Rib III by Amir Khalaf
Postscriptum (2x11x12): The Melancholy of Perfection(ism) by Thomas Wally
Poema by Francisco Corthey
blue/white by Sam Krahn
Chiaroscuro by Joshua Musikantow
Little Chauchat by Tiffany M. Skidmore
Jungles III by Caroline Louise Miller
Approximations by Anna-Louise Walton
Performances by
Forbes Graham, trumpet
Kyle Hutchins, saxophone/bass clarinet
Riley Leitch, trombone
Rebecca McDaniel, percussion
Walt Skidmore, electric guitar
Justin Anthony Spenner, voice
Shannon Wettstein, piano
Constellation
3111 N Western Ave Chicago, IL 60618
March 23, 2025
8:30 pm
Joshua Musikantow
Joshua Musikantow
Joshua Musikantow (b. 1981) is a Twin Cities composer whose music has been performed in concerts and festivals in England, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and across the United States. He has completed commissions for 113, andPlay Duo, Acute Trio, Noriko Kawaii, Zeitgeist, The No Exit Ensemble, Strains New Music Ensemble, Loadbang, Duo Gelland, Chartreuse trio, The Spitting Image Collective, The Gregorian Singers, the Artemis Vocal Ensemble, among many others. He has been a recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship, the JFund award, the Zeitgeist call for scores, the New Music USA creator development fund, and the FCA emergency grant. He earned a BM in Music Composition and BA in English at Lawrence University, a MA in Music Composition at the University at Buffalo, and a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Minnesota, studying under James Dillon. He is chair of the development committee in the new music presenting organization, 113.
Shannon Wettstein
Pianist Shannon Wettstein invites audiences to hear connections between daring new music and historical masterworks. About why she makes music, “For me, it’s about taking risks—I love taking audiences along with me into unknown territory.”
With over 400 premieres, Shannon has performed at Lincoln Center, at Boston’s Gardner Museum, at the Ft. Worth Modern Art Museum, and Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego. Steve Smith of the New York Times wrote that her performance at The Stone was “full of subtleties no recording could catch...a reminder of why we attend concerts.”
Recent performances include Hong Kong’s City Hall, the Monteverde Institute of Costa Rica, and the Camerata of Cremona, Italy. Awards include those from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, and Chamber Music America.
Shannon’s teachers include Sequeira Costa at the University of Kansas, Stephen Drury at the New England Conservatory, and Aleck Karis at the University of California San Diego. Other significant teachers and coaches include Claude Frank and Ben Zander.
Shannon is an assistant professor of piano at Michigan State University and host of Dr. Avant-Garde, a podcast about moving the art of music forward in the 21st century.
Find information about Shannon’s recordings of works by Xenakis, Anthony Davis, Chopin, and others at www.shannonwettstein.com.
Kyle Hutchins
Kyle Hutchins is a visionary experimental performance artist, composer, improviser, and educator, forging new sonic frontiers with his saxophone, voice, cutting-edge technology, and an arsenal of unconventional instruments. Hailed as “epic” (Jazz Times) and “gripping” (Star Tribune), Kyle’s music has been showcased at prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall and The Walker Art Center, and featured at festivals across five continents, including the World Saxophone Congress, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, and the International Computer Music Conference. His artistry has earned him accolades from DOWNBEAT, New Music USA, The American Prize, and American Protégé, as well as recognition in The Roanoker Magazine’s “40 under 40” for 2024.
A leading figure in experimental performance and electroacoustic new music, Kyle has premiered over 350 new works and appears on more than thirty albums as both a leader and sideman. He regularly performs with 113 Composers Collective, Fonema Consort, and Strains Ensemble, and has worked with prominent composers and performers including Pauline Oliveros, George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, Douglas Ewart, and Claire Chase. Kyle has also developed long-standing collaborations with many contemporary artists such as Ted Moore, Tiffany M. Skidmore, Joey Crane, Emily Lau, Elizabeth A. Baker, Charles Nichols, Eric Lyon, and many more wonderful artists and dear friends.
