Instrument Building Workshop

Benjamin J M Klein, host
Sivan Cohen Elias, guest artist
Michael Duffy, guest artist

Center for the Performing Arts
3754 Pleasant Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55409
May 1, 4:00pm

(FREE and open to the public)

Schuyler Tsuda Portrait Concert

Strains New Music Ensemble

Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall
2106 S 4th St, Minneapolis, MN 55455
May 3, 1:00pm

(FREE and open to the public)

livestream

program

Kigumi by Schuyler Tsuda

Strains New Music Ensemble

James DeVoll, flute
Kyle Hutchins, clarinet
Carlynn Savot, cello
Rob Cosgrove, percussion

Marble, Glass, and Vapor by Schuyler Tsuda
Kyle Hutchins, saxophone

Normale by Schuyler Tsuda
James DeVoll, flute
Benjamin Burgdorf, viola
Rob Cosgrove, percussion

Parasites by Schuyler Tsuda

Michael Duffy, electronics/improvisation/technical direction

Lux String Quartet

Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall
2106 S 4th St, Minneapolis, MN 55455
May 4, 8:00pm

(FREE and open to the public)

livestream

program

new works by University of Minnesota Students
The Law of the Tongue by Nicholas Vines

Lux String Quartet

Stephanie Skor, violin
Ellen Hacker, violin
Kirsti Petraborg, viola
Rosa Thompson-Vieira, cello

Michael Duffy, technical direction

University of Minnesota Composers Concert

Talea Ensemble

Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall
2106 S 4th St, Minneapolis, MN 55455
May 5, 8:00pm

(FREE and open to the public)

livestream

program

new works by University of Minnesota Students

TALEA Ensemble
James Baker, conductor

Barry Crawford, flutes
Benjamin Fingland, clarinets
Adrian Morejon, bassoon
Burt Mason, trombone
Hannah Levinson, viola
Chris Gross, cello
Steven Beck, piano
Matthew Gold, percussion

Michael Duffy, technical direction

Steven Kazuo Takasugi Lecture

Ferguson Hall, room 280
2106 S 4th St, Minneapolis, MN 55455
May 6, 2:00pm

(FREE and open to the public)

The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker Talk

Walker|West Music Academy
650 Marshall Ave, St Paul, MN 55104
May 7, 5:30pm

(FREE and open to the public)

Piano Concerto by Steven Kazuo Takasugi

Talea Ensemble

Ted Mann Concert Hall
2128 S 4th St, Minneapolis, MN 55455
May 7, 8:00pm

(Tickets - COMING SOON)

program

Piano Concerto by Steven Kazuo Takasugi

TALEA Ensemble
James Baker, conductor
Steven Beck, piano soloist

Michelle Farah, oboe
Barry Crawford, flutes
Benjamin Fingland, clarinets
Adrian Morejon, bassoon
Sam Jones, trumpet
Nicolee Kuester, horn in F
Burt Mason, trombone
, tuba
Maya Bennardo, violin
Karen Kim, violin
Hannah Levinson, viola
Chris Gross, cello
Greg Chudzik, double bass
Nuiko Wadden, harp
Matthew Gold, percussion
Robert Schulz, percussion

William Stanton, techical direction
Victoria Cheah, director of production

The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker / Michael Duffy / Ted Moore

saxophonist Kyle Hutchins

Center for the Performing Arts
3754 Pleasant Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55409
May 8, 8:00pm

TICKETS

program

Drowning, on the Verge of Want by Michael Duffy
Michael Duffy, harmonium
Justin Anthony Spenner, amplified build instruments
, cello

Holograms by The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker
Kyle Hutchins, saxophones
The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker, electronics

Saccades by Ted Moore
Kyle Hutchins, saxophones
Ted Moore, electronics

Michael Duffy, technical direction

Sivan Cohen Elias/Scott L. Miller

Talea Ensemble
Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble

Nautilus Music-Theater
Northern Warehouse, 308 E Prince St #190, St Paul, MN 55101
May 9, 8:00pm

TICKETS

program

Creature by Scott L. Miller

Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble

Pat O’Keefe, clarinets
Heather Barringer, percussion
Patti Cudd, percussion
Nicola Melville, piano

with

Kyle Hutchins, saxophones
Scott L. Miller, electronics

Whistle Town by Sivan Cohen Elias

TALEA Ensemble

James Baker, conductor

Barry Crawford, flutes
Benjamin Fingland, clarinets
Kyle Hutchins, saxophones
Maya Bennardo, violin
Rebeccah Parker Downs, cello
Matthew Gold, percussion
Steven Beck, keyboard
Shannon Wettstein, keyboard

Tiffany M. Skidmore, electronics
Michael Duffy, technical direction

New Music for violinist Maya Bennardo

Nautilus Music-Theater
Northern Warehouse, 308 E Prince St #190, St Paul, MN 55101
May 10, 4:00pm

TICKETS

program

Dormant gardens ia. by Maya Bennardo
Get Back! by Joshua Musikantow
Crickets by Benjamin J M Klein
I Thought You Said Forever by Kyle Hutchins
Guardaci Ben by Tiffany M. Skidmore

Maya Bennardo, violin

Improv - Bring Your Instrument!

Nautilus Music-Theater
Northern Warehouse, 308 E Prince St #190, St Paul, MN 55101
May 10, 6:00pm

FREE and open to the public

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

This activity is supported by the University of Minnesota Imagine Fund, an initiative of the University of Minnesota Executive Vice President and Provost, established through a generous gift from the McKnight Foundation.

Special thanks to Sari Baker (UMN School of Music Production/Technical Coordinator), Heather Barringer (113 Board Member and Festival Consultant), Lisa Beecroft (UMN Marketing and Communications Manager), Sivan Cohen Elias (UMN School of Music Liaison), Michael Duffy (113 Technical Director and Consultant and Schuyler Tsuda Archive and Music Consultant), Anthony R. Green (113 Board Member and Festival Consultant), Colin Holter (donation in memory of Schuyler Tsuda), Kyle Hutchins (113 Communications and Festival Graphic Design Assistance) Benjamin JM Klein (113 Treasurer and Festival Logistics Coordinator), Day Marvel, Fernando Meza (UMN Director of Percussion Studies, William Mullins (113 Intern), Adrian Morejon (Talea Executive Director), Joshua Musikantow (113 Development Direction and Festival Graphic Design), Peter Remiger (UMN School of Music Facilities and Operations Manager), Earl Ross (Walker West Music Academy Liaison), Tiffany M. Skidmore (113 Aristic Director, TCNMF26 Director, Graphic Design Assistance, Financial Development, and Web Maintenance), Walt Skidmore (113 Board Member, Web Development, Technical Consultant), Adam Voreis (UMN School of Music Audio and Video Production Coordinator), Patrick Warfield (Director of the UMN School of Music), and Lana Wharry (Schuyler Tsuda Archive Consultation).

The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker

The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker is a new renaissance artist whose work is best expressed as a constantly evolving practice that doesn’t fit neatly into definition or expectation boxes. It is an artistic body of work vast in scope and scale outside of the confines of a simple elevator pitch, unrestrained and unencapsulated.Elizabeth has received recognition from press as well as scholars, for her conceptual compositions and commitment to fostering introspective healing spaces within her work. Elizabeth is a certified Reiki Master in the Usui Shiki Ryoho System Of Natural Healing.

Elizabeth’s awards include –  an AIRIE fellowship (Artists in Residence in Everglades), Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida,  ACF Connect from American Composers Forum (ACF) in partnership with The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM Chicago), and the Matt Marks Impact Award from Alarm Will Sound. Elizabeth is the 2021-2022 Rieman and Baketel Fellow for Music at Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Her experimental film work has been included in Women of the Lens (UK), and the African Smartphone International Film Festival (Nigeria). She has commercially released eleven albums, four books, and is a Voting Member of the Recording Academy.

Zeitgeist

​Lauded for providing “a once-in-a-lifetime experience for adventurous concertgoers,” Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and woodwinds. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in Minnesota and throughout the nation. Always eager to explore new artistic frontiers, Zeitgeist collaborates with sound artists of all types to create imaginative new work that challenges the boundaries of traditional chamber music. The members of Zeitgeist are: Heather Barringer, percussion; Patti Cudd, percussion; Pat O’Keefe, woodwinds; Nicola Melville, piano.

Zeitgeist has maintained a fierce dedication to the creation of new music for the past five decades, commissioning more than 500 works and collaborating with emerging composers and some of the finest established composers of our time, including George Lewis, Frederic Rzewski, Terry Riley, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Paul Dresher, Mark Applebaum, Arthur Kreiger, Scott Miller, Pamela Madsen, Edie Hill, Libby Larsen, John Luther Adams, Jin Hi Kim, Mary Ellen Childs, Martin Bresnick, Harold Budd, La Monte Young, Guy Klucevsek, Chinary Ung, and Pamela Z.

Further, Zeitgeist has earned an international reputation for superb craftsmanship, virtuosic performance, and an innovative approach to the presentation of contemporary music. Highlights include Sound Stage by Paul Dresher (2001), a music-theater work featuring Zeitgeist and a 17-foot high musical pendulum, Walker Art Center premieres of Pine Eyes by Martin Bresnick (2006), The Making of Americans by Anthony Gatto and Jay Scheib (2008), and Interregnum by George Lewis (2022), a 30th anniversary celebration (2008) Glancing Back/Charging Forward: 30 Years of Groundbreaking Music featuring the world premieres of works by 30 Minnesota composers, For the Birds (2010), an evening-length chamber suite with narration by composer Victor Zupanc and humorist Kevin Kling, the premiere of Spiral XIV “Nimmitta” (2012) by Cambodian American composer Chinary Ung, Saint Paul Food Opera (2016), a dining and music collaboration between composer Ben Houge and five Saint Paul chefs, and the immersive audio and video installation NORTH by Mary Ellen Childs.

Zeitgeist presents a full season of events for audiences in Minnesota. Highlights of the 2023-2024 season included FESTIVAL AT THE FARM featuring Musical Landscapes by Todd Harper (nature-inspired watercolor graphic scores), Summer Rain by Shruthi and Nirmala Rajasekar, and Table by Sod House Music Theater, SOUNDING GROUND, featuring new works by Sara Pajunen, AJ Isaacson-Zvidzwa, Shruthi Rajasekar, Jay Afrisando, Jarrelle Barton, Soomin Kim, and Jonathan Posthuma, Zeitgeist’s Early Music Festival featuring works by 20th century Asian and Asian American composers (co-presented with 10th Wave Chamber Collective), LIVING SOUNDS featuring the music of guest artist Jin Hi Kim, HERE AND THERE with No Exit New Music Ensemble featuring the premiere of a concert-length new work by Zeitgeist and Philip Blackburn, and the installation NORTH by Mary Ellen Childs-an installation featuring video imagery, paintings, set design, and recorded music performed by Zeitgeist (at Carleton College). A monthly series, Salon at Studio Z, presented Zeitgeist and other local performers in informal performances of new work.

Based in the rural community of Red Wing, Minnesota, Zeitgeist presents a full season of events for audiences in Minnesota with performances in the metro area, Red Wing, and outstate Minnesota. In recent years, Zeitgeist has directed artistic energy and intention to developing work that connects with rural and urban audiences around issues of sustainability, spiritual connection, and common ground. This work includes several community performances of Murmur in the Trees by Eve Beglarian, Be Where You Are by Heather Barringer (2022), Festival at the Farm hosted by Barringer Family Farms in western Wisconsin, even if I must go (2024) by Kyle Hutchins, Closed Loop (2024) by Pamela Z, and …I grew up on a farm (2024) by Jonathan Posthuma.

