Well-known
as a champion of twentieth-century music, Institute director Stephen
Drury has given performances throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and
Latin America, soloing with orchestras from San Diego to Bucharest. A
prizewinner in several competitions, including the Concert Artists
Guild, Affiliate Artists, and Carnegie Hall/Rockefeller competitions,
his repertoire stretches from Bach, Mozart, and Liszt to the music of
today. The U.S. State Department sponsored two concert tours that
enabled him to take the sounds of dissonance to Paris, Hong Kong,
Greenland, Pakistan, Prague, and Japan. He has appeared as conductor
and pianist at the Angelica Festival in Italy, the MusikTriennale
Köln in Germany, Spoleto Festival USA, and with the Britten
Sinfonia in England, as well as at Roulette and the Knitting Factory in
New York. Drury has also performed with Merce Cunningham and Mikhail
Barishnikov in the Lincoln Center Festival, at Alice Tully Hall as part
of the Great Day in New York Festival, with the Boston Symphony Chamber
Players, and with the Seattle Chamber Players in Seattle and Moscow. A
champion of 20th-century music, Drury’s critically acclaimed
performances range from the piano sonatas of Charles Ives to works by
John Cage and György Ligeti. He premiered the solo part of John
Cage’s 1O1 with the Boston Symphony and gave the first
performance of John Zorn’s concerto for piano and orchestra
Aporias with Dennis Russell Davies and the Cologne Radio Symphony. He
has commissioned new works from Cage, Zorn, Terry Riley, Lee Hyla, and
Chinary Ung. Drury has given masterclasses at the Moscow Tchaikovsky
Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Mannes Beethoven Institute and
throughout the world, and served on juries for the Concert Artist Guild
and Orléans Concours International de Piano XXème
Siècle Competitions. His recordings include music by
Beethoven, Liszt, Stockhausen, Ravel, Stravinsky, Charles Ives, Elliott
Carter, Frederic Rzewski, John Cage, Colin McPhee, and John Zorn. 
Dr. Corey Hamm is Assistant Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at the University of British Columbia where he is also Director of The UBC Contemporary Players. He was winner of the 2009 Killam Award for Teaching Excellence. Since 2008 he has given 27 performances of Frederic Rzewski's solo piano epic The People United Will Never Be Defeated! in such cities as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, London, Toronto, Seattle, with more coming. Other recent performances have seen Hamm in works by Sierra, Kurtag, Ligeti, Bermel, Sculthorpe, Desenne, Feldman, Cherney, Harman, Bashaw, Harley, Ryan, Ter Veldhuis, Jodlowski, Gonneville, Godin, Chin, Kapustin, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Chang, Mellits, among many others. Hamm has commissioned, premiered and recorded over 100 solo, chamber and concerto works. He had the opportunity to play the complete solo piano and chamber works of Henri Dutilleux for the composer himself. Future plans include a recording of Rzewski's The People United...!, and another with The Nu:BC Collective, as well as performances of Ravel's Left Hand Concerto, Ligeti's Piano Concerto, Kurtag's quasi una fantasia and the World Premiere of Jordan Nobles' piano Concerto with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Hamm is Co-Director of The Young Artist Experience (YAE), and is also in demand for masterclasses and juries in North America, Asia, and Europe. Dr. Hamm's beloved teachers include Lydia Artymiw, Marek Jablonski, Stephane Lemelin, Ernesto Lejano, and Thelma Johannes O'Neill.
Composer, Sound Artist
Rand Steiger's music has been commissioned and performed by many ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, Ensemble Intercontemporain, International Contemporary Ensemble, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, NYNME, Prism Quartet, San Diego Symphony, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Southbank Sinfonia, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he served as Composer Fellow. Soloists he has composed for include Matthew Barley, Maya Beiser, Claire Chase, Daniel Druckman, Alan Feinberg, George Lewis, Susan Narucki, and Steven Schick.