“Part of electroacoustic improv’s well-hewn dynasty” (Downtown Music Gallery), Kyle is an eminent improviser whose playing is described as “undoubtedly brave” (Issues Magazine) and “frankly unsafe” (I Care If You Listen). His work can be heard on labels such as Carrier, Lurker Bias, Noise Pelican, and Mother Brain, as well as at festivals and series like afterMAF, SKRONK, and CUSP. His ongoing projects, including Binary Canary, Kill All Kings, and Banshee, draw on influences from free jazz, noise music, and punk rock.
Since 2016, Kyle has been a faculty member at Virginia Tech, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Practice in the School of Performing Arts and Director of the New Music + Technology Festival and ArtX Program at the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts and a Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, and Bachelor's degrees in Music Performance and Music Education from the University of North Texas, studying under Eugene Rousseau, Eric Nestler, Marcus Weiss, and James Dillon.
Kyle is a Performing Artist for Yamaha, Légère, and E. Rousseau Mouthpieces.
Justin Anthony Spenner
Praised as a “Standout” with “boisterous comic energy” by the Star Tribune, Baritone Justin Anthony Spenner is known throughout the Twin Cities for his artistic honesty and engaging versatility. At home with Schubert as he is with Stockhausen, Justin’s appearances run the gamut from oratorio staples with regional organizations to world premieres of experimental music with 113 Composers Collective. As a 2016 Artist Initiative Grant recipient, Justin produced a staged version of Schubert’s Die Winterreise, which used dance and commissioned photography to reimagine the piece through the lens of mental illness. Recent stage credits include Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte) with Skylark Opera Theatre, Philocome (La belle Hélène) with Lakes Area Music Festival, John Sorel (The Consul) with Arbeit Opera Theatre, Morales/Dancaïro (Carmen) with Pine Mountain Music Festival, 2nd Priest/Armored Man (Die Zauberflöte) with LAMF, and Billy Bigelow (Carousel) with The American Gothic Performing Arts Festival.
Soloist credits include Niccolai Messe/Coronation Mass/The Messiah (Haydn/Mozart/Handel) with St. Johns Lutheran Music Series, DIVAS & DRAG with AOT, Choral Fantasy (Beethovan) with St. Johns University, and Ein Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) with South Metro Chorale. Upcoming concerts include multiple appearances with La Grande Bande, Joey (The Most Happy Fella) with Skylark Opera Theatre, a world premiere as The Father (The Golden Ass) with 113 Composers Collective, and Schaunard (La Bohème) with Theater Latte Da. In addition to performing, Justin keeps an active private studio, develops Opera Immersion classes, and works as a grant editor/consultant for various Twin Cities art non-profits and individual artists.
Forbes Graham
Forbes Graham (b. 1977) is a composer, musician, sound artist, and visual artist whose work explores themes of simultaneity, perceptibility, transformation and collage. He was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Silver Spring, MD. He attended American University, studying music composition, in the mid to late 90s and was involved in the DC and Maryland hardcore scenes, playing in a number of bands and releasing music on his label RiceControl. In the early 2000s, he moved to New England, where he got involved with Boston's free jazz and improvised music scenes. His work Encounters I for trumpet, electronics, and voices premiered at Roulette in 2019. In 2020, he was selected to work with the JACK Quartet as a part of JACK Studio. The JACK Quartet premiered String Quartet no. 3 that year, which was dedicated to LaToya Ruby Frazier. The piece For Sam Gilliam I, meant to be a tribute to the pioneering painter as well as a meditation on color, was premiered by loadbang in 2022. Earlier that year, [Switch~ Ensemble] premiered Inflection: Beacon Hill/Roxbury, which was commissioned by a LAB Grant from The Boston Foundation. Inflection: Beacon Hill/Roxbury, was written in honor of the migration of the last African American institution to leave Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood, the Charles Street AME Church. The Overlook Quartet performed his string quartet Crossing in 2021 at Mass MoCA amongst Linda Sormin's installation Stream. He performed with Michael Pisaro at (the) co-incidence festival in 2017 and has appeared at other music festivals including High Zero, Vision, The Thing In The Spring, and The Festival of New Trumpet. Graham has appeared on over 40 albums, primarily on trumpet, but also on electronics. He is a member of Mobius Artists Group, a collective of experimenting artists. Past composition teachers include Chaya Czernowin, Eric Wubbels and Julia Werntz.
