Kirsten Speyer Carithers specializes in music of the 20th and 21st centuries, exploring the intersections between music and labor across a spectrum of performance practices. Research and teaching interests include music and technology, experimentalism, ludomusicology, and the connections between indeterminacy, improvisation and creative labor. A frequent participant in national and international conferences, Carithers has presented her research at meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for American Music, and the Modernist Studies Association, as well as Perspectives on Musical Improvisation (University of Oxford, 2014) and Performing Indeterminacy (University of Leeds, 2017).

Pedagogical interests include representation in music history curricula, the relationships between music and technology, and tools/techniques to help students develop information literacy. Prior to coming to UofL, she taught courses at The Ohio State University, the Capital University Conservatory of Music, and both the Bienen School of Music and School of Professional Studies at Northwestern University.

She holds the Ph.D. in Musicology from Northwestern, along with graduate certificates in Teaching and Critical Theory. Her dissertation, “The Work of Indeterminacy: Interpretive Labor in Experimental Music,” won the 2017 Wiley Housewright Award from the Society for American Music. She also holds degrees in music history (MMus, 2005) and oboe performance (BMus, 2002) from Bowling Green State University.

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists in “a mission worth following” (I Care If You Listen).

Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works and is the recipient of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, as well as Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year Award. Past artistic leadership includes co-founder Claire Chase and Ensemble members Joshua Rubin, Rebekah Heller, and Ross Karre. Notable presenting partners have included Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, TIME:SPANS Festival, Roulette, and Miller Theatre. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Park Avenue Armory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Carnegie Hall, and Walt Disney Concert Hall Stage.

Through trailblazing initiatives such as the Call for ____ Commission Program and Ensemble Evolution (in partnership with The New School’s College of Performing Arts), the Ensemble has had a major impact on the contemporary performance ecosystem in New York City, nationally, and internationally, by supporting the creativity of their composer-collaborators, as well as presenting workshops and performances for hundreds of student composers. Many of the Ensemble’s composer-collaborators have developed highly influential careers, such as Du Yun, who won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for the opera Angel’s Bone, which the Ensemble developed and premiered, and MacArthur Fellows Tyshawn Sorey and Courtney Bryan. 

The Ensemble’s Digitice platform provides high-quality video documentation for artist-collaborators, as well as public access to an archive of composers’ workshops and performances. In addition, the Ensemble continues to build space for inter-organization dialogue on equity, and has facilitated New Music Virtual Town Hall meetings for peer organizations and individual musicians to share resources, processes, and initiatives around funding.

Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org.

George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist. He is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music and Area Chair in Composition at Columbia University. In 2020-21 he was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study), and he currently serves as Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin, and an Honorary Member of the American Musicological Society.  Lewis’s other honors include the Doris Duke Artist Award (2019), a MacArthur Fellowship (2002), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis's work is presented by ensembles worldwide, published by Edition Peters. A Yamaha Artist, Lewis is widely regarded as a pioneer in the creation of computer programs that improvise in concert with human musicians.

Lewis’s central areas of scholarship include the history and criticism of experimental music, computer music, interactive media, and improvisation, particularly as these areas become entangled with the dynamics of race, gender, and decolonization. His most frequently cited articles on these topics include “New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps” (VAN Outernational, 2020) and “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives” (Black Music Research Journal, 1996). His widely acclaimed book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. Lewis is the co-editor (with Harald Kisiedu) of the bilingual edited volume Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today/Afrodiasporische Neue Musik Heute (2023), as well as (with Benjamin Piekut) the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016). Lewis's many publications on technology include “Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in Voyager” (Leonardo Music Journal, 2000) and “Why Do We Want Our Computers To Improvise?” (Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music, 2018). Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New England Conservatory, New College of Florida, and Birmingham City University, among others.

Bec Plexus (born as Brechtje van Dijk, 1993) is “a soldier at the frontier of music” - Floris Kortie, Grachtenfestival. Her ever-surprising creations are being embraced both by alternative pop communities as by lovers of complex art music. Plexus initiated Jerboah (a rock band with recorders and EWI bass), she co-created the Facechord Factory (an installation that transforms face scans into chords) and she co-initiated the genre-bending concert and video series EARsessions. 

