Spencer Topel’s music has recently appeared on concert programs in major venues such as Orchestra Hall, Minnesota, Chiesa di Santa Caterina Treviso in Venice, Italy, Istanbul Technical University (MIAM), the 2008 Aspen Music Festival, Chigiana Festival in Siena, Italy in 2007, at Alice Tully and Weill Concert Halls in New York, and in Tokyo City Opera Hall. In 2009-10, his music appears on the calendars of the Minnesota Orchestra, Society for New Music, the American Modern Ensemble, and the Holden Gallery.

Mr. Topel has been a top prizewinner in student competitions, including the American Modern Ensemble Composers Composition, Palmer Dixon Prize for Outstanding Composition at Juilliard and the Diploma di Merito at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, as well as awards and commissions from organizations such as ASCAP, BMI, and from the National Foundation from Advancement in the Arts. Recent performances include those with Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the processional for the inauguration of President David Skorton, and new music ensembles at Cornell University, Tulane, and Juilliard.

Raised in Portland, Oregon, Spencer is a 2004 graduate of The Juilliard School, and past mentors include renowned composers Christopher Rouse and Steven Stucky, among others.

Spencer Topel is also an active lecturer and researcher at Dartmouth College where he teaches composition in the Digital Musics Program. In 2007 Mr. Topel was a recipient of the Credit Suisse Sponsor Award at the Cornell Student Engineering Conference BOOM.

Current research includes machine listening in the Bregman Music Auditory Reseaerch Studio, developing new timbre-rhythm models based on human perception.