"Muhal Richard Abrams - World renowned pianist and composer has been in the forefront of the contemporary music scene for well over forty years. Muhal is a co-founder of The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), founder of The AACM School of Music and President of The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, New York City Chapter. Muhal was the first recipient of the grand international jazz award, "The JazzPar Prize", which was awarded to him in 1990 by the Danish Jazz Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1999 Muhal was presented a proclamation by Richard M. Daley, Mayor of the City of Chicago, declaring April 11, 1999 as Muhal Richard Abrams Day in Chicago. In 2009 Muhal was selected to be a USA Prudential Fellow by United States Artist. In 2010 Mr. Abrams was inducted into the Downbeat Magazine "Jazz Hall of Fame". Also, in 2010 Mr. Abrams was chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts to be a NEA Jazz Master. On May 16, 2012, Muhal received the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa, from Columbia University, New York City. Also, on October 19, 2012, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation presented Dr. Abrams with The BNY Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at The Kennedy Center, Washington, D. C.

Except for a brief period of study at Chicago Musical College and Governors State University in Chicago, Illinois where he studied electronic music, Dr. Abrams is predominately a self-taught musician who, as a result of many years of observation, analysis, and practice as a performing musician, has developed a highly respected command of a variety of musical styles both as a pianist and composer. The versatile Dr. Abrams and members of The AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) are responsible for some of the most original new music approaches of the last four decades.

Some of Dr. Abrams' compositions are: "String Quartet #2" performed by Kronos Quartet on November 22, 1985 at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City; "Piano Duet #1" performed by Ursula Oppens and Frederic Rzewski for Music at the Crossroads on February 11, 1986, "Saturation Blue" performed on March 14, 1986, by The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, "Folk Tales 88'" performed by The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra on July 9, 1988, "Transversion I OP. 6" performed February 22 & 23, 1991 by The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, "What A Man" commissioned and performed by the Black Repertory Ensemble in behalf of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College and The Friends of the Chicago Public Library in honor of the Late Mayor Harold Washington and to commemorate the opening of the Honorable Harold Washington Library on October 7, 1991; "Duet for Violin and Piano", commissioned by the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress, 1996; "Impressions 1" performed by the SEM Ensemble, 1997, "2000 Plus The Twelfth Step" performed by the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, 1999. "Tomorrow's Song, As Yesterday Sings Today" performed by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City, 2000. "Mergertone" performed by the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, in Ostrava, Czech Republic, 2009.

In addition to teaching privately, Dr. Abrams has taught composition and improvisation classes at the Banff Center in Canada, Columbia University in New York City, Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, the New England Conservatory in Boston, Mass, the BMI composers workshop in New York City, and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland."

"George E. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. A 2015 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, Lewis has received a MacArthur Fellowship (2002), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), a United States Artists Walker Fellowship (2011), an Alpert Award in the Arts (1999), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2015, Lewis received the degree of Doctor of Music (DMus, honoris causa) from the University of Edinburgh.

A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis's work in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, and notated and improvisative forms is documented on more than 140 recordings. His work has been presented by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonia Orchestra, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Talea Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wet Ink, Ensemble Erik Satie, Eco Ensemble, and others, with commissions from American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Harvestworks, Ensemble Either/Or, Orkestra Futura, Turning Point Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad, IRCAM, Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and others. Lewis has served as Ernest Bloch Visiting Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley; Paul Fromm Composer in Residence, American Academy in Rome; Resident Scholar, Center for Disciplinary Innovation, University of Chicago; and CAC Fitt Artist In Residence, Brown University.

Lewis received the 2012 SEAMUS Award from the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and his book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture Award. Lewis is co-editor of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016), and his opera Afterword, commissioned by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago, premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in October 2015 and has been performed in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic.

Professor Lewis came to Columbia in 2004, having previously taught at the University of California, San Diego, Mills College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Koninklijke Conservatorium Den Haag, and Simon Fraser University's Contemporary Arts Summer Institute. Lewis studied composition with Muhal Richard Abrams at the AACM School of Music, and trombone with Dean Hey."