Ilari Kaila is a Finnish-born composer and pianist based in New York City. During this concert season, his works are performed at the Metropolis Festival in Australia by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, on the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra's tour of Japan in Yokohama and Kanagawa, and in Finland by the Joensuu Symphony Orchestra, and at the MATA Festival in New York City, among others. He has worked with ensembles including the Escher String Quartet, the Uusinta Chamber Ensemble, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra's chamber ensembles, and the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. Kaila has been awarded, most recently, in the Mellon Foundation/ASO "Composer to Center Stage" competition, in the Composer Competition of the 9th International Piano Festival in Espoo, and has received the American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship, a commission grant from the National Council for Music in Finland, the Thayer Fellowship and Patricia Kerr Ross Award from the State University of New York, and the Cité Internationale des Arts residency in Paris. As a pianist, Kaila has performed in premieres of his own and other young composers' works, and in various improvisation projects. He teaches counterpoint and musicianship at Columbia University and Stony Brook University, and composition as a teaching artist with the New York Philharmonic.