The recipient of commissions from Nieuw Ensemble (NL), Nederlands Kamerkoor (NL) and Rubiks Collective (AU), she has written more than 60 works for over 200 performances, including the opera Niet De Klucht Van De Koe (2018). Plexus is fascinated by pushing mental and creative boundaries, of herself and others. She composed for piano playing dogs, studied South-Indian Karnatic rhythms for three years, and frequently unites musicians from divergent styles into one ensemble. Whereas she was educated in contemporary music, recently her focus lies on alternative electronic music. She regularly works with artists specialized in other disciplines, like visual artists Manon Wertenbroek and Mees Joachim, the film makers of four|ten and various poets. Born in Amsterdam, Plexus studied composition at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Joël Bons and Richard Ayres. She is artistic director of the Rodeo of Wonder Foundation, a nonprofit production house for music performances. She lives in Amsterdam.

Featured in: International Contemporary Ensemble concert

Carlos Bandera is a Chicago based composer whose music is characterized by a glacial unfolding and transformation of sonic landscapes. New York Classical Review described his piece Materia Prima as having "one of the most immersive and elegant transitions from nothingness to complexity that one has heard.” His music has been performed by groups such as the American Composers orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Albany Symphony, the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra, ~Nois, Ensemble Linea, Hebrides Ensemble, and Omnibus Ensemble. He has received fellowships from Copland House’s CULTIVATE, the DeGaetano Composition Institute, Composers Conference, and the Underwood New Music Readings.

Featured in: Guest Performances

Adam Rosenblatt and John Corkill, percussion

Beyond This Point is a Chicago-based collaborative music ensemble dedicated to the advancement of experimental and contemporary culture. This multifaceted collective of musicians, performers, and arts practitioners builds experimental projects that engage with written music, sound art, lighting, installation, improvisation and live electronics. From the intimate to the monumental, BTP is known for producing unique performances that offer captivating and exhilarating experiences. Most recently, BTP has presented its community-oriented multimedia production Reclaimed Timber, immersive sound+light concert LIT, and thought-provoking theatrical performance Musician Minus Instrument.

Co-director, Contemporary Music Ensemble
Associate Director, Institute for New Music

Ben Bolter made his orchestral conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at age 25, with the Washington Post praising his performance: “Bolter spotlighted the showiest aspects...and made it look easy.” As part of Chicago's acclaimed Ear Taxi Festival, his world premiere of Drew Baker's NOX was named Chicago's Best Classical Music Performance of 2016 by the Third Coast Review. John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune remarked: "[Drew Baker's] NOX made an altogether striking close to an absorbing, eclectic program, quite the best of the Ear Taxi events..." Bolter has also served as an assistant conductor with the Indianapolis Symphony and has been a frequent guest at the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Bolter has worked with some of the country’s leading new music ensembles. He led the inaugural performance of the acclaimed Grossman Ensemble in what the Chicago Tribune described as a “historic” debut and a performance that “set a high standard for itself — and lofty expectations for the concerts ahead.” He has also worked extensively with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Third Coast Percussion, Spektral Quartet, Indiana University New Music Ensemble, Square Peg Round Hall, and soloists, including Claire Chase, Tony Arnold, Kate Soper, Vijay Iyer, Iarla Ó’Lionáird, among others. Bolter has given world premieres by Shulamit Ran, Sam Pluta, Marcos Balter, Tonia Ko, Anthony Cheung, and Matthew Peterson and has worked closely with major figures such as Steve Reich, Tania León, Julia Wolfe, John Luther Adams, David Lang, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Under the stage name “Boltah,” he has released original songs on streaming platforms and performed at venues nationwide. Boltah collaborates with artists across multiple disciplines and has music featured in animations and exhibitions. His recent collaboration with artists/writers Monica Rickert-Bolter and Joel Rickert will be featured in an animatic as part of the grand opening of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago in December 2024.

