Young Composers Workshop Composition Faculty

Sean Friar, Director of the Young Composers Workshop

Composer and pianist, Sean Friar, grew up in Los Angeles, where his first musical experiences were in rock and blues piano improvisation. His music keeps in touch with the energy and communicative directness of those musical roots, now along with an expansive and exploratory classical sensibility that is “refreshingly new and solidly mature… and doesn’t take on airs, but instead takes joy in the process of discovery [and] in the continual experience of suspense and surprise that good classical music has always championed.” (Slate Magazine).  

He regularly composes for ensembles within and outside traditional concert music. His output ranges from works for orchestra and chamber ensembles to a junk car percussion concerto, music for laptop orchestra, and microtonal piano duo. He has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Modern, Cabrillo Festival, New York Youth Symphony, NOW Ensemble, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the Curtis Institute, the Redlands Symphony, and Present Music. His music has been featured at festivals around the world including Aspen, Bang on a Can, Bowdoin, Cabrillo, Carlsbad, GAUDEAMUS, International Young Composers Meeting, NASA, Norfolk, Nuova Consonanza, SONIC, the Venice Biennale, and the World Saxophone Congress.

A winner of the Rome Prize, Friar has received awards from Copland House, the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, ASCAP, Composer’s Inc., and New Music USA. His music can be found on New Amsterdam Records, Innova Recordings, and Crescent Phase Records. In 2021, his album, Before and After, will be released on New Amsterdam Records.

In addition to directing the composition program at Sunset ChamberFest, Friar is Chair of Composition at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. He also directs the summer composition program at the Idyllwild Arts Academy, and previously taught composition at the University of Southern California and UCLA. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton University and undergraduate degrees in Music and Psychology from UCLA. His principal teachers were Paul Chihara, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, and Dmitri Tymoczko.

Please visit www.seanfriar.com for more information.

Carolyn Chen

Carolyn Chen has made music for supermarket, demolition district, and the dark. Recent projects include an audio essay on a scream and commissions for Klangforum Wien and the LA Phil. Playing the guqin, the Chinese zither traditionally played for private meditation in nature, has informed her thinking on listening in social spaces. Described by The New York Times as “the evening’s most consistently alluring … a quiet but lush meditation,” her work has been presented at in 25 countries and supported by the Berlin Prize, the Fulbright Program, ASCAP’s Fred Ho Award, Stanford University’s Sudler Prize, Soros Fellowships for New Americans, MATA Festival, and impuls Festival. She lives in Los Angeles.

Juan Pablo Contreras

Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a Latin GRAMMY®-nominated composer and Universal Music recording artist who combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. His works have been performed by 30 major orchestras in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela. Contreras has received commissions from Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra, The Riverside Choir, Carlos Prieto, and the Onix Ensemble. He has won awards including the BMI William Schuman Prize, the Presser Music Award, the Jalisco Orchestral Composition Prize, the Brian Israel Prize, and the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Contreras holds degrees in composition from the California Institute of the Arts (BFA), the Manhattan School of Music (MM), and the University of Southern California (DMA). His music has been recorded on Universal Music Mexico, Albany Records, Epsa Music, and Urtext Digital Classics. 

Please visit www.juanpablocontreras.com for more information.

Eric Pham

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, recording producer and engineer Eric Pham has infiltrated, and been influenced by, both popular music and art music. His unique sound stems from his concern with existence in a grey area between genres, embracing a musical language that reflects his energetic and multifarious time and community. As a result, much of his work requires motley ensembles, electronics, and multiple media. Based in Los Angeles, Mr. Pham is currently pursuing is Doctorate of Musical Arts at the USC Thornton School of Music, where he also teaches.

Adam Borecki - Guest Lecturer

Adam Borecki is a composer, guitarist, and audio engineer based in Southern California. He currently teaches music technology at Chapman University, performs guitar with the Kaleidoscope Trio, and creates audio & video recordings for musicians across Los Angeles. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Composition Department Award (University of Southern California), Gluck Foundation Fellowship, Conservatory of Music Award & Summa Cum Laude (Chapman University), Second Place in the Boston GuitarFest Composition Competition, and a commission for the Third Angle New Music Ensemble in Portland, Oregon. As a composer, his works range from string quartets to electro-swing EDM, including multi-media works with acoustic instruments, electronics, and LED lights. A graduate of the University of Southern California, Mr. Borecki’s music has been performed at the Hear Now Festival and all across the United States, in Italy at the Cortona Sessions, and in Paris at the European American Musical Alliance.

Please visit adamborecki.com for more information.