Andrew S. Allen, composer/tubist

Andrew Allen is a strong voice of new music in his generation. Works of his have been premiered throughout the eastern United States, with scheduled performances in Hong Kong and Europe. He has written for most major types of ensembles, including orchestras, wind ensembles, electric guitars, string quartet, sax quartet, solo piano, piano trio, rock band, voice, electronic and electroacoustic ensembles, percussion ensembles, and pierrot ensemble.

He holds a formal degree from the University of South Carolina, where he studied under John Fitz Rogers in acoustic composition and Reginald Bain in computer music. He currently attends the Eastman School of Music where he also works as a teaching assistant and webmaster for the Eastman Computer Music Center. He currently studies composition under Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.

Sara Ballance, violinist/theorist

Sara Ballance is a graduate student at the Eastman School of Music, where she is pursuing a Master's degree in Pedagogy of Music Theory. In addition to working with Ossia, Sara currently teaches undergraduate Aural Musicianship courses at Eastman and serves as a research assistant for the Eastman Music Cognition Lab. Sara attended Eastman and the University of Rochester as an undergraduate, earning Bachelor's degrees in Violin Performance, Music Theory, and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. She is originally from Aurora, OR, and wants to go back.

Jennifer Bellor, composer

Jennifer Bellor holds a Bachelors in music from Cornell University, a Masters in music composition at Syracuse University, and is currently pursuing a PH.D in music composition at the Eastman School of Music. This summer, Jennifer will be attending the Seal Bay Festival acting as administrative assistant, and will also be attending the Aspen music festival. In February 2007, she was selected to participate in the Young Composers Forum with the Buffalo Philharmonic where she received a reading of "Chimera" for orchestra. Bellor also enjoys writing music cues for plays, and received two commissions at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY to write music for the "Frog Prince" performed in September 2006 and "Arkansas Bear" performed in the summer of 2007. She also received a commission to write a song for the Society of New Music Rising Stars Concert, which was premiered in July 2007. Other awards and accomplishments include Bernard Rogers Prize in composition at Eastman, the Brian Israel Award for composition at Syracuse University, certificate in university teaching for her teaching fellow position in the Future Professoriate Program, the national music honors society, Pi Kappa Lambda. Jen will be studying with Robert Morris in the fall. Former composition teachers include Sally Lamb, David Liptak, Steven Stucky, and Andrew Waggoner. In addition, Jen is the music director at St. Francis of Assisi church in Bridgeport, NY, where she accompanies, conducts, and composes for the church choir.

Tyler Cassidy-Heacock, musicologist/soprano

Tyler Cassidy-Heacock is entering her second year in the MA/PhD program in musicology at Eastman. Prior to this, she completed a BA in music history and pursued vocal performance at Oberlin College, where, as a soprano, she began doing collaborative work with student composers. She has worked with composer Jason Eckardt and coached with vocalists Lucy Shelton and Tony Arnold, as well as writing studies on vocal works by Ned Rorem, Harrison Birtwistle, and Thomas Ades. She continues to engage in both new music performance and scholarly work on twentieth-century compositions, and her research interests in musicology also include feminism, gender and sexuality, and social access to performance.

Christopher Hartford, percussionist

Christopher Hartford is a senior at Eastman studying percussion performance and music education. After three years of study with John H. Beck, Christopher will finish his degree under the guidance of Eastman's newest faculty member, Michael Burritt. He is also a third year conducting student of Brad Lubman. Chris has performed regularly with Ossia since his freshman year and is now taking on the roles of percussion/logistics coordinator and assistant rehearsal coordinator. He values energy in performance and creative teaching.

Elizabeth Kelly, composer

Elizabeth Kelly is currently a Ph.D student in composition at the Eastman School of Music. She was awarded both a University of Rochester Sproull fellowship and a U.S. Dept. of Education Javits fellowship for her Ph.D. studies. Elizabeth'sworks have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. She is currently working on commissions from the Ann Arbor Symphony, Eleanor and RayCross Foundation and Robert G. Boehmler Foundation for the 2007-8 season.

John Liberatore, composer/pianist

A native of Auburn, NY, John Liberatore lives with his wife in Rochester where he is pursuing a master's degree in composition at the Eastman School of Music. He currently teaches in the Eastman Computer Music Center as an assistant to Allan Schindler and serves on the Ossia board of directors as librarian and technical assistant. His music has been performed around the United States at venues such as the Charles E. Gamper Festival, the Bowdoin Music Festival, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Young Composers' Forum. Mentors have included David Liptak, Yehudi Wyner, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Samuel Adler (Bowdoin 2006), Daniel S. Godfrey, Nicolas Scherzinger, and Andrew Waggoner.

Baljinder Sekhon, II, composer/percussionist

Baljinder Singh Sekhon, II began his musical studies in percussion when he was seven years old and started composing when he was thirteen. A versatile composer whose award winning music ranges from works for full orchestra to gamelan ensemble to concert band, Baljinder Sekhon has received significant praise wherever his works have been performed. Winner of the 2006 Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP and the 2007 Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize from the Eastman School of Music, Sekhon is also the laureate of the 2007 Barbara B. Smith Composition Commission for best new work for Gamelan, the 2008 Belle Gitelman Award, and received honorable mention for the 2006 Frederick Fennell Prize for best new work for Concert Band from ASCAP and the College Band Directors National Association.

Recent and upcoming performances of commissioned works include the premiere of Gradient for Saxophone and Piano at the 2008 North American Saxophone Alliance's Biennial Convention and the premiere of Pitch-Dark Path for Horn and String Quintet at the New World Symphony's Musicians' Forum chamber music series in April 2008. Sekhon was recently commissioned by Musica Nova, under the direction of Brad Lubman, to compose a new work to celebrate the 100th birthday of Elliott Carter. Winner of the 2008 Boehmler Foundation Commissioning Prize, Baljinder Sekhon will compose a new work for Wind Quintet and Concert Band for performance in 2009. Currently a PhD candidate in composition at the Eastman School of Music, Baljinder Sekhon is also an active performer in the Eastman Broadband Ensemble, and recently performed at the Festival Spaziomusica in Cagliari, Italy. He also performs regularly with the Ossia New Music Ensemble of which he currently serves as President. At Eastman, he has taught Introduction to Computer Music, Advanced Computer Music, and he will begin teaching Composition for Non-Majors in the Fall of 2009.

Scott Worthington, bassist/composer

Scott Worthington is currently a member of the Applied Music department at the Eastman School of Music, in the studio of James VanDemark. As a bassist he is accomplished in both jazz & classical styles having toured Japan, Canada, and NYC with the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation Jazz Orchestra & performing at the Lucerne Festival with the Lucerne Festival Academy. As a composer Scott has had works of all stripes played around the US.