Karin Rehnqvist is one of Sweden’s most prominent and internationally recognized composers. With her unique combination of Nordic tradition, experimental vocal technique and daring musical innovation, she has contributed to expanding the boundaries of what contemporary art music can be. Her works are marked by a strong connection to Swedish folk music, often utilizing the…

If Belgians were to name one living composer that truly represents the country’s three official linguistic and cultural communities (Flemish, French speaking and German speaking), they would certainly say Jacqueline Fontyn. Born in Antwerp in a bilingual family, Jacqueline Fontyn studied in her home town as well as in Brussels, Paris and Vienna, taking lessons…

Linda Catlin Smith composes music that is informed by a deep appreciation for writers and visual artists, creating work which revels in narrative and harmonic ambiguity. Born in New York City in 1957, she studied composition and theory with Allen Shawn in New York before studying with Rudolf Komorous, Martin Bartlett, Jo Kondo, and others…

Chén Yí 陈怡 is a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries. Over the course of the past four decades, Ms. Chen has developed an extremely fluid bicultural musical vocabulary that has informed virtually everything she has written, whether it is a composition for solo piano, wind band, or…

Anton Haefeli (photo courtesy of the ISCM Swiss Section) Musicologist Anton Haefeli was born in 1946 in Brugg, Switzerland. He studied music, history, and art history at the University of Zurich (where his teachers included pianist and musicologist Kurt von Fischer) as well as piano, music pedagogy, and music theory at the Zurich Music Conservatory, where he…

In addition to his influential activities as a composer, conductor, and teacher, Goffredo Petrassi served one term as the President of ISCM from 1954 to 1956.