Composers Information 

1. Elisenda Fábregas
2. David Heuser
3. Timothy Kramer
4. Kathryn Mishell
5. Dimitar Ninov
6. Peter Petroff

Elisenda Fábregas

Composer and pianist Elisenda Fábregas(b. July 30, 1955, Terrassa, Barcelona) came to the US in 1978 as a Fulbright scholar to study at The Juilliard School (B.M.,M.M) and Columbia University Teachers College (Ed.D). Her compositions have been commissioned by the Orchestra of Santa Fe, the San Antonio International Piano Competition, Texas Music Teachers Association, Dale Warland Singers, Maria Benitez Spanish Dance Co., and by numerous chamber groups and soloists. Her music has been performed throughout Europe and the US, and in Asia, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, and Canada, including The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; Merkin Concert Hall and The Joyce Theater in New York City; The 1995 United Nations Conference in Beijing, China; the 2003 and 2004 Bodensee International Music Festivals; 2005 Sanssouci Musikfestpiele Potsdam both in Germany; WNYC-FM Around New York and WQXR-FM, New York Spotlight. Her works are published by Alphonse Leduc & Cie., Friedrich Hofmeister MusikVerlag, Southern Music Co., and Hidden Oaks Music Co.; and recorded on the PROFIL EDITION Guenter Haenssler, Eloquence label (ABC Classics), Centaur Records, and Leonarda Productions. In 2001 Elisenda received the Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year Award from MTNA.

Website: http://www.efabregas.com/

David Heuser

David Heuser began composing almost immediately after his first piano lessons at the age of seven, writing short tunes in imitation of the exercises he was studying. He continued to write music throughout his childhood, some for piano, chorus, and wind ensemble, and some for the rock bands he was in. After high school, he attended the Eastman School of Music and then the Indiana University School of Music, where he received his doctorate degree in music composition in 1995. A native of New Jersey, Heuser has resided in San Antonio since 1997. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio teaching music composition and theory, and electronic music.

Heuser is a storyteller, crafting emotional journeys for listeners, but his stories go beyond words to things only music can speak to. His over 70 compositions range from exuberant orchestral works to intimate chamber pieces. His most characteristic are works rhythmically active, melodic, and often deal with extremes of tempo, dynamics and register. Just as a painter fills space, a composer fills time, and it is Heuser's goal to lead the listener through the time his music occupies in a way that is compelling and moving.

Heuser's music has been performed by various groups and individuals and on festivals and conferences throughout the United States and abroad. He has received commissions from such ensembles as the San Antonio Symphony, the New York Youth Symphony, the SOLI Chamber Ensemble, and the Texas Music Festival Orchestra. Heuser has won the 2007 Columbia Orchestra American Composer Competition, the 2006 Fauxharmonic Orchestra Composition Contest, an American Music Center grant, and, most recently, was awarded a grant from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio. He is currently writing his second piece on commission from the Texas Music Festival Orchestra, to be premiered in June, 2008.

Heuser's music is published by Non Sequitur Music, and works of his can be found on recordings on the Albany, Capstone, and Equilibrium labels. Heuser is a founding member of the Composers Alliance of San Antonio (CASA), and his song O The White Towns can be found on that group's first CD Works by San Antonio Composers Performed by San Antonio Performers.

Website: http://www.davidheuser.com/index.html

Timothy Kramer

Timothy Kramer's works have been performed widely throughout the United States and Europe, in Mexico, Argentina, and Taiwan, including performances by the Indianapolis and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Winters Chamber Orchestra, the Tacoma Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, North/South Consonance, the SOLI Ensemble, the ONIX Ensemble (Mexico), the Detroit Chamber Winds, Luna Nova, and wind ensembles at Indiana University, Michigan State, and Arizona State among others. He has also been a featured composer at the San Antonio International Piano Competition, the Mostly Women Composers' Festival in New York City, the Midwest International Clinic in Chicago, and at national conferences of the American Guild of Organists, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and the College Music Society.

His honors include grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the MacDowell Colony, Meet the Composer, BMI, ASCAP, the American Guild of Organists, the University of Michigan, Indiana State University, the American Music Center, and the Clear Lake Symphony (Houston) among others. His graduate degrees are from the University of Michigan, where he studied with composers William Albright, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, and George Wilson. He also was a student of Edward Parmentier (harpsichord) and James Kibbie (organ), and he studied with composer Martin Redel as a Fulbright Scholar to Germany in 1988-89. His undergraduate degree is from Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma). He has taught at the University of Michigan, Indiana State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and is currently Associate Professor and Composer-in-Residence at Trinity University in San Antonio, where he also founded and heads CASA (Composers' Alliance of San Antonio).

His commissions include orchestral, choral, chamber, and solo works and he is published by Southern Music, Hinshaw Music, Earnestly Music, and Selah. Recordings include his Etude Fantasy (on a theme for Madame Duruflé) (organ, 1995) on Calcante by organist David Heller, Colors from a Changing Sky (piano, 1994) on North/South Records by pianist Max Lifchitz, and Cycles and Myths (mixed quartet, 1996) featuring the SOLI Ensemble on a CASA CD available through CD-Baby. His piano work, Der Virtuos (1988), will be released on a Capstone CD this November with pianist Jeri-Mae Astolfi. Current projects include a saxophone concerto for Clifford Leaman, Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina and another orchestral work for the San Antonio Symphony's 2006-07 concert season.

