Gala Flagello (b. 1994) is a composer and horn player, as well as the co-founder and Festival Director of the nonprofit contemporary music festival Connecticut Summerfest. She was the 2017 Composer in Residence for the Nonnewaug High School Music Festival in Woodbury, CT and the 2016 Composer in Residence at the Unitarian Society of Hartford. Gala is a recipient of the Edward Diemente Prize for Excellence in Creative Activity (The Hartt School), the Artist Scholarship (Artists for World Peace), and the Dorothy Greenwald Graduate Fellowship (University of Michigan). In 2017, she received an EXCEL Enterprise Grant for her project Educational New Music for Developing Voices, a collaboration with educator Jacqueline Bouffard to create a comprehensive online resource for the composition of contemporary works for vocalists in kindergarten through high school.

Gala recently scored the short film Break a Leg, sponsored by the University of Michigan, and will premiere two new works at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY in August 2018. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree from The Hartt School and is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Composition degree at the University of Michigan under the tutelage of Michael Daugherty. More information may be found at www.galaflagello.com.

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Jacqueline Bouffard (b. 1994) is a choir teacher and musical director at the middle school level with a degree in Music Education (Vocal Emphasis) from The University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music. She has been the director of the music program at Camp Courant, Hartford Connecticut’s oldest and largest summer day camp, since its inception in 2016. In 2017, she received an EXCEL Enterprise Grant for her project Educational New Music for Developing Voices, a collaboration with composer Gala Flagello to create a comprehensive online resource for the composition of contemporary works for choral groups in kindergarten through high school.