Program Faculty
Andy Hill
Andy Hill has devoted more than two decades to the craft of scoring music for the screen. Although he has been a student of composition throughout his career and has “learned at the wheel” from film music artists like Elmer Bernstein, Hans Zimmer, and Danny Elfman, his contribution to the craft is not as a composer but as a producer, mentor, and teacher.
After teaching film music at Columbia in the 80’s, Andy served for nine years as Disney’s VP of Music Production, overseeing the composition and recording of music for five Oscar-winning scores, including “The Lion King.” Following this, he worked as an independent music supervisor and executive music producer on films such as “Ed Wood,” “Hoodlum,” “Anastasia,” and “Message In A Bottle.” In 2000, Andy earned a Grammy Award as producer of the music for “The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland,” and in 2004, he developed and taught the first of Columbia’s Semester In L.A. Film Scoring Workshops, a role he has repeated three summers since then, and which led directly to his engagement as director of the new MFA in Music Composition for the Screen. He is the author of two published novels, The Last Days of Madame Rey (Carroll & Graf 2007) and Enoch’s Portal (Champion Press 2002.)
Ilya Levinson
Russian-born Ilya Levinson graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory as a composer, where he studied composition with Alexander Pirumov and orchestration with Edison Denisov. After immigrating to the United States in1988, Levinson completed a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Chicago where his training included instruction from Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran, John Eaton, and Howard Sandroff. He teaches Composition, Orchestration, Sightsinging 2, Keyboard 1 at Columbia College Chicago and Musicianship skills at the University of Chicago.
Levinson’s catalogue includes four operas, four musicals, various symphonic and chamber music, film scores and original music for theatre productions.
Ilya Levinson’s "Chicago Fantasy," written for American Music Festivals where Mr. Levinson is a composer-in-residence, premiered on July 4 2000 with the Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra in Bolshoi Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Phil Simmons, conducting. It was subsequently performed by Presidentâs Orchestra (Russia) during Chicago Days in Moscow in 2002.
A sought-after orchestrator, Ilya worked on "Bockchoy Variations" by Evan Chen for the Minnesota Opera (1996); on "Glass House" by Ellen Gould for Northlight Theatre, Skokie (1998); and "Voices," a CD by Michael Reily.
A winner of the 1994 Midwest Composers Competition and recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships in Music Composition (1997, 2003), Levinson’s music has been performed by Contemporary Chamber Players, Chicago; the New Music Ensembles of The University of Chicago and Northwestern University; the Kankakee Valley Symphony Orchestra; and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ilya Levinson was composer-in-residence at Noble School, Chicago, and the Momenta Academy, Oak Park. He is Music Director and co-founder with Phil Bohlman, Artistic Director, of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, which specializes in performing music of Jewish Cabaret. Their double-CD, "Dancing on the Edge of the Volcano," was released on Cedille label and is distributed worldwide. The group gave a concert at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington in May 2003.
Levinson’s film credits include additional music for Shtetl (WBGH Frontline); Cleared for Landing (Discovery); The Fransworth House, The Tugenhadt House, and Lafyette Park, films about the architecture of Mies van der Rohe for Lost and Found Productions (Chicago); and 1998-2000 fundraising videos for the Jewish United Fund, Chicago. He has also worked for Kartemquin Educational Films, Chicago.
Sebastian Huydts
Sebastian Huydts studied piano in Amsterdam with Edith Lateiner Grosz at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In addition, he took post-graduate classes with Rian de Waal. He participated in piano master classes with György Sebök, Stephen Bishop, and Earl Wild, and took Chamber Music lessons with Tan Crone. He has performed solo, with orchestra and in chamber music throughout Northern Europe and the Midwestern USA and has appeared on Dutch, Spanish and Chicagoland radio. As a composer he has written repertoire for solo instruments as well as various ensembles ranging from duo to orchestra. His style seeks to combine 20th century innovations with more traditional elements of Western music. His works consist of song cycles, sonatas, chamber music for various combinations, and concertos. Many of these works include the piano.
