Molly Herron, composer:
Composer Molly Herron “thinks deeply about motion, energy, and the physics of sound” (NPR). Whether writing for baroque strings, flowerpots, or newly designed instruments, her work achieves “a wonderful consideration of counterpoint and sound in time” (Seen and Heard International).
Released on New Amsterdam Records, the album “Through Lines: New Music for Viola da Gamba” is a collaboration with the viol consort Science Ficta. Of the album, I Care If You Listen says: “"The casual listener might get pleasantly lost within the sounds of these pieces, while deep listening reveals smartly crafted layers of historical and contemporary ideas ... In negotiating the space between the conventional and the unconventional, [Herron] creates a connection between composers of the past and herself, a thoughtful and skilled composer of the 21st century."
Herron’s work has been featured on the Bang on a Can Marathon, MATA festival, American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC Festival, Fast Forward Austin, Berlin Film Festival, and Sundance Film Festival.
She has written for The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Argus Quartet, Sō Percussion, Contemporaneous, and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn among many others. Her work has been supported by the DeGaetano Composers Institute, MATA, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Brooklyn Arts Council, the Copland Fund, Avaloch Farm New Music, and Exploring the Metropolis.
Herron received a Masters of Music degree from The Steinhardt School at New York University and a Ph.D from Princeton University. She is an Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Vanderbilt University.
Molly lives in Boston with her husband, composer Pascal Le Boeuf, and their two kids.
Judith Berkson, Composer
Judith Berkson cites influences ranging from cantorial chant to lieder from composers such as Schubert and Schumann. Her music offers a contemplative, spare space for the reworking of traditional structures within contemporary sonic modes and techniques. Her research centers around tuning and microtonality as they relate to memory and perception, exploring the small spaces between similarity and difference. She has collaborated with Kronos Quartet, Yarn/Wire, City Opera, Laurie Anderson, and Alvin Lucier and has premiered works by Chaya Czernowin, Enno Poppe, Mick Barr, Rick Burkhardt and Aleksandra Vrebalov. She composed music for the film Christopher at Sea, a queer retelling of Schubert's song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin which premiered at the Venice Biennale and won awards at SXSW and at Outfest LA. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and on NPR. She records for ECM Records, has written two operas. Her latest opera Partial Memories was about forgotten female artist Janet Sobel. She is currently based in Los Angeles and teaches at California Institute of the Arts.
Joseph Di Ponio, Composer
Joseph Di Ponio has composed music for concert performances, art installations, theater productions, and silent films. His concert music can be heard on solo and chamber music recitals throughout the US and Canada, and is often inspired by the visual arts, particularly the paintings of Barnett Newman, the video installations of Gary Hill, and the sculptures of Richard Serra. In general, his work addresses issues of aural history and temporality and is greatly influenced by contemporary thought on time and being.
Joseph has composed pieces for Timetable Percussion, Yarn/Wire, Iktus Percussion, the Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, the 2009 Armory Show, violinists Benjamin Robison and Jubal Fulks, and flutist Margaret Lancaster. His music has been performed at Alice Tully Hall, as well as at institutional venues including Luther College, Davidson College, Goucher College, Yale University, and The Juilliard School. Joseph’s works have also been featured on concerts presented by Alia Musica (Pittsburgh) and at the Accidental Music Festival, North River Music Festival, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. He is currently the co-director of Ensemble Ipse, which is active in performing and commissioning works from composers of diverse aesthetic profiles.
In addition to his concert-length acoustic and electro-acoustic works, Joseph is increasingly interested in large-scale electronically generated sound environments, as well as site-specific works of long duration. Current projects include a work for seven violas (for Stephanie Griffin), a large-scale open form piece for modern and historic wind instruments, and a thirty-two-hour piece for electronics with optional live performers based on Corelli’s “La Folia.”
His work has been honored with grants from ASCAP, NYSCA, New Music USA, and the Queens Council for the Arts. He has served as a composer-in-residence for Exploring the Metropolis (ConEd Composer’s Residency), the Accidental Music Festival, and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and has been a guest speaker at Luther College and Pacific Lutheran University.
