Atefeh Einali is a santoor player and composer. She studied at the Art University of Tehran, Iran and currently lives in Manchester, where she is doing her PhD in music composition at the University of Manchester. She has also worked closely with various commissions such as Huddersfield contemporary music festival, Southbank Symphony Orchestra, Coma London, Symphony Verbum orchestra, Bridges Orchestra (Frankfurt), the Migrant Voices residency programme by Olympias Music Foundation, the Psappha Composing for Sitar scheme, International Guitar Foundation and IFCA (Iranian female composers association). Recently, she worked on a music score for documentary in collaboration with the University of Sussex. Also, the creative process of her composition was portrayed in the online edition of Audiograft - Oxford's annual festival of experimental music and sound art. Besides that festival, the sketch and process of her piece "I am from nowhere" was released by Toward Sounds online exhibition and Deutschlandfunk radio in Berlin.

Her research is about how to create practices of cross-cultural collaboration for use in compositional methodologies. So, one of her pieces has been chosen for publication in volume 23 of Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture (WAM Journal), the USA.

Lia SU’s work frequently deals with the relationship between listening, music, and space. Working across sound, music, and installation to explore ideas surrounding cross-cultural, gender, and post-digital identity. 

Lia has presented projects in China and the UK, including National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing; 798 Art Zone, Beijing; Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield; Cafe OTO, London, among others.

Lia is currently a PhD student in Musical Composition at the University of Bristol, supervised by Professor Neal Farwell, with guidance from Professor Michael Ellison.

Dominic Wills is an up-and-coming composer, currently based in Hamburg, where he is writing a Doctorate in Science and Music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, supervised by Prof. Fredrik Schwenk and Prof. Roderick Chadwick (of the Royal Academy of Music). Prior to this he completed his Bachelor’s on the ‘Joint’ Course at the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Manchester, where he studied with Professors Adam Gorb and David Horne.

Over the last 8 years, his music has been performed by prestigious contemporary groups such as the London Sinfonietta, Explore Ensemble and Psappha Ensemble, as well by such internationally famous groups as the Tallis Scholars, Royal Opera House Orchestra and Brodsky Quartet. In 2024, Dominic was proud to have had premieres with the Ensemble Resonanz, the Hamburger Symphoniker and the Avanti! Ensemble in Porvoo, Finland. Bayreuth Young Artist's festival has premiered two works by Dominic in the last two years, and his chamber works have been frequently performed at the Hamburg conservatory.

Dominic's music is informed by a keen interest in musical and artistic history, often making use of old forms, techniques and ideas, and recontextualising them to create something new. His passion for birds and the natural world led him to complete internships at the NABU Information Centre 'Blumberger Mühle' in Brandenburg and at Hauke-Haien Hoog in Wattenmeer where he assembled more knowledge about ecology and conservation. These themes play an important role in his music, which often makes use of natural sounds. His most recent work has begun to use technology to explore the formal possibilities present in natural sounds, calls and songs, and using this research to create new musical forms.