Tiffany M. Skidmore
Tiffany M. Skidmore is an American composer and performer based in Montréal, Québec, where she is currently a McGill University Visiting Professor in residence at CIRMMT (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). From 2023-2024, she held the Birge Cary Chair in Music Composition at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). She is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Co-Artistic Director of the Twin Cities-based 113 Composers Collective, an organization that produces the Twin Cities New Music Festival, as well as concerts and guest artist residencies throughout the world.
Dr. Skidmore has received numerous awards for her work from organizations such as the Schubert Club, the Jerome Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Rimon, and Opus7. She was a 2017 John Duffy Institute for New Opera Fellow, a 2018 McKnight Composer Fellow, and the 2018-2019 Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble Composer-in-Residence. Her chamber, choral, and orchestral work has been interpreted by acclaimed experimental music specialists throughout the United States and Europe, including Kyle Hutchins, Tiffany Du Mouchelle, Talea, TAK, loadbang, andPlay, Bent Duo, Fonema Consort, Ensemble Dal Niente, Duo Gelland, and many others. Her work has been featured in national and international festivals, including the US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, the International Clarinet Association Festival, the MN Made Festival, the Shockingly Modern Saxophone Festival, the Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival, the New York City Electronic Music Festival, the OpenAir Festival (Sweden), the Open Days Festival (Denmark), and the World Saxophone Congress (Gran Canaria), among others. She is on the composition faculty of the Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival, the Sofia Symphonic Summit, and the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival.
Dr. Skidmore holds degrees in Music Composition and Vocal Performance from Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University, and the University of Minnesota, where she studied with James Dillon and theorist Michael Cherlin, followed by post-doctoral studies with Chaya Czernowin.
Soprano Nina Dante writes that “Tiffany Skidmore’s music brings to mind Sciarrino’s description of his own music: hearing it is like watching a volcano erupt from afar. While Skidmore’s music burns its own path outside of Sciarrino’s aesthetic, the description holds true. Her music often features slow moving textures dotted with energetic events (imagine a constellation moving across the sky over the course of the year, and interjecting shooting stars), a starry sound world, coldly emotional content, and a mix of musical abstraction with direct theatrical/conceptual content. For these reasons, like reading a myth of ancient times, we experience the drama of her works from a distance.”
As a performer, Skidmore has sung professionally with the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Opera companies, Spokane Symphony Chorale, the Minnesota Chorale, the Contemporary Music Workshop, Hymnos Vocal Ensemble, the Gregorian Singers, the 113 Composers Collective, and as a free-lance soloist, primarily performing early and experimental music.
Riley Leitch
William Riley Leitch is a Chicago area trombonist. Riley has performed at the Nief Norf Festival, soundSCAPE Festival, and the Lucerne Festival Academy where he studied with members of Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ensemble Modern. Riley has premiered over 30 new works for solo trombone, chamber ensemble, and orchestra at events and venues such as Ear Taxi Festival and Red Note New Music Festival. He is currently commissioning new works for trombone that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Rebecca McDaniel
Rebecca McDaniel is passionate about sharing music with others and about supporting the creativity of young musicians. Relying on music as a unifying force, Rebecca seeks to share curiosity and joy as a performer, educator, and arts administrator. She is an active chamber percussionist, who works frequently with exploratory performance collaborative Beyond This Point and classical chamber ensemble 5th Wave Collective. As an educator, she is on faculty at the Merit School of Music. She also works as the Development Manager for the Grammy Award-winning quartet Third Coast Percussion, supporting the ensemble’s performance, education, and collaborative programs.
Rebecca attended Furman University (B.A. Music, B.A. Earth and Environmental Sciences) and the University of Missouri-Columbia (M.M., Percussion Performance). When she isn’t playing or supporting performances, she is most likely found hiking, biking, or otherwise outdoors.
