Tuesday November 10th, 2026
7:30 PM, Shigemi Matsumoto Recital Hall, Free and open to the public
The Unheard-of Ensemble performs works by Graduate Student Composers
On September 19th, Unheard-of presents a new expansive electroacoustic commission by Matt McBane exploring underwater topographies in acoustic and synth forms paired with a set by Mehrnam Rastegari and her trio. Rastegari is a prominent Persian musician, award-winning film score composer, and master Kamancheh player bringing Persian music in new directions with inflections of rock, jazz, and modern fusion.
Sep. 17, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Music from Paris: Vassar Faculty members—Marka Young, violin; Liuh-Wen Ting, viola; Iva Casian-Lakos, cello; and Marija Ilić, piano—perform Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet #2 from 1887. The program begins with Frises for violin and electronics by Kaija Saariaho from 2011, assisted by Alan Hankers, Assistant Professor of Music, electronics.
Weissensee Klassik - Weissensee LAB with the world premiere of the Synesthetic Project. At 8 PM Graln's Tenn, Neusach 7. In collaboration with the artistic director of the WKF Christoph Zimper, the ensemble Synesthetic Project – which breaks down boundaries between music, movement, and space and thinks of concert formats as holistic experiences – explores, under the direction of Nika Baumann, the significance of folk music in its most original form. Tickets: www.oeticket.com or at the Weissensee Information.
Weissensee Klassik - Weissensee LAB with the world premiere of the Synesthetic Project. At 8 PM Graln's Tenn, Neusach 7. In collaboration with the artistic director of the WKF Christoph Zimper, the ensemble Synesthetic Project – which breaks down boundaries between music, movement, and space and thinks of concert formats as holistic experiences – explores, under the direction of Nika Baumann, the significance of folk music in its most original form. Tickets: www.oeticket.com or at the Weissensee Information.
Join Unheard-of, the CCI fellows, and our composition faculty for an immersive experience exploring the galleries of the Kemper Art Museum. The group will present a set of musical miniatures paired with artworks throughout the museum, running twice on August 15th (3PM and 4:15PM).
Unheard-of performs multimedia premieres written by our festival fellows Yeeun Sim, Max Eidinoff, Emelia Ulrich, Jason Zhang, Dayton Hare, HoiPui Chen, Alex Brown, Preston Posey, and Yeonsuk Jung. These emerging artists from across the United States worked with Unheard-of to develop dynamic works for Unheard-of and electronics.
Unheard-of performs multimedia premieres with explosive visuals, hyper-pop electronics, and prophetic musical storytelling. This program features Christopher Stark’s Maple, Annika Socolofsky’s Let the more loving one be me, a new premiere from David Bird, and Christian Quiñones’s My Eyes Devour the Internet.
Stark’s Maple captures the intensity and devastation of Yellowstone’s 2016 Maple fire through bending electronic loops and field recordings morphed into dance rhythms, examining the anxiety in between the forces of nature and technology. Socolofsky’s Let the more loving one be me is a sonic documentary of the histories and stories of queer elders, capturing their stories while they are still here. Quiñones’s My Eyes Devour the Internet is a maximalist romp through digital excess, from overpowering virtual vocaloid synths to the overpowering meme-fluenced hyperpop.
Unheard-of Ensemble kicks off their annual Collaborative Composition Initiative workshop performing Olivier Messiaen’s monumental Quartet for the End of Time. Written in 1941 while Messiaen was a prisoner of war, the Quartet tells the story of the book of Revelation while meditating on his faith and the eternal. The story of the Quartet’s composition is one of resilience, persistence, and friendship between Messiaen, clarinetist Henri Akoka, violinist Jean le Boulaire, and cellist Étienne Pasquier.
Unheard-of also performs the Midwest premiere of CCI Composition Faculty Liliya Ugay’s After the End of Time. The work written in 2020 is a modern homage to Messiaen. It responds to the feelings surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the fear and uncertainty, detachment and unity, and hope.
On August 8th, Unheard-of presents a new premiere for the ensemble, electronics, and video by David Bird, composer, producer, and multimedia artist praised for his “inventive, mind-expanding electroacoustic soundscapes” (An Earful). Unheard-of is joined by special guest band Ginita y La Orquesta Esa for a closing set of latin Jazz tunes from the group’s latest self-titled album!
Illyrica performs works by Mozart, Bartok, Joel Hoffman, Margareta Ferek-Petrić, and more!
More info TBA.
Illyrica performs works by Mozart, Bartok, Joel Hoffman, and a premiere by Margareta Ferek-Petrić!
More info TBA.
