Composer Biographies

Peter Van Zandt Lane

Peter Van Zandt Lane is a widely performed composer living in New England.  His music is fresh and genuine, frequently high-energy and dramatic.  His instrumental music, in particular, often engages technology and its influence on art music in the 20th and 21st centuries through the use of live electronics and/or fixed-media.  His music has been characterized by its "propulsive rhythms" and "surprising lyricism" (Boston Musical Intelligencer), hailed for its ability to appeal to musicians and audiences "no matter their personal musical aesthetic" (Asymmetry Music Magazine).

Mr. Van Zandt Lane has received recent commissions from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the Wellesley Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, EAR Duo, and the SUNY Purchase Percussion Ensemble.  His compositions have been performed across the United States, as well as in Europe and South America by acclaimed musicians and ensembles such as The Cleveland Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Triton Brass, Xanthos Ensemble, East Coast Composers Ensemble, SIGNAL, NotaRiotous, The Quux Collective, Freon Ensemble (Rome), and the New York Virtuoso Singers. Twice a finalist for the SEAMUS/ASCAP Commission, Mr. Van Zandt Lane has been recognized by numerous awards and prizes, and has been a featured composer at some of the country's finest electronic and contemporary music festivals and venues, including Spark Festival, SEAMUS National Conferences, SARC at Queen's University (Belfast), LIPM/IEMS (Buenos Aires), Forecast Music, New Gallery Concert Series, 12-Nights Electronic Music and Art, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, The Annual Festival of Contemporary Music (San Francisco), Boston Cyber-Arts Festival, Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts, and Festival Miami.  He has had recordings commercially released on PARMA/Navona Records.

Mr. Van Zandt Lane holds degrees from Brandeis and the University of Miami Frost School of Music; and studied composition with Melinda Wagner, Eric Chasalow, and David Rakowsi, and bassoon with Luciano Magnanini.  He completed a PhD in Music Composition and Theory at Brandeis University.  Currently he serves as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida.

http://www.petervanzandtlane.com/

NSM offers three works by Mr. Lane: Danzas Mecánicas for woodwind quintet, Transverse Fractures for flute and piano, and Seven Rants for wind quintet and piano.

LI Qi

Born in 1990 in Beijing, China, LI Qi is currently a master's degree student majoring in composition at the Jacobs School of Music.  Her teachers include Sven-David Sandström, Don Freund, Claude Baker, Aaron Travers, and P.Q. Phan.  Recent commissions include An Autumn Dusk in the Mountains for the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, Tristis est anima mea for SSAB Choir commissioned by Miguel Diniz (Portugal), and an arrangement of Yummy Music for IU Kids Compose commissioned by the IU Concert Band.  She was the recipient of the Dean's Scholarship and Artistic Excellence Fellowship from the Jacobs School of Music, the Irving and Lena Lo "ILLO" Scholarship, and awards from Hutton Honors College.  Her works have been performed in the Midwest Symposium in Cincinnati, the HighSCORE Festival in Italy, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, the "East Meets West: A Concert of New Chinese Music" at the IU Art Museum, among other venues.  In addition to the Bachelor's degree in Music Composition she earned, Qi also received scholarships and obtained a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Technology in 2012 and from the Communication University of China.

NSM currently offers one work composed by LI Qi: Fog (2012) for solo flute, published by Noteworthy Sheet Music in 2016.

John D. McDonald

John McDonald is Professor of Music at Tufts University, where he served as Director of Graduate Music Studies from 2000 to 2010 and Department Chair from 2000 to 2003. He is a composer who tries to play the piano and a pianist who tries to compose. McDonald was named the 2007 MTNA—Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association, and received the 2009 Lillian and Joseph Leibner Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising from Tufts University. In 2010, he received the Waring Prize from Western Reserve Academy, the highest award given to alumni of that school. His recordings appear on the Albany, Archetype, Boston, Bridge, Capstone, Neuma, New Ariel, and New World labels, and he has concertized widely as composer, pianist, and collaborative performer. New releases include pianist Andrew Rangell's performance of McDonald's Meditation Before A Sonata: Dew Cloth, Dream Drapery, on Bridge Records.

Recent performances at the Goethe Institut of Boston, at Tufts, and at many other venues have been highly acclaimed. McDonald is a member of The Mockingbird Trio, directs the Tufts Composers Concert Series, and serves on the boards of several performance organizations in New England. He has recently fulfilled commissions from The Chamber Orchestra of Boston, pianist David Holzman, The Firebird Ensemble (for an Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music Residency, with support from a Meet the Composer MetLife Creative Connections Award), and the ANA Trio (Fredonia University; soprano, cello, and piano), among others. Recent and upcoming performances and projects include a three-concert series with the Mockingbird Trio in Jamaica Plain, a performance of Schubert's Winterreise with saxophonist Philipp Staeudlin at Harvard Musical Association, the formation of a new trio with flutist Marco Granados and saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky, performing as keyboardist in Tod Machover's new opera Death and the Powers, and recordings of Hovhaness's Song of the Sea (with BMOP players on BMOP Sound), an album of American Bass Music with Robert Black (forthcoming on New World Records), a retrospective of McDonald's violin and piano music with soloist Joanna Kurkowicz, and several other recording endeavors.

https://johndmcdonaldmusic.com/

NSM currently offers two works by Dr. McDonald: Three Four-Note Flute Duets, and Three Melodies That Descend for solo flute.