RED NOTE New Music Festival

05/06/2026

Congratulations to Justin Weiss (RED NOTE Workshop 2025 alumnus) on being named Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Florida School of Music!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXweU-jjm9U/?igsh=MWl1NHV1djNwcGEx

05/06/2026

Congratulations to Ben Morris (RED NOTE Workshop 2020 alumnus) on being named Assistant Professor of Composition at UMKC Conservatory!

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1548798857255470&set=a.484930620308971

UMKC Conservatory is excited to announce our new faculty colleague, Dr. Ben Morris, Assistant Professor of Composition.

Ben is a composer and jazz pianist whose music crosses genre boundaries and tells unconventional stories that often engage with the natural world. His music has been described as "witty" (Wall Street Journal), “heart-touching” (OperaGene), "fresh" (All About Jazz), and "wonderfully inventive" (Tom Cipullo). He earned his bachelor's degree at University of Miami, master's degree at Rice University, and Doctor of Musical Arts at University of Colorado Boulder, all in music composition.
Morris's creative work and research is often inspired by his Norwegian heritage. He lived in Oslo, Norway, on a Fulbright Grant composing a work for extended big band and video and received an American-Scandinavian Foundation Grant to research the influence of folk music on Norwegian jazz. His debut album, "Pocket Guides," was released in June 2022 on Origin/OA2 Records and takes elements from Norwegian folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music. The album garnered him two Downbeat Awards, an ASCAP Herb Alpert Award, a big band commission from New York Youth Symphony's First Music and an invitation to perform with his quintet at Newport Jazz Festival.

Also a versatile film, theatre and opera composer, Morris scored the documentary films "American River," which premiered at Montclair Film in 2021, and "Saving the Great Swamp: The Battle to Defeat the Jetport," which won best documentary at the 2017 New Jersey Film Festival. His projects with his librettist collaborator Laura Fuentes include Las Auténticas for the Washington National Opera American Opera Initiative, The Fall of Man and Other Tales, a multimedia work for the ATLAS B2 Black Box, Colorado Sky, a shadow puppet opera in collaboration with Sohap Ensemble, and The Rip Van Winkles, a youth opera commissioned by The Glimmerglass Festival.

His works are published by Alias Press, an affiliated publisher of Theodore Presser.

04/25/2026

Some photos from this year's Festival!

04/24/2026

Congratulations to Jiyoun Chung (RED NOTE Workshop 2014 alumna) and Ryan Lindveit (RED NOTE Workshop 2015 alumnus) on being named Assistant Professors of Music Theory and Composition at Texas Christian University!

03/24/2026

Quintet Attacca collaborating with ISU student composers!

03/23/2026

Rehearsals underway with Trio Diorama!

03/17/2026

⭐️ COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: YOUNJE CHO ⭐️
Meet Younje Cho, one of the eight gifted composers participating in this year's RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop!

Tell us about your music! What excites you as a composer?
"My music engages with a wide variety of topics and concepts, such as the relationship between humans, nature, and other living beings; philosophical reflection; the depth of emotional and psychological resonance; healing; and essential values that I hope we humans pursue. I'm drawn to spiritual resonance that may lead toward essential goodness beyond emotional impact, as well as broader existential questions."

Can you tell us anything about your new piece for the RED NOTE Composition Workshop?
"My piece, 'Studies I,' consists of four movements. Each movement explores a different concept and set of sonic and musical ideas, through which I examine how these ideas might interact with materials that frequently appear in my music. Through these movements, I experiment with various textural, structural, and technical approaches. I hope this exploration helps deepen the artistry, creativity, intellectual depth, and genuineness of my future works, even in a small way."

Is there a fun fact about yourself that you’d like to share?
"When I'm completely lost in my thoughts, I sometimes don't notice what's going on around me. People might be talking to me for a while before I realize it. So if that happens... feel free to nudge me to bring me back! 😆"

Learn more about Younje here! https://younjecho.com/

02/19/2026

⭐️ COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: GABRIEL DUARTE ⭐️
Meet Gabriel Duarte, one of the eight gifted composers participating in this year's RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop!

