2026 COMPOSERS' HUB COHORT
We are delighted to announce the 2026 LunART Festival Composers' Hub Cohort. Selected from a highly competitive pool, these six composers stood out for their exceptional artistry, originality, and compelling musical voices.
We are honored to celebrate these outstanding women composers and look forward to bringing their music to life at the 2026 LunART Festival. Congratulations to all!
AIRLEA DEUSTCHER
Composition: A TURN WITH THE SUN for wind quintet
Airlea Deutscher is a composer, singer-songwriter, and bassoonist from Bayport, New York, pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Composition and Music Education at SUNY Fredonia. Her work is generally programmatic, combining elements of folk music with leitmotifs and modal mixture. Airlea has had several premieres at Fredonia, her most recent being "The Combine," a saxophone and piano work based on Ken Kesey’s "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest." In September, she was selected to perform three of her works at “FredSong,” a showcase of songwriters across SUNY Fredonia. As a member of the Fredonia Bassoon Ensemble she performed her piece, "Safari Stomp!," at the 2025 NYSSMA Conference in Rochester last December. Airlea studies composition with Dr. Andrew Martin Smith and Dr. Emily Joy Sullivan, and has participated in masterclasses with Lisa DeSpain and Dr. Jennifer Higdon. She studies bassoon with Laura Koepke.
Instagram: @airleadeutschermusic
CHLOE DESTENO
Composition: SONG CYCLE NO. 1 for soprano, cello, and piano
Chloe DeSteno is a Boston-based composer and singer. Two of her most recent projects include “O Clarissima Mater”, a choral piece commissioned by Cappella Clausura, and “Romance”, a duet for violin and piano set to premiere this spring. She has worked with numerous ensembles and organizations including Choral Chameleon, the Crepusculum Choir, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, the Berklee Flute Society, and the Berklee/Boston Conservatory National Association of Teaching Singing. In her early life, Chloe DeSteno studied at The Rivers School Conservatory, where she earned a Young Artist’s Diploma and received departmental awards in composition and voice as well as the conservatory-wide Director’s Award. Having completed her undergraduate degree at Berklee College of Music last spring, she is a recipient of the Berklee World Tour Scholarship, and the Amy Beach and Jim Reyes Departmental Scholarship Awards. There, she served two years as president of the Society of Composers, a departmental organization where she and her board members helped foster over one hundred student premieres during her residency. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in composition at New England Conservatory.
LAUREN GREENBERG
Composition: NIGHTMARE RAG for solo piano
Lauren Greenberg is a composer and performer from Toronto, Canada. Her music has been performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, Peterborough Concert Band, The Odin Quartet, Contemporaneous, Yarn/Wire, Splinter Reeds, BlackBox Ensemble, The Rhythm Method, The Untitled Ensemble, Factory Seconds, Arx Duo, and Stellae Boreales. In 2024, she was one of five composers nationwide selected for the Winnipeg New Music Festival Composers Institute, where her orchestral work Bonds Of Cosmic Origins was premiered. Lauren earned her Master of Music in Composition at NYU Steinhardt, studying with Julia Wolfe and Herschel Garfein and a B.M. in Composition with a minor in Screen Scoring from Boston Conservatory at Berklee having studied under Eun Young Lee, Marti Epstein, Timothy McCormack, and Victoria Cheah. Lauren studied composition under established Canadian composers Kevin Lau and Saman Shahi.
MARI ALICE CONRAD
Composition: WHERE THE WATER WERE for B flat clarinet and string quartet
Mari Alice Conrad is an award-winning, emerging composer based in Alberta, Canada completing her doctorate in composition at the University of Alberta. She specializes in concert works for soloists, chamber ensembles, choirs, and large ensembles. Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, her research-creation has included travel to the Canadian High Arctic and Greenland, informing projects that explore climate change, place, and sound. Her doctoral work examines the artistic practices of women in classical concert music, with particular focus on women’s creative authority, and investigates how aging, lived experience, and situated knowledge shape artistic practice through the intersection of music, space, light, objects, movement, and geography. Her work continues to gain momentum across Canada and internationally.
She currently holds a composer fellowship with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Her music has been performed by the Canadian Chamber Choir, BBC Singers (UK), UltraViolet (AB), Standing Wave (BC), Okanagan Symphony (BC), Ensemble ArtChoral (QC), Pro Coro Canada, Luminous Voices, Exultate Chamber Singers, Allegra Chamber Orchestra, SHHH!! Ensemble, Edmonton Winds, and the University of Alberta Symphony Orchestra. Recent recording projects include collaborations with violinist Erin James, Edmonton Winds, Exultate Chamber Singers, Ensemble ArtChoral, and the SHHH!! Ensemble.
SASCHA BEAMER
Composition: DREAMING OF THE INDIGO SEA for solo piano
Sascha Beamer (B. 2001) is an American composer and Clarinetist. She studied Music Composition at a collegiate level under the direction of Dr. Jiyoun Chung. She also took lessons from Dr. Kevin Day before returning to Dr. Jiyoun Chung for her master's studies. Sascha is an advocate for storytelling through music. Her music always has a story behind it, from as simple as the sun rising to as complex as retelling a Norse creation Myth. She believes that the stories told in their music should be understandable to any listener, not just a musician. Sascha pursues this philosophy through her compositions, always sewing a story into her music. Sascha has been featured at festivals such as the 2023 Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, the 2023 CWU New Music Festival, and the 2026 Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival. Sascha was also a finalist for the 2023-2024 Marion Brown Prize and the 2024 Alba Composition Festival. Sascha has also received the Robert Scandrett Memorial Award.
ZOE YOST
Composition: A MIDSUMMER'S DAYDREAM for flute, viola, and cello
A gritty, imaginative wayfinder, Zoe Yost centers her artistic life at the crossroads. Recent composition projects include Risen, an Easter anthem commissioned by Newark United Methodist Church; Seal Lullaby, a choral setting commissioned by San Francisco Choral Artists; Veils: A Symphonic Poem; and Three Pictures from Kīlauea for brass quintet. Her compositions have been premiered by artists including David Friend, members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Choral Chameleon Ensemble, Eight Strings & a Whistle, and San Francisco Choral Artists. Her trio, A Midsummer’s Daydream, was the winner of Eight Strings & a Whistle’s 2024 Composer Competition. She was San Francisco Choral Artists’ June 2025 Composer in Residence and is working on active commissions for Empire City Men’s Chorus, Ensemble For These Times, and Choral Chameleon. Her string quartet, Seven Scenes, was selected for performance by the Attacca Quartet at the 2026 TUTTI New Music Festival, and she was a finalist for the 2026 NATS Art Song Composition Award.
Yost is also a violist, commended for her “compelling and daring live performance” of Bartók’s Viola Concerto (San Francisco Classical Voice). She is also Artistic Director of the Lower Brandywine Choral Festival, a community choral program, and is a creative writer and visual artist.