Judd Greenstein was born and raised in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, where he began his compositional life by writing hip hop beats as a teenager. After turning to classical music, he received degrees from Williams College and the Yale School of Music, studying with Martin Bresnick, David Kechley, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Ezra Laderman. Mr. Greenstein has been a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music, and was chosen as an Emerging Composer in last season's ZOOM: Composers Close Up series at Merkin Hall. Recent awards and commissions include a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a First Music Commission from the New York Youth Symphony, and a Morton Gould Young Composer Award from the ASCAP Foundation. Mr. Greenstein's work has most recently been performed by the Seattle Chamber Players, as part of the Kyiv Music Festival in the Ukraine, and by the University of Texas at Austin New Music Ensemble. He is currently working on commissions from Present Music, as part of their 25th Anniversary celebration, percussionist Sam Solomon, soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird, cellist/singer Jody Redhage, and violist Nadia Sirota, as well as writing hip hop beats for a forthcoming animated short film about New York City bicycle messengers. Mr. Greenstein is the co-Artistic Director of NOW Ensemble and is in his second year of studies for a PhD in Composition at Princeton University.