Annual MATA Festival
In partnership with ISSUE Project Room
NIGHT FOUR: EXPERIMENTS IN LIVING
The centerpiece for Night Four of the 27th Annual MATA Festival is George Lewis’s String Quartet 1.5 "Experiments in Living” from 2016; Lewis's first string quartet.
He says of the work, “I take ‘Experiments in Living,’ a phrase from John Stuart Mill, to express my notion of recombinant assemblage, associative sonic discourses that appear and recur in ever new forms and guises, suffused with the power of noise. . . I’m looking for listeners to experience the volatility of memory, resistance, and hope."
Night Four includes seven works by 2025 MATA Festival Early-Career composers, all exploring what lies beyond our perception – from a sextet encapsulating vivid dreams during the pandemic to a work exploring the reciprocity of presence and absence – performed by FLUX Quartet, Ensemble LPR led by conductor Tito Muñoz, soprano Majel Connery, pianists Erika Dohi and Paul Kerekes, and baritone Oshay LeGare.
Performing ARTISTS and ENSEMBLES
FLUX Quartet
The FLUX Quartet is a New York-based string ensemble founded in the late 1990s by violinist Tom Chiu, inspired by the experimental ethos of the Fluxus art movement. Renowned for their fearless approach to contemporary classical music, the quartet has premiered over 100 works by leading avant-garde composers such as Alvin Lucier, Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, and Julio Estrada. They are particularly acclaimed for their definitive performances and recordings of Morton Feldman’s string quartets, including the monumental six-hour String Quartet No. 2 .
FLUX has performed at prestigious venues like Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Kennedy Center, and international festivals across Europe, Australia, and the Americas. Their collaborations span diverse disciplines, including projects with choreographers Pam Tanowitz and Shen Wei, experimental balloonist Judy Dunaway, and digital art ensemble OpenEnded Group. They also appeared in Matthew Barney’s film River of Fundament .
Committed to nurturing emerging talent, FLUX has held residencies at institutions such as Wesleyan, Princeton, and Dartmouth, and has received support from organizations like the American Composers Forum and the Aaron Copland Fund .
Their discography includes releases on labels like Mode Records, Cantaloupe, Tzadik, and Cold Blue Music, solidifying their status as a leading force in contemporary string quartet performance.
Ensemble LPR
Ensemble LPR is a New York City-based chamber orchestra founded in 2008 by composer and violinist David Handler. Named after its home venue, (Le) Poisson Rouge, the ensemble embodies the venue’s mission to blend artistic excellence with aesthetic diversity. Comprising some of New York’s finest musicians, Ensemble LPR performs a wide-ranging repertoire—from contemporary works by living composers to fresh interpretations of classical masterpieces. They have collaborated with artists across genres, including Timo Andres, Simone Dinnerstein, Max Richter, Mica Levi, and David Longstreth. Their notable projects include a Deutsche Grammophon debut with Follow, Poet, featuring music by Mohammed Fairouz, and performances at venues such as Central Park’s Naumburg Bandshell and BRIC House Ballroom.
Tito Muñoz
Tito Muñoz is an acclaimed American conductor known for his clarity, versatility, and deep musical insight. Born in Queens, New York, to Ecuadorian and Colombian parents, he began as a violinist before studying conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, where he earned the Aspen Conducting Prize.
He made his professional debut in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra and has since held positions with The Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, and Opéra National de Lorraine. From 2014 to 2024, he served as Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony, now continuing as Artistic Partner.
Muñoz has guest-conducted leading orchestras across North America and internationally, including the New York Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Sydney Symphony. A committed advocate for contemporary music, he has premiered works by Michael Hersch, Christopher Cerrone, and others. He is also deeply engaged in music education, working with top conservatories and youth orchestras throughout the U.S.
MATA MAVENS
Han Chen
A fearless performer with seemingly limitless imagination and possessed with uncanny energy, pianistHan Chen plays scores old and new with rare rigor and insight.