Thomas Wally
Thomas Wally is an Austrian composer, violinist and senior lecturer of music theory courses at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. His music has been performed in Europe, New York, Canada, Argentina, Iran, Hong Kong and Tokyo by ensembles and orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Academy Symphony Orchestra Hong Kong, Klangforum Wien, PHACE, OENM, Mondrian Ensemble, ensemble risonanze erranti, ensemble mise-en, Ensemble STYX, Ensemble Zeitfluss, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, ensemble LUX, Ensemble Platypus, Ensemble Reconsil, Ensemble Wiener Collage, Hugo Wolf Quartet, Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band, Studio for New Music Ensemble Moscow, Trio Frühstück, Webern Symphonie Orchester, Wiener Concert-Verein and the Zalodek Ensemble.
His compositions have been broadcasted by Ö1, Kulturradio RBB, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, SRF, France Musique and NHK (Japan). Thomas Wally has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships such as the Austrian state scholarship for composition (2009, 2012, 2018), the Helmut Sohmen composition prize 2009, the Outstanding Artist Award 2010 by the Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture and the Förderungspreis of the City of Vienna 2012. 2015 his composition loop fantasy was awarded the 2nd prize at the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, Tokyo. 2016 he received a Theodor Körner Förderpreis for Caprice (VII) ultrajaune. Thomas Wally is recipient of the Musik-Preis der Stadt Wien 2016 ("Music Prize of the City of Vienna") and of the Ernst-Krenek-Preis 2020 (awarded for cycle: 25 easy pieces). 2020 a portrait CD, recorded by the Mondrian Ensemble in the ORF RadioKulturhaus Vienna, was released by the Austrian label col legno.
As a violinist, Thomas Wally dedicates himself to the performance of contemporary music, inter alia as co-founder and violinist of ensemble LUX. Since 2002 he is a frequent substitute with the Vienna Philharmonic and since 2001 in the Vienna State Opera. In a new radio series called “Neue Musik auf der Couch” (Ö1, Zeit-Ton) each month Thomas Wally analyses a string quartet written within the last hundred years.
Thomas Wally studied composition with Dietmar Schermann, Erich Urbanner, Chaya Czernowin and violin with Josef Hell at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In 2005/2006 he spent an exchange year at the Sibelius-Akatemia Helsinki as a student of Paavo Heininen.
Walt Skidmore
Walt Skidmore works as a software developer and makes music whenever he can. Though primarily a trumpet player, he also plays guitar, bass, piano, and many other instruments. He performed Laborintus II (Berio) with the Contemporary Music Workshop, Consolation II (Lachenmann) for the 2018 Twin Cities New Music Festival, Six for New Time (Oliveros) and Sound Patterns and Tropes (Oliveros) for the Zeitgeist Early Music Festival, Diary of a Lung (Takasugi) for the 2021 Twin Cities New Music Festival, and contributed sound material to Vessel (Horton). He also performs regularly with the Buffalo Silver Band. When not working or making music, he spends time with his wife, Tiffany, children, and menagerie of pets. He's happy to be performing as part of this concert.
Sam Krahn
Sam Krahn is a composer, guitarist, performer, and teacher. His works have been performed by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble, TAK Ensemble, E4TT, the Fidelio Trio, Ensemble Uusinta, Ensemble Dal Niente, Duo Gelland, Bent Duo, the Cascade Quartet, Adriana Zabala and Kelly Kuo, the Artemis Vocal Ensemble, loadbang, Strains New Music Ensemble, the Virginia Tech New Music Ensemble, the Gregorian Singers, Benjamin Cold, Bill Solomon, and many others. He has received numerous commissions to compose new works for Ed Harrison of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Maraca Concerto), Duo Gelland (Butoh Study #1, Resistance/Resonance), Nexus Duo (Moon Forms), Bill Solomon (Cascade/Noise Generator), Great Falls Symphony (Sounds for Silent Film), Harper College (Spring Dirge), Benjamin Cold (flux-mirror), and the Anaphora Contemporary Ensemble (String Quartet No. 1). In December of 2015, his first musical comedy, An Evening with Krampus was premiered in a 5-show run at the Phoenix Theater in Minneapolis.