Tell us about your music! What excites you as a composer?
"I consider myself a 'cosmopolitan' composer who does not set rigid boundaries between musical styles, demonstrating compositional diversity and versatility that spans contemporary, classical, and popular music—especially Brazilian popular music. In my work, I seek to reflect this intersection of musical languages through my research, with a strong emphasis on rhythmic elements."

Can you tell us anything about your new piece for the RED NOTE Composition Workshop?
"'Pássaros de Madeira e Vento' (Birds of Wood and Wind) is a work for wind quintet that explores the ensemble as a space for sonic investigation, instrumental experimentation, and timbral combination, seeking to construct the piece through the integration of these elements. The piece is inspired by my research on imaginary birdsongs and the transcription of birdsongs, processes that have contributed to the development of my personal and musical language. The work proposes an intersection between the transcription of birdsongs from northeastern Brazil and their development through variations and other compositional processes. In addition, the work pays tribute to the Brazilian painter and sculptor Sérvulo Esmeraldo (1929–2017), born in Crato, Ceará, the same region where the birds selected for this composition originate."

Is there a fun fact about yourself that you’d like to share?
"A fun fact about me is that I am an amateur photographer."

Learn more about Gabriel here! https://www.gabrielduartecompositor.com/

02/15/2026

⭐️ COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: IAN JONES ⭐️
Meet Ian Jones, one of the eight gifted composers participating in this year's RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop!

Tell us about your music! What excites you as a composer?
"In my music I like to explore the roles of rhythm and timbre in relation to structure. A large amount of my music recreates electronic effects acoustically, driving the decisions for these elements. I am inspired by topics in psychology, social issues and the human experience."

Can you tell us anything about your new piece for the RED NOTE Composition Workshop?
"My piece for RED NOTE is inspired by the opening measures of the 'Intermezzo' in B minor from Brahms' '4 Klavierstücke.' I took the simple idea of falling thirds and put them through processes similar to simple electronic effects such as time stretching, delays, and filtering. The results are layered into a rich collage of sound."

Is there a fun fact about yourself that you’d like to share?
"I'm in a punk band! And I love to hike."

Learn more about Ian here! https://www.iantjonescomposer.com

02/11/2026

⭐️ COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: FERNANDO DIAS GOMES ⭐️
Meet Fernando Dias Gomes, one of the eight gifted composers participating in this year's RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop!

Tell us about your music! What excites you as a composer?
"What I love most about composing are the rehearsals and the collaboration with the performers. I enjoy the bonds that my music can create."

Can you tell us anything about your new piece for the RED NOTE Composition Workshop?
"It took me a while to find a subject for my new piece. I am aiming for something energizing and aggressive."

Is there a fun fact about yourself that you’d like to share?
"I love crafting origami: whenever I have the opportunity, I will fold a crane from a napkin or any piece of paper."

Learn more about Fernando here!
- https://www.fernando-dias-gomes.com/
- https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/2UDGP9QNgEHCwwKPvIKzK0

01/16/2026

The judging for the RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Competition - Category A (Chamber Ensemble) has now concluded. There were 553 submissions from 46 states, territories, and provinces in the United States and Canada and from 38 other nations around the world. Works that were not submitted anonymously were eliminated from competition. Initial rounds were judged by the Music Composition faculty at Illinois State University. The Final Round was judged by the esteemed composers:

Andreia Pinto Correia (Independent composer)
Norbert Palej (University of Toronto)
David Rakowski (Brandeis University)

The results of the competition (Category A) are as follows:

WINNER: A melody drifts like a memory past..., by Arjan Singh Dogra (New York, NY)

RUNNERS-UP:
Beyond Color There Is Light, by Justin Weiss (Fair Lawn, NJ)
Spaces Real or Imagined, by Benjamin Krause (Holland, MI)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Inner Life, by Carl Bettendorf (Bronx, NY)
Mass, by Lauri Marjakangas (Helsinki, Finland)
A Schubert Tune with a Gershwin Touch, by Anak Baiharn (Bangkok, Thailand)

Arjan Singh Dogra will receive the $1000 prize, and his winning work will be performed on March 26th, 2026, on the final concert of the RED NOTE New Music Festival in Normal, Illinois.

As always, we received many outstanding submissions in a wide variety of aesthetic styles. We wish to congratulate Arjan and all of the finalists, and we thank all of the entrants -- it was a joy to discover so much great new music!