Alex Ross, classical music critic of The New Yorker, who selected Mr. Chen’s Naxos disc of the LigetiÉtudes and Capriccios as a “Notable Classical Recording of 2023,” characterized him as follows: “TheTaiwanese pianist Han Chen, a noted interpreter of the Ligeti Études and other modernist repertory, hasmade a blistering album of the [Liszt] opera transcriptions.” –The New Yorker, September 4, 2023.
Attending Mr. Chen’s recent traversal of the 18 Ligeti Etudes and 18 commissioned worldpremieres, George Grella titled his review: Han Chen’s remarkable playing equal to the genius ofLigeti’s Etudes and went on to exclaim: “he is astonishing, with some of the finest pianism onehas ever witnessed.” –New York Classical Review, September 25, 2023.
Gold Medalist at the 2013 China International Piano Competition and a prizewinner at the 2018Honens International Piano Competition, Mr. Chen has also been praised by Gramophone as“impressively commanding and authoritative” and further cited by The New York Times for his“graceful touch,” “rhythmic precision” and “hypnotic charm.” He has appeared as soloist with theCalgary Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Lexington Philharmonic, Hong KongPhilharmonic, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, China Symphony Orchestra, and XiamenPhilharmonic.Han Chen has studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky, Wha Kyung Byun, and Ursula Oppens at TheJuilliard School, New England Conservatory, and CUNY Graduate Center.
Erika Dohi
Described as "virtuosic" (The New York Times) and a "barrier-defying artist" (MixMag) Osaka-born and New York-based pianist Erika Dohi is a multi-faceted artist with an eclectic musical background. I, Castorpollux, Dohi’s debut album on 37d03d, received The Best Ambient Albums (Bandcamp), and Best of the Week (Brooklyn Vegan, JAZZIZ Magazine), and was described as a "retro-futuristic piece of poetry" (Mixmag) and "a rising voice in New York's creative scene" (DCist).
It was featured on The New York Times Playlist, WNYC New Sounds/Soundcheck, and the BBC World Service Music Life. The project was featured at Liquid Music Series at The Parkway Theater (Minneapolis), Bop Stop Jazz (Cleveland), Constellation (Chicago), Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), Emerald City Music Series (Seattle), Rhizome (Washington D.C.), Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW Festival along with So Percussion, Bonny Light Horseman, and Daniil Trifonov, Circuit des Yeux at the Ecstatic Music Festival in Kaufman Music Center (NYC), and most recently Tribeca New Music (NYC). As a composer, Dohi has participated in Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at Mass MoCA, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts with composer Judd Greenstein. Dohi has been commissioned by Metropolis Ensemble, Switch~Ensemble, Grand Band, and most recently by the American independent entertainment company A24 in the Song Reader Box Set project for the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Paul Kerekes
Paul Kerekes is a composer and pianist based in New York City who often confronts and blurs the space between composition and performance. As a co-founding member of Grand Band – a piano sextet described by the New York Times as “a kind of new-music supergroup” – and Invisible Anatomy – an “otherworldly and uncanny” (Village Voice) composer-performer ensemble/collective that’s “shedding labels” (Yale Alumni Magazine) – most of his projects engage and unify these two sometimes-disparate worlds. Both ensembles have had the pleasure of being featured on festivals across the States and abroad – most notably Grand Band’s performance of Kerekes’ first six-piano piece, wither, on The Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, which was described as “pointallistic, sparkling, and delicate” by the Kalamazoo Gazette, and Invisible Anatomy’s performance on the Beijing Modern Music Festival, which lead to consequent tours throughout China’s major cities.
Paul’s music has also been described as “gently poetic” (The New York Times), “striking” (WQXR), “highly eloquent” (New Haven Advocate) and he has had the privilege of hearing his pieces performed by many outstanding ensembles, some of which include the American Composers Orchestra, Da Capo Chamber Players, New Morse Code, guitarist Trevor Babb, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Real Loud, andPlay, and Exceptet in such venues as Merkin Hall, (le) poisson rouge, The DiMenna Center, Roulette, Spectrum, and Symphony Space. His compositions and playing have also been featured on NPR’s Performance Today hosted by Fred Child and released on major recording labels such as New Amsterdam Records, Innova, New Focus, and Naxos.
