San Diego New Music | Emerging Composers Concert: RAVE Quartet | Athenaeum Art Center | Logan Heights

Emerging Composers Concert: RAVE Quartet
San Diego New Music
Monday, August 11, 2025
7:30 PM

Each year, the Emerging Composers Competition (hosted by San Diego New Music) solicits musical scores from college-age composition students across the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. They select the most promising young composers to write a brand-new work for their annual concert dedicated to the music of local students.




Former executive director and current board member of San Diego New Music Eric Starr reports: “The goal from the outset was, and still is, to provide undergraduate college composers with a platform for their work to be heard outside the university.” The composers must either study at a college in San Diego or, if studying elsewhere, have graduated from a San Diego County high school. Starr says, “The local talent is immense and San Diego New Music and the Athenaeum can be proud to be part of the ecosystem that nurtures such talent.”




The composers are selected from a pool of applicants and compose an original piece for the concert. Professional performers collaborate with the composers in the rehearsal process just as they would with a professional composer and do everything they can to honor the music.




Come join us to hear the emergent voices of new classical music in San Diego!

Featuring the RAVE Quartet:
Rachel Allen, trumpet
Anahita Pestonjamasp, flute
Ryan Simmons, bassoon
Eric Starr, trombone (and Director of the Emerging Composers program)



Selected Composers:
Perla Chavez—Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC)
Robyn Kaminsky—San Diego State University (SDSU)
Georgia Phipps—Biola University/Palomar College
Gerry Reoyo—San Diego State University (SDSU)
Brian Velazquez—San Diego State University (SDSU)

Composer Biographies


Perla Chavez was born in Mérida, Yucatán, México. She began my musical studies in 2016 at the Instituto de Bellas Artes de Baja California (IBAEBC) and in 2022 completed the preparatory program at the Centro de Estudios Musicales (CEM) in Ensenada, Baja California. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music with a focus on piano and composition.

Throughout her training, she has participated in choral and orchestral ensembles, as well as festivals such as Neofonía. She has collaborated with performers in composition workshops, including Creative Notation for Creative Interpretation, Book of Premonitions, and Composing for the Motion-Sensitive Organ. Her work combines acoustic, electronic, and visual elements, exploring personal sonic narratives.

Chavez has also taken complementary courses such as Entrepreneurship for Independent Artists and Applied Computing, in which she developed electronic pieces using Pure Data. Her piece Amor, Tiempo y Muerte premiered at Bread & Salt (San Diego) and the UABC (Autonomous University of Baja California) School of Arts.


Robyn Kaminsky is a young San Diego–based composer specializing in the integration of electronics in live and produced music. They are very fond of less traditional ensembles and exploring different combinations of instruments and textures. Kaminsky has integrated the electronic wind instrument into many live performances and pieces, which has culminated in their design and creation of the Dragonfly, a wind synthesizer entirely programmable by the user. Through this project, Kaminsky examines what it means to shape sound with our bodies and how interaction with one’s instrument shapes the way they play.



Georgia Phipps is a rising composer and musician whose work is deeply confrontational, engaging not only with personal themes and life events but also with the natural world. With a unique voice in contemporary classical music, Phipps creates compositions that are complex yet accessible. She views music as an invitation into her world—an open door for listeners—not a barrier to entry.

After earning an occupational associate’s degree in audio engineering and studying piano performance at Palomar College, Phipps is continuing her education in music composition at Biola University. As a rising composer in the San Diego area, her compositions have received two commissions from San Diego New Music. Notable collaborations include working with renowned bass trombonist Ilan Morgenstern and with the chair of the music conservatory at Biola University, Dr. Robert Denham. She created an electronic arrangement of Denham’s Sizzl’, which was performed across the United States in 2024.

Drawing inspiration from composers like Olivier Messiaen and Claude Debussy, Phipps’s approach to harmony balances the beauties and the darker sides of the human experience. Her chamber works, in particular, capture a sense of intimacy and emotional depth, offering a reflection of her journey to reclaim closeness in a world that often seeks to strip it away. These compositions create a timeless journey that listeners can engage with on a personal level.

Throughout her work, Phipps strives to infuse her music with deeply emotional ideas, using sound as a medium to tell powerful stories and create awareness around important social issues. A passionate advocate for gender equality in the arts, she actively seeks to create platforms for women in the music community, ensuring their voices are heard and celebrated.


Gerry Reoyo

Gerry Reoyo is a 26-year-old composer and violinist based in the Los Angeles area. He is a recent, 2025, graduate from SDSU’s school of music and dance. They will continue on to a master’s degree program at CSU Northridge, furthering their education in music composition. Reoyo hopes to one day teach music composition at the collegiate level.


Brian Velazquez is a San Diego native studying and finishing his undergraduate work in composition at SDSU. With the opportunities at SDSU, he has written in multiple different genres and styles—from classical style quartets, symphonic orchestras, string orchestras, and digital compositions. Velazquez takes heavy inspiration from Japanese video game composers to write programmatic music in both a digital and concert setting. With support and guidance from SDSU faculty, he is set to graduate in the spring of 2026.

About San Diego New Music:
San Diego New Music is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the public performance of notated music of the highest integrity and artistic caliber from the 20th and 21st centuries. We seek to advance the art form by promoting music composed with conceptual rigor, passionate energy and singular artistic vision. SDNM enriches the artistic culture of San Diego through the presentation of an annual concert series and the soundON Festival of Modern Music, and through fostering its resident performing ensemble, NOISE.



In 1994, the only place in San Diego where you could hear an entire concert of 20th-century music was on a college campus. San Diego New Music pitched the idea of a concert series devoted to modern music and 20th-century classics at the Athenaeum. The concerts of modern music perfectly complement the exhibitions of modern art held in the Athenaeum’s galleries. In 1996, San Diego New Music presented its first season. The series was called “Noise at the Library,” and the ensemble would later adopt the name, as well. San Diego New Music and the Athenaeum have been happily co-presenting concerts of new music ever since.



For more information on the organization go to www.sandiegonewmusic.com.