Website: http://www.trinity.edu/departments/music/kramer.html

Kathryn Mishell

Kathryn Mishell was born in Los Angeles, where she received her early musical training. Her college and graduate work were done at Pomona College, The University of Kansas, and the University of Southern California. During these years she was a piano student of John Perry and a composition student of John Pozdro and then Ingolf Dahl.

Ms. Mishell's works include over a hundred piano pieces, ensemble and orchestral works, and music for chorus, dance and theatre. Her published collections of pieces for piano students have sold thousands of copies nationwide. She is one of two women composers honored by the National League of American Pen Women in 1996. She was the 1997 commissioned composer of the Texas Music Teachers Association, and has received ASCAP awards for the past several years. Her commissions include chamber works for Trio Contraste, Chamber Soloists of Austin, the Arundel Trio, Pacific Serenades of Los Angeles, Musiques en Euroreígion, and Austin Lyric Opera's Armstrong Community Music School, for which she is composer-in-residence. Mishell has participated in the Women's Philharmonic New Music Reading Sessions, the Society of Composers National Conference, and has been guest composer at the UT at Austin.

Ms. Mishell is producer and host of Into the Light, a weekly radio program devoted to the music of women composers, now in its eighth year. Produced at KMFA, the fine arts station in Austin, it has twice won an international Communicator Award of Distinction for excellence in broadcasting. This project extends into the concert world as Ms. Mishell produces, lectures, and performs Into the Light, Live for audiences.

As pianist, Ms. Mishell has performed extensively in the U.S. and Mexico as a soloist and in chamber music. She has been touring pianist for the Sharir Dance Company, and for the music dramas Paganini! and Heroes and Lovers, for which she wrote the incidental music. She is a regular performer on Salon Concerts in Austin.

A teacher of many award-winning young pianists, Ms. Mishell has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has acted as clinician, adjudicator, and as consultant in the use of computers in music instruction. She maintains a large class of private piano students in Austin, where she has twice been awarded the Outstanding Pre-collegiate Teaching Award.

Ms. Mishell is a founding board member of Salon Concerts, presenting the finest chamber musicians in concerts in intimate settings, and CHAMPS, whose mission statement is to promote the playing and teaching of chamber music in the public schools. She has just assumed the position of Artistic Director. She is also an original board member of Austin Young Concert Artists, a non-profit organization created to showcase the exceptional talent of the finest young musicians within a 50 mile radius of the greater Austin area.

Website: http://www.intothelightradio.org/km.html

Dimitar Ninov

Dr. Dimitar Ninov is a composer and music theorist who lives in Austin, Texas. He is concert coordinator of the Texas Chapter of the National Association of Composers USA (NACUSA Texas). His Piano Album was published by the FJH Music Company in April 2005. Dr. Ninov has produced a body of works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, choir, voice, and piano, and has been awarded some national and international prizes in composition. He holds a doctoral degree in composition from the University of Texas at Austin (2003) and master's degrees in music theory (1992) and composition (1996) from the State Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria. In the filed of music theory, Dr. Ninov's research interests include tonal harmony, musical form, meter, and ear training. He has previously taught music theory and aural skills at the University of Texas at Austin and at the University of South Carolina. His articles have been published in the peer-reviewed journal South Central Music Bulletin and in the book On Methods of Music Theory and (Ethno-) Musicology (Frankfurt, New York: Peter Lang, 2005). In addition to his teaching at Texas State University, he is also the music director at Saint Williams Catholic Church in Round Rock, Texas, and offers private instruction in theory and composition in Austin.

Website: http://www.music.txstate.edu/facultystaff/bios/ninov.html

Peter Petroff

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Petroff grew up in Chicago, where he studied piano at the Sherwood Music School. After secondary school, he chose to study medicine rather than music although his childhood dream was always to "be a composer".

He graduated medical school in 1968 and completed an intership, residency and fellowship. He entered the practice of medicine in San Antonio, Texas in 1976. Throughout this time, his avocation was composing for the piano.

In 1987, Dr. Petroff realized that if he wanted to obtain his childhood ambition of composing music, he must begin to work seriously. He studied piano with Ms. Delores LeBlanch, and later Marsha Bufler. He studied orchestration and composition with Earl Hoffman.

In 1992, Nina Drath, who is from Poland, contact Wojciech Czepiel, a noted Polish conductor and composer about a new piano concerto she wanted to perform. After seeing the rought draft of Dr. Petroff's First Piano Concerto, Wojciech agreed to do with with Miss Drath in Krakow the following October (1992). The concerto was recorded later and it received its American Premier in Waco, Texas on January 22, 1998, again with Miss Drath (to whom the work is dedicated) and Mr Czepiel.
In 1993, Dr. Petroff gave his first recital for the Fredericksburg Music Club (Fredericksburg, Texas). later that year, Musicopia performed the Piano Quintet with Pauline Glickman at the piano.

Several of the Dr. Petroff's piano pieces are published by Vivace Press and RBC Publications. They include a "complete studies", arrangements of traditional Filipino folk songs, and numerous children's pieces.
Dr. Petroff has always been interested in education and has sponsored a piano competition for students in grades 1 thru 12. The first Petroff Piano Competition was held January 13, 1996, with more than 50 south Texas students taking part.

The next Petroff Piano Competition is scheduled for March 7th, 2009 at the Steinway Piano Center, near the airport in San Antonio, Texas.

Website: http://www.rpftx.org/

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