He is a recipient of the Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP, the JFund Award from the American Composer’s Forum, and the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters.
Paul is a graduate of Queens College and Yale School of Music and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College
Oshay LeGare
O’shay is a Singer-Songwriter, Producer and Musician out of Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. With his soulful vocals, intricate flow and off-kilter production, his sound is unique yet familiar. Hello O’shay’s music can be best described as a blend of R&B, HipHop, NeoSoul and Pop.
In the first grade, Hello O'shay wrote his first song lyrics and decided from that point on that he wanted to be a Singer-Songwriter and Rapper. At the age of 9, Hello O’shay started taking guitar lessons and became fascinated with musicianship and instrumentation. This would later shape his approach to production and songwriting. While attending Brooklyn H.S. of the Arts, Hello O’shay studied classical music and played the violin in the Orchestra. He also taught himself how to sing and how to play the piano.
After graduating high school, Hello O’shay began his internship at Lounge Studios where he got to work with many up and coming artists/musicians. His experience at Lounge Studios would help him further develop his songwriting and production skills. Hello O’shay has performed all across NYC at places like The Groove, Drom and Sony Hall to name a few. He currently features on KOTA THE FRIEND’S new album NO RAP ON SUNDAY.
Marie Herrington
Marie specializes in contemporary vocal music and channels her musical passions through directing choirs, composing for solo voice and choir, and creating works for voice and electronics. Her choral music has received accolades, including the 2024 Mixed Voices Award from the International Federation of Choral Music, and has been performed by ensembles such as the Handel Choir of Baltimore and New York City’s C4.
She co-runs and performs in a recital series called Women in Music with pianist Timothy Krippner, which toured last fall. Her upcoming premiere is a chamber song cycle featuring arrangements of traditional Ukrainian folk songs and poetry, to be presented at Minneapolis’ Source Song Festival this August.
Based in Baltimore, Marie curates a recital series and leads an Artist-in-Residence program for post-graduate international students at Govans Presbyterian Church, where she also serves as Director of Choral Music and Organist. In addition, she sings lead vocals in several funk/rock bands around the DMV area and occasionally plays keyboard for metal bands.
Marie’s diverse musical background not only shapes her unique artistic voice but also pushes the boundaries of vocal expression and the mediums through which it’s experienced.
Featured COMPOSERS
George Lewis
George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist and trombonist. He is Professor of American Music at Columbia University and Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a corresponding member of the British Academy, and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. Other honors for George Lewis include the Doris Duke Artist Award, and fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. Published by Edition Peters, Lewis’s music is performed worldwide, and he is widely regarded as a pioneer in the development of AI programs that improvise together with human musicians. 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, Birmingham City University, and Curtis Institute of Music, among others (https://music.columbia.edu/bios/george-e-lewis).
Program Note “String Quartet 1.5, “Experiments in Living” (2016)”
This is my first proper string quartet, although Signifying Riffs, for string quartet with percussion, was premiered in 1998. I imagine that future quartets will be designated 2.5, 3.5, and so on. I take “Experiments in Living,” a phrase from John Stuart Mill, to express my notion of recombinant assemblage, associative sonic discourses that appear and recur in ever new forms and guises, suffused with the power of noise. The Spektral Quartet, for whom this work was written, has described my work as featuring “energetic rhythmic flows and tectonic formal shifts.” Indeed, I’m looking for listeners to experience the volatility of memory, resistance, and hope.
Early-Career COMPOSERS
Giordano Bruno do Nascimento
Giordano Bruno do Nascimento is a composer distinguished by his profound artistic exploration of the significance of the human voice in our society. His work, deeply rooted in philosophy and contemporary cultural criticism, questions conventional perceptions and functions of the voice and its impact on our society.
