Naren Ratan is an amateur microtonal guitarist living in London. He likes Kenny Wheeler, Toto, and Meredith Monk.
Simon Kaplan is a United States-based French composer, music theorist and instructor. His oeuvre, published by BabelScores, encompasses a diverse range of solo, chamber and electronic pieces premiered by esteemed performers across Belgium, Denmark, France, Japan and the United States. From 2017 to 2018, he was the composer and orchestrator of the Great Synagogue of Europe. Presently, he serves at the University of North Texas as a teaching assistant and fellow.
In 2021, the then-young artist invented diahemitonicism, a pioneering quarter-tonal composition system which has become a defining feature of his musical style. In 2024, he developed the kaplanophone, a quarter-tonal virtual keyboard instrument with an inharmonic timbre playable via a pair of MIDI controllers equipped with two pedals. In 2025, he devised a set of nine temperaments for the quarter-tone scale: one Kaplanian, six meansemitone and two circular ones designated Kaplan I and II.
The microtonalist has lectured on his innovations at venues such as the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Brussels, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Regional Conservatoire of Lille, Departmental Conservatoire of the Choletais and Mozarteum University of Salzburg. His articles have been published in Tempo and Xenharmonikon.
Kaplan earned his Master of Arts in Composition from the Royal Flemish Conservatoire of Brussels in 2022, where he studied under Peter Swinnen. He furthered his academic pursuits in Claude Ledoux's class at the Royal Conservatoire of Mons, graduating with a Master of Music in Compositional Didactics in 2023. He also benefited from the teaching of Alan Belkin, Henry Fourès, Dimitri Papageorgiou and Calliope Tsoupaki through private lessons and masterclasses. Currently, he is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of North Texas under the guidance of Andrew Chung, Sungji Hong, Panayiotis Kokoras, Jon Nelson and Kirsten Soriano. He expects to receive his Doctor of Philosophy in Composition with a Minor in Music Theory in 2027.
Georg Hajdu, born 1960, is a German composer and professor. After studies in molecular biology and composition in Cologne and computer music at UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), he graduated with a PhD in 1994. In May 2002, his networked performance environment Quintet.net was used in Manfred Stahnke's opera Orpheus Kristall on the occasion of the Munich Biennale. In the same year, he was appointed professor of multimedia composition at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama (HfMT), where he founded Germany’s first master’s program in multimedia composition in 2004, and the Center for Microtonal Music and Multimedia (ZM4) in 2012. In 2010, he was artist in residence at the Goethe Institute in Boston as well as visiting professor at Northeastern University. He has also been involved in a number of national and international ventures such as the Culture 2007 project CO-ME-DI-A on networked music performance and is the founding director of the ligeti center. Photo: Jasmin Gritzka
Stephen Weigel is a composer and performer of Indianapolis, IN, and got both his Master’s in Music Composition and Bachelor’s of Music Media Production at Ball State University. His past teachers include Jody Nagel, Michael Pounds, Derek Johnson, Amelia Kaplan, Daniel Swilley, Eleanor Trawick, and Keith Kothman. Stephen’s contributions have been featured at UnTwelve, Electronic Music Midwest, Charlotte New Music Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Classical Connect, Edition Zalzal, MU Global, Thirsty Ear, SEAMUS, Microtonal Adventures Festival, Pärnu Nüüdismuusika Päevade, and Hindemith & Copland International Festival. His music is melodic, intelligible, and purpose-driven, though conceptual premises vary wildly - compositional goals may include finding new-sounding chord progressions and melodies, evoking unfamiliar or diverse emotions, poking fun at social ideas, or making sense of uncharted territory. His specialties are electronics and xenharmonic music, which he often plays live using DIY keyboard interfaces, guitars, and the voice. In graduate school, he wrote about all-scalar-set theory, which is the mathematical link between Forte’s post-tonal set theory and Wilson’s Moment of Symmetry theories. Other endeavors include the microtonal podcast featuring Sevish (Now and Xen), appearances on online albums/microtonal cover songs/transcriptions, and keyboard arrangements of Easley Blackwood’s microtonal etudes.
Stephen Altoft is dedicated to the creation of new repertoire for the trumpet. As a solo artist, and with percussionist Lee Ferguson as duo Contour, he has given concerts throughout Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada. For over twenty years he has been researching the microtonal possibilities of the trumpet with composer, Donald Bousted, and has developed a fourth (rotary) valve mechanism to enable the conversion of his existing trumpets into microtonal instruments (a 19-division B flat trumpet and quarter-tone C trumpet). More recently, he has also been developing programmes for flugel horn in 12-, 19- and 24- divisions of the octave.
Stephen studied at the University of Huddersfield (1991-5) where he was awarded B.Mus Honours and Masters degrees (in performance) and the Ricordi Prize for Contemporary Performance. This was followed by periods of private study with Markus Stockhausen (Cologne 1996-8) and, with assistance from the Music Sound Foundation, with William Forman (Berlin 1998-1999).
Stephen is co-director of Microtonal Projects, and Manages the EUROMicroFest. He teaches at the music school in Waldkirch.
Kenneth Cotich is a guitarist and music teacher living in Southern California. He earned a Masters in Music from the University of Redlands and is currently finishing his Ph.D in Musicology at Claremont Graduate University. He received the Fred and Grace Smith Fellowship of Music and the Albert B. Friedmann Award through the Claremont School of Arts and Humanities. He currently holds teaching positions at San Jacinto Valley Academy and the Redlands Conservatory of Music. Aside from teaching and performing music, he works at the Honnold/Mudd Library as a Digital Production Assistant. He produces Claremont Graduate University's recitals and faculty performances as concert manager. He previously toured and worked with musicians on the East and West coasts of the United States while maintaining a rigorous academic life. His music has been released by Loaded Sound, Emotionless Records, and independently.