February 1, 2022
In Washington Post's annual list of composers and performers to watch, Michael Andor Brodeur, Classical Music Critic, included another Penn Graduate Student Composer in the list, 22 for '22: Composers and performers to watch this year - James Diaz! (Flannery Cunningham was in the list, 21 for '21). James Diaz is a Fourth Year Graduate Student in Composition. Diaz “creates works of stark, haunting elegance" extending beyond concert music including projects that explore the potential of electroacoustic and mixed media settings. Deeply influenced by psychedelic-rock bands, his music also draws from elements of the classical canon, renaissance music, postmodernist architecture, minimalism and photography.