The National Association of Teachers of Singing is pleased to announce the 10 composers selected for the 2025-26 NATS Mentoring Program for Composers.

This annual initiative celebrates and supports the next generation of art song creators, pairing emerging and early-career composers with some of today’s most respected voices in the field. Led by acclaimed composers Tom Cipullo and Lori Laitman, both serving as mentors, the program runs from November through June and is designed to inspire, connect, and elevate the art of writing for the voice.

“Tom Cipullo and I always look for composers who reflect and respect text with imaginative and dramatic musical settings,” Laitman said. “We are so thrilled that all the new mentees for this sixth season are outstanding, and cannot wait to hear their new contributions to the vocal repertoire. And, as always, we remain so grateful to our wonderful mentors, Sam Martin, CSI and NATS.”

Throughout the season, each mentee works one-on-one with their mentor in monthly online sessions. Often, they explore text setting, vocal writing, performance opportunities, and strategies for publishing and recording their work. These sessions offer a unique opportunity for mentees to gain both artistic guidance and practical industry insight.

As a special feature, NATS commissions a new song from each mentee to be premiered by the Cincinnati Song Initiative. These works have been presented in the “Let It Be New” concerts series, which has showcased mentee compositions since the program’s inception in 2020. Past participants have also had opportunities to present their music at NATS chapter, region, and national events.

NATS proudly celebrates this year’s cohort and looks forward to the songs they will create in the months ahead.

2025-26 Mentee and Mentor Pairs:

NATS invites supporters to help fund the recording and production of these new works. A $600 contribution sponsors the commission of a song — allowing supporters to honor a loved one, friend, or mentee composer with a personal inscription. Sponsorships help defray recording and production costs for the “Let it Be New” concert where all mentee works will be premiered. Donors are recognized in the concert program and recording credits. This opportunity ensures that each new composition can be heard and enjoyed for years to come. To contribute, please visit our donation page.

NATS is also accepting submissions for the 2026 Art Song Composition Award, which offers more than $3,000 in prizes. Entries are due Dec. 1, 2025.

About the 2025-26 cohort

Lauren Biggs
Azusa, California
Cal-Western Region

Lauren Biggs (2002) is a California-based composer, producer, and singer/songwriter. She grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, listening to the Beatles, CCM, Russian folk, jazz, R&B, film music, and video game soundtracks. She performed as a trombonist in her school’s jazz and concert bands, led worship at church, and produced and released music under the pseudonym Laureli Amadeus. She has a deep love for composition, her style having been described by friends as ethereal, innovative, and historically detailed. Some of her favorite composers are Georgy Sviridov, Eriks Esenvalds, and Ravel. While pursuing her bachelor’s degree in composition at Azusa Pacific University (APU), Biggs has developed an unyielding passion for vocal-driven music. Her choral works have been performed by Cal State Fullerton University Singers (dir. Rob Istad) at the 2024 Western Region ACDA conference, APU Bel Canto Women’s Choir (dir. Brandon DiNoto), the Kosovo Philharmonic Choir (dir. Hajrullah Syla), Quintessence (dir. Matthew Greer), Los Angeles based choir, voices/LA (dir. John Sutton), and others. Her goal as a composer is to tell meaningful stories, spread joy through collaborative music-making, and to create and share her art as an act of reverence to a higher power.

Biggs is paired with mentor Jeffrey Mumford.

Yuko Kato
Carbondale, Illinois
Central Region

Yuko Kato enjoys performing as a soloist and collaborative pianist in the United States and internationally. She has performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Banff Centre in Canada, Musiksalon Erfurt in Austria, Songfest in Los Angeles, New Music Circle in St. Louis, and the Illinois Symphony’s Sunday at Six Recital Series. Earlier this year, she was a featured presenter, performer and composer for College Music Society’s Great Lakes Conference in Chicago, and this fall, she will be a presenter at CMS’s National Conference in Washington, and at the Illinois State Music Teacher’s Association annual conference. Dr. Kato is a founding member of the Borealis Piano Duo and the Chiaroscuro Trio (viola, mezzo-soprano, piano), and has performed with internationally active mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, and the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra. She has coached with composers including Jake Heggie, Lori Laitman, Alan Smith, Libby Larsen, Chen Yi, Bernard Rands, and Michael Colgrass. Her composition teachers include Richard Grayson, Richard Sussman, and Edward Green. A native of Los Angeles, she began her musical studies at the Colburn School of Performing Arts. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree with honors from Northwestern University, and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. She currently serves as associate professor of piano at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Kato is paired with mentor Jodi Goble.

