About this Artist

Z/Zola Saadi-Klein (he/they), is a 19 year old composer, vocalist, and violinist from Los Angeles. In 2020, they received the ASCAP Foundation Irving Berlin Scholarship Award. From 2019-2021, they were a Fellow in the LA Phil Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program under the mentorship of Andrew Norman, Sarah Gibson, and Thomas Kotcheff. He also studied with Dr. Ian Krouse of UCLA, who was their composition teacher for two years before they began studying under the tutelage of the composition faculty at Oberlin Conservatory in 2021. Currently, he studies composition with Professor Michael Frazier at Oberlin Conservatory. As a member of the Oberlin Buddhist Fellowship, he is interested in the concepts of how one perceives ourselves in time and space at each moment, and how the breath connects our souls to the universe. The practice of mindfulness and concentration meditation has deeply influenced their musical life.