The American Mavericks Project Presents 'The Next Generation: Celebrating Young Women Composers'

Brooklyn, NY – The American Mavericks Project’s presents pianist and AMP founder Chelsea Randall’s solo recital “the Next Generation: Young Women Composers” at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music on Friday, March 28, 2024 at 7pm. The program, which spotlights some of today’s most talented emerging composers, features pieces by AMP’s 2024 Call for Scores winners Lilyanne Dorilas and Lawren Brianna Ware, world premieres by Luna Composition Lab alums Jordan Millar and Ebun Oguntola, Wildflower Composers alums Mena Williams, Chloe Clarke Smith and Kimani Bridges,  Bloomingdale School of Music’s A4TY alum, 11-year-old Zuri Butler and others.

The American Mavericks Project, founded in 2022 by pianist Chelsea Randall, celebrates piano music by Black American composers through commissions, performances, education and research. AMP’s Next Generation Initiative amplifies piano music by young, emerging Black composers. Opportunities include performances, commissions, the Next Generation Prize, which awards one composer under 30 $500 to write a new piano piece for performance by AMP, and a bi-annual Call for Scores.

Event Details

The Next Generation: Celebrating Young Women Composers
Chelsea Randall, pianist
Friday, March 28, 7pm
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 7th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Tickets: Suggested donation of $12. The concert will also be livestreamed.
Ticket link: https://bkcm.org/event/next-generation/

Program

Evergreen - Jordan Millar
Black Amber - Lilyanne Dorilas
Pith - KiMani Bridges
A Stroll in the Park - Zuri Butler
Quartantina - Ebun Oguntola
Modern Prelude and Minuet - Mena Williams
Borealis - Lawren Brianna Ware
Piano Collections Vl. 2 - Brittney Benton
Splash Fight - Sena Ahouandjinou
The Forest - Chloe Clarke Smith

Chelsea Randall, pianist

About the Composers

Sena Ahouandjinou is 8 years old and lives in Manhattan with her Mom, Dad and 10 year old brother. She has been learning and playing music for as long as she can remember. She started playing piano at 5 years old and took up composing as a hobby a few years ago, always enjoying sitting at her piano at home to experiment with melodies. She joined Bloomingdale School of Music’s A4TY program two years ago to put her composing creativity to work.

Brittney Benton (b. 1999) holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition with a Minor in Music Technology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is attending the Yale School of Music for her Masters in Music Composition. She is very interested in working outside of the concert hall, especially in the realm of video game music.? Brittney’s music has been performed by the Bellevue Chamber Chorus, ZOFO, the Beo String Quartet, the Lowell Chamber Orchestra, the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, SOLI Chamber Ensemble and more. She was named one of the winners of Chicago a Capella’s “Her Voice Competition” in 2022. In 2024 she was named one of the winners of the SOLI Chamber Ensemble’s “30x30x30” competition and was a recipient of Kind of Kings “Bouman Fellowship”. Recent composition festivals include the 2020 Charlotte New Music Festival and Connecticut Summerfest 2021. She also attended the inaugural Akropolis Chamber Music Institute (ACMI) in 2022. Last summer, she attended the 2024 Alba Music Composition Festival in Alba, Italy.? Her principal teachers include Jennifer Bellor, Viet Cuong, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, and David Lang.

Described as "striking" and "inventive" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), composer and flutist KiMani (Key-Mahn-ee) Bridges (b. 2003) is a dynamic artist whose expressive style and distinctive technique differentiates her in contemporary circles. KiMani’s music, colorful and personalized, explores a space where suspense, mystery, majesticness, and curiosity coexist.  Most recently, the Louisville native has been commissioned, performed, and premiered by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Louisville Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and at Musaics of the Bay, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Festival of Faiths. Bridges has performed at venues including Auer Hall at Indiana University, Bird Hall at the University of Louisville, and the Kentucky Center for the Arts. She has attended festivals including VIA Academy, Umoja Flute Institute, the Aria Music Festival, the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and Ensemble Evolution. In 2019-20, she was awarded fellowships with Luna Composition Lab and bespoken (2021), as well as the Loretto Project's Pathways Initiative Program and was named a NextNotes High School Creator Award Winner of 2020 by the American Composers Forum. Bridges earned her B.M. in composition with a flute concentration from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in 2024. KiMani will be pursuing her masters in composition as a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at The Juilliard School.

Zuri Butler is an 11-year-old 6th grader. She is enrolled in the Bloomingdale School of Music's Training Program for young, advanced pianists. Zuri looks forward to participating in the A4TYas a BSM student. Sh3 enjoys how A4TY provides a collaborative opportunity to create original music.