Featured in: Guest Performances

Jacob Swanson, saxophone; Marianne Parker, piano, Katherine Petersen, voice

Hailed as a “winning combination in every way!” and acclaimed for their “blend and precision”, Decho has performed throughout North America and Europe. Swanson has been commended as a “soloist with impeccable taste,” and celebrated for his "gorgeous, lyrical tone, spectacular technique, and heartfelt musicality”. Petersen has been praised as “radiant” (Chicago Tribune) and “immaculate” (Chicagoland Musical Theatre). Parker’s playing has been applauded as “a cut above...her sympathetic fingers offering well-sculpted phrases and impassioned pealing” (Chicago Classical Review).

Featured in: International Contemporary Ensemble concert

Luis is a Colombian composer and Ph.D. student in Composition and Music Theory at the University of Pittsburgh. His work explores the interplay of temporalities within diverse cultural and environmental frameworks, shaping musical discourses inspired by literature, physical phenomena, and public space interventions. Delgado’s compositions have been performed globally by ensembles like the JACK Quartet, Quatuor Diotima, and TACETi. He has also received commissions and scholarships from the Government of Colombia and the Ticino Musica Festival. His residencies include the Cepromusic Ensemble (Mexico), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. His music is published by Babel Scores.

Featured in: Electroacoustic Performances

A native of Turkey, Ipek Eginli is an experimental electroacoustic sound artist and improviser who describes her music-making as “a process of a creation and a creation of a process”. Her ever-evolving creative process involves electroacoustic improvisation on piano, voice, and modular synthesizers. 

Her electroacoustic solo debut album ‘Field Recording in a Black Hole’ from WeirdCry Records and a live improvised duet album ‘Explorers’ with cellist Daniel Levin from EyesAndEars Records were released in the summer of 2024, coinciding with her invitation to perform at the New York Electroacoustic Music Festival and her solo northeast US tour. Following her midwest tour, Eginli is now in the process of recording her third album with Purplish Records to be released in February 2025.

In 2023, Ipek was awarded a residency at the Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity in Canada and also received the Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab grant from the Alliance Theater as the lead artist for the multimedia project “Hold on To Your Names,”. As a contemporary classical music pianist, she has performed solo, chamber and orchestra concerts at various venues in Turkey, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada and in many cities in the US including New York, Boston, San Francisco and Atlanta for over two decades. Ipek is the founder and director of a piano academy in north Atlanta and holds a doctoral degree in piano performance from the University of Georgia.

Featured in: Saxophone Concert

Max Eidinoff is a composer, improvisor, and educator whose music is marked by creative audacity and dramatic flair. He incorporates avant-garde styles and rock music sensibilities into soundscapes characterized as both absurd and surreal. Max writes in a variety of genres including art songs, opera, concert music, computer music, film scores, and studio mixes. It is through a body of work which prioritizes storytelling and engages with cross-genre stylistic blending and ironic subtext that he aims to convey the complex adversities of the world we live in. Max holds a BM in composition from SUNY Purchase and an MM from The Peabody Institute.

Featured in: Saxophone Concert

Yotam Haber’s music is hailed by New Yorker critic Alex Ross as “deeply haunting,” and chosen as one of the “30 composers under 40” by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s Project 440. Haber was born in Holland and grew up in Israel, Nigeria, and Milwaukee. He is the recipient of a 2017 Koussevitsky Commission, a 2013 Fromm Music Foundation commission, a 2013 NYFA award, the 2007 Rome Prize and a 2005 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Haber’s first monographic album of chamber music, Torus, was hailed by New York’s WQXR as “a snapshot of a soul in flux—moving from life to the afterlife...” Recent commissions include works for architect Peter Zumthor; New York-based Contemporaneous; the Venice Biennale; and the Tel Aviv-based Meitar Ensemble. Haber was Assistant Professor of Music at the University of New Orleans and Artistic Director Emeritus of MATA, the non-profit organization founded by Philip Glass.

