Summer Symposium 2026, The Performer/Composer
Monday, June 8th - Thursday, June 18th
9:00 am - 4:00 pm
early drop off from 8:30 am, late pick up until 4:45 pm
Recommended for ages 12-18 with intermediate to advanced musical proficiency.
Register by May 15, 2026.
In 2026, our symposium’s theme is The Performer/Composer. For centuries, the musicians who debuted pieces by leading composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms were usually the composers themselves! Clara Schumann wrote her piano concerto when she was just 14, then premiered it herself with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. More recently, though, composition has largely been left out of musical training, and technical proficiency on an instrument has become the default measure of a student’s progress. Despite countless examples spanning every genre of music, the thought of a single person pursuing both performance and composition is viewed as a rarity. We’d like to change that.
Every student at LAM’s 2026 Summer Symposium will be a performer AND a composer. Our faculty will guide students through group rehearsals on their primary instrument and the creation of a brand new piece of music, shaped by students’ experience. A group of professional musicians will work with every student to bring their pieces to life through workshops and a recorded premiere performance. On Thursday of week two, LAM will host a reception concert to showcase the students’ work. Camp attendees will leave the symposium with new skills, new friends, and a finished composition with a professional recording - an incredible asset for any young musician’s resume. All instrument and voice types are welcome, and no composition experience is required.
Following registration, all students will be sent a follow up questionnaire.
$675 per student for 9-days of camp
Financial assistance is available. Click HERE to learn more.
Questions? Email Kent Klarer, Program Director HERE!
Meet the core faculty of the 2026 Summer Symposium
TJ Cole (they/them)
TJ Cole is a composer, producer, performer, and educator currently based in Louisville, KY. TJ's work often bridges the visual and tactile worlds with the emotional and auditory ones. Drawing from both traditional and experimental elements, acoustic and electronic sounds, eclectic and homogenous styles, TJ finds joy in blending contrasting elements to explore fresh ways of hearing and experiencing music.
Described as having “a very serious level of invention with their music” by Teddy Abrams, they are most enriched by collaborative projects, working closely with soloists interested in contemporary music, alternative-orientation communities, and multimedia collaborations. TJ’s recent work embraces play as resistance to perfectionism, using games, improvisation, and humor to challenge elitism in the arts.
TJ is currently a 2025-27 McKnight Visiting Composer-in-Residence, and was recently part of the inaugural class of the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps program (2022-23). This year-long residency involved composing new large-scale works for the orchestra, and spearheading community engagement initiatives across Louisville.
TJ has received commissions from the Baltimore, Cincinnati, Louisville and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, Ensemble Connect, Intersection, and numerous others. Their compositions have been showcased by the Chicago, Atlanta, St.Louis, and Minnesota Orchestras, Tracy Silverman, Carnegie Hall, Gabriel Cabezas, among others. They have been a composer and creative director with StageOne Theater, a songwriter and pop producer with Twin Pixie, and are a synthesizer soloist in settings ranging from DIY to orchestral stages. They have collaborated as orchestrator and arranger with Time for Three and held the position of composer-in-residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2014. They currently teach composition and electronic music at the Louisville Academy of Music and also maintain a private studio of mentees.
Their work has been recognized by two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer awards (2014 & 2020), including the prestigious Leo Kaplan Award for their string sextet 'Playtime'. Their projects have received support from the Daniel W. Dietrich II Young Alumni Fund (2022), and a New Music USA Creator Fund (2024).
TJ loves collaborating. Currently, they are an active performer in Choir Siren, an electro-acoustic duo based in Louisville. Choir Siren combines improvised music, live sound design, movement, and props in alternative performance spaces, creating unique experiences that respond directly to their surroundings.
TJ is deeply interested in community engagement as part their creative practice. In their yearlong ArtistYear Fellowship (2016-17), they co-facilitated musical performances and songwriting workshops with residents of Project HOME, a Philadelphia-based organization fighting to end chronic homelessness. During the 2022-23 Louisville Orchestra Creator-Corps residency, TJ collaborated with VOICES of Kentuckiana, an LGBTQ+ and allies community chorus in Louisville, on 'Those Moments', an ongoing project that shares choir members' stories experiences with gender.
TJ studied composition at both the Curtis Institute of Music and at Interlochen Arts Academy. Their mentors include John Boyle Jr., Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, and Richard Danielpour.
Beyond their musical pursuits, TJ finds joy in cooking, visual art, video games, swing sets on playgrounds, plants, and caring for their wobbly cat, Zucchini. Their current favorite plant is the Sunflower.
Tyler Taylor (he/him)
Tyler Taylor (1992) is a composer-performer and teaching artist from Louisville, KY. As a nationally recognized composer, Tyler will be featured with orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. He has been appointed the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra – a three year composer residency that will include several commissions, work with the communities of Cleveland, and education initiatives. He will teach a Young Composer Workshop with students of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in 2026. As winner of the 2024 Michael Morgan Prize, Tyler has been commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony to write a large-scale work for their 2025-2026 season. Other honors include a Copland House Residency Award (2023), an I-Park Foundation Residency (2023), and the Louisville Orchestra Creator Corps Residency (2022–23).
As a music educator and teaching artist, he founded and taught the Louisville Orchestra Young Composer Program (2022-25), where students from JCPS had their pieces workshopped and performed by members of the Louisville Orchestra. The program featured over 60 premieres in its three years. He also teaches horn lessons to students at Crosby Middle School and Johnson Middle School as a sectional and private coach.
As a versatile performer, Tyler has played in settings ranging from professional orchestras including the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, the Huntington Symphony, the Louisville Ballet, and the Owensboro Symphony to recitals of contemporary music featuring works by several living composers.
Tyler holds degrees from Indiana University (Doctor of Music with minors in Music Theory & Horn Performance), the Eastman School of Music (Master of Music), and the University of Louisville (Bachelor of Music).