In 2024, we reported on the meteoric rise of a composer named Alexey Shor. His music, which resembled the kind of music theory homework that gets Bs and Cs (and that multiple musicians compared to material produced by AI) was suddenly everywhere: in Valetta, Yerevan, and Dubai, but also in London, New York and Amsterdam. Among the well-regarded performers playing his works were Steven Isserlis, Maxim Vengerov, Ray Chen, Denis Kozhukhin, Gautier Capuçon, Mikhail Pletnev, Daniel Lozakovich, James Ehnes, Behzod Abduraimov and Evgeny Kissin. 

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… has been an editor at VAN since 2015. He’s the author of The Life and Music of Gérard Grisey: Delirium and Form (Boydell & Brewer), and his journalism has appeared in The Baffler, the New York...

Hugh Morris is a freelance writer and editor based in London.

... earned degrees in development studies, Asian studies, and cultural anthropology from universities in Berlin, Seoul, Edinburgh, and London. He is a founder of VAN, where he serves as publisher and editor-in-chief.