2025 Program Guide | Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

16 CABRILLO FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC 2025 FEATURED COMPOSERS Dr. Stacy Garrop is an award-winning, internationally recognized freelance composer and lecturer whose music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. Her catalog covers a wide range of genres, with works for orchestra, opera, oratorio, wind ensemble, choir, art song, and various sized chamber ensembles. Dr. Garrop has received numerous awards and grants including an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm Music Foundation Grant, Barlow Prize, and three Barlow Endowment commissions. Notable commissions include Forging Steel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra,  There’s a village in my sneakers for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Battle for the Ballot for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Goddess Triptych for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Berko’s Journey for the Omaha Symphony, Forged by the Sea for the U.S. Navy Band, The Transformation of Jane Doe  for Chicago Opera Theater, In a House Besieged for The Crossing, Give Me Hunger for Chanticleer, Glorious Mahalia for the Kronos Quartet, Rites for the Afterlife for the Akropolis and Calefax Reed Quintets, and My Dearest Ruth for voice and piano with text by the husband of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Since 2022, she has served as the featured composer of the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival and the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, with additional guest residencies at the Great Plains Saxophone Workshop, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan State University, Florida State University, Kennesaw State University, University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has previously served as a mentor composer for the Cabrillo Conductors/Composers Workshop, LunART Festival Composers Hub, and the Toulmin Foundation. Garrop is an ongoing mentor for Chicago a cappella’s HerVoice Emerging Women Choral Composers Competition. Theodore Presser Company carries her works. Dr. Garrop is a Cedille Records artist; her works are also commercially available on more than a dozen additional labels. Tyson Gholston Davis is an American composer who is frequently commissioned by organizations such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. His music is characterized by its expansive and resonant textures, imbued with kinetic gestures and a profound connection to the visual arts. His series “Studies on Helen Frankenthaler,” inspired by the artist’s paintings, has been performed by the Juilliard String Quartet and pianist Jonathan Biss. Davis’s 17-minute solo piano work, …Expansions of Light , written for pianist Jonathan Biss, was praised by Biss in The Boston Globe, who commended its intentionality and profound meaning. Similarly, his work Amorphous Figures, inspired by a Frankenthaler’s painting, was co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Juilliard String Quartet, touring extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe.  Recent major works include As Juniper Storms , an orchestral piece for conductor Cristian Măcelaru and the Cabrillo Festival and … inner flame… deep and blue… , a song cycle for soprano Ariadne Greif and a consortium of university wind ensembles. Upcoming projects highlight his versatility, featuring new works for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the JACK Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Players, and Eighth Blackbird. In the summer of 2019, Davis was a composer apprentice with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA), where his work Delicate Tension premiered at the Konzerthaus Berlin conducted by Antonio Pappano. This experience marked a significant milestone in Tyson’s early career, leading to further commissions from ensembles and organizations. His recognitions include the 2024 Copland House Residency Award and the 68th BMI Student Composer Award. He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (high school diploma), a bachelor’s and master’s from The Juilliard School. STACY GARROP TYSON GHOLSTON DAVIS SPONSORED BY CAROLYN & ROBERT LEVERING SPONSORED BY MICHÈLE & LAURENCE CORASH ☆ ☆ ☆ COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE