Composer Lee Hyla's musical background includes extensive experience as a pianist in new music, rock, and free improvisation. Hyla has held the position of the Wyatt Chair in music composition at Northwestern University since 2007. He has written for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Speculum Musicae, and has received commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm, Barlow, and Naumberg Foundations, the Mary Flagler Carey Charitable Trust, Concert Artists Guild, Chamber Music America, and the Meet the Composer/Readers Digest Consortium. He served as a Center music panelist in 2011 and a music LOI panelist in 2012.