Zeitgeist has released numerous recordings, including She is a Phantom (music of Harold Budd), A Decade (music of Frederic Rzewski), Intuitive Leaps (music of Terry Riley), Eric Stokes (music of Eric Stokes), If Tigers Were Clouds (music of experimental women composers), Shape Shifting (music by Scott Miller, poetry by Philippe Costaglioli), In Bone-Colored Light (works by Ethan Wickman, Anthony Gatto, Katherine Jackanich, and Jerome Kitzke), Night Singing (music of Andrew Rindfleisch), Here and Now (works by 30 Minnesota composers), Tipping Point (chamber works by Scott Miller), For the Birds (music by Victor Zupanc, poetry by Kevin Kling), COINCIDENT (telematic audiovisual collaboration with Zeitgeist, Scott L. Miller, and Carol Kim) and NORTH (music by Mary Ellen Childs).

Ted Moore

Ted Moore (he / him) is a composer, improviser, and intermedia artist whose work fuses sonic, visual, physical, and acoustic elements, often incorporating technology to create immersive, multidimensional experiences.

Ted’s music has been presented by leading cultural institutions such as MassMoCA, South by Southwest, Lucerne Forward Festival, The Walker Art Center, and National Sawdust and presented by ensembles such as Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, the [Switch~ Ensemble], and the JACK Quartet. Ted has held artist residences with the Phonos Foundation in Barcelona, the Arts, Sciences, & Culture Initiative at the University of Chicago, and the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam. His sound art installations combine DIY electronics, embedded technologies, and spatial sound have been featured around the world including at the American Academy in Rome and New York University.

Computational thinking and digital tools enrich all aspects of Ted’s work, which has been described as “an impressive achievement both artistically and technically” (VitaMN). Creative coding spans the aural, visual, and procedural aspects of his practice revealing musicality in data and computation. Using tools such as SuperCollider, Max, C++, openFrameworks, Python, and computer vision and machine learning algorithms, Ted codes custom software for composition and live performance that intimately connect gesture and form across various media.

Ranging from concert stages to dirty basements, Ted is a frequent improviser on electronics and has appeared with dozens of instrumental collaborators across Europe and North America including on releases for Carrier Records, Mother Brain Records, Noise Pelican Records, and Avid Sound Records. Described as “frankly unsafe” by icareifyoulisten.com, performances on his custom, large-scale software instrument for live sound processing and synthesis, enables an improvisational voice rooted in free jazz, noise music, and musique concrète.

Interdisciplinarity catalyzes the diversity of Ted’s own practice by bringing him into collaboration with creative thinkers of differing backgrounds, such as theater-makers, choreographers, dancers, and software engineers. Ted has worked with independent theater companies, creating collaboratively devised intermedia works notably with Skewed Visions and Umbrella Collective in Minneapolis, creating original music, sound design, and video art.

After completing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Chicago, Ted served as a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Creative Coding at the University of Huddersfield as part of the ERC-funded FluCoMa project, where he investigated the creative potential of machine learning algorithms and taught workshops on how artists can use machine learning in their creative music practice. Ted has continued offering workshops around the world on machine learning and creativity including at the University of Pennsylvania, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, and Music Hackspace in London.

Ted currently lives near New Haven, Connecticut, but might also be found hiking in nearby West Rock State Park or on the side of a mountain in Summit County, Colorado.

Benjamin J M Klein

Benjamin J M Klein is a composer, tubaist, improvisor, and installation artist who focuses on innovating presentation and form by exploring experimental aesthetic concepts. Benjamin’s work is frequently heard at conferences, festivals, and concerts in the USA and abroad including the VU Symposium of Experimental Music, the Society of Electro Acoustic Music of the United States Annual Conference, the Hartford New Music Festival, the Cincinnati New Music Festival, the International Society of Improvised Music Annual Conference, and the NOWnow Festival of Improvised Music. Over the course of his career he has had the privilege to work with and learn from artists: Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, James Dillon, Ron Kuivila, Diane Willow, Han Bennink, Katie Duck, Milo Fine, Matt Turner, Joanne Metcalf, and Zulu Tsuruyama. Benjamin has received degrees in music from the University of Minnesota (PhD), Wesleyan University (MA), and Lawrence University (BMus). Benjamin is a member of the 113 Collective. He currently resides in Saint Paul.

Tiffany M. Skidmore

Tiffany M. Skidmore is an American composer and performer based in Columbia, Missouri, where she is currently Associate Director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative. She has held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Virginia Tech, and the University at Buffalo (SUNY), where from 2023-2024, she held the Birge Cary Chair in Music Composition. Most recently, she was a Visiting Professor at McGill University, in residence at CIRMMT (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). She is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Co-Artistic Director of the Twin Cities-based 113 Composers Collective, an organization that produces the Twin Cities New Music Festival, as well as concerts and guest artist residencies throughout the world.

Dr. Skidmore has received numerous awards for her work from organizations such as the Schubert Club, the Jerome Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Rimon, and Opus7. She was a 2017 John Duffy Institute for New Opera Fellow, a 2018 McKnight Composer Fellow, and the 2018-2019 Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble Composer-in-Residence. Her chamber, choral, and orchestral work has been interpreted by acclaimed experimental music specialists throughout the United States, Europe, and Colombia, including Kyle Hutchins, Tiffany Du Mouchelle, Talea, TAK, loadbang, andPlay, Bent Duo, Fonema Consort, Ensemble Dal Niente, Duo Gelland, and many others. Her work has been featured in national and international festivals, including the US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, the International Clarinet Association Festival, the MN Made Festival, the Shockingly Modern Saxophone Festival, the Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival, the New York City Electronic Music Festival, the OpenAir Festival (Sweden), the Open Days Festival (Denmark), and the World Saxophone Congress (Gran Canaria), among others. She is on the composition faculty of the Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival, the Sofia Symphonic Summit, and the Veneto Art and Music Summit.

Dr. Skidmore holds degrees in Music Composition and Vocal Performance from Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University, and the University of Minnesota, where she studied with James Dillon and theorist Michael Cherlin, followed by post-doctoral studies with Chaya Czernowin. Her music may be heard on the New Focus and Neuma Records recording labels.

Soprano Nina Dante writes that “Tiffany Skidmore’s music brings to mind Sciarrino’s description of his own music: hearing it is like watching a volcano erupt from afar. While Skidmore’s music burns its own path outside of Sciarrino’s aesthetic, the description holds true. Her music often features slow moving textures dotted with energetic events (imagine a constellation moving across the sky over the course of the year, and interjecting shooting stars), a starry sound world, coldly emotional content, and a mix of musical abstraction with direct theatrical/conceptual content. For these reasons, like reading a myth of ancient times, we experience the drama of her works from a distance.”

As a performer, Skidmore has sung professionally with the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Opera companies, Spokane Symphony Chorale, the Minnesota Chorale, the Contemporary Music Workshop, Hymnos Vocal Ensemble, the Gregorian Singers, the 113 Composers Collective, and as a free-lance artist, primarily performing early and experimental music.

Kyle Hutchins

Kyle Hutchins is an experimental performance artist, composer, improviser, and educator who pushes sonic boundaries. Called “epic” (Jazz Times) and “gripping” (Star Tribune), his music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, The Walker Art Center, National Sawdust, and major festivals in over twenty countries across five continents, including the World Saxophone Congress, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, and the International Computer Music Conference. His fearless approach has been recognized with awards and support from DOWNBEAT, New Music USA, The American Prize, and Virginia’s “40 Under 40” from The Roanoker Magazine (2024).

A driving force in experimental and electroacoustic music, Kyle has premiered more than 350 new works and appears on over 40 commercial recordings. He’s a core member of 113 Composers Collective, Fonema Consort, and Strains Ensemble, and has collaborated with leading figures including Pauline Oliveros, George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, James Dillon, Michael Pisaro, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Claire Chase, Richard Barrett, and Douglas Ewart. Longstanding partnerships with artists like The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker, Ted Moore, Tiffany M. Skidmore, Emily Lau, Charles Nichols, and Eric Lyon have fueled projects that blur the lines between chamber music, noise, and multimedia art.

Described as “part of electroacoustic improv’s well-hewn dynasty” (Downtown Music Gallery), Kyle’s improvisations are “undoubtedly brave” (Issues Magazine) and “frankly unsafe” (I Care If You Listen). His projects—including Binary Canary, Kill All Kings, and Banshee—draw on free jazz, noise, and punk, with recordings on Carrier, Lurker Bias, Noise Pelican, and Mother Brain.

Kyle has been a guest artist and educator at major institutions worldwide, including Stanford University, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), New York University, Manhattan School of Music, University of California – Los Angeles, Michigan State University, Arizona State University, McGill University, University of British Columbia, Shanghai Conservatory, University of North Texas, Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia (Rome), University of St Andrews, University of Limerick, Zagreb Academy of Music, Hanyang University (South Korea), Javeriana University (Colombia), and the Latvian Academy of Music, among many others. He has twice presented clinics at The Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference in Chicago, and regularly gives residencies, masterclasses, and lectures across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Since 2016, Kyle has been on faculty at Virginia Tech, where he is Assistant Professor of Practice in the School of Performing Arts and directs both the New Music + Technology Festival and the ARTx Program at the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts and a Master of Music from the University of Minnesota and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Music Performance and Music Education from the University of North Texas. His primary teachers include Eugene Rousseau, Eric Nestler, Marcus Weiss, and James Dillon.

Kyle is a Performing Artist for Yamaha, Légère, and E. Rousseau Mouthpieces.

Schuyler Tsuda

Schuyler Tsuda was an experimental composer and artist whose work involves instrumental research, instrument design/modification, and hardware and software electronics. His compositional mentor was James Dillon, with whom he studied as a Ph.D. student until receiving his degree in 2010. Having been involved with the spectral music world for years, Schuyler also worked with Iancu Dumitrescu, Ana-Maria Avram and Kaija Saariaho. He studied Csound under the instruction of James Hearon and Max/MSP under Nathan Wolek and Doug Geers.

Schuyler Tsuda had premiere performances by Irvine Arditti, Andrei Kivu, the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble (ECCE), Strains New Music Ensemble and the Contemporary Music Workshop (CMW) and had his music performed at Darmstadt, the Spectrum XXI Festival, the Etchings Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Spark Festival. He was nominated for the 2011 Julius F. Ježek Prize for Composition and the 2012 World New Music Days Festival. In 2009, Schuyler Tsuda received a McKnight Composer Fellowship, a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota and a Hella Mears Graduate Fellowship in European Studies for research in Romania on spectral music. In 2014, he received a Barlow Endowment Commission for a new composition for ECCE. In 2017, he was awarded a residency through the Minneapolis-based 113 Composers Collective, and with their collaboration was given a solo composition concert, performed in his noise duo Shield Your Eyes, and presented an audio circuit design workshop.

Schuyler Tsuda was an audio engineer and co-founded the audio engineering/video production business, the Sonic Alchemists, LLC with Michael Duffy while living in Minneapolis. He worked with classical and free jazz musicians, noise and experimental artists, indie rockers, and electro pop bands. He was the A1 engineer for the Doris Duke Theatre at the Honolulu Museum of Art, where he was Music Programmer and A/V Manager and worked with artists such as Colin Stetson, the John Jorgenson Quinetet and House of Wolves.

