Yifan Shao (b.2003) is a Chinese composer, vocal artist, visual artist, writer, and curator. His works explore intimacy and spatial perceptions through extremely phantasmatic gradations. He also seeks to maximize performative capabilities: he sings over 6 octaves with nearly synthesizer-level timbral control and handles up to 5 pitches simultaneously via a combination of multiphonic techniques, breathing unreachable beauties into his artistic world. 

His works have received recognition in more than 10 countries, including but not limited to venues like Carnegie Hall, San Francisco Center for New Music, and Blank Wall Gallery; festivals like Sofia Symphonic Summit, CEME International New Music Festival, St. Petersburg International New Music Festival, Monteluce Music Festival, Getxophoto International Image Festival, and Nordingrå Konstrunda; and exposures like PhotoVogue, CultureNow Greece, and KPOO San Francisco. Among his collaborators: Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, Festino Chamber Choir, Mouthscape Choir, Corale di Monteluce, Moscow Soloists Contemporary Ensemble, conductor Jacques Desjardins, flautist Ania Karpowicz, violist Amelia Krinke, pianist Hao Wu, artist Alexandra Pink, producer Pontus Kraft, and so on.

He is the voice soloist of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra in 2025, where he premieres new music by composers from different countries with other members. He is the founder and co-artistic director of Vocalverse, a new vocal music collective, and the co-founder and co-owner of Kooperativet Vännerstaskolan. His music scores are published by Universal Edition and J.W. Pepper.

He is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music degree in composition at San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Elinor Armer. He also went to Odin Home Festival at Odin Teatret, Denmark in 2024 to study theatre and vocal performance, and received instructions from masters such as Eugenio Barba, Julia Varley, and Jan Ferslev.

Lauren Marshall is a composer and performer based in the Bay Area, California.

Her music education began at the Purcell School of Music in Hertfordshire, UK, where she studied for nearly a decade with teachers and mentors including Simon Speare (composition), Andrew Ball (piano), and Alison Cox (composition). She also studied harpsichord at the Royal College of Music Junior Department with Jane Chapman.

She was a resident composer with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYOGB) for three years, serving as Principal Composer during one of them. While there, she studied composition under Larry Goves and Anna Meredith. In 2018, she was invited back to NYOGB as an Assistant Composition Tutor.

Lauren completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard College in Boston, MA, where she studied with Chaya Czernowin and Claire Chase, and also took classes with Hans Tutschku, Meredith Monk, and Stephen Prina. She wrote an honors thesis on the history of material infrastructure in modern China, supervised by Michael Puett, Professor of Chinese History.

Her works have been performed in venues such as the Southbank Centre, London Fashion Week, Nottingham Royal Concert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Cafe OTO, Paine Hall at Harvard University, Stanford University, the Tate Modern, and others. Her work has received critical acclaim, described as “wonderfully assured” (The Guardian), “delicately evocative” (The Times), and “a miracle of inspiration” (Seen and Heard International). Classical Source noted that “Lauren Marshall clearly possesses genuine textural imagination.”

The biggest constant in Lauren’s varied career is a single-minded pursuit of her intellectual interests, regardless of social or systemic constraints. Following her studies of Chinese History, she followed a fascination with material infrastructure into a career in steel and cement decarbonisation at a major non-profit in California. She plans to begin a law degree in Fall 2025 to better understand how to make the world a better place for all people—but especially experimental musicians.