Max Friedman (b. 1998), from Memphis, Tennessee, is a composer and music concentrator at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. His music has received international recognition, including from the 2012 Humans in Space International Youth Art Competition (Cologne, Germany), the 2013 Robert Avalon International Composers Competition, and the 2015 Frost Composition Competition, and has been performed by ensembles such as the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Sinfonia, Luna Nova New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, and International Contemporary Ensemble. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, Max has also attended the Rocky Ridge Young Artists Seminar in Estes Park, Colorado and the HighSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy. He currently studies composition with Professors Wang Lu and Eric Nathan at Brown, where he is an active member of the student composition community, and has also studied with Dr. Keith Fitch (Rocky Ridge), Dr. Cynthia Van Maanen (Interlochen), and Dr. Stanley Friedman (University of Mississippi). Max is also an accomplished trumpet player and performs as part of the Brown University Orchestra, as well as various student musical theater and opera productions. Max enjoys planning, programming, and bringing to life solo and chamber ensemble concerts featuring new and student-composed music through collaboration with fellow composers and performers. These recitals have thus far taken place at Brown, St. Olaf College, and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, as well as in Memphis. He is also a member of the boards of Fermata, which connects composers with instrumentalists in the Brown University community, and Brown Opera Productions. 

Max draws inspiration from the underlying connections between music, scientific research and discovery (particularly astronomy and paleontology), and history, in which he is pursuing a second concentration.