He participated in the 17th World Saxophone Congress and Festival, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the MATA Festival in New York City, the 2014 Source Song Festival in Minneapolis, the 2015 Root Signals Electronic Music Festival, the 46th Ball State Festival of New Music and the 70th annual Cheltenham Music Festival in England. He has participated in artist residencies in 2015 at the Millay Colony in New York and Brush Creek in Wyoming. Sam was the 2017/2018 Artist in Residence at the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Contemporary Art, where he created an interactive installation: Sound/Play. He received a grant from New Music USA for a new 35-minute work for saxophone and electronics and was a recipient of the 2017 Montana Arts Council Artist’s Innovation Award.
Sam previously taught as a faculty member at Montana State University, the University of Providence, Great Falls College – MSU, and as a Graduate Instructor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Dr. Krahn is currently a faculty member in the music department at Green River College in Auburn, WA.
Sam is a founding member of the Minneapolis composer collective 113. He also founded the Montana Improvisers Orchestra in Great Falls, Montana, and directed the ensemble from 2016-2018.
Sam received a Ph.D. in music composition at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, studying with James Dillon. He also holds a M.Mus. in music composition from Roosevelt University where he studied with Stacy Garrop and Kyong Mee Choi, and a B.Mus. in classical guitar performance from Boston University. Sam is a classically trained and experienced guitarist. He has played in numerous rock bands, classical ensembles, improvisational groups, and as a soloist.
Francisco Corthey
Francisco Corthey was born on August 6, 1991, in Entre Ríos (Argentina). From an early age, he participated as a percussionist in many different musical projects, especially Argentine folk music and rock. At the age of 18 he moved to La Plata, Buenos Aires, where he completed a degree in Music Composition tutored by Mariano Etkin among others, and Orchestral Conducting. By that time, he took violin lessons with distinguished violinists from the Teatro Argentino de La Plata Symphony Orchestra, and for three years he was a member of the Teatro Argentino Chamber Orchestra as principal second violin. He was also the percussionist of Tapeku’a, an Argentinian Littoral music band. In 2021 he received a Master’s degree in composition from the Georgia Southern University (USA), where he was tutored by Martin Gendelman. In Spring 2022, he completed an Artistic Diploma at the Grieg Academy – University of Bergen (Norway), tutored by Dániel Péter Biró. Since Fall 2022 he is a PhD candidate in composition at SUNY University at Buffalo under the supervision of Tiffany Skidmore. He actively participated in several composition conferences and festivals such as TACEC Generation (Argentina 2018), with Simon Steen Andersen, Trio Catch and cellist Séverine Ballon; CEME Festival (Online Israel 2020/21) with Mauro Lanza and Meitar Ensemble; Darmstadt Summer Course (Online Germany 2021) where he had lessons with Chaya Czernowin, Mark Andre, George Lewis, and Isabel Mundry; Sounding Philosophy, organized by Dániel Péter Biró (Bergen, Norway), where he presented new compositions and had lessons with Marta Gentilucci and Samir Odeh-Tamimi, as well as workshops with Neue Vocalsolisten, Schola Heidelberg and Ensemble Aisthesis; June in Buffalo (2023) where he had masterclasses with Ann Cleare, Robert HP Platz, Melinda Wagner, and Mathew Rosenblum, and worked on a new piece for the Arditti Quartet; ilSUONO (2023) where he had lessons with Carmine-Emanuele Cella and Sivan Eldar and worked on a new piece for bassist Giacomo Piermatti; Impuls (2023) where he had lessons with Franck Bedrossian and Pierluigi Billone.
Anna-Louise Walton
Anna-Louise Walton is an American composer of chamber, orchestral, and electronic music. In her music, she explores concepts of mimicry, the notation of improvisatory rhythms, and the utilization of household objects such as PVC pipe, shot glasses, and knitting needles.
Her works have been performed by ensembles such as Hypercube Ensemble, Ekmeles, TAK Ensemble, the Bergamot Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Trio Catch, Fonema Consort, Quatuor Diotima, Mivos Quartet, Surplus Ensemble, Ecce Ensemble, Switch~ Ensemble, Versipel Collective, and the Wooster Symphony Orchestra. Her music has also been featured at Musikprotokoll, MATA Festival, IRCAM’s ManiFeste, Darmstadt International Summer Course, Royaumont Voix Nouvelles, Heidelberger Frühling Festival, Schloss Summer Academy, impuls Festival, VIPA Festival, Electric LaTex Festival, New Music on the Bayou, and highSCORE Festival.