In 1993, the Music Department of the University of Chicago awarded him a four-year stipend to study Composition. His professors there included John Eaton, Jay Alan Yim, Andrew Imbrie, Shulamit Ran and Marta Ptaszynska, Computer Music and Composition with Howard Sandroff, and Conducting with Barbara Schubert. In 1995, He received the Paul and Olga Menn prize for original compositions for his Concerto For Piano And Double String Orchestra, performed that same year by the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra with the composer at the piano. In 1996, to critical acclaim, violist Keith Conant premiered his Concerto da Camera with the Contemporary Chamber Players led by Barbara Schubert.
He has received commissions from organizations such as the "Rhijnauwen Chamber Music Festival", the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Rembrandt Chamber Players, The Orion Ensemble, the Sebastian String Quartet as well as individual artists Keith Conant, Katinka Kleijn and Elizabeth Ko. All works have been performed in past concert seasons. In 2004 his Music for Flute and Piano, recorded by Mary Stolper for Cedille Records, received a favorable review in the Gramophone. He has been Composer in Residence at the Music in the Loft concert series and with Chicago’s New Music Ensemble CUBE. In this position, he received a grant from the American Composer’s Forum to write music for children’s concerts.
Charlie Williams
Charlie Williams serves both as MFA program faculty, teaching Music Technology Lab and Techniques of Synchronization, and as the MFA program's resident 'Logic Ninja', acquainting students with the ins and outs of composing using the latest generation of computer technology. A graduate of Northwestern University's piano performance program, he has concertized around the United States and in Europe. His performance of new music in the 2nd International Shostakovich Competition convinced the judging panel to award him a special prize for bringing the 20th century into a decidedly Romantic-era-leaning competition. Having exhausted his lifetime quota of days spent
sitting by himself in a room practicing classical piano, Williams'
current musical projects explore the possibilities inherent in the reconnection
of "art" music and popular genres. His 2005 album Midnight for You with his group Mira Mira was praised as "pop music for thoughtful people" and "raw, indie pop in its truest form".
Andy Hill has devoted more than two decades to the craft of scoring music for the screen. Although he has been a student of composition throughout his career and has “learned at the wheel” from film music artists like Elmer Bernstein, Hans Zimmer, and Danny Elfman, his contribution to the craft is not as a composer but as a producer, mentor, and teacher.After teaching film music at Columbia in the 80’s, Andy served for nine years as Disney’s VP of Music Production, overseeing the composition and recording of music for five Oscar-winning scores, including “The Lion King.” Following this, he worked as an independent music supervisor and executive music producer on films such as “Ed Wood,” “Hoodlum,” “Anastasia,” and “Message In A Bottle.” In 2000, Andy earned a Grammy Award as producer of the music for “The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland,” and in 2004, he developed and taught the first of Columbia’s Semester In L.A. Film Scoring Workshops, a role he has repeated three summers since then, and which led directly to his engagement as director of the new MFA in Music Composition for the Screen. He is the author of two published novels, The Last Days of Madame Rey (Carroll & Graf 2007) and Enoch’s Portal (Champion Press 2002.)
Ilya Levinson
Russian-born Ilya Levinson graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory as a composer, where he studied composition with Alexander Pirumov and orchestration with Edison Denisov. After immigrating to the United States in1988, Levinson completed a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Chicago where his training included instruction from Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran, John Eaton, and Howard Sandroff. He teaches Composition, Orchestration, Sightsinging 2, Keyboard 1 at Columbia College Chicago and Musicianship skills at the University of Chicago.Levinson’s catalogue includes four operas, four musicals, various symphonic and chamber music, film scores and original music for theatre productions.
Ilya Levinson’s "Chicago Fantasy," written for American Music Festivals where Mr. Levinson is a composer-in-residence, premiered on July 4 2000 with the Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra in Bolshoi Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Phil Simmons, conducting. It was subsequently performed by Presidentâs Orchestra (Russia) during Chicago Days in Moscow in 2002.