Charlie Kreidler
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Great Lakes Region

The work of composer Charlie Kreidler (b. 2002; Oak Park, Illinois) is celebrated for its bold use of color and dramatic range of storytelling. Some of Kreidler’s catalog delves into worlds of dystopian ash, herding sheep, concrète maximalism, confetti cannons, melting plastic, and horrendous airport layovers. He believes that all these contrasts fit into a larger picture of himself as a composer and always seeks to explore these differences with a high level of detail in pacing, theatricality, staging, edge, sharpness, shimmer, and silence. His work has been showcased at various venues such as the “Cernan Space Center” in Chicago, “the cell theater” in Chelsea NYC, and the “Centre National de la Danse” in Paris. Kreidler has worked with ensembles such as Haven Trio, Kodak Quartet, SydeBoob Duo, and C4 (The Composer/Conductor Choir Collective). He has degrees from Triton College (AA) where he studied with Salvatore Siriano and The New School, Mannes School of Music (BM) where he studied with David T. Little. In the fall of 2025, he will begin pursuing a Master of Music degree in composition at University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Kreidler is paired with mentor Stephen Eddins.

Samuel Mason
San Francisco, California
Cal-Western Region

Samuel Mason is a composer who has performed original music at venues all over Westchester County, New York, and New York City, from coffee house gigs to 54 Below and Central Park representing YAI (Young Adults Institute): Seeing Beyond Disability. “A Poison Tree” for mezzo-soprano and piano — as well as “An Old Garden” for piano — was featured in the 2024 Osmose Festival in Brussels. He received an honorable mention in the Boston New Music Initiative’s second annual Historically Excluded Composers Competition, as a musician living with cerebral palsy. Mason is a pianist for Alonzo King LINES Ballet and earning a Bachelor of Music degree in composition at the San Francisco Conservatory — where he collaborates with musicians who regularly perform his music — under the instruction of David Conte.

Mason is paired with mentor Tom Cipullo.

Michael N. McAndrew
Nederland, Texas
Texoma Region

Michael N. McAndrew currently serves as instructor of collaborative piano and theory at Lamar University, where he is music director for opera theatre, vocal area pianist, and teaches courses in music theory and ear training. He maintains an active career as a collaborative pianist and vocal coach, performing with Songe d’été en musique (Quebec), DuoMotive with flutist Michelle Li, and organizations including the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Opera Saratoga, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Tri-Cities Opera, and Lyric Theatre @ Illinois. He has collaborated with numerous distinguished artists, among them Michelle DeYoung, Julian Ovenden, Jeffrey Biegel, as well as Julie and Nathan Gunn. As a composer, McAndrew’s work has been described as “harmonically gorgeous” and has been performed internationally by ensembles such as the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Momenta Quartet, and Plexus Collective. He was the winner of the Bach Choir’s Young Composer Competition (2012) and a finalist in the 2019 NATS Art Song Competition. His song “Air Castles” from the cycle of the element… was published by North Star Music in their soprano “Modern Music for New Singers” anthology. His arrangements also have been heard in multiple countries, including Ireland and South Korea in 2024, and Bulgaria in 2025. He holds a doctorate in vocal coaching and accompanying from the University of Illinois, a Master of Music from Binghamton University, and a Bachelor of Music from Moravian College. For more information, visit michaelnmcandrew.com.

McAndrew is paired with mentor Lori Laitman.

Clara Moniz
Toronto, Ontario
Great Lakes Region

Clara Moniz, mezzo-soprano, is studying voice performance at the Glenn Gould School, and is a recipient of the Ihnatowycz Emerging Artist Scholarship and the Hazel Workman Kettley Scholarship. A dedicated chorister, Moniz currently sings with Pax Christi Chorale, the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto, Concreamus, the Toronto Festival Singers, Royal York Road United Church and is the TA/student conductor for the GGS Choir. She was also a member of the 2025 World Youth Choir. Her contributions as a chorister have been recognized with the Robert Heise Award, Cathy Lynn Yorke-Slader Bursary, and the Aimee Wilkinson-Harris Award. As a composer, she is interested in exploring the limits of the voice and particularly enjoys writing for combinations of voices and strings. Her works have been premiered by Pax Christi Chorale, MSC’s Concreamus, Continuum Contemporary Music, and GGS student ensembles. She was an artist-in-residence in the Westben PCR 2025 session and is currently a participant in the 2025/26 HappLab new music mentorship program. She is also the founder and director of the GGS Contemporary Music Collective.

Moniz is paired with mentor Juhi Bansal.