Schuyler Tsuda was also an experimental musician who built sound sculptures, designed analog audio circuits and performed in the Minneapolis-based noise duo Shield Your Eyes. He had solo performances in Berlin, at the Sonic Arts Research Center (SARC) in Belfast and at Spectrum NYC. He recorded with the Vultures Quartet and had releases on Zoharum Records, Zos Kia Sound Recordings, Culture Asylum Magazine, and Classwar Karaoke. His improvisational work involved unusual acoustic phenomena, unorthodox instrumental technique, and obsessive, ritualistic sound manipulation. Every performance was unique, with instruments, software and/or installations custom-made for the performance. Schuyler Tsuda presented audio circuit design workshops and seminars at the University of Minnesota in 2016, SXSW 2018, and Brooklyn College in 2019.

Schuyler Tsuda promoted the works of new composers and sound artists through his audio hacking Benders and Hackers Group, as vice president of the multi-disciplinary arts organization Arts Quarter Collective, and as co-founder and organizer of the DIY Minneapolis performance space Room Zero. He produced music festivals and concert series like the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art, the interdisciplinary Artsmosis Festival and the indie/underground band series, the Secret Sound Showcase. In 2016, he produced, curated and performed in a 3-part instrument builder series for his residency at ShapeShifter Lab in NYC.

Schuyler Tsuda worked at The Met, MoMA, the Lincoln Center, SculptureCenter and Anthology Film Archives and worked as an Exhibits Technician for the Children’s Museum in Houston, TX.

Maya Bennardo

Maya Bennardo (she/her) is an active performer and composer living in Stockholm, Sweden. Maya is interested in opening the dialogue and blurring the boundaries between composers and performers, and is devoted to performing music of the present. She is a founding member of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” She performs new and traditional repertoire for violin and piano with pianist Karl Larson in their Bennardo-Larson Duo, and was a member of the internationally renowned Mivos Quartet.

Maya recently released her first solo record, ‘four strings’ with music by Eva-Maria Houben and Kristofer Svensson which was released on the kuyin label, September 2022 (named as one of The Best of Contemporary Classical 2022 on Bandcamp and one of Steve Smith’s 22 for ‘22). The album is a continuation of Bennardo’s work exploring sonic fragility and temporal stasis on the violin.

Maya is a sought-after chamber musician and soloist, and recent highlights include recording residencies at Electronic Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY and at the Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm, Sweden and performances at Darmstadt International Music Institute (DE), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Wien Modern (AT), Sound of Stockholm (SE), at the Library of Congress on the “Betts” Stradivarius violin (Washington D.C.), Walt Disney Hall on Noon to Midnight (Los Angeles, CA), Lucerne Festival Academy with Saul Williams (Lucerne, CH), North Sea Jazz Festival with Ambrose Akinmusire (Rotterdam, NE), June in Buffalo (Buffalo, NY), and Lincoln Center Festival (NYC). She has had releases on Deutsche Grammophon, Kairos, Another Timbre, kuyin, Nonesuch Records, New Focus Recordings, New World Records, Thanatosis, and others.

As a guest artist and educator, Maya has given performances and worked with students at universities around the world, including Kungliga Musikhögskolan (KMH), Berklee College of Music, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Tulane University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Hong Kong University, Brigham Young University, Boston Conservatory, University of California, Santa Cruz; University of California, San Diego; and University of Texas, Austin.

Maya's compositions are characterized by slow, unfolding timbral movements--exploring the co-existence of pitch and noise. Her compositions have grown naturally out of her improvisational practice on the violin, and the two continue to inform each other. Recently, Maya has composed new works for NoExit + andPlay, Lamnth, Alkemie + Amanda Gookin, Bennardo-Larson Duo, and a new long-form solo work for violin, and this season she is writing a new work for solo cello for Thea Mesirow, solo bandoneón for James Parker, and a piano, bass, percussion trio for NYC-based Bearthoven.

She graduated from NYU with a Master of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music studying with Gregory Fulkerson at both institutions. Apart from performing, Maya enjoys a rich teaching life in her private studio. She performs on a modern instrument made by the late Tetsuo Matsuda.

Scott L. Miller

Scott L. Miller is an American composer best known for his electroacoustic chamber music and ecosystemic performance pieces. His music is characterized by collaborative approaches to composition and the use of electronics, exploring performer/computer improvisation and re-imagining ancient compositional processes through the lens of 21st century technology. Inspired by the inner-workings of sound and the microscopic in the natural and mechanical worlds, his music is the product of hands-on experimentation and collaboration with musicians and performers from across the spectrum of styles. His recent work experiments with VR applications in live concerts, first realized in his composition Raba, created for Tallinn-based Ensemble U:.

Miller’s ecosystemic works model the behavior of objects from the natural world in electronic sound, creating interactive sonic ecosystems. Ecosystemic pieces are the result of autonomous sounds competing with each other for sonic space. Individual sounds tend to find a balance, which can be upset by changes to the sonic landscape, such as the introduction of new sounds. Because of this, sonic ecosystems are intimately tied to the space they are presented in. With or without humans, repeat performances produce unique results each time—sometimes subtle, sometimes drastic—while maintaining a recognizable identity. Recordings of his music are available on New Focus Recordings, Innova, Ein Klang, and other labels; many of these recordings feature his long-time collaborators, the new music ensemble Zeitgeist (whose albums he also produces). His music is published by the American Composers Edition, Tetractys, and Jeanné. His most recent albums include COINCIDENT (FCR337), Havona (#SR002), Lab Rat (ekr 070).

Miller is a Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where he teaches composition, electroacoustic music and theory. He is Past-President (2014—18) of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S. (SEAMUS) and presently Director of SEAMUS Records. He holds degrees from The University of Minnesota, The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and the State University of New York at Oneonta, and studied composition at the Czech-American Summer Music Institute and the Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis.

Miller has been named a McKnight Composer Fellow three times (2001, 2013, 2018), a Fulbright Scholar (2014—15), and his work has been recognized by numerous state, national, and international arts organizations. He has been the featured artist at several festivals, including the Chicago Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, the Lipa Festival, and the Estonian Academy of Music’s Autumn Festival, Sügisfest.

Joshua Musikantow

Joshua Musikantow is a composer, author, and percussionist specializing in nontraditional tuning systems. Much of his work contains both original text and music. His work has been performed in England, France, Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, and across the United States. He has been the recipient of the McKnight Artist Fellowship (2013), the JFund award (2012), a Foundation for Contemporary Art emergency grant (2017), and other honors. He earned his BM in Music Composition at Lawrence University, his BA in English at Lawrence University, his MA in Music Composition at the University at Buffalo, and his PhD in Music Composition ​at the University of Minnesota. His dissertation advisor was the acclaimed Scottish New Complexity composer, James Dillon. 

Sivan Cohen Elias

Sivan Cohen Elias is an electroacoustic composer and performer/improviser. She is currently a 2024 ACF McKnight Composer Fellow with the American Composers Forum.

Her work spans the United States, Europe, Israel, and the United Kingdom, where she has received various prestigious international awards, including the 2020 Fromm Foundation commission, winner of the 2016 International Staatstheater Darmstadt Music-Theater Composition Competition; 2012 Akademie Schloss Solitude residency; and 2011 Impuls competition.

Her new album Melting Planets was selected to be released under Innova Recordings label.

Her work is cross-disciplinary, combining modified and digitally extended musical instruments, sound objects, body gestures, and video while exploring social themes of failure, entanglement, and illusion. As noted by The New York Times, Cohen Elias often “deconstructs the instruments themselves” to establish extended sonic environments consisting of multi-layered sonic textures and timbres, composed with puppetry-style performance elements.

Her music has been performed by ensembles and performers internationally, including Klangforum Wien, Winnie Huang, Talea, MusikFabrik, Jack Quartet, and Line Upon Line Percussion, among many others. Her music was broadcast with personal interviews on Austrian, Israeli, and German radio stations and appeared on Israeli television. Festival appearances include RealTime Festival, Darmstadt, Bludenz, Bang on a Can, Wien Modern, Resonant Bodies, and Ultraschall. Her scores are published in the Babelscores online library.

She obtained her B.Ed.Mus and MMus degrees from the Jerusalem Academy of Music, and Tel-Aviv University, respectively, completed post-graduate studies at the School of Music and Performance Arts, Vienna, and earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her main composition advisers during her studies were Chaya Czernowin, Ruben Serioussi, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi.

Since Fall 2022 Cohen Elias has been the Assistant Professor of Composition and Music Technology at the University of Minnesota School of Music. In 2018-2021 she was a Visiting Assistant professor of composition and the director of the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Iowa School of Music. She was also a composition lecturer at Harvard University in 2019 and taught an Electronic Music Performance course at New York University in 2021.

In addition to her extensive classical and contemporary musical education, her background includes piano, and vocal performance training, choir conducting, membership in various bands, and courses in classical Arabic Maqam system, jazz and blues theory, and history. In addition, she has practiced for many years as a dancer and choreographer, as well as in video editing, drawing, and sound sculpture making, and has collaborated with artists from various disciplines worldwide.

Upcoming commissions include a multimedia piece for the UK-based singer/composer-performer Laura Bowler, expected to be premiered at the Sound Festival in Aberdeen in October 2024, and a solo electric guitar and live electronics for the UK-based guitarist Daniel Brew.

TALEA Ensemble

The Talea Ensemble’s mission is to champion musical creativity, cultivate curious listeners, and bring visionary new works to life with vibrant performances that remain in the audience’s imagination long after a concert. 

Recipients of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Talea has brought to life at least 80 commissions of major new works since it was founded in 2008, including bold and inventive productions combining music and other genres such as theater and visual art. Highlights from Talea’s most recent performance seasons have included world premieres by Wang Lu, Tyshawn Sorey, Sarah Hennies, Natacha Diels, Anthony Cheung, Agata Zubel, Mark Applebaum, Sanae Ishida, and more, as well as numerous US and New York premieres. 

Engagements include performances at Lincoln Center Festival, Donaueschingen Musiktage, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Wien Modern, Vancouver New Music, Time of Music Finland, TIME:SPANS, NY Philharmonic Artist Spotlight Series, and many more. Talea’s recordings have been distributed worldwide on the Kairos, Wergo, Gravina Musica, Tzadik, Innova, and New World Records labels, and been broadcast on ORF (Austria), HRF (Germany), and WQXR’s Q2. 

Talea assumes an ongoing role in supporting a new generation of composers, and has undertaken residencies in music departments around the country. Since 2020, Talea has targeted support to early career composers through the growing Talea Access Project, which includes a commissioning program and a composer recording workshop.

Steven Kazuo Takasugi

Steven Kazuo Takasugi, born 1960 in Los Angeles, is a composer of electro-acoustic concert music. This involves the collecting and archiving of recorded, acoustic sound samples into large databases, each classifying thousands of individual, performed instances collected over decades of experimentation and research, mostly conducted in his private sound laboratory. These are then subjecting to computer-assisted, algorithmic composition, revised and adjusted until the resulting emergent sound phenomena, energies, and relationships reveal hidden meanings and bewildering contexts to the composer. Against this general project of fixed-media is the addition of live performers, described as an accompanying project: "When people return..." This relationship often creates a "strange doubling" playing off the "who is doing what?" inherent with simultaneous live and recorded media: a ventriloquism effect of sorts.

Takasugi received his doctoral in music composition at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently an Associate of the Harvard University Music Department. He is a 2022 Creative Capital Awardee, a 2016 Riemen and Bakatel Fellow for Music at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the recipient of awards including a 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, four Ernst von Siemens Foundation Commissions, and a Japan Foundation Artist Residency in Tokyo. He received four invitations to MacDowell including both the Hargraves-Newcomb and Olmsted Fellowships, the Aaron Copland Bogliasco Fellowship in Music, as well as residency fellowships at Yaddo, Brush Creek, VCCA, Civitella Ranieri, and Bogliasco. His work has been performed extensively worldwide. Takasugi is also a renowned teacher of composition associated with masterclasses in New York City, Singapore, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv, Darmstadt, Bludenz, Dublin, Melbourne, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has taught at the University of California, San Diego, Harvard University, California Institute for the Arts, and the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. Takasugi is also an extensive essayist on music and was one of the founding editors of Search Journal for New Music and Culture. He has organized numerous discussion panels and fora on New Music including colloquia and conferences at Harvard Music and the Darmstadt Forum.