Joseph holds degrees from Western Michigan University (BM) and the Hartt School (MM) and completed his PhD in music composition at SUNY Stony Brook. His primary teachers include Robert Carl, James Sellars, Daria Semegen, Sheila Silver, Daniel Weymouth, and Ramon Zupko. While at Stony Brook, he studied philosophy and aesthetics with Hugh Silverman and Donald Kuspit, earning an Advanced Graduate Certificate in Philosophy and the Arts. He has contributed to exhibition catalogs for the Queens Museum and the AC Institute, and has presented papers on the relationship of music to the other arts.
Stephanie Griffin, Viola/Composer
Born in Canada and based in New York City, composer/violist Stephanie Griffin has embarked on musical adventures around the world, including Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Mongolia. As a composer, she has received fellowships and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Willapa Bay AiR, the Instituto Sacatar, the Bronx Council on the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. She has improvised with Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Tomeka Reid and Adam Rudolph, among others; founded the Momenta Quartet in 2004; and is a member of the new music groups Ensemble Ipse, the Argento Chamber Ensemble and Continuum, and principal violist of the Princeton Symphony. Stephanie holds a doctoral degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Samuel Rhodes.
Max Giteck Duykers, Composer:
Max Giteck Duykers is a composer whose work is dedicated to unusual beauty, unique forms, and collaborative projects. He frequently incorporates technology in performance in a manner which gives the performers room for individual expression. A veteran of multidisciplinary performance, Duykers is also interested in reworking developmental processes for artists to find their collective "sweet spot" and produce work which is personal, confronting, and starkly beautiful.
An album of his music featuring Ensemble Ipse, was released on New World Records in May 2019, with producer Judith Sherman. Of the album, Kathodik.it writes “[Duykers is] an absolutely original voice within the varied horizon of contemporary music.” Duykers was also recently commissioned by the National Parks Service, New Music USA and the Jerome Foundation to create a chamber opera for tenor, soprano, baritone, electro-acoustic percussionist (performing the Marimba Lumina) and mixed ensemble with the Paul Dresher Ensemble. Featuring a libretto by acclaimed playwright and filmmaker Philip Kan Gotanda, the piece is a comment on the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. After many workshop versions at universities and venues around the U.S., the fully staged version was premiered at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco in June 2022, and received its NY Premiere in January 2023, as well as and a version with the 45-singer Chamber Chorus at UC Berkeley in February 2025. His numerous other commissions and premieres include the Avian Orchestra, The Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, the Oakland Youth Orchestra, the Seattle Chamber Players, Third Angle New Music, The BEO String Quartet, The Glass Farm Ensemble, PUBLIQuartet, Anti-Social Music, The Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, violinist Curtis Stewart, and numerous other individual performers. Duykers' Glass Blue Cleft was recently released by the Escher String Quartet on Bridge Records. Of the piece, Three Village Patch writes "[Glass Blue Cleft] is a piece for lovers of the string quartet, those amazed by how fiery and how dulcet these four-stringed instruments can range in expression." This and other pieces have been featured at music festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad, including the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker IV, curated by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross. His new piece Vapor/Blood for seven violas, electronics, and seven dancers, commissioned by the Tiffany Mills Company, was presented and premiered by National Sawdust in December 2023.
Duykers is a founder and co-director of Ensemble Ipse, a contemporary music performance group based in NYC. Ipse’s mission is to find common threads in works whose stylistic profiles appear, on the surface, as divergent. We present recent music that transcends aesthetic categorization and strive to create a forum for composers and sound artists on the edges of the mainstream of contemporary music, as well as those who have been traditionally underrepresented, including women, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC. Since forming in 2016, Ipse has premiered 41 works, 19 of them commissions, performed works from numerous calls for scores for emerging composers from around the world, received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, New Music USA, the Queens Council on the Arts, NET/TEN, and the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the Amphion Foundation, as well as numerous donations from its large donor network. Duykers has also been commissioned to compose music for over 50 theatrical, dance, film, and multimedia projects in the New York City area. With the theater group Prototype he was an artist-in-residence at HERE Arts Center in 2002-2004, and in 2000-2001 he worked for Philip Glass’ The Looking Glass Studios and Dunvagen Music Publishers, where he did studio recording, Pro-Tools post-production, music sequencing, music copying and music editing for the Philip Glass Ensemble, film scoring projects, and operatic works. He received a BM from Oberlin Conservatory where he studied composition with Randy Coleman, and has recently completed his Ph.D. at Stony Brook University where he studied with Sheila Silver. At Stony Brook he was also honored with the 2012 Ackerman Award for Excellence in Music. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Rebecca and sons Quinlan and Liev.
Margaret Lancaster, Flutes
“New-music luminary” (The New York Times) and multi-hyphenate creative, Margaret Lancaster (flutist/performance artist/actor/dancer/amateur furniture designer) has built a large repertoire of cross-disciplinary solo and installation works that employ electronics and mixed media. Performance highlights include Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, MoMA, Art Basel/Miami, Santa Fe New Music, NIME/Copenhagen, Merida Clasica Moderna and the 7-year global run of OBIE-winning Mabou Mines Dollhouse (Helene). A member of Either/Or, Ensemble Ipse, Ghost Ensemble, Percussia and One System, guest appearances include Argento and the New York Philharmonic. She has recorded on New World Records, World Edition, Naxos, Innova, Tzadik, New Focus, Infrequent Seams and Mode. Lancaster is passionate about collaborating, spontaneous dance parties and cellophane. www.margaretlancaster.com.
Christa Van Alstine, Clarinets
Clarinetist Christa Van Alstine began her musical life in the great plains of Saskatchewan, Canada. She currently lives in New York City where she is on faculty at the United Nations International School. After studying at the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto, and performing in Canada's National Academy Orchestra, Christa moved to New York for graduate school at Stony Brook University. She dedicates her time to collaborating with ensembles, performers, and composers. Christa is the clarinetist with Ipse, bass clarinetist with Hotel Elefant, and has performed and collaborated in NYC and abroad with Mantra Percussion, Wet Ink, Beth Morrison Projects, A Far Cry, Talea, ICE, Either/Or, Red Light New Music, Iktus Percussion, Ascolta, and Toca Loca.
Stephanie Corwin, Baroque Bassoon
Stephanie Corwin enjoys performing and teaching music of the past four centuries on modern and historical bassoons. She is the inaugural winner of the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and her career highlights include solo appearances at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as concerts with many of North America’s prominent early-music ensembles, including Tafelmusik, Piffaro, and the Handel and Haydn Society.
After graduating from Davidson College, Stephanie earned her MM from Yale and DMA from Stony Brook, studying with Frank Morelli at both institutions. Intrigued by performance practice, she completed a Performer Diploma in historical bassoons at Indiana University with Michael McCraw. Stephanie has served on faculty at the University of Virginia, the Chamber Music Conference, Amherst Early Music Festival, and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute.