In 2020, Walton served as a mentor for young composers in MATA Jr. She has received a BMI Student Composer Award (2019), the Walden County Promising Young Composers Competition Award (2021), the IAWM Choral/Vocal Ensemble Prize (2021), and the Martirano First Prize Award (2023). Recent commissions include works for Trio Zukan, as winner of the EHTE Composition Contest in 2021, and for Proton Bern, having been selected for Protonwerk No. 13 in 2022.
In her work as a scholar, Walton researches approaches to composition with unconventional vocal techniques, the perception of slowness in music, the use of rudimentary objects in new music, and the work of women composers such as Éliane Radigue and Anna Korsun. In 2022, she presented her paper “On Slowness: The Perception of Time in the Music of Éliane Radigue” at the 8th International Conference on Music and Minimalism at Bowling Green State University.
Though Walton did not start composing formally until her junior year at Scripps College, where she received a B.A. in music studying under Tom Flaherty, she grew up playing the piano and singing from a young age. She then went on to study composition at Kunstuniversität Graz with Beat Furrer. Walton received an M.A. in music composition from Tulane University in 2018, where she studied with Rick Snow. She then went on to study Sonology at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague. In 2024, she earned her doctorate in music composition from Columbia University, where she studied with Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, and George Lewis.
Caroline Louise Miller
Caroline Louise Miller (they/them) is a US composer based in Portland, Oregon. Common themes in their work include affect, ecology, labor politics, tactility, materiality of media, dreams, and hidden dimensions of reality, often within dreamlike musical spaces that thread field recordings, shimmering textures, and romantic melodic lines through harsh noise and clattering dissonances. They have enjoyed wide-ranging collaborations, and have been supported by numberous grants, fellowships, and commissions. These have most recently included funding through Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, Sonic Matter Festival, Alarm Will Sound/Matt Marks Impact Fund, SPLICE Ensemble, Chamber Music America, Guerilla Opera, Transient Canvas, Ensemble Adapter, and others. Their music is performed nationally and internationally.
In 2014, Miller worked as an artist-in-residence aboard a Scripps Institution of Oceanography research vessel in the Philippine Sea, sailing from Kaohsiung, Taiwan to Koror, Palau. Field recordings from the ship were used to compose the score for a feature-length experimental documentary by Lyndsay Bloom about daily life aboard the ship. From 2012-2017, Miller organized and curated an annual new music and cross-disciplinary collaborative showcase at the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. At Portland State, Miller co-organizes ReWire Festival, an annual spring showcase of work involving collaborations between SAMP, Theater, and other disciplines.
Miller is currently Assistant Professor of Sonic Arts at Portland State University, where they teach courses including electronic music composition, songwriting, studio production, and music for visual media. Their songwriting class is designed as an inclusive, student-led workshop culminating in an annual multi-genre showcase of songs. They a hold a Ph.D in Music from UC San Diego. In their spare time, they enjoy learning about zoology and sonic behaviors of animals and ecosystems.
Amir Khalaf
Amir Khalaf, born in Cairo, Egypt. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts in Cairo and studied composition at the University of Birmingham.
In his music, Amir explores the notion of deficiency and decay as well as the limited sonorities of musical instruments. He is interested in transforming motion into sound objects by creating ephemeral and insufficient acoustic environments inspired by Nature, folk music, and electronic music.
He attended masterclasses and individual lessons with Pierluigi Billone, Frank Bedrossian, Dieter Ammann, Oscar Bianchi, Raphaël Cendo, and Mark Andre. He participated in Festivals such as Impuls, reMusik, Sound of Wander, Festival Mixtur, Young Euro Classic Festival, and Etchings Festival. He worked with ensembles such as Quatuor Bozzini, Ensemble Linea, Quartetto Maurice, mdi ensemble, The Callino Quartet, Vertixe Sonora, and AYPO Philharmonic Orchestra.