The music of composer and pianist Anthony Cheung has been performed internationally by the Ensemble Modern, Musiques Nouvelles, and the Orchestre National de Lille, among others. A 2004 graduate of Harvard University with a joint degree in music and history, Cheung obtained his doctorate in music composition from Columbia University in 2010. In 2006, he was awarded the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which also honored him with the Charles Ives Scholarship in 2003, and won first prize in the 6th International Dutilleux Competition. 

Enno Poppe (b. 1969) is a German composer and conductor. He studied composition and conducting at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin, and has conducted the ensemble mosaik in Berlin since 1998. He won an Ernst von Siemens Composers' Prize in 2001 and has written two operas/theater pieces with librettist Marcel Beyer: Interzone and Arbeit Nahrung Wohnung (Work, Nourishment, Lodging), which premiered at the Munich Biennale in 2008.

Tristan Murail (b. 1947) was until last year professor of composition at Columbia University. He entered Olivier Messiaen's class at the Paris Conservatory in 1967, and was awarded the Rome Prize in 1971. For many years, he collaborated with IRCAM in Paris, teaching composition and participating in the development of the computer-assisted composition programs PatchWork and OpenMusic. His most recent piece, Les sept paroles, premiered in 2010 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Fausto Romitelli (1963-2004) was an Italian composer who studied composition at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan and moved to Paris in 1991, where he became a student of Hugues Dufourt and Gérard Grisey. From 1993 to 1995 he was compositeur en recherche at IRCAM. His music has been performed at festivals such as the Festival d'Automne (Paris), the Venice Biennale, and the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. His video opera An Index of Metals was awarded the Franco Abbiati Prize by Italian music critics in 2004.

Steve Lehman (b. 1978) is a New York-based composer and saxophonist. He received a M.A. in composition from Wesleyan University in 2002, and a doctorate in Music composition at Columbia University. He has performed and recorded nationally and internationally with his own ensembles and with those led by Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer, Dave Burrel, Mark Dresser, and Oliver Lake, and his compositions have been performed by leading contemporary ensembles. His recording Travail, Transformation & Flow was chosen as the #1 Jazz Album of the year by The New York Times.

Originally from Korea, Unsuk Chin (b. 1961) currently lives and works in Germany. She studied composition at Seoul National University before moving to Hamburg in 1985, where she studied with György Ligeti. She was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in 2004 and the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2005. She has also been composer-in-residence with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, in addition to being performed by many of the world's great orchestras and chamber ensembles.

Marcos Balter (b. 1974) is a Brazilian composer based in Chicago. Described as "vital, imaginative, and surrealistic" by The New York Times, his music is delicate and full of intricate sonorities. Balter completed his doctoral studies in music composition at Northwestern University, where he received both the William Karlins Composition Award and the Faricy Award for Creative Music. He is currently the Director of the Music Composition program at Columbia College, Chicago.

Wang Lu (b. 1982) is a Chinese composer and pianist based in New York. Her works have been performed internationally by groups such as the Minnesota Orchestra, Shanghai National Chinese Orchestra, Musiques Nouvelles Ensemble of Belgium, and Nouvel Ensemble Moderne of Canada. She is a recent first prize winner of the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne Forum for Young Composers and the Tactus Young Composers Forum in Belgium, a finalist of Gaudeamus Music Week 2010 in Amsterdam, and received a Tremplin commission from the Ensemble Intercontemporain/IRCAM.

Bernhard Lang (b. 1957) is an Austrian composer who is particularly interested in repetition and loops and our perception of them. He is well known for the provocatively titled opera I Hate Mozart, composed for the Viennese Mozart annual festival in 2006. His piece Das Theater der Wiederholungen, premiered at Graz in 2003, and Monadology II was given its British premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival in September 2008, broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Lang is a professor of composition at Graz University.

Ryoji Ikeda (b. 1966) is a Japanese composer based in Paris. Working entirely within digital media, he creates pieces that explore the outer reaches of the frequency spectrum and which often include a visual component. Since 1995 he has been intensely active in sound art through concerts, installations, and recordings. Ikeda received the Golden Nica prize at Prix Ars Electronica 2001 in the Digital Music category.

Benedict Mason (b. 1954) is a British composer who has composed work in many genres. His soccer opera Playing Away was commissioned by the Munich Biennale and premièred in 1994 by Opera North. Many of his recent works have concentrated on the spatial dimension of music, such as the "Concert Halls" series, which, in his words, “explore the relationship of sound to architectural space." He has collaborated with leading groups such as the Ensemble Modern and the London Sinfonietta.

Alex Mincek (b. 1975) is a New York-based composer and performer. His compositions have been performed at major music festivals, including the Festival Présences of Radio France, Voix Nouvelles at the Abbaye de Royaumont, and Festival des Musiques Démesurées, and he has collaborated with groups including Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Cairn, and the Talea Ensemble. Mincek currently serves as the saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and artistic director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, a group dedicated to contemporary music that he founded in 1998.

Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) is a Chicago-based composer who has taught at the Eastman School of Music and Northwestern University, and was recently appointed University Professor of Composition at the University of Chicago. Thomas was composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many years. Her extensive experience writing for the orchestra has resulted in many commissions and performances with the great orchestras of the world (Berlin, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and many others).