Steven Beck

Pianist Steven Beck continues to gather acclaim for his performances and recordings. Recent career highlights include performances of Beethoven’s variations and bagatelles at Bargemusic, where he first performed the Beethoven sonata cycle.

Steven Beck is an experienced performer of new music, having worked with Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, George Perle, and Fred Lerdahl, and performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble. He is a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Knights, and the Talea Ensemble. He is also a member of Quattro Mani, a piano duo specializing in contemporary music. As an orchestral musician he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Orpheus, the Mariinsky Orchestra and many others.

Mr. Beck’s discography includes Peter Lieberson’s third piano concerto (for Bridge Records) and a recording of Elliott Carter’s “Double Concerto” on Albany Records. He is a Steinway Artist.

Benjamin Burgdorf

Benjamin Burgdorf believes in a wholehearted approach to music learning that is strongly inspired by his training in the Suzuki Method, Karen Tuttle’s Coordination, and the latest research in the neuroscience of ability development. Check out the "Philosophy" and "Method" tabs to take a deep dive into his approach.

Mr. B is a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas and serves on the board of the Suzuki Association of Minnesota. He is dedicated to lifelong learning and has received formal training in the Suzuki Method by Nancy Lokken, Ann Montzka Smelzer, Joanne Melvin, and Daniel Gee Cordova. Every day he strives to bring their care, wisdom, and integrity into the lesson experience.

As a performer, he is at home performing in both rock venues and classical venues, having shared the stage at sold-out shows with Dessa, Semisonic, The New Standards, Aby Wolf, Jeremy Messersmith, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

As a classical performer, he maintains an active performance schedule exploring the symphonic literature with the Des Moines Symphony, diving into the gorgeous flute, viola, and harp repertoire with Juniper Trio, and performing for weddings and events across Minnesota with the St. Croix Valley String Collective, and Sonorous Strings.

In the past he has served as the violist of Lux String Quartet from 2013-2018 (named 2015-16, 2017-18 Classical MPR Class-Notes Artist), section violist with the Quad City Symphony, a member of Improvestra, a travel-blogging street artist in Wormwood, and a frequent collaborative soloist with composers both locally and nationally. He served as violist of the Belin Quartet’s 2017 & 2021 seasons, regularly performs with the Laurels String Quartet, and has also enjoyed substitute engagements with Orchestra Iowa, Mankato Symphony, and the South Dakota Symphony.

Mr. B began his viola studies at the age of nine with Bruce McLellan in his hometown of Oskaloosa, Iowa. He has studied with Charles Miranda and Jonathan Sturm of the Des Moines Symphony, as well as Thomas Turner of the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2012, he earned a Bachelor’s in Viola Performance from the University of Minnesota under the instruction of Korey Konkol. After six years of teaching and performing full-time, he returned to Boston University to earn his Master’s in Viola Performance with Michelle LaCourse, one of the nation’s leading instructors of Coordination. He has also worked in various capacities with Sabina Thatcher, Carol Rodland, Tom Rosenberg, and Roland Vamos as well as members of the Muir, JACK, Arditti, and Parker string quartets.

Mr. B performs on an award winning 16 3/8" Brescian model viola after Da Salo made by New York-based luthier, Jason Viseltear. He commissioned Northfield-based archetier, Matthew Wehling, to make his bow. 

When not playing the viola or fiddle, you might be able to find Mr. B hiking off in some remote mountain range, digging in his garden, or playing an intense game of chess with his friends.

Mr. B and Mrs. B (Amanda) moved to Stillwater in June of 2020 to put down roots in this lovely community and enjoy all that the St. Croix Valley has to offer.

Michael Duffy

I, Michael Duffy (b. 1976), am a composer/sound artist/performer whose work has been performed by Dal Niente, Irvine Arditti, Noriko Kawai, Duo Gelland, JACK, ICE, Second Instrumental Unit, and Zeitgeist. I am a member of the 113 composers collective and perform in the electro-acoustic duo Shield Your Eyes. I co-founded the Contemporary Music Workshop at the University of Minnesota where I studied with James Dillon and work as the Music Technology Specialist.

Prior to moving to Minneapolis in 2006, I attended the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY studying composition with Jeff Nichols and Bruce Saylor, computer music with Hubert Howe and percussion with Michael Lipsey.

James DeVoll

Flutist James DeVoll has appeared on concerts and recitals throughout the United States and Europe. Based in the Twin Cities, he maintains a busy freelance schedule performing in a variety of settings. In addition to playing principal flute with the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra, he has performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Duluth—Superior Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, the Oratorio Society of Minnesota, Music Saint Croix, and the Mill City Summer Opera. Additionally he enjoys working with composers and has been involved with the premieres of over 40 new works with groups in the Twin Cities including Strains New Music Ensemble, 113 Composers Collective, and the American Composers Forum. In Europe, he spent two summers working with composers at the Centre Acanthes festival for contemporary music in France. Other performances have included venues in England, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and throughout France. He has also performed at the National Flute Association Conventions in New York City, Miami, Minneapolis, and in Kansas City, where he was a winner of the 2008 Convention Performers Competition.

As an educator, he teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota State University, and MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. He has also previously been on the faculty of the University of Minnesota—Morris, Hamline University, and the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire. His students have won competitions, scholarships, and admission as music majors to universities and conservatories around the country. Locally, his students include members of the Minnesota Youth Symphony (MYS) and the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies (GTCYS), the Minnesota All-State Band and Orchestra, winners of concerto competitions, and summer music festival participants. He was recently a clinician for the Minnesota All-State Band, and has adjudicated several Solo and Ensemble Contests and competitions. Each summer he teaches at Floot Fire in Dallas, the International Music Camp, and a summer flute camp at MacPhail. Additionally, he has served as President of the Upper Midwest Flute Association (UMFA).

Originally from Dallas, TX, James holds a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Cincinnati College—Conservatory of Music (CCM), a master’s degree and Artist Diploma from Yale, and a doctorate of music from the  University of Minnesota. Additional studies were in France, where he obtained a diplôme from the Conservatoire Internationale d’Été, in Nice. His principal teachers include Julia Bogorad–Kogan, Ransom Wilson, and Bradley Garner, as well as major influences from Immanuel Davis, Sophie Cherrier, and Mario Caroli. Before moving to Minnesota, James was the Chair of the Music Department at the Idyllwild Arts Academy, a private boarding High School for the Arts in California. Outside of music, he enjoys philately and reading.

Rob Cosgrove

Rob Cosgrove (he/him; Minneapolis, Mni Sota Mkoce) is a percussionist, composer, and artist interested in creating embodied sounding through intermedia installations and performances.  His works explore the feeling of a sound as a tactile, visual, and visceral entity by investigating the peripheries of sonic experience and the ways these contexts affect our perception. Rob is a member of Ensemble Decipher and low pass.

Rob has exhibited / performed at Pioneer Works (Brooklyn), Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (Troy), Pulitzer Art Foundation (St. Louis), Chicago Design Museum (Chicago), National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), Practice Gallery (Philadelphia), Coaxial (Los Angeles), Eastern Bloc (Montréal), DOX Centre for Contemporary Art (Prague), and KM28 (Berlin).

Justin Anthony Spenner

“A wild and anxious ride”(Star Tribune), Justin Anthony Spenner’s appearances run the gamut from recital and oratorio staples to world premieres of experimental music. Recent stage credits include Danilo (Die Lustige Witwe) with Opera on the Lake; Tarquinius (The Rape of Lucretia) with An Opera Theatre; Schaunard (La Bohème) with Theater Latte Da; and Father (The Golden Ass/World Premiere) with 113 Collective. Soloist credits include Winterreise at the Hamline Music and Arts Series; Das Fliegenpapier and Strange Autumn (Steven Takasugi) and Maulwerke (Dieter Schnebel) with 113 Collective; Coffee Cantata and Apollo e Dafne with Le Grande Bande; and Niccolai Messe/Coronation Mass/The Messiah with St. John's Lutheran Music Series. Justin recently took First Place and Best Song Interpretation at the 2022 Edvard Grieg Society of MN Voice Competition.

His self-produced work focuses on destigmatizing mental illness/trauma (I Enter As A Stranger; A Winter’s Journey). He also produces in other genres, including a music education podcast (Is This Music?!?!); a metal band ((ab)scheid), and a Norwegian pop/troubadour cover band (Near Norse). As an educator, Justin develops integrative music education programs with An Opera Theatre, and runs a small and dedicated voice studio.

When he’s not tinkering, Justin spends almost too much time snuggling with cats and reading about fringe subgenres of rock music. More information, including upcoming performances, can be found at www.barispen.com

Carlynn Savot

Carlynn Savot, cellist, is a teacher and performer in St. Paul, MN. Specializing in chamber music, she has a particular interest in performing new music and working closely with composers, including recording projects with composers Kyle Gann and Dan Romàn and the commissioned work Built on Gravel by Ruby Fulton (supported by the Zachs Endowment Fund).

As a chamber musician, she was selected to be a Goldberg Fellow at the International Musical Arts Institute in Fryeburg, Maine and has won the Miami String Quartet Competition at the University of Hartford and the University of Connecticut Chamber Festival Competition.

In Connecticut, she performed with the West End String Quartet, serving as the Young-Ensemble-in-Residence at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and presenting a number of contemporary works in collaboration with their composers, including the touring production Criminal Intent with the chamber opera company Rhymes With Opera. She performs in the Twin Cities with the Bishop String Quartet and Strains New Music Ensemble.

Along with performing, Dr. Savot is an active lecturer. Her workshops have included sessions for both students and teachers on a variety of topics ranging from technical aspects of playing to motivation in practice. In the summers, she teaches a cello technique course at the Hartt School’s Summerterm program. She has a particular academic interest in women composers and has participated in the Hartford Women Composer’s Series, giving a lecture performance focusing on Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio. Her dissertation on Clarke’s Viola Sonata explores gender perspectives and their effect on musical analysis.

Strongly committed to encouraging the next generation of performers, Dr. Savot teaches private lessons, Suzuki group classes, and chamber music at St. Joseph’s School of Music in St. Paul and the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. She is on the faculty at Concordia University – St. Paul, the Black Hills String Retreat, and the Sartory String Quartet Institute. She holds performance degrees from St. Olaf College, the University of Hartford, and the University of Connecticut.

Lux String Quartet

Lux String Quartet is a Twin-Cities based ensemble that brings a dynamic edge to performance and education. Since 2013, Lux has maintained an active presence in a wide array of musical spheres, from concert halls and churches to coffee shops and podcasts. 

The members of this creative quartet contribute a wide spectrum of musical perspectives, and frequently collaborate with local and international artists. The group is committed to performing 20th and 21st-century repertoire, as well as works by living composers, including Twin Cities' own David Evan Thomas and the Dean of Music at The Juilliard School, David Ludwig. During the 22/23 season Lux performed David Evan Thomas's Trio innocente with Minnesota-based dancer and choreographer Danielle Ricci. In the 24/25 season, the quartet premiered the first work written for and dedicated to Lux, Confessions of a Pangolin by Australian composer, Nicholas Vines.

