Director of the contemporary big band the Pittsburgh Collective, composer David Sanford has received commissions from the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Speculum Musicae, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, Chamber Music America and the Barlow Endowment; his works have been performed by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra under Marin Alsop, the Detroit Symphony under Leslie Dunner, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players among others. His honors include the Rome Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Radcliffe Institute, and he was the arranger for cellist Matt Haimovitz’s Grammy Award-nominated disc Meeting of the Spirits. He received degrees in theory and composition from the University of Northern Colorado, New England Conservatory, and Princeton University, and is currently Elizabeth T. Kennan Professor of Music at Mount Holyoke College.