He combines his musical talents with a multimedia approach by creating videos inspired by social media and YouTube content. This reflects his fascination with the dynamic relationship between society and social media and how these influence individuals.
His research also delves into the intersections of gender and voice, examining how vocal expressions can transcend traditional gender norms and contribute to a fluid understanding of identity.
Over the years, Giordano has received numerous awards and participated in prestigious artistic residencies, including at I-Park in Connecticut and ISELP in Brussels. His operas and chamber music works, such as "Lucie" and "Frau Kempelens Sprechmaschinen," have been internationally acclaimed and performed at significant festivals like the Pan Music Festival in Seoul and the B-Classic Festival in Belgium.
Currently, do Nascimento is exploring the "limits of the human voice in its definitions" as part of his doctoral studies at HfMT Hamburg. His goal is to further explore and question the diverse meanings and applications of the human voice through his artworks, consistently creating innovative works that provoke thought in the audience.
Program Note “Vis – à – Vis (a)”
for six-handed piano and credit cards – June 2020
Cast of characters:
Pianist 1: 2 credit cards and piano
Pianist 2: 2 credit cards, tom-tom (middle) with gran-cassa soft mallet and piano
Pianist 3: 1 credit card, attitude, fury, and piano
Vis-a-Vis (a)
A visual musical performance.
Three pianists, three credit cards, a social distancing context and a pianoforte.
In times of social distancing, three pianists work on, around, inside and with a pianoforte, trying to respect the minimum safe distance allow in a pandemic. How is it possible?
“Vis – a – Vis (a)” is a satirical and tragical expression of a society which tries to conduct an artistical self-reflection despite of strong limitations and crisis situation.
Paul Novak
The "spellbinding" (Washington Post) music of Chicago-based composer Paul Novak immerseslisteners in shimmering and subtly crafted musical worlds full of color, motion, light, and magic.His recent projects engage with dreams and memory, queer identity, climate change and thenatural world, and psychosomatic illness.
Novak has received commissions from American Composers Orchestra, Balourdet Quartet,Orchestra of St. Luke’s, ASCAP and Society of Composers, Inc., Music from Copland House,Lynx, Quatuor Lontano, the Boston New Music Initiative, Blackbox Ensemble, and KineticEnsemble, among others. His recent collaborators include the Austin Symphony, OrlandoPhilharmonic, Reno Philharmonic, the U.S. Army Band, Civic Orchestra of Chicago,DanceWorks Chicago, Sandbox Percussion, Ekmeles, Quince Ensemble, Decoda, InfraSoundEnsemble, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Dmitri Atapine, Quatuor Diotima, LIGAMENT Duo,and Tribeca New Music.
In 2024, Novak was selected for the top prize from both the ASCAP Morton Gould ComposerAwards and the BMI Composer Awards; other recent honors include a Barlow Commission andUnderwood Commission, and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,SCI/ASCAP Competition, Red Note Competition, League of Composers/ISCM, Lake GeorgeMusic Festival, and National Association of Composers of the USA.He has received fellowshipsfrom Aspen, Norfolk, Copland House, Millay, and I-Park, and was featured in the WashingtonPost's "23 for '23: Composers and Performers to Watch this Year," where he was praised for his"impressive range and restless energy" in a catalog spanning "lithe, elastic vocal pieces...vibrantorchestral works...and evocative etudes for string quartet." Novak’s recent projects includecollaborations with poets, visual artists, dancers, choreographers, and a spoken word artist.https://www.paulnovakmusic.com/
Program Note “Seven Dreams About My Body (2024)“
I had strange and vivid dreams at the beginning of the pandemic. Like many other people, Idreamt often about crowds, masks, and hospitals - and I also had odd recurring dreams about my body.In each of these seven dream-interludes, my body is not my body but something else. To capture thesurreal, foggy atmosphere of these dreams, I extend the sound of the ensemble with a microtonally tunedkeyboard.
