Nell Shaw Cohen evokes landscapes, visual art, and the lives of mavericks in her lyrical works for the stage, concert hall, and digital media. She has been commissioned by Houston Grand Opera to write “Turn and Burn,” a “feminist rodeo opera,” with librettist Megan Cohen for HGOco’s Song of Houston chamber opera initiative. Her operas and theatrical works have been given workshops by Fort Worth Opera, American Opera Projects, New Dramatists, New York University, and University of New Mexico. Recent commissions also include a choral work for Boston’s Skylark Vocal Ensemble and a piano trio for Santa Fe’s Montage Music Society.Cohen has been Artist-in-Residence at the Brush Creek Foundation, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and NYU Symphony. She is an alumna of AOP’s Composers & the Voice fellowship and New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio. She earned degrees in composition from NYU and New England Conservatory, studying with Herschel Garfein and Michael Gandolfi among others. Her honors have included the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award, NEC’s Chadwick Medal, and the Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music. As Director of LandscapeMusic.org, a composers network and online publication, Cohen composes and advocates for music inspired by landscape, nature, and place. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.Learn more and stream recordings of Cohen’s music at nellshawcohen.com.

Ms. Cohen’s composition, Blue Shadows Silver Sunlight, was premiered at BCE’s holiday concert of BCE’s 19th season

Hilary Purrington | Honorable Mention, 12th Annual Commission Competition

Hilary Purrington is a New York City-based composer of chamber, vocal, and orchestral music. Her work has received recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC), among others.

Purrington’s music has been performed by many distinguished ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Modern Ensemble, the Albany Symphony, and the Yale Philharmonia. Recent commissions include new works for the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, the Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, Yale Glee Club, and the New York Youth Symphony. During the 18–19 season, Purrington served as composer-in-residence for Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble. Upcoming projects include commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.Originally from Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Purrington currently lives and works in New York, NY. She holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei | Honorable Mention, 12th Annual Commission Competition

Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei (دانیال رضا سبزقبایی) is a composer and vocalist whose work aims to emphasize the malleability of time and how we experience it, not just in the concert hall but in everyday life as well. His music has been performed and commissioned by organizations including: Hong Kong’s Intimacy of Creativity Festival, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Beth Morrison Projects, [Switch~ Ensemble], the New York Festival of Song, Pro Coro Canada, TAK Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Utah’s Moab Music Festival, Minnesota’s VocalEssence, Dallas’ Voices of Change, Seattle’s The Esoterics, the Busan Choral Festival, Korea’s Ansan City Choir, Romania’s ICon Arts Festival, Festivalul Internațional Craiova Muzicală, and Ukraine’s Kharkov Academic Youth Orchestra among others. As of late, Daniel has been studying and taking increasing inspiration from Persian melodic and rhythmic systems, folk music, art, and poetry. Daniel holds degrees from the University of North Texas and the Peabody Conservatory. He is currently a doctoral student and Sage Fellow at Cornell University.

Dylan Trần | Honorable Mention, 12th Annual Commission Competition

Dylan Trần is a young Vietnamese-American composer currently based out of New Orleans, LA. His influences are numerous and ever changing, ranging from Hildegard to Ferneyhough and including dubstep, electronica, folk, rock, pop, theatre, and his own Vietnamese heritage. In his few years of composing, Dylan’s pieces have been workshopped and performed by musicians across the country and in Europe. The ‘17-‘18 season saw his film score debut as well as the premiere of a wind quintet for the Loyola Ballet Theatre. Dylan triumphed in the Pacific Edge Voices’ 2018 Call-for-Scores, emerging as one of five composers chosen from 300 submissions, and the only composer to have more than one piece selected. His Mass in E, workshopped in Périguex, France by singers from the Franco-American Vocal Academy, was premiered by PEV in San Francisco in December 2018. His String Quartet No.1 on Vietnamese Themes, composed in fulfillment of a fellowship awarded by the MUSAICA Chamber Ensemble upon winning their 2017 Composition Contest, was premiered by musicians from the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in April 2019.

Dylan is also an active singer, singing frequently with the New Orleans Opera Association as both a chorus member and comprimario. He has been a featured tenor soloist with the Krewe de Voix Chamber Choir, New Resonance Chamber Orchestra, New Orleans Vocal Arts Chorale, and the Marigny Ballet. While he performs a wide variety of music, he has gained considerable experience performing new and early works.”