Lux performs in several concert series including the Schubert Club Courtroom Concert Series, the Waverly Chamber Music Series, the Lakes Chamber Music Society, Music Among Friends Series at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, and the Music @ Lynnhurst in Minneapolis. Dedicated to music education and instilling a love for art in the next generation, Lux regularly presents recitals and workshops at elementary schools, early music education programs, and middle and high school orchestra programs in partnership with Schmitt Music. The quartet has been selected six times as an MPR ClassNotes Artist, and is currently quartet-in-residence at the Colorado Chamber Music Institute. In 2025 Lux entered its first competition, the Charleston International Music Competition, and was awarded First Prize.

Nicholas Vines

Nicholas Vines (b.1976, Sydney) is an Australian composer particularly active at home and in the US. Described as “exquisite” (Gramophone), "riveting" (The New York Times), “arresting” (The Boston Globe), “compellingly original” (Boston Phoenix), “full, extravagant and wild” (Sydney Morning Herald), and “edgy, bright and entertaining as hell” (NewMusicBox), his music has been performed in Australia, North America, the UK, Europe, China and Japan. Interpreters of his work range from high school students to specialist new music ensembles.

Vines' compositions have received prizes from the US, UK and Poland, as well as Australian honours, such as APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards and - most recently - the University of New South Wales 2025 Willgoss Choral Composition Prize. His music is published by Faber Music, Wirripang and the Australian Music Centre. From 2007 to the present, he has ran the New Works Program for New England Conservatory’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. In July 2018, Hipster Zombies from Mars, a compilation of Vines’ piano music performed by Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, came out on Navona Records. Since going live, it has been streamed on Spotify a respectable 20 000 times. He also has two earlier releases with Navona, Loose, Wet, Perforated and Torrid Nature Scenes, hailed respectively as “dazzling“ (Gramophone) and “damn good” (Limelight Magazine).

At the University of Sydney, Vines studied with the likes of Peter Sculthorpe, receiving a BMus, MMus and the university medal. He completed the PhD programme in composition at Harvard University in 2007, having been awarded the Sir Robert Gordon Menzies Scholarship, as well as various Harvard fellowships. More recently, he completed a Graduate Diploma in Education at the University of New England. Formerly a lecturer in music at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vines has also worked at Wellesley College, the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and the Australian International Conservatorium. He is currently Senior Master of Academic Extension (Music) at Sydney Grammar School, as well as an expert musicologist in legal contexts.

Recent composition projects include a large sinfonietta work for the Australian Youth Orchestra Momentum Ensemble; a showpiece for Australian clarinettist Georgina Oakes, Austrian bass clarinettist Anna Koch and a virtual ensemble; a major song cycle for American soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough; and two Colour Music string quartets after Roy De Maistre’s painting of the same name for the Sydney Art Quartet.

Stephanie Skor

After spending 15 years as a performing artist in Boston, violinist Stephanie Skor returned to her hometown – Saint Paul.  Upon her return she joined Lux String Quartet.  In addition to her work with Lux, Stephanie maintains a busy and exciting freelance career in the Twin Cities.  She performs and solos with many musical organizations including Twin Cities’ Gay Men’s Chorus, the South Dakota Symphony, the National Lutheran Choir, VocalEssence, House of Hope, the Minnesota Oratorio Society, and MPR concert events.  Stephanie particularly loves ballet and has performed with the Loyce Holton Nutcracker Fantasy at the State Theater, the Joffrey Ballet, and the Georgia State Ballet.

Stephanie is an honors graduate of the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Nicholas Kitchen, a founding member and first violinist of the Borromeo String Quartet.  She enjoyed an eclectic performing career in Boston and was in demand for her range as an artist.  For six seasons she was of member of the critically acclaimed chamber orchestra Discovery Ensemble, founded and conducted by Courtney Lewis.  She toured with Jethro Tull, appeared with Andrea Bocelli and in the HBO Game of Thrones tour, and was concertmaster at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival.  Stephanie has performed with such artists as Kim Kashkashian, Paula Robison, Jorja Fleezanis, and the Pacifica Quartet.  She has worked with many inspiring conductors including Osmo Vänskä, Michael Stern, Douglas Boyd, Joshua Weilerstein, James Ross, and Larry Rachleff.  Stephanie has appeared in performances on WGBH, MPR, TPT, and Newstalk, a national radio station in Ireland. 

Passionate about 20th century and contemporary music Stephanie has premiered over 25 new works. She has been a member of Callithumpian Consort, Composers’ Series in Jordan Hall, the NEC Contemporary Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Ensemble.  She was featured in the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, México in 2016.  She has enjoyed working with composers Georg Friedrich Haas, Vinko Globokar, Christian Wolff, and Nicholas Vines, and has played works by John Cage, György Ligeti, Cornelius Cardew, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Lei Liang, Thomas Adès, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Stephanie is violin faculty at the St Paul Conservatory of Music, and also serves as Executive Director of the Minnesota Bach Ensemble.

Ellen Hacker

Ellen Hacker is a freelance musician and educator in the Twin Cities. Her musical career includes performances with Artistry Theater, Theater Latté Da, Illusion Theater, Yellow Tree Theater, Lux String Quartet, and Michael Bublé. She is a founding member and manager of The Watercress Trio, a women-owned string collective that regularly performs throughout Minnesota and surrounding states, and she currently serves as Organist/Accompanist at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul.
 
Ellen maintains a private violin & viola studio in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood of Saint Paul, and she guides her students to become independent and reflective young musicians. Many of her students participate and have been confident section leaders in local music organizations including the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies (GTCYS), Minnesota Youth Symphonies (MYS), and the Stringwood Summer Music Camp.
 
Ellen holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Instrumental Music Education from St. Olaf College and a Master’s of Music degree in Violin Performance & String Pedagogy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. While studying at UWM, Ellen was Darcy Drexler’s Graduate Assistant and worked as a faculty member at the String Academy of Wisconsin. She has a rich understanding of violin technique that draws influence from the Suzuki method and other violin pedagogues, including Dorothy Delay, Ivan Galamian, and Mimi Zweig. Her previous teachers include Dr. Andrea Een, Nancy Shows of the Artaria Quartet, and Dr. Bernard Zinck.
 
Aside from music, Ellen enjoys cooking and baking with her husband, Jonah. She is also an avid animal lover and likes spending afternoons at the Minnehaha Dog Park with her sheltie, Leo. 

Kirsti Petraborg

Violist Kirsti Petraborg is a versatile chamber musician and a passionate teacher. As member of Lux String Quartet, Kirsti has performed on concert series throughout the Midwest as well as teaching and performing in Colorado. Kirsti began her career as a chamber musician as a founding member of the Meadowlark Quartet. She currently performs with the Clear Water Chamber Players. Not only a Classical musician, Kirsti is a member of Charanga Tropical, one the few Cuban-style charanga groups in the United States.
 
Not only a chamber musician, Kirsti has soloed with Exultate Chamber Orchestra, the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra and the Oskaloosa Music Festival Chamber Orchestra. Her orchestral experience includes playing with the LaCrosse and Sioux City Symphony Orchestras. Kirsti has been an adjunct faculty member at Southwest Minnesota State University as well as Luther College. At her teaching studios in the Twin Cities area, her students hone their technique as well as learn the art of making music. She teaches at the Colorado Chamber Music Institute in the summers.  She has spent several summers at Lutheran Summer Music Festival and the Southwest Minnesota String Festival.

Energetic about sharing her love of the viola with others, Kirsti is currently on the board of the Minnesota Viola Society in the capacity of Past President. She received her doctoral degree in Viola Performance at the University of Minnesota, where she also earned her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees. She has studied with Korey Konkol, Sabina Thatcher, and Dr. Andrea Een.

Rosa Thompson-Vieira

Rosa Thompson-Vieira, a native of Minneapolis, enjoys a dynamic and ever evolving career as a professional cellist and teacher in the Twin Cities. She serves as the new cellist of the Lux String Quartet, is on call as a substitute cellist for the Minnesota Opera and South Dakota Symphony, and was formerly the Assistant Principal cellist, (often filling in as Principal) of the Rochester Symphony. To name a few, Thompson-Vieira has appeared with touring professionals such as Michael Buble, 2Cellos and Broadway’s Tony and Grammy-winning Best Musical Hadestown. 
 
Thompson-Vieira thrives in a broad range of musical avenues, which does not exclude her passion for chamber music. She has served as cellist in Roma Duo since 2014, cellist of Quartet Du Nord since 2019 and as a member of the Delphia Cello Quartet since 2018, participating as a Class Notes Artist for Minnesota Public Radio in both the 2018/2019 and 2022/2023 seasons. Thompson-Vieira finds great joy in sharing music through performance as well as education. In 2021 she became a cello instructor for the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies Harmony program, focusing on breaking down barriers in music education and creating a more accessible pathway for underrepresented students. She received her Suzuki book 1 Certification in 2015 and uses a combination of traditional and Suzuki teaching methods. In addition to being on faculty at MacPhail, Thompson-Vieira has taught at the University of Minnesota - Morris, and is currently managing a private home studio. 
 
Thompson-Vieira received both her undergraduate degree and masters degree from the University of Minnesota studying under Tanya Remenikova, a former student of the legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Previously she studied with Allison Wells at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. In her spare time she enjoys doing yoga, cooking meals with her partner and spending time with her son Guthrie, dog Lewis and cat Iggy.

Michelle Farah

Oboist Michelle Farah is a well-established orchestral and chamber musician based in New York City. In addition to performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, American Ballet Theatre, New Jersey Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Knights, A Far Cry, Talea Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, and International Contemporary Ensemble, her solo playing has been described as “uniformly excellent” by The New York Times. Michelle is a member of Wavefield Ensemble, a musical collective committed to the adventurous commissioning and programming of contemporary repertoire.

Ms. Farah holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and The Manhattan School of Music. Her primary teachers include Stephen Taylor and Joseph Robinson. While in New Haven, Ms. Farah worked under Vivian Perlis and Libby Van Cleve at the Oral History of American Music, an archive of historic and contemporary interviews with American composers.

Barry Crawford

Flutist Barry J. Crawford is a member of the internationally renowned Talea Ensemble, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Poetica Musica, and Ensemble Pi as well as a Resident Artist with the Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble in Ithaca, NY. As a guest artist he has performed with the Buffalo, Binghamton, Boise, Northeastern Pennsylvania & Erie Philharmonics, Chautauqua Symphony, American Ballet Theater, Dorian Wind Quintet, counter)induction, Cygnus Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, Fireworks Ensemble, Nunc, Buffalo Chamber Players,
Brandenburg Ensemble, Quintet of the Americas, Strathmere Ensemble, Sequitur, and is currently principal flute of the Western New York Chamber Orchestra.

He has performed in numerous internationally recognized music festivals, such as Mostly Mozart, the Lincoln Center Festival, June in Buffalo, the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the Pablo Casals Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Bergen Festival in Norway, the International Music Festival in Istanbul, Turkey, the reMusik Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia,
the Time of Music Festival in Vitasaari, Finland, L’Octobre Musical Carthage in Tunisia and has performed in chamber concerts and new music festivals in over twenty countries on five continents.

"Crawford always performs with steely accuracy and a superb, singing tone… is a musician with guts…and brought a robust flute sound" (New York Sun) and “played with precision and warmth" (New York Times). The Southampton Press said of his performances, " … Crawford's playing was superb. I admired his tone, his phrasing and breath control, and the joy-giving communicative quality of his playing… Crawford is a superb flutist with a silvery tone, exquisite phrasing, and a fluid deftness".

Mr. Crawford has been a guest soloist in major concert halls across the United States, including Boston Symphony Hall, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and the Symphony Center in Chicago. He has been featured on the McGraw-Hill Young Artist's Showcase on WQXR both as a soloist and chamber player, and has recorded for several television commercials, film soundtracks, popular music recordings, and has performed in pit orchestras for several Broadway productions, including the 2015 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I at Lincoln Center.