Featured in: Electroacoustic Performances

Jack Hamill (b. 1999) is a multimedia artist primarily focused on sound. His creative practice ranges across a variety of art forms, spanning electro-acoustic music, noise, experimental film, digital visual art, and more. He has worked with a broad variety of aesthetic media, such as eye-tracking devices, computer-generated scores, Disklaviers, an ultrasound fetal doppler, video projections, and acoustic ensembles. His recent work tends to focus on disparate modes of expressive intensity: seriousness and irreverence, deliberation and intuition, jibberish nonsense and vigorous manifestos. He pursued his undergraduate studies at Oberlin College, where he received a BM in Technology in Music and Related Arts and a BA in philosophy.

Featured in: Guest Presentations

Anna Heflin is a composer and writer who constructs high-octane, humorous, and sensual worlds with non-linear narratives that thrive on musical and psychological fragmentation. Whether writing a symphony or a staged literature-inspired solo opera for an instrumentalist, she is drawn to the unexpected and channels her highly imaginative virtuosic visions into complex characters and unorthodox narrative arcs that often integrate text and staging. Her long-term collaborations with individual artists and organizations developed over years of working as a freelance violist are central to her process and her core values include trust, risk taking, experimentation, play, open communication, and creative problem solving.

Featured in: Electroacoustic Performances

Jyun-Rong Ho, a Taiwanese composer, is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music under Professor John Mallia. He previously studied at National Taipei University of Education with Tsu-Yao Yang and Ya-Min Hsu. Initially trained in Liuqin, Ho developed a deep understanding of music’s intricacies. His works have been recognized at events such as the Electronic Music Midwest Festival and the New England Philharmonic. He won the 2021 NTUE Concerto Competition (Composition) and continues to explore new sonic possibilities in contemporary music.

Featured in: Guest Presentations and Guest Performances

Sasha Ishov is a flutist, educator, and researcher redefining the flute’s role in contemporary music. Praised for his “well-sounded and lucid” artistry (San Diego Union-Tribune), he has performed at the Ojai Music Festival, BBC Proms, Carnegie Hall, and with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. A champion of new music, he has premiered over 100 works and collaborated with composers including John Luther Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, and Matthew Aucoin. He co-leads Offscreen, a duo with percussionist Michael Jones, and researches how technology shapes collaboration. Sasha holds a DMA from UC San Diego, a BM from Eastman, and is a Miyazawa Artist.

Featured in: Electroacoustic Performances

Mohammad H. Javaheri (b. 1989) is an Iranian composer and performer recognized for his dense, powerful sound masses and intricate textures. Praised as a “promising future composer” (NMZ) and “internationally in demand” (Thuringian State Newspaper), his work has been described as “detailed”, “tense,” “sensational”; and he inherently crafts his “own sound” (Toshio Hosokawa, SYNTHETIS 2019). His music explores cycles, repetition, transformative blocks, and the matter of speed in relation to the form. Performed worldwide, his works appear on SWR2 Radio, Babelscores, and UCLA Music Library. In 2024, he was awarded an EDGE Fellowship at Stanford University, joining a cross-disciplinary community of scholars.

Francisco Javier Trabalón Ruiz (Málaga, 1987) studied composition at the CSM in Malaga (obtaining a distinction in his final project), and furthered his training by completing the master’s degree in Electroacoustic Composition at the CSKG (Madrid) and the master’s degree in Musical Creation and Performance at the URJC (Madrid). He holds a PhD in Musicology (cum laude). In his training he has received advice from Arvo Pärt, Alexander Schubert, Michael Beil, Toshio Hosokawa, Simon Steen-Anderson, Stefano Gervasoni and Chaya Czernowin, among others. His music has been performed at CIME, IN-SONORA, MIXTUR, New MusicWeek in Rome, AFEKT, Livorno Festival, Impuls, Unerhörte Musik, Festival de Sueca or Festival Internacional de Música Española de Cádiz. He has written and performed live music for different audiovisual formats: feature films, short films, advertising and documentaries. As an improviser and performer on piano, keyboards and electronics, he has given many concerts with jazz, rock, pop and experimental music groups in venues all over Spain. He combines his artistic work with teaching the subjects of analysis, composition and instrumentation, and musicological research.