seven dreams about my body will eventually serve as the interludes between the sung andspoken sections of my doctoral dissertation, a concert-length cycle of vocal-instrumental pieces whichexplores the intersection of queer longing and psychosomatic illness. This cycle will draw from myrecollections of a childhood diagnosis with “conversion disorder,” and will focus on the body and thethings it unknowingly stores: memory, trauma, ache, desire.seven dreams about my body is scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano/keyboard, andpercussion. It was written in 2024 for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.
i. dream in which i float on a black sea
ii. dream in which my body is a flock of birds
iii. wasps’ – nest – dream
iv. dream in which my body is a constellation
v. dream in which my body is clockwork
vi. teeth – falling – out – dream
vii. dream in which i cannot walk
Andrew Stock
Andrew Stock is a composer. He writes instrumental music and songs, organizes concerts and other programs centered on experimental music and contemporary art, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago.
Program Note:
Kertész-Quartet responds to André Kertész’s 1926 print Quartet, thus also to its subject. The severe cropping of Kertész's composition (only the players’ instruments and hands are within frame) and its use of blank space (the lower two-thirds of the card on which the image is printed are empty) suggest to me a notion totally at odds with the classical string quartet model, namely the anonymization of the individual players — each of whom the 18th century quartet tradition renders not merely as an exchangeable, bigger-or-smaller violin-plus-hands, but as something akin to a self-possessed Enlightenment subject, discoursing and collaborating with coevals while retaining a unique role and identity in the whole.
Kertész-Quartet, then, was conceived as a “string-quartet-less string quartet” in which formal genre conventions (sonata, adagio, minuet…), traditional part-relationships (solo plus trio, two duo[s], etc.), and technical elements modeled on string playing (equivalents for “fingered” and “sounding” pitches for the natural harmonics) are applied to music not for four strings but for a variable mixed instrumentation. This approach — neoclassical and schematic but also phantasmagorically displaced from its object — seems to me to have produced a somewhat curiously detached or even satirical result.
After the four standard movements there follows a little “speech” for the true string instrument alone, a letter-to-pitch encoding of a famous remark of Goethe’s regarding quartet playing:
Dieser Art Exhibitionen waren mir von jeher von der Instrumental-Musik das Verständlichste, man hört vier vernünftige Leute sich untereinander unterhalten, glaubt ihren Discursen etwas abzugewinnen und die Eigenthümlichkeiten der Instrumente kennen zu lernen.
I’ve always found performances of this kind more intelligible than other instrumental music; you hear four rational people conversing amongst themselves, and imagine you get something from their discourse, and learn to know the peculiarities of the instruments.
Luis Quintana
Luis Quintana is an award-winning Puerto Rican composer based in Paris. Equally at home with a wide range of media—acoustic, electronic, interdisciplinary—he has achieved international recognition from institutions such as the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France (2022), the Contemporary Music Lab at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece (2021), the Ise-Shima Art Committee in Japan (2021), and most recently, the Guggenheim Foundation in New York (2024). His work engages with multiculturality as an aesthetic principle and ecology as a vehicle for expressions of identity. In this sense, he draws from a diverse array of musical traditions, techniques, landscapes, and art to create soundscapes that can serve as a starting point for personal and emotional storytelling.
Program notes “Textos invisibles (2015)“
for female voice, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano
Inspired by Eduardo Lalo’s Los países invisibles (The Invisible Countries), Textos Invisibles explores the interplay between presence and absence, voice and silence. Structured as a series of contrasting tableaux, the piece weaves together diverse sonic elements that either coexist or collide, reflecting the fragmentary nature of Lalo’s writing. The result is a soundscape that blurs the boundaries between words and music, the visible and the invisible.
Sofia Jen Ouyang
Sofia Jen Ouyang is a composer committed to creating artwork that expressively and criticallyengages with the world. She has received two BMI Composer Awards (2023, 2024), the 17thAnnual John Eaton Memorial Competition, the Riot Ensemble Call for Scores (2024), theJuilliard Orchestra Competition (2023), and the American Prize (2022). A finalist for the 2025Young Concert Artist Composer-in-Residence, she has also received honorable mentions fromthe New York Youth Symphony and the Luigi Nono Composition Prize (2023). She is aDeGaetano Institute Fellow with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and a Fromm Foundation Fellow atthe Composer’s Conference.