A sought-after orchestrator, Ilya worked on "Bockchoy Variations" by Evan Chen for the Minnesota Opera (1996); on "Glass House" by Ellen Gould for Northlight Theatre, Skokie (1998); and "Voices," a CD by Michael Reily.
A winner of the 1994 Midwest Composers Competition and recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships in Music Composition (1997, 2003), Levinson’s music has been performed by Contemporary Chamber Players, Chicago; the New Music Ensembles of The University of Chicago and Northwestern University; the Kankakee Valley Symphony Orchestra; and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ilya Levinson was composer-in-residence at Noble School, Chicago, and the Momenta Academy, Oak Park. He is Music Director and co-founder with Phil Bohlman, Artistic Director, of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, which specializes in performing music of Jewish Cabaret. Their double-CD, "Dancing on the Edge of the Volcano," was released on Cedille label and is distributed worldwide. The group gave a concert at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington in May 2003.
Levinson’s film credits include additional music for Shtetl (WBGH Frontline); Cleared for Landing (Discovery); The Fransworth House, The Tugenhadt House, and Lafyette Park, films about the architecture of Mies van der Rohe for Lost and Found Productions (Chicago); and 1998-2000 fundraising videos for the Jewish United Fund, Chicago. He has also worked for Kartemquin Educational Films, Chicago.
Sebastian Huydts
Sebastian Huydts studied piano in Amsterdam with Edith Lateiner Grosz at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In addition, he took post-graduate classes with Rian de Waal. He participated in piano master classes with György Sebök, Stephen Bishop, and Earl Wild, and took Chamber Music lessons with Tan Crone. He has performed solo, with orchestra and in chamber music throughout Northern Europe and the Midwestern USA and has appeared on Dutch, Spanish and Chicagoland radio. As a composer he has written repertoire for solo instruments as well as various ensembles ranging from duo to orchestra. His style seeks to combine 20th century innovations with more traditional elements of Western music. His works consist of song cycles, sonatas, chamber music for various combinations, and concertos. Many of these works include the piano.In 1993, the Music Department of the University of Chicago awarded him a four-year stipend to study Composition. His professors there included John Eaton, Jay Alan Yim, Andrew Imbrie, Shulamit Ran and Marta Ptaszynska, Computer Music and Composition with Howard Sandroff, and Conducting with Barbara Schubert. In 1995, He received the Paul and Olga Menn prize for original compositions for his Concerto For Piano And Double String Orchestra, performed that same year by the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra with the composer at the piano. In 1996, to critical acclaim, violist Keith Conant premiered his Concerto da Camera with the Contemporary Chamber Players led by Barbara Schubert.
He has received commissions from organizations such as the "Rhijnauwen Chamber Music Festival", the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Rembrandt Chamber Players, The Orion Ensemble, the Sebastian String Quartet as well as individual artists Keith Conant, Katinka Kleijn and Elizabeth Ko. All works have been performed in past concert seasons. In 2004 his Music for Flute and Piano, recorded by Mary Stolper for Cedille Records, received a favorable review in the Gramophone. He has been Composer in Residence at the Music in the Loft concert series and with Chicago’s New Music Ensemble CUBE. In this position, he received a grant from the American Composer’s Forum to write music for children’s concerts.
Charlie Williams
Charlie Williams serves both as MFA program faculty, teaching Music Technology Lab and Techniques of Synchronization, and as the MFA program's resident 'Logic Ninja', acquainting students with the ins and outs of composing using the latest generation of computer technology. A graduate of Northwestern University's piano performance program, he has concertized around the United States and in Europe. His performance of new music in the 2nd International Shostakovich Competition convinced the judging panel to award him a special prize for bringing the 20th century into a decidedly Romantic-era-leaning competition. Having exhausted his lifetime quota of days spent
sitting by himself in a room practicing classical piano, Williams'
current musical projects explore the possibilities inherent in the reconnection
of "art" music and popular genres. His 2005 album Midnight for You with his group Mira Mira was praised as "pop music for thoughtful people" and "raw, indie pop in its truest form".