Featured in: Guest Performances

Niayesh Javaheri is a pianist and educator based in Bowling Green, OH, currently pursuing her DMA in contemporary music with Dr. Solungga Liu. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician across Iran, Europe, and the United States, premiering and recording numerous works. Her recording is featured in the album Contemporary Music in Iran, and two additional recordings are set for release in 2026. Niayesh holds a Master of Music in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma and a Bachelor of Music from the Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, Austria.

Featured in: International Contemporary Ensemble concert

Jee Won Kim is a composer based in the United States and South Korea. One of her biggest curiosities is “How do people play, listen to, and perceive music?” She explores how she, as a composer, can interact with the world through music and deliver her ideas to the audience – even to the one who cannot hear them. Ultimately, she reaches the conclusion, “What if I write music that can be heard without hearing, seen without seeing?”

She holds a BM in Composition from Chung-Ang University, where she studied with In-sun Cho, and an MM in Composition from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Reiko Füting. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying with David Dzubay and Aaron Travers.

Featured in: Saxophone Concert

Timothy Kramer has been performed by major orchestras and ensembles throughout the U.S.A., Europe and Asia. He has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the MacDowell Colony, Meet the Composer, BMI, ASCAP, and the AGO, and commissions from the Midwest Clinic, the Utah Arts Festival, and the Detroit Chamber Winds, among others. He studied at Pacific Lutheran University (B.M.) and the University of Michigan (M.M., D.M.A.), and was a Fulbright Scholar (1988-89). He taught at Trinity University (San Antonio) until 2010, where he also founded CASA; and taught at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois until 2020.

Featured in: Guest Presentations

Teerath Majumder is a Bangladeshi composer and technologist who works in interactive and immersive media, computer music, and sound design. He questions socio-sonic dynamics that are often taken for granted, and reimagines relationships between participants through technological mediation. Notably, he produced Space Within (2022) where audience members collaborated with featured musicians to give rise to an hour-long sonic experience. His current project titled Dysnomia is an investigation of machine agency in mediating human relationships where he “collaborates” with artificial intelligence.

Teerath is an Assistant Professor of Sound Design at Columbia College Chicago.

Featured in: Saxophone Concert

Benjamin Martin (b.1998) is a composer, singer, and musical collaborator based in Chicago, IL. While interested in all manner of expressive media, their love of the human voice and the written word is often at the center of their compositional orbit.

Benjamin received a BM from Oberlin Conservatory in Composition with a minor in Vocal Performance. While attending, they were the recipient of the 2022 Walter E. Aschaffenburg prize in Composition. They are currently pursuing their PhD at the University of Chicago, where they study with Augusta Read Thomas.

Director, Institute for New Music

Alex Mincek is a composer, performer, and co-director of the New York-based Wet Ink Ensemble. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Alpert Award, and multiple awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music has also been recognized through commissions and awards from arts institutions such as the French Ministry of Culture, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, ASCAP, the National Endowment for the Arts, MATA, Radio France, the Barlow Endowment, and the Fromm Music Foundation.

Mincek’s music has been programmed at venues and international festivals including Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Wigmore Hall, Strasbourg Musica, Darmstadt (IMD), Ultraschall Berlin, Festival Archipel Geneve, the Contempuls Festival in Prague, and the Ostrava New Music Days. He has collaborated with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Linea, Talea, Dal Niente, Yarn/Wire, Mivos and the JACK Quartet.

Mincek’s compositional thinking is primarily concerned with creating musical contexts in which diverse sound worlds seamlessly coexist – from raw to highly refined timbres, from rhythmic vitality to abrupt stasis, and from mechanical-like repetition to sinuous continuity. By connecting, combining and alternating seemingly disparate states, he attempts to create a sense of interconnectivity that reveals underlying qualities of coherence and unity. His music frequently explores novel approaches to microtonal harmony by integrating methods often regarded as incompatible. Mincek’s musical thinking is also concerned with how the cognition of physical shape, movement and color can be used as a model for organizing musical sound and structure in relation to psychoacoustics and musical perception more generally.

Mincek received his MA from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Nils Vigeland, and his DMA from Columbia University, where he studied with Tristan Murail and Fred Lerdahl.

Featured in: Saxophone Concert

Joanne S. Na is a Korean-American composer who draws inspiration from her personal experiences, emotions, and surroundings. Her music has been featured at events like the LunART Festival, Vancouver Sonic Boom Festival, U Michigan Organ Conference, and Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, as well as in reading sessions with the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and Victoria Symphony.

She has worked with artists such as soprano Estelí Gomez, clarinetist Wonkak Kim, Kenari Quartet, Saxophilia Quartet, and Vancouver Chamber Choir. Currently, she is pursuing a doctorate at the University of British Columbia and holds degrees from Rutgers University and the University of Oregon.

Featured in: Symphonic Wind Ensemble concert (oboe soloist)

Oboist Andrew Nogal is an acclaimed orchestral performer, chamber musician, and interpreter of contemporary music. He is the solo oboist with two Chicago groups that specialize in performing new music: Ensemble Dal Niente and the Grossman Ensemble. In 2011, Nogal was awarded the gold medal in the senior wind division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. One year later, he became the first and, to date, only oboist ever to receive the Kranichstein Music Prize at the famous Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music. A proud alumnus of the public school band programs in his hometown, Lemont, Illinois, he is also a member of the newly formed Chicago Wind Symphony.

Nogal performs with orchestras across the Midwest, and he can be heard regularly with the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared at music festivals across the United States. These include performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Orchestra Barnes-Stokowski Festival, and the New York Phil Biennial held at the Metropolitan Museum. His recent international engagements include concerts in Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney, Auckland, Berlin, and Vancouver. For three summers, he studied and performed under the direction of Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland. His degrees in Music Performance and Art History come from Northwestern University.

Co-director, Contemporary Music Ensemble

Alan Pierson has been praised as "a dynamic conductor and musical visionary" by The New York Times, "a young conductor of monstrous skill" by Newsday, "gifted and electrifying" by the Boston Globe, and "one of the most exciting figures in new music today" by Fanfare. He is the Artistic Director and conductor of the acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound, which has been called "the future of classical music" by The New York Times and "a sensational force" with "powerful ideas about how to renovate the concert experience" by The New Yorker. Mr. Pierson served as the Artistic Director and conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The New York Times called Pierson’s leadership at the Philharmonic "truly inspiring," and the New Yorker's Alex Ross described it as “remarkably innovative, perhaps even revolutionary.”

As a guest conductor, Pierson has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, L.A. Opera, Nationaltheater Mannheim, the London Sinfonietta, the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the New World Symphony, and the Silk Road Project, among other ensembles. He is co-director of the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has been a visiting faculty conductor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity.

Pierson regularly collaborates with major composers and performers, including Yo Yo Ma, Steve Reich, Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, David T. Little, Augusta Read Thomas, David Lang, Donnacha Dennehy, La Monte Young, Tyshawn Sorey, and choreographers John Heginbotham, Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan and Elliot Feld. He has spearheaded critically acclaimed cross-genre collaborations with artists like Yasiin Bey, Erykah Badu, and Medeski Martin and Wood. He also develops unique concert and online experiences that fuse music, theater, and multimedia to tell stories that connect listeners more deeply to great music.

Mr. Pierson received bachelor degrees in physics and music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in conducting from the Eastman School of Music. He has recorded for Nonesuch Records, Cantaloupe Music, Sony Classical, and Sweetspot DVD.

Featured in: International Contemporary Ensemble concert

The acoustic and electro-acoustic music of Iranian composer/sound designer Bahar Royaee has been acclaimed as “succeed(ing) as a poetic incantation, brimming with ideas and colors” (Classical Voice North America) and “haunting” (Boston Arts Review).

Recipient of the prestigious Fromm Foundation Commission Awards 2024, Bahar writes music for various genres, from opera, theater, and film to chamber music. Her work has been performed by luminaries such as Claire Chase, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble der gelbe Klang, Jack Quartet, Fabriqk Quartet, Splice Ensemble, and Lamnth.