Currently Assistant Professor of Flute at the State University of New York at Fredonia, he has previously served on the faculties of the University at Buffalo, Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and is part of the performing/coaching staff at the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center at Brandeis University since 2006, where he has premiered hundreds of new works by emerging composers. Mr. Crawford studied with Samuel Baron at Stony Brook University, Tara Helen O'Connor at Purchase College Conservatory of Music, and Judith Mendenhall at the Mannes College of Music.

He has recorded for Albany, Decca Records, and Pi Recordings, among others. He can be heard playing alto flute with the Buffalo Philharmonic on their “Polish Masterworks” album, and has recorded albums with two jazz legends, vocalist Jane Monheit (“The Heart of the Matter”) and saxophonist Steve Coleman and the Council of Balance (“Synovial Joints”).

Mr. Crawford plays a William S. Haynes Handmade Custom Flute - Fusion-Outside model.

Benjamin Fingland

With performances conveying “spiritedness and humor”; “unflagging precision and energy”; "eloquence and passion"; "dazzling technique" (The ​New York Times) and playing described as “something magical” (The Boston Globe), “compellingly musical” (The New York Times) and “thoroughly lyrical…expert” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Benjamin Fingland interprets a diverse range of clarinet literature.

A proponent of the music of our time, he works closely with living composers.  In addition to being a founding member of the critically-acclaimed new music collective counter)induction, he plays with many of the leading contemporary performance ensembles on the East Coast, including NOVUS NY, Music From Copland House, and Ensemble Échappé – and has also collaborated with ICE, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Network for New Music, Argento Ensemble, Ensemble 21 and Sequitur.  He is an artist staff member of the annual Composers Conference, and a guest faculty member of the Bennington Chamber Music Conference. 

He has performed worldwide as a recitalist and soloist, and has also collaborated, recorded, and toured with a broad variety of other artists - ranging in scope from Brooklyn Rider and the Horszowski Trio to Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, to jazz legend Ornette Coleman and pop icon Elton John.  

Mr. Fingland is the principal clarinetist of the New Jersey Festival Orchestra, has held principal positions with the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra and the New Haven Symphony, and has also played with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.  He is a member of the renowned Dorian Wind Quintet, which recently celebrated 60 years of groundbreaking commissions and performances of wind chamber music.  He holds degrees from the Juilliard School and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and the Third Street Music School.   

Adrian Morejon

Praised for his "teeming energy" and "precise control" by the New York Times and having "every note varnished to a high gloss" by the Boston Globe, New York-based bassoonist Adrian Morejon has established himself as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician.

As a soloist, Morejon has appeared throughout the US, Mexico, and Europe with the Talea Ensemble, IRIS Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), and the Miami Symphony. Most recently, Morejon is featured on the recording of Joan Tower's Bassoon Concerto, Red Maple, released by BMOP/Sound. An active chamber musician and advocate of contemporary music, Morejon is a member of the Dorian Wind Quintet and Executive Director/Bassoonist of Talea Ensemble. He has appeared with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Imani Winds, Alarm Will Sound, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, and as a guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Essex Winter Series, among others. An experienced orchestral musician, Morejon is a member of Orchestra Lumos and the IRIS Collective, and has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Novus, The Knights, and others.

Morejon was a recipient of Theodore Presser Foundation Grant, 2nd prize of the Fox-Gillet International Competition, and a shared top prize at the Moscow Conservatory International Competition.  During the past summers, he has participated in many festivals, including the Composer's Conference at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival, Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music Summer Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, and the Monadnock Music Festival.

Morejon completed graduate studies at the Yale School of Music while studying with Frank Morelli. Prior to this, Morejon studied bassoon with Bernard Garfield and harpsichord with Lionel Party at the Curtis Institute of Music. Morejon is currently on faculty at The Mannes School of Music at The New School, SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Music, CUNY Brooklyn College, and CUNY Hunter College. He previously served on faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, Boston Conservatory at Berklee College, and Longy School of Music.

Sam Jones

Trained as a musician in idioms both traditional and unorthodox, American trumpeter Sam Jones has been praised by the New York Times for his “remarkable playing" and performances "rendered with panache." With NYC as a home base, Jones works with a wide range of artists: from Elliott Carter, Liza Lim, and Joe Hisaishi to John Zorn, Ornette Coleman and La Monte Young, he appears in roles soloist and guest musician alike with many groups including Talea Ensemble, Bang on a Can, and The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Jones presents performance art projects, most notably with the likes of William Kentridge, Max Davies, Carol Szymanski, and Kanye West.

Playing the music of new composers as well as old, Sam Jones has premiered and recorded several works with Charles Wuorinen and The Group For Contemporary Music. Additionally, since being awarded the interpretation prize at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten, Germany, he gave the U.S. premiere of the late composer’s “Erwachen,” a trio with trumpet alongside cellist Jay Campbell and the late saxophonist Ryan Muncy. Jones is a member of Talea Ensemble and Ensemble Échappé.

Other highlights include performances at festivals across the world: Lincoln Center, Helsinki, Lucerne, Ostrava, Leipzig Bach, Grafenegg, Gardincourt, and Darmstadt, among many others. Sam Jones appears on albums with Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Charles Wuorinen, Louis Karchin, the Kyle Athayde Dance Party, TILT Brass, Wang Lu, Nina C. Young, Zosha Di Castri, and Ensemble Échappé.

Following the death of the great Pierre Boulez, Jones played as a member of the Boulez Memorial Concert Orchestra in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida, Sam Jones (b. 1993) began his studies at a young age with Carolyn Wahl and Rob Smith, both members of The Florida Orchestra. As his musical pursuits became more serious through high school, he won the National Trumpet Competition and later studied at the Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale. While an undergraduate student at Juilliard, his interest in electronics and improvisation earned him a fellowship at the Future Music Lab, a collaboration with IRCAM, the world's leading electronic music institution based in Paris. Winner of the 2019 “World Trumpet Society” International Competition, Sam is based in New York City, with frequent performances worldwide.

Jones is a graduate of The Juilliard School. His major teachers are Håkan Hardenberger and Mark Gould. He is the trumpet instructor at St. Ann's School in New York City.

Nicolee Kuester

Brooklyn-based horn player Nicolee Kuester enjoys splitting her time between experimental sounds and music from the chamber and orchestral canon. A member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, she also appears with a variety groups in New York City, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, Talea Ensemble, Illinoise on Broadway, and the New York Pops; and further afield has performed with Alarm Will Sound in St Louis (with whom she won a GRAMMY award for Best Small Ensemble Performance); Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris; A Far Cry in Boston; and the San Diego Symphony. She is co-founder of MEANINGLESS WORK, a performance series that happily meanders between sounds, performance art, text, and movement theater.

Nicolee holds undergraduate degrees in horn performance and creative writing from Oberlin College & Conservatory and graduate degrees in contemporary music performance from UC San Diego. From 2016-2018 she was the horn fellow with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, and has spent many summers immersed in chamber music at the Marlboro, Yellow Barn, and Lucerne Music Festivals.

Burt Mason

BURT MASON performs regularly with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, serves on faculty at the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program and is Principal Trombone of the Chamber Orchestra of New York. He has appeared as guest artist with the NY Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera Brass, the Utah Symphony and as soloist with numerous ensembles, performing worldwide. Mr. Mason made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in March 2018 performing Albrechtsberger’s Concerto for Alto Trombone in Weill Recital hall with the Chamber Orchestra of New York. He has also appeared as soloist with numerous ensembles, performing throughout North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.

Mr. Mason has performed under the baton of notable conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Masur, Alan Gilbert, Mstislav Rostropovich, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Skitch Henderson, Gustavo Dudamel, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin amongst others in world-renowned venues such as Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Apollo Theater.

Mr. Mason began playing trombone at age 12 but did not receive any formal lessons until he entered college at the Crane School of Music (SUNY Potsdam). Despite this lack of formal training in his early stages, his natural skills as a trombonist placed him as a finalist in the first annual New York Philharmonic Young Performers Audition, selection for the esteemed NAfME/MENC All-Eastern Band, the NYSSMA All-State Band and Orchestra, as well as winning several local music contests during high school. While in college at the Crane School of Music, Mr. Mason won the school’s most prestigious performing contest, the annual Crane Concerto Competition, as a freshman. Mr. Mason has been featured as a soloist on a variety of recordings with the New York Staff Band on the Triumphonic label. He has also completed several recordings with the Chamber Orchestra of New York on the Naxos label. Mr. has recorded on motion picture soundtracks including A Dog’s Purpose (Amblin Entertainment) and the new Lion King movie (Disney), set to release in the summer of 2019.

As an advocate for Diversity in the Arts, he is founder and director of Ovation Concerts, an organization dedicated to balanced diversity in orchestral music and appeared as a guest on WQXR’s  "Conducting  Business" with  Naomi Lewin to discuss the history and future of classical music and diversity in the orchestral field. He is the Low Brass instructor for the LA Philharmonic’s National Take A Stand Festival, a summer music festival led by Gustavo Dudamel, which supports social change through music. Mr. performs regularly with the Gateways Music Festival, Sphinx Organization and Chinike!Orchestra, all organizations with a mission of increasing diversity in the field of orchestral and classical music.

Mr. Mason holds a BA in Music from the Crane School of Music studying with Mark Hartman, an MBA in Arts Administration from Binghamton University, and an MM in Orchestral Performance from the Manhattan School of Music studying with David Finlayson. He has had additional studies with Joseph Alessi and Weston Sprott. Mr. Mason is a Yamaha Performing Artist and Clinician.

Karen Kim

Grammy Award-winning violinist Karen Kim is widely hailed for her sensitive musicianship and passionate commitment to chamber and contemporary music. Her performances have been described as “compellingly structured and intimately detailed” (Cleveland Classical), “muscular and gripping” (New York Classical Review), and having “a clarity that felt personal, even warmly sincere” (The New York Times).

She has performed in such prestigious venues and series as Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium and Zankel and Weill Recital Halls; the Celebrity Series of Boston; the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; the Vienna Musikverein; London’s Wigmore Hall; the Musée d'Orsay in Paris; the Seoul Arts Center; and Angel Place in Sydney, Australia. She received the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 2011 for her recordings of the complete quartets of György Ligeti.

Esteemed for her versatility across a broad spectrum of musical idioms and artistic disciplines, Ms. Kim has collaborated with artists ranging from Kim Kashkashian, Jörg Widmann, and Shai Wosner to Questlove & The Roots and the James Sewell Ballet. She is a member of the Jasper String Quartet, winners of Chamber Music America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award and the Professional Quartet in Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians. She is also a member of the critically acclaimed Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Échappé, and Deviant Septet, and she is a founding member of the “forward-looking, expert ensemble” Third Sound (The New Yorker).

Ms. Kim received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Violin Performance, as well as a Master’s degree in Chamber Music from the New England Conservatory, where she worked with Donald Weilerstein, Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, Roger Tapping, Paul Katz, and Dominique Eade. She is a supporter of the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation.

Hannah Levinson

Violist Hannah Levinson is an in-demand performer of contemporary and classical music. She has recently been featured as a soloist and chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, The Stone, 92Y, Miller Theater, Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival, June in Buffalo, and the Andy Warhol Museum, and at international festivals including the Kroch Festival (Stockholm), Musikprotokol Festival (Graz), Projektgruppe Neue Musik (Bremen), and Festival Musica (Strasbourg). Dedicated to working with living composers, Hannah has commissioned and premiered over 40 chamber and solo works.
 