Benjamin Morris
Nacogdoches, Texas
Texoma Region

Ben Morris is a composer and jazz pianist whose music tells unconventional stories and crosses genre boundaries. His projects include chamber and large ensemble works, operas, art song, and music for dance, theater, film, and multimedia. He recently lived in Oslo on a Fulbright Grant and received an American-Scandinavian Foundation Grant to study the influence of folk music on Norwegian jazz, culminating in his 2022 debut album, “Pocket Guides.” The album garnered him Downbeat Awards, ASCAP Herb Alpert Awards, a Morton Gould Award, a commission from New York Youth Symphony’s First Music, and an invitation to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival. A versatile film, theater, and opera composer, Morris is a frequent collaborator of librettist Laura Fuentes; his operas with Fuentes have been commissioned by the Washington National Opera American Opera Initiative, Boulder Opera, and Glimmerglass Festival. He has attended summer festivals at the Aspen Music Festival, American Composers Orchestra Jazz Composers Institute, and the International Gugak Workshop, and artist residencies at Yaddo, Helene Wurlitzer, I-Park, and Brush Creek. Morris is an assistant professor of composition at Stephen F. Austin State University, and he studied composition at University of Colorado Boulder, Rice University, and University of Miami.

Morris is paired with mentor Shawn Okpebholo.

Antonio Sanz
Houston, Texas
Texoma Region

Antonio Sanz Escallón is a composer and pianist who focuses on projects involving elements of theatre, poetry and music. His work often explores unusual and surreal experiences through sounds and texts that embody such states. He has received commissions from the Galveston Symphony, the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society, the AURA Contemporary Ensemble, saxophonist Salvador Flores and mezzo-soprano Audrey Welsh. Additionally, he has worked with the Peabody Jazz Ensemble, Hub New Music, the Loadbang ensemble, Ensemble Concept/21, and The Rhythm Method Quartet, among others. His music has been heard at a variety of venues, including the Performing Media Festival, the Blaffer Art Gallery and the North American Saxophone Alliance. He has participated in the International Contemporary Ensemble’s Polyaspora Festival, the Curtis Summerfest, the Lake George Music Festival, and the Red Note Music Festival as a composer. Earlier this year, Sanz produced his chamber opera The Death of Alexander Scriabin with students and alumni of the Peabody Institute. Additionally, he worked as a collaborative accompanist at the Peabody Institute. Sanz received a master’s degree in composition from the Peabody Institute studying with Kevin Puts. He received a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Moores School of Music studying with Marcus Karl Maroney.

Sanz is paired with mentor Scott Wheeler.

Steven Ward
Washington, D.C.
Eastern Region

A native of Washington, D.C., Steven A. Ward is an emerging composer and arranger whose work highlights the rich tradition of American art song and spirituals. He began his musical journey studying violin and piano before discovering his passion for singing in high school. Over the next two decades, he served as a soloist and section leader in churches across Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee. Ward turned seriously to composition and arranging during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. His first public premiere came in 2022 with an arrangement of the African American spiritual “Hammering” in Memphis. In 2024, he was selected for the MNSong two-year composers fellowship with the Source Song Festival in Minneapolis, where his six-song cycle “Invitation to Love” premiered to critical acclaim. He recently completed his second choral commission for Augsburg University in Minnesota, and he has published music in Gentry Publication’s “Rock My Soul” series, which celebrates soulful choral traditions. In addition to his musical work, Ward holds a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Virginia State University and a master’s degree in school administration from Trinity Washington University. He currently serves as a resident with an education foundation in Washington, D.C. Ward is a proud lifetime member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and an inaugural member of the Institute for Responsible Citizenship.

Ward is paired with mentor Steven Mark Kohn.

Adrian Wong
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Eastern Region

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Adrian Wong creates engaging and moving music full of imagery, drama, and unapologetic conviction. Wong takes inspiration from a wide array of subjects, from the climate crisis to matters of identity, as well as the smaller things in life, from his mother’s lullabies to the tastes and textures of his favorite foods. Currently based in Philadelphia, Wong’s music has straddled the Pacific Ocean and then some: it has seen performances from Hong Kong City Hall to St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London; from Greece’s Ancient Theatre of Pythagorion to the repurposed Carriage House at Lake George. His choral works have been featured in Auckland, Gangneung, Taiwan, Singapore, and Tokyo. Wong’s past commissioners include the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Curtis Institute of Music, Samos Young Artists Festival, NOEMA, Cong Quartet, Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, trumpeter James Vaughen, countertenor Sam Higgins, bass-baritone Evan Gray, and pianist Zach Hoi Leong Cheong. Wong serves on the musical studies faculty and is the coordinator of community partnerships at the Curtis Institute of Music. He received an M.M. in composition from Curtis as the Milton L. Rock Composition Fellow and a B.M. in composition from the University of Michigan.

Wong is paired with mentor Laura Schwendinger.