Her works have been performed by ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Juilliard Orchestra,New York Virtuoso Singers, JACK Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Players, RiotEnsemble, and Trio Immersio, at venues including Lucerne Festival, Lincoln Center, FrankfurtOper, and the Arvo Pärt Center. "She has also collaborated with theater director Zhou Ke, visualartist Sydney Lee, choreographer Fran Diaz, and Columbia Ballet Collaborative oninterdisciplinary projects.
Sofia is the Music Director of Westside Chamber Players for the 2024-25 season. The 2025season includes premieres with the AFK Ensemble and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, performanceswith the San Francisco Contemporary Players, at the MATA Festival, and at the ConservatoireAméricain de Fontainebleau.
She is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, studying with Marcos Balter and GeorgFriedrich Haas, and holds bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and music from ColumbiaUniversity. She studied composition with Andrew Norman and Amy Beth Kirsten at The JuilliardSchool.
Program Note “Return to Root 2022”
Duration: ca. 13 minutes
Instrumentation:
Scored for flutes (C flute and bass flute, 1 player), soprano, and percussion (drum kit, tam tam, plastic), with fixed-media electronics, video, and light design (if possible).
Credits:
Video co-created by Sydney Lee and Sofia Ouyang
Recorded improvisations in fixed-media electronics by Claire Chase and Brittany Hewitt
Kevin Ramsay
Kevin Ramsay is a composer, producer, recording/ mixing/mastering/sound engineer, and musician on several critically acclaimed internationalalbums. Brooklyn born and based, Ramsay’s work focuses primarily ontheoretical, practical aspects of sound recording/reproduction withunpredictable pairings of acoustic and electronic instruments. Kevin’scurrent works explore new ways to capture, mix, and process immersiveaudio for playback, on multichannel sound systems. In addition to servingas the Lead Sound Engineer at Harvestworks Digital Media, he continuesto collaborate with a variety of international artists committed to usingsound as their main creative medium. Kevin has worked with notable artistsuch as Michael Byron, Henry Threadgil, Art Jones, Joan Jonas, AmericanArtist, Anne Tardos, Danilio Correale, Yoon-Ji Lee ,Maria Grand, PrinceHarvey, Emilio Vavarella, Malik Ameer Crumpler, Daniel Belquer, Jon-Carlos Evans and many others. Through ongoing experimentation,Ramsay navigates the intersections of sound, composition, andengineering, integrating emerging audio technologies into creativepractice.
Program Note “Golden Euphorics 2023”
Duration - 7:29
Alto flute
Piccolo trumpet
Contrabass clarinet
Violin
Cello
Piano
Mezzo-soprano( though originally thought to use Baritone)
Nina Fukuoka
Nina Fukuoka is a Japanese and Polish composer and performer based in New York City. She makesinstrumental and computer music and uses various media and technologies to express extramusicalmeaning. Her works are focused on the contemporary world through the lens of horror aesthetics, videogames, and feminist scholarship.
Nina's works have been premiered at numerous festivals and venues in Europe, North America, andJapan, and have been performed by ensembles such as Hashtag, Garage, Adapter, Ekmeles, Distractfold,ICE, Mivos, Spółdzielnia Muzyczna, and Talea.
In recent years, Nina has received a commission for a new piece from the Darmstädter Ferienkurse andwas invited to a residency with K!ART Ensemble in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a winner of theHildegard Commission for music for a short film, which will premiere in March 2025. Her recent piecefor a large ensemble, commissioned by the National Polish Radio Orchestra in Katowice, Poland, willalso premiere in March 2025.Nina completed her composition and music theory studies at the Academy of Music in Lodz, Poland, andthe Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium. She is pursuing a doctorate in Music Composition atColumbia University in New York.