Lilyanne Dorilas (b. 2002) is a Boston-based violinist and composer. She earned Bachelor’s degrees in Cognitive Science and Music from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in 2024, studying violin with Dr. Stephen Sims and composition with Dr. Kristian Schembri (CIM). In February 2024, she was the first CWRU Concerto Competition winner in the school’s history to compose, perform, and premiere a movement of her Violin Concerto No. 1 with CWRU’s Symphony Orchestra. She was the soloist on her big band tune “Old World” (2023), and the Cleveland Chamber collective premiered her neoclassical string quintet “4 ½ Stages of Grief” (2022) in 2023. Dorilas’ versatile style is infused with jazz, blues, instrumental rock, and Post-Romantic classical harmonies. She is a passionate advocate for expanding classical music repertoire and pedagogy, performing works by composers of color influenced by multiple genres. Aside from music, she enjoys speaking Mandarin and writing her historical fiction novel.

Jordan Millar (age 18), from Brooklyn, New York, began composing in the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers Program. Her piece “Boogie Down Uptown” was performed by the Philharmonic, profiled in The New York Times, and awarded the 2019 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award. Jordan has written for the New World Symphony, And Play Duo, Chromic Duo, Mivos, Argus Quartet, O Kwarteto, Intersection Music, Face the Music, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Opera Italiana. Accolades include Mata Jr., Bespoken, New York Youth Symphony, New Music Initiative for Black Voices and a 2022 ASCAP Award for Masquerade. Jordan is entering her first year at Columbia University.

Èbùn Oguntola is an avid, award-winning 19-year-old composer, conductor, producer, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who thrives off the adrenaline-inducing surge of artistic exploration. She is currently a sophomore at Harvard College (studying mathematics and statistics) while also attending Berklee College of Music as part of the Joint-Studies program (studying film scoring and music production). Her works have been performed by numerous musicians across the US, including a commission to write a piece, “Reactions,” for GRAMMY award-winning violinist Johnny Gandelsman that was featured on The NY Times and performed at the MET Museum and Carnegie Music Hall, with the full album, This is America: An Anthology 2020-2021, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart. In 2021, Èbùn was featured on NPR’s From the Top, where she was interviewed by Kevin Olusola from the three-time GRAMMY award-winning group, Pentatonix, and her piece, The Dimensions, was recorded and performed (by Peter Dugan, Charles Yang, and Doori Na). She has also been commissioned to write for New Thread Quartet under mentorship from Pulitzer-Prize winner Tania León and Erin Rogers with the organization Composers Now. Other works of hers have been performed by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, BIT20 Ensemble in the Bergen International Festival, Little Orchestra Society, The Apollo Ensemble of Boston, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra, and more.

Chloe Clarke Smith (b. 2003) is a composer-pianist from Baltimore, MD. Her music explores atmospheric and ethereal worlds, with emphasis on telling a new story with each piece. Chloe is currently pursuing her bachelor's in composition at the Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee.

Dr. Lawren Brianna Ware (b. 1994), a Gadsden, Alabama native, is a graduate of The University of Wisconsin-Madison where she earned her DMA in Music Composition with a minor in musicology. Compositionally, Dr. Ware’s goal is to “write music that makes one feel.” Although she is an “up and coming” composer, she has begun to secure her place in the world of contemporary classical composition. Dr. Ware’s compositions have been featured on several professionally recorded albums including Cobus du Toit’s “From the Rooftop”(2024), Marcus Eley’s Grammy nominee contender (2023) “Perseverance,” Jessica Johnson’s “Sojourn”(2023), the Amernet Quartet’s “Alabama String Quartets (Birmingham Arts Music Alliance)”(2020) and Dr. Cole Bartels’ “On the Brink”(2022). Her most recent projects include working as a Lullaby Teaching Artist for the Overture Center’s Lullaby Project, being the inaugural composer and co-founder of the Black Composer Revival Consortium, composing for the Minnesota Consortium for Black American Composers (2020), and composing and releasing an electronic music album in conjunction with comic book writer Jaromir François on the comic My Brother Teddy (2021). 

Mena Williams (b. 2002) is an Afro-Caribbean American composer and classical pianist from Miami, Florida. She started composing at the age of eleven, courtesy of a summer camp offered at the University of Miami. Where she realized that she enjoyed expressing herself through her 0wn music rather than through someone else’s. Mena is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition at the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music in Redlands, California. Along with pursuing a BM in Music Composition, Mena is also pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing with emphases in fiction and poetry. Because of her love of story-telling and music, Mena’s main goal as composer is to write for different types of visual media such as films, video games, and dance.