaneous, Sō Percussion, Arx Duo, Bergamot Quartet, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Current projects include a forthcoming solo marimba work for Jisu Jung and an album-length project for the Irish singer Iarla Ó Lionáird and harpist Parker Ramsey which will premiere in Dublin in October of 2024 thanks to a commission from the Arts Council of Ireland. Connor holds a B.M. from Georgia State University (summa cum laude) and an M.M. from Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University where he was presented with the Gustav Klemm Award in Composition. He is currently a PhD candidate at Princeton University, where he has taught courses in theory and music technology, as well as private composition lessons. In the summer of 2024, Connor will serve as the composer-in-residence at the Luzerne Music Festival.