Gerald Busby

Photo: RONALD ANDREW SCHWARZTMAN

Gerald Busby – a native of Texas and graduate of Yale -- is best known for his film score for Robert Altman’s 3 Women and his dance suite for Paul Taylor’s Runes.  As a protégée of Virgil Thomson, Busby moved into the Chelsea Hotel, where, since 1977, he’s written more than 500 music compositions in all genres.   Trinity Wall Street Church honored Busby’s 80th birthday, December 16, 2015, with a concert of his chamber music in St. Paul’s Chapel.  In 2016, the Dublin Arts Council commissioned Pneuma, a solo flute piece, that premiered at the Centennial Celebration of Women’s Rights in Ireland.  New York’s Queer Urban Orchestra, conducted by Julie Desbordes, premiered Busby’s 3 Bagatelles for Orchestra on the first concert of their 2018-2019 season. Busby’s memoir, Getting Saved, currently in progress, began with biographical sketches Scott Stiffler asked him to write for the weekly newspaper Chelsea Now.  

John Carroll

John Carroll (He/They) is a composer currently based in New York, New York. He has earned degrees in Music Performance from SUNY Schenectady County Community College in 2017, Music Composition at SUNY Fredonia in 2020 while studying under Jamie Leigh Sampson, and Musical Theater Writing at New York University in 2022. He has been music director and composer for the Fredonia Theatre Department’s productions of The Grapes of Wrath and Silent Sky, and was composer in residence at Avaloch Institute of the Arts where he developed his micro-opera, "Troubleshooting". In 2023, John Carroll was accepted into the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, where he began work on his first full-length show, “Orlando”, a musical adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name.

Benjamin Savage

Benjamin Savage, a native New Yorker, has been composing music for piano and small chamber ensembles since the mid-1990s. In 2000, he moved to Florence, Italy, where he founded Musike Techne, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts through both traditional and multimedia-infused classical performances. In 2004, his Theme and Variations on “Silent Night” for wind quartet — performed by the Quartetto Rossini — premiered in Florence. In the years that followed, his shorter works for solo piano were presented in historic venues throughout central and northern Italy, including the Church of Santa Margherita de’ Cerchi, the Della Rovere Castle in Vinovo, and the Church of Santa Maria dei Ricci.

 While living in Turin from 2008 to 2009, he composed an extensive collection of two-voice inventions for piano, many of which later appeared in his Opus 1: Twenty-Four Two-Voice Inventions for Piano. In 2014, in collaboration with Kenny Larson at Ballet Arts in Manhattan, he composed Suite for Ballet Class for solo piano and worked closely with the Janusphere Dance Company to develop digital audiovisual elements integrated into their live performances.

 Beginning in 2015, Savage expanded his practice to include the interplay between composition and computer programming, creating a number of experimental works including soundtracks for independent video games and random music generators. During the pandemic, he explored the relationship between augmented reality and music and collaborated with drummer Stuart Pray to develop Groove Stew, a mobile application that generates randomized drum patterns.

 In October of 2026, he completed a cycle of ten songs for tenor and piano. He is currently at work on a musical.

 Benjamin lives in Queens with his wife Masami and their dog Peanut.