Staff

Lawrence Fritts, Director

lawrence.fritts@gmail.com

Zachery Meier, Associate Director

zachery-meier@uiowa.edu

Carlos Toro-Tobon, Associate Director

carlos-torotobon@uiowa.edu

Jonah Elrod, Daniel Frantz, Shane Hoose, Will Huff, Jonathan Wilson, & Zach Zubow, Studio Assistant Emeriti

Lawrence Fritts is an American composer born in Richland, Washington in 1952. He received his PhD in Composition at the University of Chicago, where his teachers included Shulamit Ran, Ralph Shapey, and John Eaton. He is currently Professor of Composition at the University of Iowa, where he has directed the Electronic Music Studios since 1994.

His recent works combine instruments and voice with electronics. These have been performed throughout the world and are recorded on the Albany, Innova, Frog Peak, SEAMUS, and Tempo Primo labels. He has received awards from SEAMUS, the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Competition, International Look and Listen Festival, International Society of Contemporary Music, International New Music Consortium Competition, and the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics. As a composer, he is interested in musical applications of mathematical group theory and has written a number of papers on the subject. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Mathematics and Music.

In 1997, he created the University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples database, a collection of 30 orchestral instruments recorded in an anechoic chamber. These recordings may be freely used for any purpose without restriction and may be downloaded by following the link at the top of this page.

Zachery S. Meier (b. 1992), from Duluth, MN, is a composer currently living in Iowa City, Iowa. Prior to his arrival in Iowa, Meier has studied composition at Washington State University and the University of Minnesota. As a composer, Meier has written for a wide range of ensembles and soloists that have been featured internationally and locally. His music has been heard in venues and festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Vietnam, and has received a guest spotlight recognition for MPR’s Regional Spotlight Showcase. He was selected as a participant in the 2017 National Band Association’s Young Composers/Conductors Mentor Project, where the United States Air Force Band performed his wind ensemble work, Reigniere. Meier is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Iowa as a graduate teaching assistant, where he is studying with Josh Levine. Along with his studies at the University of Iowa, his additional composition professors include Ryan Hare, Scott Blasco, Gregory Yasinitsky, and Justin Rubin.

Carlos Toro-Tobón, a composer born and raised in Columbia, received his MA degree in composition from the Universidad EAFIT in 2011. His composition teachers have been, Andrés Posada S., Moisés Bertrán and Marco Alunno. Since 2005, he has been a professor of music theory and composition at the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, where also coordinated the music education program. In 2014 Carlos Toro-Tobón was granted a Fulbright scholarship to study in the U.S., and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition at the University of Iowa.
He recently complete a work for solo clarinet entitled “Escenas de una Doble Vida” (Scenes of a Double Life), which was premiered April 2015 in the Mons Royal Conservatory, Belgium at a concert along with other Colombian and Belgian works celebrating the signing of an exchange agreement with Universidad de Antioquia. He has composed works for orchestra, string orchestra, choir, string quartet, and other chamber configurations.