Throughout his career, Steiger has been deeply involved in computer music research. He has held three residencies at IRCAM, and has enjoyed a long fruitful collaboration with Miller Puckette, the leading computer music researcher of his generation. Steiger is currently Composer-in-Residence at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
Many of Steiger's works combine orchestral instruments with real-time digital audio signal processing and spatialization. They also propose a hybrid approach to just and equal-tempered tuning, exploring the delicate perceptual cusp between a harmony and a timbre that occurs when tones are precisely tuned. Some examples of works deploying these techniques include: Ecosphere, developed during residencies at Ircam and premiered by the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Centre Pompidou in Paris; Resonateur, composed for the Ensemble Sospeso to commemorate the 80th birthday of Pierre Boulez; Traversing, written for cellist Mathew Barley and the Southbank Sinfonia; and Cryosphere, premiered by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York.
He is currently working on the Coalescence Cycle, a set of new works for instruments and electronics to be premiered in New York by the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2013, followed by the Earth Cycle for orchestra and electronics to be premiered by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project in 2014.
Steiger is also active as a conductor specializing of contemporary works. He has conducted the Arditti Quartet, Aspen Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso, La Jolla Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, New York New Music Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (Switzerland), and the California EAR Unit, of which he was the founding artistic director. Among his recordings as conductor are operas by Hilda Paredes and Anthony Davis, and works by Abrams, Carter, LeBaron, Lewis, Osborn, Reynolds, Stockhausen, Subotnick, Xenakis and Wadada Leo Smith. He has also conducted many premieres, including works of Andriessen, Babbitt, Boulez, Brant, Carter, Ferneyhough, Harvey, Kernis, LeBaron, Newton, Nono, Read-Thomas, Reynolds, Riley, Rudders, Rzewski, Saariaho, Scelsi, Subotnick, Wolfe, Takemitsu, Tavener, and Tuur.
His compositions and performances are recorded on the Centaur, CRI, Crystal, Einstein, EMF, Koch, Mode, New Albion, New Dynamic, New World and Nonesuch labels. A new portrait CD will be released by the Talea Ensemble on New World in 2013.
After serving on the Faculty of California Institute of the Arts from 1982 through 1987, Steiger joined the Music Department at U.C. San Diego. In 2009 he was a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.
Yukiko
Takagi received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the
New England Conservatory where she studied with Veronica Jochum and
Stephen Drury. While a student at the Conservatory she was
selected to perform in several Honors programs and appeared regularly
with the NEC Contemporary Ensemble. Ms. Takagi has performed with
the orchestra of the Bologna Teatro Musicale, the John Zorn Ensemble,
the Auros Group for New Music, Santa Cruz New Music Works, the Harvard
Group for New Music and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble. She performs
regularly with the Eliza Miller Dance Company and the Ruth Birnberg
Dance Company and gives frequent duo-piano concerts with Stephen
Drury. Ms. Takagi is a featured performer with the Callithumpian
Consort. Her recording of Colin McPhee’s Balinese Cerimonial Dances
was released by MusicMasters. At New England Conservatory Yukiko
Takagi has appeared on the First Monday series at Jordan Hall, and is a
teacher and guest artist for NEC's Summer Institute for Contemporary
Piano Performance. 
Nicholas Vines (b.1976, Sydney) is a young Australian composer based in the US. His works have been performed in Australia, the US, the UK and Europe by such interpreters as Alarm Will Sound, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ChamberMade Opera, the Callithumpian Consort, Ensemble Offspring, the Schola Cantorum Gedanesis Chamber Choir, White Rabbit, the BT Scottish Ensemble, the Australian Voices, Eliot Gattegno and Liwei Qin. He has received commissions from numerous ensembles and institutions, such as Faber Music, the Callithumpian Consort, Primary Duo, Prana Duo, the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Firebird Ensemble, the Tait Memorial Trust, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, 2MBS FM Radio (Sydney) and Ars Musica Australis. 