Internationally acclaimed composer/conductor Victoria Bond’s compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding.” Bond’s operas include Clara (Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival, Germany); Mrs. President (Anchorage Opera); The Miracle of Light (Chamber Opera Chicago); Travels (Opera Roanoke); and A More Perfect Union (The Center for Contemporary Opera, NYC). She was the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School.

Bond has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos and numerous orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard compositions. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, NBC Today Show, People Magazine and the New York Times. Her music is recorded on the Naxos, Koch, Albany, GEGA, Protone and Family Classic labels.

Bond is the creator, producer and Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival, which she hosts every year in New York City. She has been honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Walter Hinrichsen Award and the Miriam Gideon Prize.

Sharon Farber is a Grammy Award-winning and Emmy Award-nominated composer for film, television and the concert stage. She has also been recognized by the Society of Composers & Lyricists, Hollywood Music in Media, the World Soundtrack, Hollywood Independent Music and others. 

A graduate of the Berklee College of Music with a dual major in Film Scoring and Concert Composition, Farber is known for her work with Amazon/MGM, Netflix, NBC, CBS, WB, Disney, Lifetime and more, with film scores that are both commercially released and widely performed. 

In the concert world, Farber has received commissions from the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Juilliard School of Music, the National Children’s Chorus, iPalpiti Artists International The Glendale Philharmonic, and many others.

Farber serves as a board member of ASCAP and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Television Academy and the Recording Academy. She is the former VP of The Alliance for Women Film Composers and a mentor for young composers.

Nineteen-year-old Nikka Gershman is the youngest-ever recipient of the Kovner Fellowship, a full merit scholarship awarded to the most outstanding students at The Juilliard School. In 2024, The Flute Almanac named her Emerging Artist of the Year.

A recipient of numerous international honors, Gershman won the Absolute First Prize at the Concorso Internazionale A Tutto Flauto and was the only flutist selected among worldwide winners of the Classicalia Global PBS Televised Competition. She is also a YoungArts National Winner with Distinction, a recipient of Sir James Galway’s Outstanding Junior Performer Award and a Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant winner.

Gershman has appeared on NPR’s From the Top, New York’s WQXR and The Violin Channel, as well as such venues as the Wiener Konzerthaus, Beethoven House Bonn and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

As a composer and arranger, Gershman has received awards from the International Alliance for Women in Music and the Pacific Musical Society. The young virtuoso is also dedicated to community outreach and bringing music to underserved audiences.

Fourteen-year-old singer, songwriter, actress and voice artist Eden Kontesz, who has been performing since the age of five, has already built an impressive career across film, television and theater. Since 2019, Eden has performed the National Anthem at Angel Stadium’s Supercross opening ceremonies before audiences of more than 45,000.

­­­­­­­­­Kontesz was featured as a soloist in director Catherine Hardwicke’s series Don’t Look Deeper and recorded the theme song for the feature film Jacob the Baker (Amazon Prime), which received a Society of Composers and Lyricists Award nomination. At age nine, Kontesz was selected as a lead vocalist for an international COVID-relief project created by Diane Warren, composer Sharon Farber, director Gev Miron and the United Nations, bringing together singers from six continents and more than 200 musicians.

Kontesz was recently nominated for Broadway World Los Angeles Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof. She has also performed leading roles in The Sound of Music, Frozen and The Wizard of Oz.

Hailed by Fanfare Magazine as “genius,” and by NPR’s iconic critic Jim Svejda as “hugely musical, bewitching, profound and playful…one of the most charming and distinctive composers of her generation,” Maria Newman is an award-winning composer, violinist, violist, pianist, conductor and pedagogue. She has been featured as composer and soloist in such diverse venues as the United States Capitol Building, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Hollywood music scoring stages.

Newman’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by such organizations as the Annenberg Foundation, the Mary Pickford Foundation, Martes Musicales Festival in Mexico City and numerous others. She has been honored with awards and recognition from the US Congress, the California State Senate, the County of Los Angeles, the City of Malibu and ASCAP.

Newman was the critically acclaimed viola soloist for the Grammy Award-winning album Symphonic Hollywood in a performance of Miklos Rozsa’s Viola Concerto with the Nuremberg Symphony. Her recorded works have been released on the Montgomery Arts House Modern Masterworks label, Varese Sarabande, Bay Cities and others.

Ilysia Pierce has led Shabbat and High Holy Day services for Temple of the Arts since 1999. Her voice is also heard on the Temple’s 2003 CD, Enlighten, Sam Glaser’s 25th Anniversary Tribute CD, Stages, and on the benefit compilation Voices for Israel: Keeping the Faith. She was a voiceover artist on the first all-woman audio Bible for at-risk and incarcerated women, produced by Amick Byram and Courage for Life. Pierce’s debut solo album, Blessed, is available on CD and all streaming services.

Outside the Temple, Pierce has sung the National Anthem at over 100 events, including the annual Simi Valley Fireworks display. She has performed as featured guest artist at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Ford Amphitheater, the Saban Theatre and numerous fundraising events.

Pierce’s theatrical credits include the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Frumah-Sara in Fiddler on the Roof, with Theodore Bikel and Lainie Kazan; and Eva Peron in Evita, for which she received a Dramalogue Critics’ Choice Award for outstanding performance