Significant chamber music performances include ECLAT Festival 2025 in Germany with FabrikQuartet, Biennale Venice in Italy 2024 with Hannah Levinson, Festspiele festival in Germany with Opus21 ensemble (2024), Composer Conference Gala 2024 with Talea Ensemble, Ultraschall Berlin with Muriel Razavi (2023), Berlin Prize for Young Artists with Adam Woodward (2023), ICE Festival Germany with ensemble Tempus Konnex (2022), Tehran Electroacoustic Music Festival (2022) and Time: Spans Festival (2020) with International Contemporary Ensemble and Suzanne Farrin.

Director, Saxophone Ensemble

Taimur Sullivan is Professor of Saxophone at Northwestern University, and a member of the acclaimed PRISM Quartet. His performances have taken him from the stages of Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Knitting Factory, to engagements throughout Russia, China, Europe and Latin America. He has garnered critical praise as "outstanding...his melodies phrased as if this were an old and cherished classic, his virtuosity supreme" (Paul Griffiths, New York Times), a player of "dazzling proficiency" (American Record Guide), “Taimur Sullivan is a whiz…” (Gramophone), and "Mr. Sullivan delivered this...wide-ranging program with a seductive breadth of tone and considerable technical agility" (Alex Ross, The New York Times).

Mr. Sullivan has dedicated much of his career to commissioning new repertoire for the saxophone, and has given the premieres of over 300 works by composers including William Bolcom, George Lewis, Julia Wolfe, Alvin Lucier, Augusta Read Thomas, Tyshawn Sorey, Kate Soper, Gavin Bryars, Lee Hyla, Tania León, Olga Neuwirth, John Harbison, Chen Yi, Martin Bresnick, Jennifer Higdon, Donnacha Dennehy, Steve Mackey, and many others. He has also presented the American premieres by important international composers such as Gerard Grisey, Toshio Hosokawa, Philippe Hurel, Michael Finnissy, Giya Kancheli, and Jean-Claude Risset. In honor of his distinguished record of promoting and presenting new works for the saxophone, the New York-based arts-advocacy organization Meet the Composer named him one of eight "Soloist Champions" in the United States.

As a member of the PRISM Quartet for over 25 years, Mr. Sullivan has performed concertos with orchestras nationwide, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and has conducted residencies at the nation’s leading conservatories including the Curtis Institute of Music, Rice University, and Princeton University. His recent work with PRISM has crossed over into collaborations with noted jazz artists Ravi Coltrane, Chris Potter, Miguel Zenón, Joe Lovano, David Liebman and Rudresh Mahanthappa, with Sō Percussion and Partch Percussion Ensemble, and with traditional Chinese instrumentalists. His recent recording of Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (ECM) with PRISM and The Crossing choir under the direction of Donald Nally was awarded the Grammy award.

During recent seasons, Mr. Sullivan performed John Adams’ Nixon in China with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of the composer, two concerti at the Festival of Palaces in St. Petersburg, Russia, concerts in China, Croatia, and Colombia, became a founding member of Chicago’s Grossman Ensemble, and presented concerts and master classes around the United States including at Yale University, Eastman School of Music, University of Michigan, the Hartt School, National Sawdust, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Brandeis University, Big Ears Festival, and Le Poisson Rouge.

Prior to arriving at Northwestern University, Mr. Sullivan served on the performance faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Columbia University. He appears on 50 commercial recordings, and performs exclusively on Selmer saxophones and Silverstein ligatures.

Featured in: Guest Presentations and Saxophone Concert

Winner of the 2022 Rome Prize in Music Composition, Tina Tallon is creative technologist and composer whose work explores the myriad ways in which AI impacts how artists engage with society. Her music, interactive installations, and research has been presented globally in diverse settings, including Disney Hall, the Large Hadron Collider, major motion pictures, and leading AI conferences like NeurIPS. Tallon has earned numerous awards and grants from organizations such as Harvard, MIT, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and she currently serves as Assistant Professor of AI and Music Composition at The Ohio State University.

