CRISTINA SCUDERI is a post doctoral researcher (Ph.D. in Theory, Techniques and Restoration of Music, Cinema and Audiovisual - University of Udine), journalist (pubblicista), who graduated with full marks in History of Music (University of Padua) and graduated in Organ, Harpsichord and Electronic Music (Conservatories of Padua and Venice). She is "cultore della materia" for the chair of History of Modern and Contemporary Music at the University of Padua and Technical Consultant of the Civil Court of Udine. Since 2005 she is responsible for the organization of Contemporanea New Music Festival and for the International Composition Competition Città di Udine (Taukay Music Publishing House).
MICHAEL MCDONAGH is a San Francisco-based poet and writer on the arts who has done two poem/picture books with artist Gary Bukovnik, Before I Forget (1991) and Once (1997), the former being in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Berkeley Art Museum, and the New York Public Library. He has also published poems in journals including Mirage, and written two theatre pieces -- Touch and Go, for three performers, which was staged at Venue 9 in 1998; and Sight Unseen, for solo performer. His critical pieces have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Review of Books, 3 Penny Review, California Printmaker, Antiques and Fine Art, The Advocate, High Performance, and In Tune. He writes for The Bay Area Reporter and heads the Bay Area chapter of The Duke Ellington Society. He co-hosted nine radio shows on KUSF with Tony Gualtieri with whom he now shares a review website -- www.msu.edu/user/gualtie3 -- which has also been translated into Russian and appears in Intellectual Forum. He is currently working on a collaboration with pianist-composer Ric Louchard.
MARK ALBURGER is Editor-Publisher of 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC, an award-winning ASCAP composer of concert music published by New Music; Music Director of The Opus Project, San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra; and San Francisco Cabaret Opera; Instructor in Music History and Theory at Diablo Valley College, author and subject of articles in The Grove Dictionary of American Music (2nd ed.), and Grove Online; music critic, musicologist, oboist, pianist, recording artist, and vocalist. He is currently at work on Abducted by Aliens, Op. 222.
