Tom Lopez composes music for soloists, ensembles, electronics, video, and dance. Reviews describe his work as: "…incredibly effective…"…extremely well-written…"...a rich and sensuous piece…"…the rousing orchestral score delivers a resonant rush of adrenaline…" and "…the most artistically satisfying work on the program."

Tom has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund, the Betty Freeman Foundation, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, the Knight Foundation, the Disney Foundation, ASCAP, and Meet the Composer. He has appeared at festivals and conferences around the world as a guest lecturer and composer. Tom has been a resident artist at various international centers and his compositions have received critical acclaim and peer recognition including CD releases by Innova, Centaur, Vox Novus, SCI, SEAMUS, Hanson Records, and the Oberlin Label.

Tom teaches in the Contemporary Music Division at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where he is Associate Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts in the TIMARA Department (Technology in Music and Related Arts). He is also a Teaching Artist with Avivo, a community of artists dedicated to cultivating creativity through music.

Tom feels grateful to have studied with many influential composition teachers: Gary Nelson, Conrad Cummings, Morton Subotnick, Sal Martirano, Russell Pinkston, and Stephen Montague; and he is especially proud to have learned from a great many talented students.

Stefano Sacher (Trieste, 1962- ) holds a master's degree in Composition from Tomadini Conservatory in Udine, and degrees in Choral Composition and Conducting from Tartini Conservatory in Trieste, and in Orchestral Conducting from Martini Conservatory in Bologna. He also graduated from the College of Literature and Arts at the University of Trieste, with a thesis on Sergej Prokofev’s music in movies.

He furthered his Compositional studies with Antonio Bibalo in Norway and with Hans Werner Henze in Rome.

Stefano Sacher has composed two operas, choral music, chamber music, orchestral music, music for the theater, and songs.

Recent works include Aubade (for mezzosoprano and orchestra), Concertante (for winds, piano and drums), Stabat mater (for soprano, mixed choir and strings), Three elegies (for baritone, viola and piano), and the opera La memoria di Medea, which premiered at IMFA in 2016.

His works are regularly performed and broadcasted in Europe, Canada, the U.S. and have been published by Pizzicato and Nomos Editions.

Maestro Sacher’s conducting career has taken him throughout the world, to countries such as Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, the U.S., Canada, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Malta, Cuba and Mongolia, where he has conducted symphonic, choral and operatic repertoire.

Sacher has been teaching all music courses at the United World College of the Adriatic since 2001. He was also the IB Music teacher from 2001 to 2011.  

He has also published a book of poems, articles and essays on musicology, and was a radio host for the Italian national radio RadioRai music programs.

Since 2009 he has been the artistic director of the Mozart Society Italia, based in Trieste, where he founded a youth orchestra, the Amadeus Adriatic Orchestra, which he conducts.