As a DJ, composer and curator, Mason Bates has become a visible advocate for bringing new music to new spaces. “Life of Birds” consists of six short movements, each a miniature study of life in an aviary. The somewhat unusual instrumentation of two winds and two strings is ideally suited to capture the wide variety of expression from a multitude of birdsongs.

The music of Juhi Bansal (b. 1984) weaves together themes celebrating musical and cultural diversity, nature and the environment, and strong female role models. Her music draws upon elements as disparate as Hindustani music, the spectralists, progressive metal, musical theatre and choral traditions to create deeply expressive, evocative sound-worlds. As an Indian composer brought up in Hong Kong, her work draws subtly upon both those traditions, entwining them closely and intricately with the gestures of western classical music.

Gabriela Ortiz, born in 1964, is one of today’s leading composers, known for blending Mexican folk, classical, and avant-garde styles into a distinctive, globally resonant voice. Born in Mexico City to founding members of Los Folkloristas, she studied in Mexico and London, earning a doctorate in composition and electronic music.

Jessie Montgomery is a GRAMMY® Award-winning composer, violinist, and educator whose work interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. At the heart of Montgomery’s work is a deep sense of community enrichment and a desire to create opportunities for young artists and underrepresented composers to broaden audience experiences in classical music spaces. She was named Performance Today’s 2025 Classical Woman of the Year.

Michi Wiancko is a versatile and highly imaginative composer, violinist, and collaborator, whose multi-faceted creative projects and organizational work prioritize artistic discovery, as well as community resilience and social change.

Aftab Darvishi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1987. She started playing violin at age five, and as she grew older, she began playing other instruments like the kamancheh (Iranian string instrument) and classical piano.

“Daughters of Sol” was commissioned as part of the Kronos Performing Arts Association’s Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, which is made possible by a group of adventurous partners, including Carnegie Hall and many others.

Launched in their 2015/16 season, Kronos’ Fifty for the Future is commissioning 50 new works—by 25 women and 25 men—devoted to contemporary approaches to the string quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. Kronos has premiered each piece and created companion digital materials, including scores, recordings, and performance notes, which can be accessed online for free.

LJOVA (Lev Zhurbin) stands at the forefront of his generation as the premiere bridge between the world's musical cultures. Ljova was born in 1978 in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between performing as a violist in diverse groups ranging from his own LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, to string quartets, jazz combos and Gypsy bands; studying and arranging music for Yo-Yo Ma, the Kronos Quartet, Jay-Z and others; and composing original music for film, TV, theatre and the concert stage.