Private Music Composition Lesson Scheduling

Brian Buch teaches at Berklee College of Music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the New England Conservatory School of Music’s School of Continuing Education. He also privately teaches composition, classical and jazz piano. As a composer, he writes for all genres of classical music from orchestral to chamber and solo instruments and is a founding member of the International Cat Murr Composer's Society. Brian received his Doctorate in Music Composition from Boston University and his Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition with an emphasis in Piano Performance from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. He has studied with Alla Cohen, Sam Headrick, Richard Cornell, Don Freund, and Sven-David Sandström.

Brian has received two second place prizes and a first prize from the MTNA Young Artist Composition Competitions, two Honorable Mentions from the International Robert Helps Composition Competitions and one from the Second International Lepo Sumera Composition Competition in Tallinn, Estonia, a finalist prize in the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Composition Competition in Brussels. He was also a finalist in the 4th International Haifa Composers Composition Competition in Haifa, Israel, a recipient of the 2009/2010 Wainwright Prize, a winner of the Boston University Soloists Composition Competition, a recipient of numerous ASCAP Plus awards, and a finalist award in the Second International Competition for Young Composers. Brian has collaborated and received commissions from many leading contemporary soloists and chamber music ensembles including the Talea Ensemble, Daedalus Quartet, JACK Quartet, ALEA III, RUSQuartet, James Baker of the New York Ballet, members of the New York Philharmonic, and violinist Yevgeny Kutik.

His music has been released by record labels MSR Classics, Centaur Records, Marquis Classics, and ABLAZE Records and broadcast extensively on radio stations throughout the world. He has released four albums of original music: Shifting Spheres (chamber orchestra works performed by the Talea Ensemble), From the River Flow the Stars (string quartets performed by the Daedalus Quartet), Poems to Sing at Night (solo piano works performed by the composer), and Stone of Traveling Winds.

As a teacher of composition I prioritize the potential of my students’ material—to show what can be extracted from their ideas to create unique works derived from their individuality. I draw on my experiences as a composer and pianist of jazz and classical music, helping my students express themselves in the direction of their choosing.

Taiwanese-American conductor Tiffany Chang has garnered recognition through two Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Awards, the OPERA America Grant for Women Stage Directors and Conductors, and the American Prize in Opera Conducting.

She’s been engaged by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, the Dallas Opera, Portland Opera, Minnesota Opera, and Opera Columbus. Her other engagements include BlueWater Chamber Orchestra, Brookline Symphony Orchestra, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Dinosaur Annex New Music Ensemble, and more.  

She authors the Conductor as CEO blog and has been an active guest speaker and published contributor for Routledge Press, Notes from the Podium, PM World Journal, Girls Who Conduct, Sound Mind, and more. She’s also been a participant of global leadership development cohorts such as Forefront and the altMBA.

For the first decade of her career, Chang served as a conductor and professor, contributing to orchestral programs at Oberlin Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, Boston University, and Baldwin Wallace Conservatory.

She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from Boston University and several degrees from Oberlin Conservatory in cello performance, music education, composition, and music theory. Visit www.tiffanychang.net for more.

My goal is to help students deepen their musicianship through the craft of conducting. My practical approach focuses on how to communicate musical ideas through physical gestures, how to craft a story through score study, and what it means to lead on the podium. Students leave feeling empowered to have their own musical ideas and the ability to manifest them through conducting.

Beth Denisch draws inspiration from artists and authors, nature and astronomy, and unexpected places: real and imaginary. She has been commissioned by numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the Handel and Haydn Society; Philadelphia Classical Symphony; Chamber Orchestra Kremlin; Equinox Chamber Players; Calyx Trio; Radius Ensemble; New Gallery Concert Series and Primary Duo.

Her music has been performed around the world including at Moscow’s Radio Kultura, New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, and in Canada, China, Ecuador, Finland, Greece, Japan, and Scotland. Her scores are available from Juxtab Music, ClearNote Publications, and TrevCo Music.

Denisch was awarded Berklee’s Ted Pease Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022 and she authored Contemporary Counterpoint (Berklee Press/Hal Leonard). Her string quartets are available on Phantasmagoria and her 2024 orchestral release of “Yanvalou,” on the Alone Together compilation, on Albany Records.

Each person begins composition lessons with their own musical world. As they share this world, I find opportunities to question, support, encourage, and facilitate a broadening of their musical horizons. This growing awareness includes a developing aesthetic perspective, the student’s own, and a toolbox of compositional skills with which to realize their creative vision. In composition lessons I help composers more fully realize their own vision while improving their mastery of the craft.  These two pillars of learning walk hand in hand as one’s own composing process develops. Each person’s toolbox is customized to their aesthetic and preferred sound world. Techniques are the servants of inspiration and a well-equipped composer transforms that creative spark into an effective piece of music by using tools of the craft. I am a guide along that individually unique path for each student.

