New Faculty Appointments

Celeste Oram is a composer and musician who grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand and now lives in New York City.

Celeste's works are scenarios in which music-making is the catalyst for exploring sonic & social histories and micro-cultures. Encompassing instrumental & orchestral composition, song & speech, electronics, visual media, theatre, and improvisation, Celeste’s work has been recognised by awards from the Fromm Foundation, New Music USA, APRA, the Christoph Delz Composition Prize (Switzerland) and the Kranichstein Composition Prize (Germany), whose jury described her work as ‘strangely entertaining... engaging with history in a striking manner’ and ‘utterly relevant’.

Recent projects include large-scale vocal works for Voices of Ascension (NYC) and the Vokalensemble Zürich; orchestral scores for dance-theatre works with choreographer Bobbi Jene Smith (Theater Basel, Opéra National de Paris, Royal Danish Ballet); a residency at Wave Farm NY as Radio Art Community Engagement Fellow; and an experimental radio opera created with Ensemble Adapter (Berlin/Reykjavík) and premiered at Berlin's Ultraschall Festival.

Additionally, Celeste's works have been made with the support and partnership of musicians including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (NZ), NZSO National Youth Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (UK), NZTrio, the American Modern Opera Company, Ruckus Early Music, Fonema Consort (NY), Arcus Collective (NY), Stroma (NZ), Longleash (NY), wasteLAnd (LA), Autoduplicity (LA), Steven Schick (CA), Song Company (Sydney); and presented in programmes including the Ojai Festival (California), Bach Virtuosi Festival (Maine), San Diego Symphony's Hearing the Future Festival, the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, the New Zealand International Arts Festival and the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Dr. Oram holds a PhD in music composition from the University of California San Diego, and is an alumna of the University of Auckland. She teaches composition & electronic music at Vassar College, NY.

Corie Rose Soumah (she/her) is a Canadian composer (QC) based in the US. She is interested in shaping fractured and reconstructed sound components through hyper-collages and visceral physical gestures. Her approach is characterized by a keen interest in the interweaving of multiple aesthetic and sonic elements from the perspective of afrodiasporic geologies. She explores these textures through the overlay of different acoustic mediums as well as electronic and analog technologies. Soumah has earned several distinctions, such as the Prix de composition 2025 as part of the Prix d’Europe and multiple awards from SOCAN Foundation. Her works have been performed by an extensive number of ensembles and performers such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Bozzini Quartet, Quasar, Proxima Centauri, Ensemble Itinéraire, Longleash, Hypercube, Ekmeles, Paramirabo, Sixtrum, Contemporary Insight, New Music Concerts and Wet Ink. Her works have also been featured at the Darmstadt Summer Course, TIME:SPANS, Gaudeamus, Wigmore Hall, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, contrapunkt, MaerzMusik, Fontainebleau Schools of Music and Fine Arts, Festival Musica, MATA festival, la salle Bourgie and many more. Soumah holds a DMA in composition from Columbia University and completed a BMus degree in composition from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal.