Partner Ensembles
PUBLIQuartet
Applauded by The Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music,” and by The New Yorker as “independent-minded,” multi-GRAMMY®-nominated PUBLIQuartet is an improvising string quartet whose repertoire blends genres and highlights American multiculturalism. PQ rose on the music scene as winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild New Music/New Places award, and in 2019 received Chamber Music America’s Visionary Award for innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. Their genre-bending programs range from newly commissioned pieces to reimagined classical works featuring open-form improvisation.
PUBLIQuartet has held residencies at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Sawdust, and has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Montreal, Newport, and Detroit Jazz Festivals. Their 2016 Colbert Report appearance, improvising a live soundtrack to a presidential debate, drew over a million views and led The Washington Post to declare them “the winner...indubitably.” Their 2023-2024 season included performances at USC, the Library of Congress, and with the New York City Ballet, along with tour dates with jazz artists Hiromi, Diane Monroe, and Magos Herrera.
The quartet’s GRAMMY®-nominated album What Is American (2022) explores the Black and Indigenous musical traditions that inspired Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet, with works by Roscoe Mitchell, Ornette Coleman, Rhiannon Giddens, and Vijay Iyer. Committed to supporting living composers and expanding the classical canon, PQ was the inaugural ensemble-in-residence for Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA program in 2021-2022, and their PUBLIQ Access program champions emerging and under-represented composers. Their MIND | THE | GAP series weaves together musical styles through group composition, arranging, and improvisation.
Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet is based in New York City.
Society for New Music
Founded in 1971, the Society for New Music purpose is to act as a catalyst for the continued growth of the Central New York musical community. The Society provides a format for living composers in the same way art galleries provide a format for visual artists, and is the only year-round new music organization in NYS outside of Manhattan. Since 1985 the Society has annually awarded the Brian M. Israel Prize to a composer 30 years or younger, now the Sam Pellman/Israel prize of $1,000 and a performance. Honorable Mentions are also performed. Several winners have been women and minorities. Examples of recent winners are Jack Frerer, Saad Haddad, Alex Stephenson, Ryan Chase, Alex Burtzos, John Liberatore, Juan Pablo Contreras, Ted Goldman, Thomas Healy, Matthew J. Gilbertson, David Crowell, Baljinder Singh Sekhon II, Eleanor Aversa, Andy Akiho, Nicholas Omiccioli, Christopher Doll, Patrick Castillo, Adam Schoenberg, Huang Ruo, Winnie Cheung, Rob Paterson, and Derek Bermel. For many years now the Society has also chosen the winner of the New York Federation of Music Clubs $750 winner and performed music by that composer.
Geneva Music Festival
The Geneva Music Festival’s mission is to entertain, inspire, and nurture a lifelong appreciation of chamber and other musical genres in Finger Lakes communities by presenting world-class artists that engage diverse audiences of all ages, including populations with little exposure to music of this caliber. The Geneva Music Festival was founded in 2011 by Geneva native and violinist Geoffrey Herd as a weekend of chamber music for their hometown. Exceptional musical quality, enthusiastic community response, and artistic vision stimulated the Festival’s evolution into a four-week event featuring world-class musicians. Now in its 16th season, the GMF has become Geneva’s and the Finger Lakes’ premiere summer kick-off event, attracting audiences to four weeks of concerts in May and June to hear outstanding musicians from the world’s stages. While rooted in the chamber music repertoire, performances now include jazz, contemporary, and bluegrass music, and festival musicians represent leading classical soloists, multiple Grammy Award-winning artists, members of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and faculty from Yale, Juilliard, the Colburn School, and the Cleveland Institute of Music.