Alex Shiozaki, Violin:
Praised by The New York Times as “spellbinding,” violinist Alex Shiozaki has performed in venues across the globe from Carnegie Hall in NYC to Sapporo Concert Hall Kitara in Japan. Highlights include solo appearances with the Sapporo Symphony and Sendai Philharmonic. Dedicated to chamber music, he is a member of the Momenta Quartet, two-time recipient of the Koussevitzky Foundation commission grant. He also performs in recitals across the country as part of the Shiozaki Duo, with pianist Nana Shi. As an orchestral musician, he has played with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the IRIS Orchestra, as well as for the off-Broadway musical “For The Last Time.” Dr. Shiozaki holds degrees from Harvard and Juilliard, and counts among his violin teachers Ronald Copes, Joseph Lin, Lynn Chang, and Robin Sharp. In addition to his performance activities, he is on faculty at the Juilliard School, State University of New York at New Paltz, and Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Natalie Kress, Baroque Violin:
Praised by the New York Times for her “splendid playing,” Natalie Rose Kress is a period violinist based in Washington, D.C.. Following three summers as a Tanglewood Fellow, she was awarded the Jules C. Reiner Violin Prize from the Tanglewood Music Center and performed with Yo-Yo Ma at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors, honoring Seiji Ozawa. Recent highlights include winning the 2022 English Concert in America Fellowship, the 2021 Mercury Chamber Orchestra Fellowship, as well as performing the World Premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s “Music for String Quartet” at The Tanglewood Music Center in 2021 with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She can be heard on the premiere recording of Bernstein’s quartet paired with the rarely performed, "Elegies" for violin and viola by Aaron Copland, to be released this September by Parma Records. She performs as a core member of Quartet Salonnières, Relic Ensemble, Repast Baroque Ensemble, and Musicivic Baroque and is concertmaster of La Grande Bande. Natalie plays regularly with The Handel and Haydn Society, the Washington Bach Consort, The Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, Opera Lafayette, and the Staunton Music Festival. An alumni of Stony Brook University and The Juilliard School, she is currently a Doctorate student at the University of Maryland and lives with her husband, Jonathan Davies, and dog, Henry, in Greenbelt, MD.
Caleb van der Swaagh, Cello:
Praised for his “entrancing” performances (National Sawdust Log) and “tonal beauty” (The Strad), Caleb van der Swaagh is a versatile chamber musician and soloist. In demand as a chamber musician, Caleb is the former cellist of the GRAMMY-nominated Aizuri Quartet and a core member of Exponential Ensemble. An advocate of contemporary music, he is a member of counter)induction, Ensemble Échappé, and Ensemble Ipse as well as performing regularly with other leading contemporary music ensembles. He also performs his own compositions and arrangements. His extensive discography includes albums on New Focus Recordings, Albany Records, Bright Shiny Things, and Avie Records among others. Caleb is a graduate of the Columbia University – Juilliard Exchange program, New England Conservatory, and the Manhattan School of Music and he is an alumnus of Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect. His primary teachers are Bonnie Hampton, Laurence Lesser, and David Geber. Caleb is the cello professor and Head of Strings at the Conservatory of Music at SUNY Purchase College. For more information, visit www.calebvanderswaagh.com.
Sarah Stone, Viola da Gamba:
Sarah Stone is drawn to baroque cello and viola da gamba through a curiosity in the cultural history of the music she plays and how it intersects with the stories we tell today. This season, she performs around North America with Seraphic Fire, New York Baroque Incorporated, Staunton Music Festival, The Sebastians, Bach Akademie Charlotte, Apollo’s Fire, Tafelmusik, and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. At home in New York City, Sarah is Executive Director of the early music ensemble Repast Baroque, programming the concerts in their 2025/2026 season ‘Literary Circles’ inspired by book genres including Myth, Science Fiction, Classics, Gothic Horror, Satire, and Adventure. She also facilitates Bitterroot Baroque, a community baroque orchestra on period instruments in Hamilton, Montana. Sarah holds Masters degrees from the Juilliard School and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelors from Rice University.
Gabe Shuford, Harpsichord:
Harpsichordist Gabe Shuford’s musical fluency spans historically inspired performance, jazz, and pop. He is a core member of the Repast Baroque Ensemble and has performed at Staunton Music Festival, Bach Virtuosi Festival, and with acclaimed groups such as Clarion Choir and Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, A Far Cry, and Ensemble Altera.
Gabe's playing has earned praise from the The New York Times, which described his performance of Elliott Carter’s Sonata as “assured, polished and beautifully nuanced.” His achievements include the 2011 Baron Prize from Stony Brook University and second prize at the 2007 Mae and Irving Jurow International Harpsichord Competition.
A versatile artist, He performs regularly with his wife, singer and songwriter Erin Hall, and as keyboardist with the Lars Jacobsen Trio. Gabe earned his DMA from Stony Brook University, where he studied with harpsichordist Arthur Haas.
