contemporary classical

Composer Max Richter was born in Germany in 1966 and grew up in the UK. He studied composition and piano at Edinburgh University, the Royal Academy of Music and in Florence with Luciano Berio. Though he has a strong background in the canons of classical music, his influences were more modern composers and in particular, Iannis Xenakis whose musical compositions applied mathematical and physical laws and Philip Glass whose sound was a major influence on Richter.

Morten Lauridsen (born February 27, 1943 in Colfax, Washington) is an American composer with Danish roots. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and attended Whitman College and the University of Southern California, where he studied advanced composition. He is a long-time professor and Chair of the Department of Composition at USC, and was also Composer in Residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001.

Alarm Will Sound is a U.S. twenty-member contemporary-music chamber orchestra. Members of the ensemble began playing together while studying at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and have diverse experience in composition, improvisation, jazz, popular styles, early music, and various traditional musics from around the world. Alarm Will Sound's repertoire ranges from European to American works, from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced.

Wim Mertens (b. Neerpelt, Belgium, May 14, 1953) is a Belgian composer, countertenor vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and musicologist. Mertens studied social and political science at the University of Leuven (graduating in 1975) and musicology at Ghent University; he also studied music theory and piano at the Royal Conservatories of Ghent and Brussels. In 1978, he became a producer at the then BRT (Belgian Radio and Television).