Arnold Friedman’s music has been performed from Moscow to Honolulu, most recently in Nice, France; Rome and Assisi, Italy; and throughout the continental United States.

Friedman was invited to join the faculty of the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2000. He served as the Composition Department Chair from 2012-2016. At Berklee he teaches courses that range from fundamental theory to advanced composition, orchestration, and Film Scoring. He has developed curricula in choral composition, advanced notation using software, and contemporary music literature. Friedman has also developed unique teaching methods and materials for Berklee's blind and sight-impaired students. In 2024 Friedman was the recipient of the distinguished 'Ted Pease Excellence in Teaching Award' by Berklee's Professional Writing and Music Technology Division.

He has also served on the music faculties of the University of North Texas and Western Oregon University. Friedman’s professional cello performances include the Dallas Opera Orchestra, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Boston’s Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, as well as with Boston new music ensembles Dinosaur Annex and the microtonal ensemble Notariotous. He has performed with the Melde-Friedman Duo throughout Italy.

Friedman earned a DMA  as one of two full-stipend Doctoral Fellows at the University of North Texas, studying with Larry Austin and Martin Mailman. He holds a Masters from the University of Michigan, where he worked with William Bolcom, and was principal cellist in the Contemporary Directions Ensemble.

Of Friedman’s compositions, composer Libby Larsen has written: “His ideas are visionary and his ability to articulate what is in his mind and heart through his compositions is extraordinary.”

My composition lessons have the objectives of sharpening the student’s craft, expanding their creative horizons, and developing their unique inner voices. I want my students to acquire the skills to produce personally authentic works that attract performers and audiences, as I have throughout the US and Europe.

Panagiotis (Panos) Liaropoulos is an award-winning Composer and Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music. He was born in Athens, Greece and since 1997 he resides and works in Boston, Massachusetts where he has built a career as a composer,
academic and performer. He holds a Doctoral Degree in Music Composition from Boston University (USA), where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar with Theodore Antoniou and Lukas Foss and graduated with honors for outstanding achievement in Theory and
Composition.

Commissions and performances of his music include the 2024 performance of his orchestral piece Ode-Moments in the Life of Orpheus by the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra as well as the Boston Symphony Hall performance of his piece Elegia III for Flute and Orchestra by the Boston Pops, under the baton of Keith Lockhart.

The recording of his Voreas Keladeinos for Woodwind Quintet and Narrator (based on text from The Iliad) performed by the Aeolos Woodwind Quintet is out in 2025.

In my private music composition lessons, students will embark on a creative journey where they can explore their unique musical voice. My approach emphasizes both technical mastery and imaginative expression, ensuring that each student not only gains a strong foundation in composition but also develops the confidence to experiment and innovate. Together, we’ll craft original pieces, dive into various styles, and hone the skills necessary to bring their musical ideas to life.

Ryan Suleiman’s music engages with dream logic, the natural world, and the understated beauty of everyday life. The San Francisco Chronicle described his one-act chamber opera, Moon, Bride, Dogs, as “a gem” with “an aesthetic that is at once so strange and so accessible.” While his artistic interests vary, he seeks ways of conveying the simultaneity of beauty and dread that characterizes our times. To this end, he is currently working on a portrait concert in collaboration with The Fourth Wall Ensemble called Symbiosis, which embraces the connection between theatricality and classical music. This project, which also includes a new work, will be premiered at Boston Conservatory at Berklee in Spring 2025.
 
Other recent projects include a set of piano etudes in collaboration with pianist Sakurako Kanemitsu and artist Peter London, an art song for soprano Rose Hegele, and an opera called The School for Girls Who Lost Everything in the Fire, with writer Cristina Fríes (in progress), which was developed with the support of West Edge Opera. Born in Sacramento, California to Lebanese and American parents, Ryan completed his PhD at University of California, Davis and his Bachelor of Music at the Sacramento State School of Music. He is currently an assistant professor at Berklee College of Music and has held teaching positions at Sacramento State and UC Davis. He also teaches composition privately. Ryan currently resides in Boston with his partner and three furry animals. Read more at www.ryansuleiman.com.

As a teacher, my goal is ultimately not to give the student a list of “rules” or tell them what to do—after all, if you can’t write what you want, what’s the point? Rather, I aim to help students become the most eloquent, sophisticated, thoughtful version of their artistic selves. This means exposing them to different music, different ideas about music, and different ways of approaching their compositional process. It involves nudging them out of their comfort zone while affirming their core interests and encouraging curiosity.