Conductor, Symphonic Wind Ensemble

Robert Taylor is Professor of Conducting and Director of Bands at Northwestern University, where he holds the John W. Beattie Chair of Music. As the fourth person in the university’s history to hold the Director of Bands position, Taylor conducts the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting, and leads all aspects of the band program. With a career in music education spanning over thirty years, previous appointments include the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, and Eureka High School in northern California, where ensembles under his direction earned recognition by Downbeat Magazine, the Selmer Corporation, and Grammy Signature Schools.

Known for innovative and immersive concert programming, Dr. Taylor maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor. Past engagements include performances with the Vancouver Brass Orchestra, U.S. Army Field Band, Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and Chicago-based contemporary music group, the Maverick Ensemble. Collaborations span a wide range of international artists—from virtuosi performers Barbara Butler (trumpet), Jose Franch-Ballester (clarinet), Larry Knopp (trumpet), Julia Nolan (saxophone), Daniel Perantoni (tuba), Jeff Nelsen (horn), Gail Williams (horn), and Allen Vizzutti (trumpet); to composers Mason Bates, Jodie Blackshaw, Steven Bryant, Raven Chacon, Michael Colgrass, John Corigliano, David Maslanka, Cait Nishimura, Joel Puckett, Alex Shapiro, Frank Ticheli, and Dana Wilson; to jazz, pop, and crossover performers Ingrid Jensen, Shruti Ramani, Manhattan Transfer, Kenny Werner, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. As a passionate advocate of music in the schools, Dr. Taylor is in high demand as a festival adjudicator, rehearsal clinician, and guest conductor throughout North America and internationally. His frequent appearances with young musicians include serving as principal conductor of the Puget Sound Youth Wind Ensemble and guest conductor of numerous honor groups, such as the Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall, National Youth Band of Canada, AMIS Asia Honor Band, California Orchestra Directors Association Honor Symphony, and many provincial and all-state bands across Australia, Canada, and the United States.

Taylor received the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees in conducting from Northwestern University, where he studied with Mallory Thompson, and the Bachelor of Arts degree in Trumpet and Music Education from Humboldt State University. His research on wind literature, rehearsal techniques, integration of cutting-edge technology, and application of Ashtanga Yoga to improve body awareness and injury prevention in the training of nascent conductors and performing musicians, has been featured in presentations at regional, national, and international music conferences, including appearances at the Midwest Clinic, College Band Directors National Association, and on several popular podcasts. He has contributed to numerous leading publications and is a co-author of The Horizon Leans Forward.

Dr. Taylor is a Killam Laureate, Jacob K. Javits Fellow, and Thomas A. Davis Teaching Prize Winner, and has served as on the executive boards of the British Columbia Music Educators Association and College Band Directors National Association (Northwest Region). He is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Kappa Lambda National Honor Societies, World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and National Association for Music Education.

Featured in: Guest Performances

Carmen Abelson and Hannah Christiansen, violins; Lena Vidulich, viola; and Isidora Nojkovic, cello

Destined to impress even the most attuned music lovers” (Chicago Magazine), Varo String Quartet came together over their shared love for the existing string quartet literature and excitement about the possibilities for what the ensemble can become in the hands of today’s composers. Lauded for the “killer ambiance” (AudPod) of their concert experiences, the Quartet prides itself on inventive programming and spirited, intimate, and risk-taking performances. They are named after one of the three witches of Surrealism, the painter Remedios Varo, whose vibrant creativity, juxtaposition of themes, and lifelong pursuit of discovery inspire the Quartet to pair “music that everybody knows [with] music that nobody knows” in thought-provoking and unexpected ways.

Featured in: Electroacoustic Performances

Ben Zucker engages in acts of creative juxtaposition and speculation as a composer, audiovisual artist, and multi-instrumentalist. Acclaimed as a "master of improvisation" (IMPOSE Magazine), and “more than a little bit remarkable” (Free Jazz Blog), they have contributed to experimental music scenes across North America and the UK with “stirring compositions…built on a lifetime of musical curiosity” (Chicago Reader), as well as albums, multimedia situations, and frequent performances on vibraphone, brass, voice, and electronics. They currently live in Chicago, working as a freelance musician, lecturer, curator, and President of New Music Chicago.