Geoffrey Burleson, Piano/Keyboard:
Equally active as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, and jazz performer, Geoffrey Burleson, pianist, has performed to wide acclaim throughout Europe and North America. The New York Times has hailed Burleson’s solo performances as “vibrant and compelling,” praising his “rhythmic brio, projection of rhapsodic qualities, appropriate sense of spontaneity, and rich colorings.” Current recording projects include Camille Saint-Saëns: Complete Piano Works, on 7 CDs, for the new Naxos Grand Piano label. The first 5 volumes have been released to high acclaim from Gramophone, International Record Review, Diapason (France) and elsewhere, and have garnered International Piano Choice Awards from International Piano Magazine. Other noteworthy recordings by Burleson include Vincent Persichetti: Complete Piano Sonatas (New World Records), which received a BBC Music Choice award from the BBC Music Magazine, and AKOKA (Pentatone), featuring Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, as well as companion works, for which Burleson was nominated for a 2015 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year. Mr. Burleson’s concerto appearances include the Buffalo Philharmonic, New England Philharmonic, Boston Musica Viva and the Holland Symfonia in the Netherlands. He has also appeared as featured soloist at the Bard Music Festival, Monadnock Music Festival, Mänttä Music Festival (Finland), Santander Festival (Spain) and the Talloires International Festival (France). He is a core member of the American Modern Ensemble, IMPetus, The David Sanford Big Band, and Princeton University’s Richardson Chamber Players. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and Stony Brook University (D.M.A.), his principal teachers include Gilbert Kalish, Leonard Shure, Veronica Jochum, Lillian Freundlich, and Tinka Knopf. Mr. Burleson is on the piano faculty of Princeton University, and is Professor of Music and Director of Piano Studies at Hunter College-City University of New York. He is additionally on the piano faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center.
Colleen Bernstein, Percussion:
Colleen Bernstein is an award-winning percussionist and educator recognized for her precise execution of contemporary music and narrative works. She is a member of the Radio City Music Hall orchestra and held the percussion chair for the Broadway revival of Spamalot. Colleen recently performed as principal percussionist/timpanist for the North American tour of Avatar: the Last Airbender In Concert, and has played on a dozen other Broadway productions. She has collaborated with notable artists including Béla Fleck, Tania León, Judy Collins, Concertgebouw Orchestra Camerata, American Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, International Contemporary Ensemble, Silkroad Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Balla Kouyaté, and Sandbox Percussion. As a soloist, Colleen has performed a concerto with Albany Symphony, presented sets at MATA Festival, New Music Gathering, Brooklyn Bound, World Vibes Congress, and Oh My Ears Festival, and won prizes internationally including at the Universal Marimba Competition. She is a founding member of American Wild Ensemble and a teaching artist with Creative Leaps International. Colleen is also a professor at William Paterson University, where she teaches applied percussion and courses in the music education program, and conducts the percussion ensemble. She received music degrees at the Eastman School of Music and University of Michigan, as well as an MBA in Arts Innovation from the Global Leaders Institute. Colleen is an artist endorser for Black Swamp Percussion and Malletech.
Matt Ward, Conductor:
Matt Ward is a dedicated educator, percussionist and administrator who specializes in performing and conducting contemporary chamber music and has been cited by the New York Times as “a fine soloist”. He is a principal member with American Modern Ensemble, Talujon, Argento Chamber Ensemble, and Ensemble IPSE, and the Manager of Percussion and Co-Chair and Co-Artistic Advisor of Contemporary Performance at the Manhattan School of Music with Erin Rogers.
Dr. Ward also performs regularly with groups such as Classical Tahoe, Talea Ensemble, The Orchestra of the League of Composers, Riverside Symphony and has played on numerous Broadway shows including Light in the Piazza, and An American in Paris. He has worked as guest conductor with ICE, Wet Ink, Ensemble IPSE, DaCapo, NYNME and Camerata Nova.
Dr. Ward holds a BM degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a MM and DMA degree from SUNY Stony Brook. He is on faculty at Queens College, The Aaron Copland School of Music and Brooklyn College and is the Percussion Director for the Mostly Modern Festival. In his free time, Matt is an avid gardener and enjoys hikes with his dog Arlo and anyone that can keep up.