Robert Ashley (1930–2014) is known for his work defining a truly “American” form of opera. In Ann Arbor in the 1960s, Ashley organized the ONCE Festival and directed the legendary ONCE Group, with whom he developed his first operas. Throughout the 1970s, he directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College and toured with the Sonic Arts Union. He produced and directed Music with Roots in the Aether, the 14-hour television opera/documentary about the work and ideas of seven American composers. His opera for television, Perfect Lives, is widely considered the precursor of “music-television.” Stage versions of Perfect Lives, Atalanta (Acts of God), Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), Foreign Experiences, eL/Aficionado and the tetralogy Now Eleanor’s Idea toured throughout the US and Canada, Europe, and Asia during the 1980s and 90s. Dust, followed by Celestial Excursions and The Old Man Lives in Concrete followed, from 1999–2012. He finished his last two operas (Crash and Quicksand) in 2013. They were presented posthumously: Crash was part of the 2014 Whitney Biennial; and the Kitchen presented Quicksand early in 2016. (via Roulette)

Ed Madden is the author of six books of poetry, most recently A pooka in Arkansas (Word Works, 2023), selected for the Hilary Tham Capital Collection prize, and six chapbooks, including the hybrid collection Arkansas Luggage (Squares & Rebels, 2025). He served as the inaugural poet laureate for the City of Columbia, SC, 2015-2022. A professor of English and former director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of South Carolina, Madden was named the 2025 Carolina Trustees Professor in Humanities, Social Sciences, Business, and Law. Honors include a poet laureate fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, a SC Governor's Award for the Arts, residencies at the Instituto Sacatar in Brazil and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland, and visiting research positions at the University of Galway, University College Dublin, and Boston College Ireland.

Greg Stuart is a percussionist whose work draws upon a mixture of music from the experimental tradition, Wandelweiser, improvisation, and electronics. His performances have been described as “a ghostly, gorgeous lesson in how close, concentrated listening can alter and enhance perception” (The New York Times).

Since 2006, he has collaborated extensively with the composer Michael Pisaro-Liu, producing a large body of new music for percussion, often in combination with field recordings and/ or electronic sound. In February of 2020—with La Jolla Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steven Schick—Stuart premiered Pisaro-Liu’s Umbra & Penumbra for amplified percussion and orchestra. Alongside fellow percussionists and sound-makers Tim Feeney and Sarah Hennies, Stuart is a member of the trio, Meridian, whose performances and recordings explore unstable acoustic and rhythmic phenomena. 

Recent work by Stuart includes: a trio of recordings with violinist Erik Carlson, performing music by Jürg Frey (Edition Wandelweiser), Clara de Asís (Elsewhere) and Eva-Maria Houben (self-released); Sarah Hennies’ Reservoir 1: Preservation (Black Truffle) composed for Meridian and pianist Phillip Bush; Terra Incognita, an installation co-created with visual artist Naomi J. Falk presented at 701 Center for Contemporary Art comprised of 2x4s, textiles, and 6-channel sound; collaboration with the experimental hip-hop group clipping. for their album Visions of Bodies Being Burned (Sub Pop), which features Stuart’s distinctive approach to percussion on the track “Invocation (Interlude);” and Stuart’s installation, Swales & Sloughs, exhibited at the Harry Hampton Visitor Center at Congaree National Park as part of the traveling Smithsonian exhibit “Water/Ways,” which dynamically combines fifty location recordings with hundreds of photographs, all made/taken throughout the park by Stuart. 

An enthusiastic educator, Stuart has given lectures, workshops, and performances at the University of Huddersfield, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Victorian College of Arts, Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Louisville, the New England Conservatory of Music, Harvard University, Florida State University, Georgia State University, and Tulane University. Stuart holds a D.M.A. and M.A. from the University of California, San Diego, and a BMus from Northwestern University. He is currently Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Music in Columbia, SC where he teaches experimental music, music history, and runs the Experimental Music Workshop.

David Kirkland Garner is a composer, teacher, performer, producer, and scholar whose work is rooted in listening, transcription, and collaboration. His music spans acoustic and electronic media, from solo and chamber works to orchestral, vocal, and film scores.

Recent projects include Mr Baptiste, a collaboration with poet Ishion Hutchinson and Imani Winds inspired by early Afro-diasporic music in 17th-century Jamaica; Chronodrift & Nocturne, a 55-minute work for piano and electronics exploring microrhythm and expressive timing; and Eight Songs for Steffen Thomas, a cello and piano soundtrack for the documentary Steffen Thomas: Rock & Chisel, which premiered on Georgia PBS in 2023. His music has been performed by Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, yMusic, Contemporaneous, earspace, Invoke, Vega Quartet, Ciompi Quartet, Atlanta Chamber Players, and the South Carolina Philharmonic.

Garner's first album, Dark Holler (New Focus Recordings, 2017), drew on archival American roots music, prompting I Care If You Listen to describe his approach as one that "resonates with a visceral, almost hypnotic energy." In 2023 he founded Sourwood Records, a digital label dedicated to new music, which debuted with Eight Songs for Steffen Thomas and has since released Short Stories, Vol. 1 with Greg Stuart, The Great Plains with pianist Molly Morkoski, and Longshore Drift with the Eudaimonia flute quartet.

Garner has received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an ASCAP Young Composer Award, and first prizes in the OSSIA, Red Note, and NACUSA competitions. He is Assistant Professor of Composition at Kennesaw State University, having previously taught at the University of South Carolina for ten years, and holds degrees from Duke University, the University of Michigan, and Rice University.