Described as “stark” by WNPR, and "darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, winner of 2nd Hildegard competition, recipient of 2019 Female Discovery Grant from Opera America, and a finalist for Beth Morrison Projects’ NEXT GEN Competition, Iranian-American composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been commissioned and performed by Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Library of Congress, I-Park Foundation, National Sawdust Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Center for Contemporary Opera, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, PUBLIQuartet, Forward Music Project, Calidore String Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, Akropolis Reed Quintet, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and Ensemble Connect at numerous festivals and venues including Carnegie Hall, Washington Kennedy Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, and many more. A founding member and co-director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nilou is a strong advocate of music education. In 2014, she worked as the site coordinator of Brooklyn Middle School Jazz Academy sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center. She is currently an adjunct faculty at Molloy College, a co-director of Peabody Conservatory Laptop Orchestra, and she regularly performs with her ensemble, Decipher.

Nilou is a music graduate and a Global Citizen Scholarship recipient of Goucher College as well as a Mahoney and Caplan Scholar from University of Oxford. Among her teachers are Lisa Weiss, Laura Kaminsky, Daniel Weymouth, Matthew Barnson, Margaret Schedel and Daria Semegen. She received a Ph.D. in music composition from Stony Brook University under the supervision of Sheila Silver.

Elizabeth Gartman (b.1996) is a composer and soprano currently based in New York City. Her compositions call attention to the implications behind the vocal instrument paired with the physical body. Her work also explores themes of process in performance, as well as active listening and response. Elizabeth’s compositions have been received in New York at venues such as National Sawdust (Beth Morrison Projects Next Gen 2021), the Mark Morris Dance Center (New Chamber Ballet), and the Manhattan School of Music. Her work has been featured across the country at events such as Songfest in Los Angeles, New Music on the Point near Burlington, the Music by Women Festival at the University of Mississippi, as well as in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, and near Sheboygan, Wisconsin - Elizabeth’s hometown.

As a performer, Elizabeth is dedicated to the contemporary dramatic stage, with a background in classical voice and a current emphasis on new works. She has been received as both a principle and ensemble singer on the dramatic stage, and as a concert soloist. In 2018, Elizabeth was featured as the principle role of "Bibi" in a workshop production of p r i s m; a three-act opera written by Ellen Reid and produced by Beth Morrison Projects. Elizabeth has also been seen in the Lyric Theater @ Illinois productions and Vivace Summer Opera's 2018 production in Vancouver.

Elizabeth received the William Schuman Prize for the Most Outstanding Composition in the 2021 BMI Student Composer Awards, and has been twice recognized as a finalist in ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Competition (2021, 2018). Upon graduating with her Master’s Degree in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music in May of 2021, Elizabeth was awarded the Carl Kanter Prize for Orchestral Composition (first place) and the Giampaolo Bracali Composition Award. At the Manhattan School of Music, Elizabeth studied with Susan Botti (composition) and Lucy Shelton (voice). Elizabeth previously received Bachelor’s of Music Degrees in both Composition and Vocal Performance from the University of Illinois in 2019, where she worked with Dr. Reynold Tharp (composition), Dr. Carlos Carrillo (composition), and Dr. Ollie Watts Davis (voice). Elizabeth serves as a faculty member in composition and theory/ear training at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, and teaches voice and beginning piano with Harrison School of Music.