The following description comes from the event organizer.

Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble's (PJCE's) winter concert, Alliance, brings together the past five winners of the International Association for Women in Music's (IAWM) annual jazz composition prize. The new pieces for the large jazz ensemble will be performed on Saturday, January 28th at 7:00 pm at Portland State University's Lincoln Recital Hall. The featured composers, all lauded instrumentalists and bandleaders of their own ensembles, include GRAMMY-nominee Migiwa "Miggy" Miyajima, Berklee College of Music faculty member Sam Spear, four-time winner of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation scholarship Jhoely Garay, two-time Herb Alpert ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award-winner Yu Nishiyama, and NYC-based Eliana Fishbeyn. The concert will be followed by a Q&A with three of the guest composers moderated by IAWM President Christina Rusnak.

The IAWM is the leading global organization devoted to the equity, promotion, and advocacy of women in music across time, cultures, and genres. As part of their annual "Search for New Music by Women Composers," IAWM has awarded a jazz composition prize co-sponsored by PJCE since 2018. Through this partnership, PJCE has been introduced to up-and-coming composers across the country.

About the Composers
Eliana Fishbeyn comes from an immigrant Russian-Jewish family, where her mother, aunt, and grandmother started her musical upbringing at an early age. At age 6, she began classical piano lessons with John Ruggero, to whom she owes much of her musical understanding. She received her Bachelor's degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and in the spring of 2022 and graduated with her Master's degree in jazz composition from Manhattan School of Music, studying with an important mentor figure and influence on her, Jim McNeely. She currently lives in New York with her partner, John Thorp, a PhD student in cognitive neuroscience at Columbia University. Starting in the fall of 2021, she and fellow composer, Robert Buonaspina, have organized regular meetings of a large ensemble that workshops, rehearses, and performs new music semi-regularly.

Jhoely Garay is a guitarist, composer, and arranger from Mexico City, Mexico. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in jazz guitar performance from The City College of New York in 2020. Garay is mentored by Dee Dee Bridgewater and has studied and collaborated with iconic artists such as Steve Wilson, Ted Nash, Peter Bernstein, Jim McNeely, Mike Holober, and Scott Reeves, among others. Garay is a four-time winner of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation scholarship and the Austin and Florence Kaye Foundation scholarship.

Hailing from Japan, Migiwa "Miggy" Miyajima is a composer, producer, pianist, and bandleader of the 17-piece Miggy Augmented Orchestra. She creates large-scale works manifesting her distinct life experiences. Birdland Jazz Club says, "Miyajima's music reflects her journey as a musician and humanitarian." Formerly editor-in-chief of a magazine in Japan, Miyajima trusted the power of music and became a full-time musician at the age of 30. Four years later, she was made associate producer for the Grammy-winning Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Her work with the group brought her two GRAMMY nominations.

Originally from Yokohama, Japan, Yu Nishiyama is a jazz saxophonist and composer. She first began playing piano at the age of 5 and picked up the saxophone at 14 years-old. She graduated from Senzoku Gakuen High School in Japan, and came to the United States to study jazz saxophone with Brad Leali at the University of North Texas. While at UNT, Yu wrote arrangements and original compositions for the UNT O'Clock Lab Band and other ensembles. She received her Master's degree in jazz composition and arranging at William Paterson University studying with Cecil Bridgewater and Ed Neumeister.

Sam Spear is a woodwind instrumentalist, composer, and music educator based in Boston, MA. She has performed with a host of the city's finest jazz musicians including Allan Chase, Josh Rosen, and Bill Banfield, among others. Her four-part work for jazz orchestra Survivor's Suite was awarded the 2019 Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble Prize. Spear is passionate about music education and works with students across greater Boston from middle school beginning wind players to undergraduate music majors. She was recently appointed to the faculty of Berklee College of Music as an assistant professor of Contemporary Writing and Production.