Arbie Orenstein was born in New York City and attended the High School of Music and Art, Queens College, and Columbia University Graduate School, where he received a Ph.D. in Musicology. He is the author of Ravel: Man and Musician (Columbia University Press, 1975, reissued as a Dover paperback in 1991) and Ravel: Lettres, Ecrits, Entretiens (Flammarion, 1989), which was translated into English as A Ravel Reader (Columbia University Press, 1990, reissued by Dover in 2003). His books have been translated into German, Italian, and Japanese. As a pianist, he has accompanied many outstanding cantors and concert artists and has recorded the world premieres of several works by Ravel, which he discovered while studying in Paris, France, on a U.S. government Fulbright grant.

Dr. Orenstein is professor of music at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, where he has taught for the past 45 years. His courses focus on European music history and Jewish music. He is the editor of Musica Judaica (a scholarly journal devoted to all aspects of Jewish music) and a regular contributor to the French journal Cahiers Maurice Ravel.

In 1998 Dr. Orenstein was knighted by the French government, receiving the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Christopher Rouse is one of America's most prominent composers of orchestral music. Winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Trombone Concerto (commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic), he has created a body of work perhaps unequalled in its emotional intensity. The New York Times has described his oeuvre as "some of the most anguished, most memorable music around," and Stephen Wigler of The Baltimore Sun stated: "When the music history of the late 20th century is written, I suspect the explosive and passionate music of Rouse will loom large."

Born in Baltimore in 1949, Christopher Rouse developed an early interest in both classical and popular music. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory and Cornell University, numbering among his principal teachers George Crumb and Karel Husa. He taught composition at the Eastman School of Music for two decades and currently teaches composition at The Juilliard School.

Mr. Rouse's music has been performed by almost every major orchestra in the United States and by numerous ensembles abroad, including the Berlin Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, and the Austrian Radio Orchestra. Recent highlights include the world premieres of the Requiem (2007, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale), Concerto for Orchestra (2008, by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music), Oboe Concerto (2009, by the Minnesota Orchestra), and Odna Zhizn (2010, by the New York Philharmonic). His Symphony No. 3 was premiered by the Saint Louis Symphony in May 2011. Mr. Rouse wrote Seeing for Piano and Orchestra for Emanuel Ax on commission from the Philharmonic, which gave its premiere in May 1999. Christopher Rouse's works are published by Boosey & Hawkes.