The composers featured in our 30x30x30 project continue to put beautiful art out into the world. Let’s see what 5 of them have been up to recently…
Jacky Jiaqi Liu
Having completed his undergraduate studies, Jacky Jiaqi Liu will be continuing his education at Juilliard, pursuing a Master’s in Composition. In January he won the Arthur Friedman Prize in Juilliard’s Orchestra Competition for the second time with his piece Echoes of Impermanence, and his new work As If Joy won the school’s AXIOM competition. Most recently, Echoes of Impermanence also won the John Adams Award at BMI’s Composer Awards!
Kevin Day
Kevin Day’s piece Second Euphonium Concerto won last year’s ITEA Harvey Phillips Award for Composition Excellence, he was inducted into TCU’s Band Hall of Fame, and Echoes won 3rd prize in the Alexander Zemlinsky Prize for Chamber Music Composition. Day is the Composer-in-Residence at the 2026 American Viola Society Festival (Harrisonburg, VA, June 3–6), Featured Composer at the 2026 Sound Atlas Festival (June 26–28 at Contemporary Calgary) and is fundraising with ensemble Latitude 49 to produce Tidal Forces, an album of his compositions. Years in the making, his Afrofuturist opera Lalovavi, commissioned by Cincinnati Opera as a part of their Black Opera Project, premieres July 9th. Get your tickets now!
Krishan Rai
Krishan Rai continues his undergraduate studies at the Juilliard School and Columbia University. Last May he had the opportunity to conduct research in the UNESCO Archives in Paris, and he has a new website!
Leah Reid
Leah Reid was the headlining composer at last year’s UGA New Music Festival, and her family welcomed their second son in September! She received a Barlow General Commission from the Barlow Endowment, a special prize in the 5th Ise-Shima International Composition Competition, was a finalist in the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the Czech Republic’s 2025 Musica Nova Competition, and won the Award for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities at UVA’s Research Awards. In May, Reid’s work Crossed Wires was featured at the Society for Electro-Acoustic in the U.S.’s annual conference and, as a winner of LunART’s Call for Scores, was performed at this year’s festival.
Lucy Shirley
Lucy Shirley is pursuing her PhD at the University of Iowa. Several of her newest works have been premiered by the JACK Quartet, and she has recently had works performed by musicians at the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa and members of the mdi ensemble. This February, Shirley was the headlining composer at UGA’s New Music Festival, where her piece Four Ways to Set a Star was performed by the duo LIGAMENT.
We’ve got 3 more updates to go! While you wait for the next post, you can support these phenomenal artists by exploring the links above.