Spectralism, a compositional movement or “attitude” that emerged in the 1970s, offered breathtaking new perspectives not only on the compositional process but also on the processes of performers and listeners.

Marilyn Nonken is one of the most celebrated champions of the modern repertoire of her generation, known for performances that explore transcendent virtuosity and extremes of musical expression. Upon her 1993 New York debut, she was heralded as “a determined protector of important music” (New York Times), and she has been recognized as “one of the greatest interpreters of new music” (American Record Guide).

The American composer Joshua Fineberg (b. 1969) began his musical studies at age five. As an undergraduate, he studied at the Peabody Conservatory with Morris Moshe Cotel. In 1991, he moved to Paris and studied with Tristan Murail and, the following year, was selected by the IRCAM/Ensemble InterContemporain reading panel for the course in composition and musical technologies. In 1997, he returned to the United States to pursue a doctorate in musical composition at Columbia University, which he completed in 1999. In 2007, he assumed a professorship in composition and the directorship of the electronic music studios at Boston University, and in 2012 he became the founding director of the Boston University Center for New Music.

The French composer and philosopher Hugues Dufourt (b. 1943) received his musical training at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano with Louis Hiltbrand (1961-68) and composition and electroacoustics with Jacques Guyonnet (1965-70). He was a member of the pioneering ensemble L’Itinéraire, which he also co-led from 1976 to 1981. In 1977, he founded the Collectif de Recherche Instrumentale et de Synthèse Sonore (Instrumental and Sound Synthesis Research Collective). From 1982 to 1998, he headed the music information and documentation centre Recherche Musicale at the CNRS, which was to become a mixed research unit of the CNRS, the École Normale Supérieure, and IRCAM. He founded a doctoral program for 20th-century music and musicology in which the École Normale Supérieure and IRCAM are also involved, and which he oversaw until 1999.