Hannah is a founding member and Executive Director of the violin/viola duo andPlay, described by I Care If You Listen as “enthusiastic champions for new music and collaboration.” andPlay’s most recent album, Translucent Harmonies (2023), was released in September 2023 on the UK-label, Another Timbre. Featuring works by Catherine Lamb and Kristofer Svensson, the album was included on Bandcamp’s “Best Contemporary Classical: September 2023” and Steve Smith’s “2023, for the record.”
 
Committed to both contemporary and classical repertoire, Hannah is also a member of the Talea Ensemble (“a crucial part of the New York cultural ecosphere” New York Times), Fair Trade Trio, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra, and a former member of the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra. She frequently performs with NYC ensembles including the International Contemporary Ensemble, either/or, counter)induction, Heartbeat Opera, Cantata Profana, Contemporaneous, and The Rhythm Method Quartet.

A strong believer in sharing her artistic practice with her local community, Hannah is committed to audience engagement events through “andPlay (in) conversation,” a free series in Upper Manhattan that provides opportunities for audiences to look inside the collaborative process of creating music, and through performances with organizations including “Music for Autism.”
 
Before her appointment at BGSU, Hannah was Music Artist Faculty at NYU Steinhardt and at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. She earned her degrees at Oberlin College and Conservatory (BM in Viola Performance, BA in Russian East European Studies), Manhattan School of Music (MM in Contemporary Performance), and NYU Steinhardt (PhD in Performance). Her primary teachers include Karen Ritscher, Martha Strongin Katz, and Nadia Sirota. Her research explores how interactions between composers and political structures affect the creation of new music.

Chris Gross

Cellist Christopher Gross' performances have been praised by The New York Times ("beautifully meshed readings....lustrous tone") and The Strad Magazine (“...the tone of Gross’ cello enveloped the crowd [as he] showed energy and intonational accuracy, even when racing around the fingerboard”). He is a founding member of the Talea Ensemble, a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players, and has appeared at venues and festivals throughout the US and Europe including Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Disney Hall, Darmstadt Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, Wien Modern, the Composers Conference and many others. As a soloist and ensemble member his premieres of new works are numerous, including works by Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Georg Friedrich Haas, Brian Ferneyhough, Olga Neuwirth, James Dillon, Augusta Read Thomas, and many others. He has appeared on recordings on various labels, including Bridge, New Focus, Tzadik, and New World. As an orchestral musician, he has played with the New York Philharmonic and the Riverside Symphony. An active educator, he is a Teaching Artist with the New York Philharmonic and has given classes and lectures at Harvard University, Peabody Conservatory, Sydney Conservatory, Cleveland Cello Society, Brooklyn College, and the Walnut Hill School for the Arts. He is also the creator of Cello Solos Today (www.cellosolostoday.org), which commissions new works for young cellists and creates online educational resources. He received his doctoral degree from Juilliard in New York and teaches at Lehigh University, where he was the university's Horger Artist-in-Residence in 2016-17.

Greg Chudzik

Greg Chudzik is an active performer across numerous genres on the double bass and electric bass.  Currently, he can be seen performing regularly with several new music groups, including Signal Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, and Talea Ensemble.  Greg is also a member of several bands, including Empyrean Atlas, Bing and Ruth, and The Briars of North America. He has worked with numerous influential figures in contemporary music, including Steve Coleman, Steve Reich, Brian Ferneyhough, Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, Helmut Lachenmann, Charles Wuorinen, Alex Mincek and Tristan Perich.  Greg’s recording credits include playing on the Grammy-nominated “Barcelonaza” by Jorge Leiderman, “Pulse / Quartet” by Steve Reich on Nonesuch records, “Morphogenesis” and "Synovial Joints" by Steve Coleman on Pi Recordings, “No Home of the Mind” and "Tomorrow Was the Golden Age" by Bing and Ruth on RVNG records, the album “Americans” by Scott Johnson (Tzadik records), multiple recordings with Signal Ensemble on New Amsterdam and Mode Records, the album “Grown Unknown” by Lia Ices (Secretly Canadian records), the album "Inner Circle" by Empyrean Atlas, and the album “High Violet” by The National on 4AD records.  Greg's debut album "Solo Works, Vol. 1" was released in July of 2015 and features original pieces of music written for bass guitar and electronics. His follow-up album “Solo Works Vol. 2” features original compositions for double bass quartet and will be released in 2019.

Nuiko Wadden

Nuiko Wadden is the principal harpist of Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet Orchestras as well as the Des Moines Metro Opera. She is also a member of both the janus trio, based out of Brooklyn, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Ms. Wadden has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions, recognized in the Minnesota Orchestra (WAMSO), Ann Adams, ASTA, and American Harp Society competitions. As a soloist she has appeared with the Skokie Valley Symphony, the Chicago Metropolitan Symphony, Oberlin Orchestra, and Shepherd School Chamber Orchestra. She made her professional debut as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra this past January.

Matthew Gold

Percussionist Matthew Gold is a performer, ensemble director, and educator committed to exploring new sounds and presenting innovative and adventurous programs featuring new voices. He is a member of the acclaimed New York-based contemporary music group Talea Ensemble, with whom he appears across the U.S. and at international festivals, and of the pioneering Talujon percussion group. Mr. Gold is an Artist in Residence in Percussion and Contemporary Music Performance at Williams College where he directs the Williams Percussion Ensemble and is the Artistic Director of the annual I/O Festival of New Music. He serves on the faculty of the Composers Conference and Contemporary Performance Institute at Brandeis University and is an Artist in Residence at the Walden School’s Creative Musicians Retreat. Mr. Gold has been a featured artist on recent festivals including Time:Spans 2019, Le Festival Les Musiques in Marseille, and Festival Musiques Démesurées in Clermont-Ferrand, and has appeared with the New York Philharmonic on its “Philharmonic 360” program at the Park Avenue Armory. He performs regularly with, among others, the Mark Morris Dance Group, the New York City Ballet, and the Albany Symphony.

Robert Schulz

A member of BMOP since the group’s inception in 1996, principal percussionist Robert Schulz has become a familiar face to Boston audiences. The Boston Globe has described him as “heroic and indefatigable” and “a spellbinding performer” in addition to frequent references to his “virtuoso work”. Highly sought after by instrumentalists, composers and conductors alike for his collaborative skills, Mr. Schulz’s percussive expertise extends through the traditional symphonic repertory, contemporary solo and chamber ensemble works to jazz, improvisational forms and world music. In addition to BMOP, he is percussionist for the Auros Group for New Music, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, Fromm Players at Harvard, Music at Eden’s Edge and the newly formed Mistral (of the Andover Chamber Music Series). He has worked with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, and Pro Arte orchestras on numerous occasions as well as the Boston Chamber Music Society, Collage New Music, Dinosaur Annex and Firebird Ensemble. In 2004 he was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Small Ensemble Performance for his work on Yehudi Wyner’s The Mirror.

Originally from Buffalo, N.Y., Mr. Schulz’s first teachers were John Rowland and Lynn Harbold of the Buffalo Philharmonic and later Jan Williams at SUNY Buffalo, where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree (1989). After moving to Boston in 1990 for study at the New England Conservatory, he completed a Masters in Jazz Studies with Fred Buda (1992) and was subsequently offered a full scholarship to pursue a Graduate Diploma in Solo Percussion with Frank Epstein of the Boston Symphony (1994).

A committed and passionate instructor as well as performer, current teaching affiliations include Tufts University, Harvard University and the Boston Conservatory. His work at these institutions includes private lessons, ensemble coaching and conducting, musician contracting, and compositional seminars. Ever a student of music himself, Mr. Schulz’s overriding approach to his craft is one of inclusion, appreciation and exploration of all the great musical traditions and their practitioners.

William Stanton

Hello. I am an audio engineer, musician, and producer.I work in a range of live, studio, and post settings: front-of-house mixing at concerts and live events; producing and engineering recordings; and post-production editing and mixing.

Recent engineering work includes weekly podcasts for The Intercept; live appearances with Daniel Lanois (Reflections, NYC), Terry Allen (music and word feat. Jo Harvey Allen, Bukka Allen, and Richard Bowden); and Alarm Will Sound's staging of 'What Belongs To You,' David T. Little's operatic staging of the Garth Greenwell novel feat. Karim Sulayman, directed by Mark Morris.

I also recently produced audio for a live 2-night taping of John Cameron Mitchell's podcast 'Cancellation Island'–a 7-episode season starring Holly Hunter, Josh Pais, Jo Firestone, Mary Testa, and others.

Some of the artists and clients I’ve worked with include Travis Scott, John Legend, Pink Siifu, Bilal, Tim Robbins, Ethan Hawke, Meshell Ndegeocello, Snarky Puppy, Nels Cline, Marshall Allen, Keyon Harrold, Suzanne Ciani, Laraaji, Drew McDowall, Sarah Davachi, Bitchin’ Bajas, Suso Saiz, Ben Neill and Eric Calvi, Xenia Rubinos.

I have toured as an engineer for Julian Koster’s The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) (29-show U.S. domestic tour, 2017) and as an engineer/programmer for numerous tours with the Virgil Moorefield Pocket Orchestra (5 tours, Europe & U.S., 2014 - 2018). I have also worked as a personal sound engineer for philanthropist George Soros, providing sound at private and work related events.

I was born and raised in New Baltimore, Michigan, and am a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

While a student, I attended the Residential College before transferring to the School of Music, Theater, & Dance, where I studied audio engineering and recording, composition, and jazz improvisation with Mary Simoni, Bob Hurst, and Stephen Rush. I obtained a BFA in Performing Arts Technology, Sonic Arts in 2010.

In addition to my studies, I worked for the university, first as a media consultant at the Duderstadt Center (2007-2010) and later as a full-time technician at the College of Literature, Science, & the Arts (2010-2011).

Victoria Cheah

Victoria Cheah is a composer whose work concerns boundaries, transitions, sustained effort, and intimacies within social-performance rituals. Her work has been commissioned and/or featured by ensembles and presenters including Talujon, Either/Or, Non-Event, Switch Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Han Chen, andPlay, Yarn/Wire, Wavefield Ensemble, MATA Festival, Guerilla Opera, Ensemble Dal Niente, Vertixe Sonora, Marilyn Nonken, PRISM Quartet, and performed by others. Recordings of their music can be found on Dinzu Artefacts, New Focus Recordings, and XAS Records. Cheah currently serves as Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory, as well as Director of Production of Talea Ensemble.

From 2011-2015, Cheah served as the founding executive director of Boston new music sinfonietta Sound Icon. She has worked with ensembles and festivals including Composers Conference, Manhattan Sinfonietta, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Composit Festival, and Cantata Profana towards the realization of contemporary music events in New York, Boston (USA) and Rieti (IT). Previously, Cheah has taught music, research, and writing related courses as an instructor at Longy School of Music, Brandeis University, and as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. As a composer, she has attended academies including Sommerakademie Schloss Solitude, Darmstadt, Fontainebleau, VIPA, SICPP, The Walden School, and others. Cheah holds a B.A. in music from City University of New York Hunter College (Macaulay Honors College) and a Ph.D. in music composition & theory from Brandeis University.

Heather Barringer

Percussionist Heather Barringer joined Zeitgeist in 1990. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin, River Falls with a bachelor’s degree in Music Education in 1987 and studied at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory, studying with Allen Otte from 1988-90. In addition to performing and recording with Zeitgeist, she is a member of Mary Ellen Childs' ensemble, Crash, and has worked with many Twin Cities organizations, including Nautilus Music-Theater, Ten Thousand Things Theater, Minnesota Dance Theater, and Aby Wolf.

