Born in 1979, Mr. DeMaison is a composer and conductor who has served on the composition and conducting faculty of the Walden School in Dublin, New Hampshire since 2004, where he has assisted in presenting countless premieres of new works. He is a founding director of Opera Cabal in Chicago, a collective of musicians and inter-disciplinary artists devoted to the creation and production of new opera, of which Time Out Chicago has declared, "A thrilling contrast to Lyric Opera and Chicago Opera Theater...Opera Cabal exhibits the audacity and daredevilry rarely found in anything calling itself 'opera' these days." In 2007, DeMaison was one of 12 young conductors selected to participate in the Lucerne Festival Masterclass in Conducting with Peter Eotvos and Pierre Boulez to study and perform Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen. In 2008, he was awarded a conducting scholarship to attend the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music, where he presented performances of music by Wolfgang Rihm and premieres of new works by emerging European composers. Most recently, DeMaison was named Composer in Residence at High Concept Laboratories, in Chicago, IL. DeMaison's music, described as successfully managing "to cross the threshold from being abstractly academic to emotionally provocative" (Time Out NY), has been performed across the country by distinguished musicians such as the Prism Saxophone Quartet, the Del Sol String Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, oboist Jacqueline Leclair, and flutist Kathleen Gallagher. Recent work as a conductor has included positions and engagements with the Talea Ensemble, Manhattan School of Music Composers’ Orchestra, South Hadley Chorale and Orchestra, La Jolla Symphony, redfishbluefish percussion ensemble, and Capella Chamber Choir (Encinitas, CA). He is currently the Artistic Director of Florilegium Chamber Choir in Manhattan. DeMaison received his Bachelor of Arts in music from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and holds a Master's degree in music composition from the University of California, San Diego.