Our clarinetist Ford and music technologist/composer Brian Ellis are presenting a site-specific pop-up on June 27th 8PM at the 2nd Street Dock performed from canoes, tracing the flow of the Gowanus Canal from the Flushing Tunnel to the 2nd Street Boathouse. This opening pop-up titled Ebb and Flow is a limited seat event that is the first of smaller pop-up experiences bringing people together for on the water musical journeys. Iva will present a short set for the opening night.
May 28-30
Performances at CheLA and Conservatorio Superior de Música Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires
May 25-27
Concert and workshops at Electroacoustic Music Festival FME- Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile
Date and Time: May 23, 2026, 7PM Canoe Launch, 7:30PM Music
Join Unheard-of Ensemble, the Dredgers, and special guests video game jazz-funk ensemble Discocactus to open the season! Unheard-of opens the show with new premieres written for them by Annika Socolofsky and Discocactus's own keyboardist Ben Wallace. Unheard-of also performs new video game music arrangements from Ben and Unheard-of's violinist Matheus Souza. Discocactus closes out the night performing some of their hits joined by members of Unheard-of!
May 10, 2026
The Blanc, New York
World premieres of commissioned pieces for PinkNoise by:
Sofia Ouyang, Thanakarn Schofield, and Yifan Guo
Liza Lim - Inguz
Halim El Dabh - It is Dark and Damp on the Front
Date and Time: May 8th, 7:30pm
Concert Location: Hunter College Rehearsal Room
Unheard-of performs the music of hunter college graduate and undergraduate composition students.
One of the experimental double-bassist’s best-known early works is Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, which uses a recorded loop of a homeless man singing an improvised fragment, with rich string harmonies layered on top. A recording of the piece was made in 1993 with Tom Waits. Here, Contemporaneous brings the piece to life again.
Roulette @ 10:30 PM
503 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217
NYU Paulson Building 570
Date and Time: April 27, 8pm
Unheard-of performs new music by NYU composition students from their undergraduate program written for the clarinet, violin, cello or Dahl instrumentation. Works explore everything from extended techniques to electronics.
Iva’s duo with saxophonist, guitarist, and composer David Crowell comes to Columbus, Ohio for the first time, performing original works.
Eco|Tonal: “Mythologies”7:00 pm at the Short North Stage's Green Room
1187 N High St, Columbus, OH 43201
Info TBA
Music by Iva Casian-Lakos, David Crowell, and Rob McClure
April 11, 2026 3:30pm
Elebash Hall at The Graduate Center, New York, NY
Michael Beil - Caravan
Itzá García - dynamic air density
Cathy Van Eck - Words, Words, Words
Unheard-of performs music by Liliya Ugay, Christian Quiñones, Jesse Jones, and Susanna Hancock on tour across Florida as well as student works by FSU and University of Florida composers. We also offer career workshops, instrumental workshops and chamber music coachings at UCF and FSU.
Guest Artist Recital | Opperman Music Hall
Unheard-of performs music by Liliya Ugay, Christian Quiñones, Jesse Jones, and Susanna Hancock on tour across Florida as well as student works by FSU and University of Florida composers. We also offer career workshops, instrumental workshops and chamber music coachings at UCF and FSU.
Sunday, March 8, 2026 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Unheard-of performs music by Liliya Ugay, Christian Quiñones, Jesse Jones, and Susanna Hancock on tour across Florida as well as student works by FSU and University of Florida composers. We also offer career workshops, instrumental workshops and chamber music coachings at UCF and FSU.
Free event. No registration required.
Students from the UMKC Conservatory Composers’ Guild present original works in the fifth concert of their season, featuring the Unheard-of Ensemble.
Film with Live Score / Music
Live film score performed by Ensemble Contemporaneous
David Lang and Bill Morrison have collaborated for nearly 25 years and darker is their tenth collaboration.
Lang and Morrison drew inspiration from a minimal score to create a film that, like the music, can exist both before and under the viewer’s eyelids: a slowly, lilting depiction of the sublime, where actors, dancers and acrobats reappear and then disappear back into a bubbling morass of time.
Tickets
Featuring performances by Unheard-of Ensemble
Alan Hankers, Assistant Professor; Celeste Oram, Adjunct Assistant Professor; Department of Music students
Celebrate the creativity and stylistic breadth of Vassar’s emerging composers. This interactive event offers audiences a unique opportunity to engage directly with the compositional process, from first sparks to finished scores, featuring live performances and open discussion in a collaborative workshop. Attendees will hear original student compositions performed by professional musicians and be invited to participate in conversations about inspiration, process, and artistic motivation. The symposium fosters an open exchange between composers, performers, and listeners, highlighting the visionary potential of the next generation of musical voices.