Pat O’Keefe

Pat O'Keefe is a multifaceted performer who is endlessly active and in high demand in a wide variety of musical styles and genres. He has performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras and wind ensembles, played for belly dancers, and rocked samba in the streets. 

Pat draws upon this multiplicity of experiences and interests in his performances, which employ a "superb control of extended techniques," and have been described as "passionate," "explosive," and "breath-stoppingly exquisite." He is currently the co-artistic director and woodwind player for the contemporary music ensemble Zeitgeist, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. With Zeitgeist he has premiered over two hundred new works, and has performed throughout the United States and Europe. 

Pat has also performed and recorded with other noted new music groups around the country, including ETHEL, California E.A.R. Unit, and Cleveland New Music Associates, and has appeared often as a soloist at the SEAMUS, Spark!, and the Third Practice festivals.  Pat began his career as an orchestral clarinetist, serving as the principal clarinetist for five seasons with the Augusta Symphony in Augusta, Georgia, and he continues to be in demand as an active chamber musician.

Active in the improvised music and world music communities as well, Pat is a founder and co-director of the large improvising ensemble Cherry Spoon Collective, the electro-acoustic duo Willful Devices, and has appeared in concert with such notable improvisers as George Lewis, Anthony Davis, Wadada Leo Smith, and Fred Frith.

Pat’s music making is heavily influenced by the music of other cultures, having studied Turkish music with Turkish Rom clarinetist Selim Sesler, and Brazilian music with master drummer Jorge Alabe. He is one of the founding directors of the Brazilian percussion group Batucada do Norte, and appears regularly with the groups Choro Borealis, and Music Mundial in the Twin Cities.

Pat holds a BM (with Performer’s Certificate) from Indiana University, an MM (with Academic Honors and Distinction in Performance) from the New England Conservatory, and a DMA from the University of California, San Diego. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. He taught previously at UCSD, Augusta State University, and Georgia College. Pat is a recipient of the 2015-2016 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Performing Musicians administered by MacPhail Center for Music.

Rebeccah Parker Downs

Rebeccah Parker Downs Downs is a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher based in the Twin Cities. She has performed throughout the United States and Europe, including appearances with orchestra performing the Lalo Cello Concerto, Elgar Cello Concerto, and Faure Elegie. She is a member of the Mill City String Quartet and also frequently performs chamber music with her husband, Benjamin Downs. They have appeared together at the WMP Concert Hall (NYC), Music Festival of Lucca (Italy), Linton Chamber Music Series (OH), Chautauqua Music Festival (NY), 113 Composer Collective (MN), and others. Rebeccah frequently performs as an orchestral and chamber music musician in the Twin Cities with An Opera Theatre, 113 Composer Collective, Duluth Superior Symphony, Mankato Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, Minnesota Chorale, Des Moines Symphony, American Opera Project, and others. When not performing, she teaches cello privately, at Northern Lights School for Strings. Rebeccah has a Master's and Artist Diploma from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Patti Cudd

Dr. Patti Cudd is active as a percussion soloist, chamber musician and educator.   Patti is a member of the acclaimed new music ensemble, Zeitgeist.  Her other diverse performing opportunities have included CRASH, the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble,  Minnesota Dance Theatre and the Borrowed Bones Dance Theater. 

As an active performer of the music of the 21st century, she has given concerts and master classes throughout North America, Asia, Europe and South America.  She has participated in such festivals as the Bang on a Can Festival at Lincoln Center, ICMC  (Greece, UK, China, Netherlands, US),  Frau Musica Nova (Cologne, Germany), Mexico City’s Ciclo de Percusiones Series, Interactive Arts Performance Seriesin NYC, NYCEMF, PASIC,  SARC (Belfast, Ireland), GRIM (Marseille, France),The North American New Music Festival (Buffalo, NY), June in Buffalo, Society of Composers, Inc National Conference (Miami, Fl), Noise in the Library Festival (San Diego, CA), SEAMUS, The Mirror of the New (Hawaii), Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, Beyond the Pink Festival (LA), New Progressions Series (Baltimore, MD),Sonic Diasporas, New Music Festival (San Diego,CA), Spark Festival of Electronic Music (Minneapolis), Form and the Feminine Voice Festival (LA), Copenhagen Composers’ Biennale (Denmark), Nove Hudby Plus Festival  in Brno, Czech Republic, Samcheok Music Festival, (Samcheok, Korea), Sokcho Arts Festival (Sokcho, Korea), New Music for Technology (Hanyang University (Seoul, Korea) and the Festival Cultural Zacatecas. 

Patti has worked closely with some of the most innovative composers of our time including Brian Ferneyhough, Morton Feldman, Roger Reynolds, Martin Bresnick, Pauline Oliveros, Jay Aaron Kernis, John Luther Adams, John Zorn, Michael Colgrass, Cort Lippe, Harvey Sollberger, Julia Wolfe, Christian Wolff, Vinko Globokar and Frederic Rzewski. 
 
As a percussion soloist and chamber musician, she has premiered well over 200 new works, and has recorded under the labels Hat Hut, Bridge, New World, CRI, Innova, Emf Media, Sideband and Mode.  She recently released on Innova Recordings, a triple solo CD of solo percussion and electronic pieces.  Patti is a Yamaha Performing Artist, an endorser of Sabian Cymbals and a member of the Vic Firth and Black Swamp Education Teams.   
​
Patti holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree specializing in Contemporary Musical Studies from the University of California, San Diego, Master of Music Degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and studied in the soloist class with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Her teachers have included Steven Schick, Jan Williams, Joe Holmquist, Gert Mortensen and Bent Lylloff.

​Patti teaches at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and the College of Saint Benedict/ Saint Johns University.

Nicola Melville

New Zealand pianist Nicola Melville has been described as “having an original and intelligent musical mind” (Waikato Times), “a marvelous pianist who plays with splashy color but also exquisite tone and nuance” (American Record Guide), and “the sort of advocate any composer would love” (Dominion Post). Her live performances and recordings have been broadcast on Canadian, U.S., New Zealand, South African, and Chinese radio, and she has been involved in numerous interdisciplinary projects with dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Nicola won both the National Concerto Competition and the Auckland Star Concerto Competition while in New Zealand, and has been a prizewinner in several competitions in the U.S., including being the winner of the SAI Concerto Competition at the Chautauqua Music Festival. Concerts include appearances in Chile, New Zealand, the UK, and around the U.S. She has collaborated with members of the Kronos, PUBLIQuartet, and JACK quartets, and with members of the Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Saint Paul Chamber orchestras.

Nicola has degrees from the Victoria University School of Music, Wellington, and the Eastman School of Music. While at Eastman, Nicola was awarded the Lizzie T. Mason prize for Outstanding Graduate Pianist, and the prestigious Performer’s Certificate. She has won grants from such organizations as Meet the Composer, Creative New Zealand, the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, and the Jerome Program for the commissioning, performing, and recording of new and existing works, and has recorded for the Innova and Equilibrium labels, She is Co-Chair of the piano program at the Chautauqua Music Festival, New York, and is pianist for the Twin Cities contemporary music group, Zeitgeist, with whom she tours regularly, and performs 30-40 concerts a year.

Shannon Wettstein

Pianist Shannon Wettstein invites audiences to hear connections between the most daring new music and historical masterworks.  About why she makes music, “For me, it’s about taking risks—I love taking audiences along with me into unknown territory.”

With over 450 premieres, Shannon has performed at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, the Ft. Worth Modern Art Museum, and Chicago’s Constellation. Steve Smith of the New York Times wrote that her performance at The Stone was “full of subtleties no recording could catch...a reminder of why we attend concerts.”

Her latest solo recording, Con Grazia, was recently released to wide acclaim on the Neuma label. Con Grazia is the culmination of Shannon’s long-term exploration of the music of the Italian avant-garde. German music publication AM:PLIFIED says, “Wettstein doesn’t simply play these works—she illuminates them, makes their micro-gestures sparkle, and takes listeners on an acoustic journey through time where old and new wink at each other.”

Recent performances include Hong Kong’s City Hall, the Matik Matik in Bogotá, and the Camerata of Cremona, Italy. Awards include those from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, and Chamber Music America. 

Formerly the pianist of Boston’s Auros Group for New Music and Minnesota’s Zeitgeist New Music, Shannon continues to collaborate with other musicians pushing the envelope of possibilities, including saxophonist Kyle Hutchins, flutist Elizabeth McNutt, and ensembles such as the Mivos Quartet and Fonema Consort.

Shannon’s teachers include Sequeira Costa at the University of Kansas, Stephen Drury at the New England Conservatory, and Aleck Karis at the University of California San Diego. Other significant teachers and coaches include Claude Frank and Ben Zander.

Shannon has been a professor of piano at Michigan State University, St. Cloud State University, Augsburg University, and Bemidji State University. With performances on four continents, she is a clinician, lecturer, coach, and the host of Dr. Avant-Garde, a podcast about moving the art of music forward in the 21st century.

James Baker

James Baker is Principal Percussionist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra.  He is Music Director and Conductor of the Composers Conference at Wellesley College and Director of the Percussion Ensemble at the Mannes College of Music.  Mr. Baker was the Conductor of the New York New Music Ensemble and is Conductor of the Talea Ensemble.  He is Guest Conductor of the Slee Sinfonietta at the Institute for 21st Century Music in Buffalo.  He has led the Orchestra of the League of Composers, Speculum Musicae , Ensemble ACJW, including at Carnegie Hall, the Cygnus Ensemble ,the ensemble Tactus at the Manhattan School of Music, Ensemble 21, and the DaCapo Chamber players, among many others.  He has conducted at the Darmstadt, Wien Moderne,Transit Belgium, Contempuls Prague, June in Buffalo, Beijing Modern and Monadnok music festivals.  He has both played and conducted at the Bang on a Can Marathon and has conducted at the Monday Night Concerts in Los Angeles.  He has conducted a number of Composers Portrait concerts at Miller Theater including those of Pierre Boulez (where he led the US premier of Derive II), Toru Takemitsu Jason Eckardt , John Zorn and Chou Wen-chung.  As instrumentalist or conductor he has premiered music by many of the great composers of the 20th and 21st centuries including Boulez, Cage, Carter, Messiaen, Dillon, Harvey, Wourinen, Davidovsky, Glass, Aperghis Reynolds, Henze, Crumb, Babbitt, Neuwirth, Furrer, and many, many others, often working closely with the composers. 

Through his work with his groups at conferences, universities, and festivals, he is an advocate for the music of a whole new generation of composers from around the world, premiering hundreds of new works.  Mr. Baker was a conductor of Broadway shows for many years, conducting The King and I, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Oklahoma, An Inspector Calls, and La Boheme, among others.

An active composer of electro-acoustic music, Mr. Baker won a Bessie award for composition for dance.  He has written extensively for the theater and for various ensembles with electronics and has written a number of pieces for longtime collaborator/choreographer Tere O'Connor.  Recent commissions include the Opera Ballet de Lyon, BAM Next Wave, The Dublin Dance Festival, and the Abbey Theater in Dublin.

As a percussionist he appears often with Orpheus, was a member of the American Composers Orchestra and the Eos Orchestra, and has played with the New YorkPhilharmonic, the Paris Opera Orchestra, Royal Danish and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras, among others.  He has appeared as a soloist at the Carnegie Hall Making Music series (with Hans Werner Henze), with American Composers Orchestra , at Lincoln Center Festival, Prague Spring Festival and at NY City Ballet and the Santa Fe and Moab chamber music festivals.  He has played on many sound tracks for film and television and has appeared with Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Webb, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Michel LeGrand, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Branford Marsalis, Pablo Ziegler and many other jazz and pop performers.