Student Composer Reading with NOW Ensemble

Wed, March 6, 2024 7:30 PM - Wed, March 6, 2024 9:00 PM at Cook Recital Hall

NOW Ensemble is a dynamic group of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century.

With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, the ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with the musical influences that reflect the diverse backgrounds of its members. NOW Ensemble has brought some of the most exciting composers of their generation to national and international recognition.

In recent seasons, NOW has performed at Lincoln Center, the Apples and Olives Festival in Zürich, Switzerland, Town Hall Seattle, Da Camera Houston, and in Carnegie Hall’s Neighborhood Concert Series. NOW has performed at Miller Theater, Merkin Hall, the Bang on a Can Marathon, The Kitchen NYC, The Stone, the Carlsbad Festival, the Festival Internacional Chihuahua, the Look and Listen Festival, The Music Gallery Toronto, Sarasota's New Music New College, the Southern Exposure Series, Pittsburgh's Music on the Edge, Cal Arts, MIT, Juilliard, Town Hall Seattle, Da Camera Houston, and Lincoln Center, among many others.

From 2016-2018 they were the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at San Diego’s Art of Élan. In June 2019 NOW Ensemble’s album Rounder Songs was awarded an Independent Music Award (IMA) for Best Eclectic EP. December 2019 saw the release of their sixth album, Spare the Rod!, on New Amsterdam Records.

NOW Ensemble's performances have been featured on NPR's “All Things Considered” and live on WNYC, and their album Awake charted at #1 in Amazon's Classical Chamber Music Charts. “Plan of the City,” NOW's collaboration with filmmaker Joshua Frankel, was praised in the Washington Post as “one of the best matches of visuals to music I’ve seen.” Since 2004, NOW has worked closely with over 100 composers, including Judd Greenstein, Mark Dancigers, Patrick Burke, Missy Mazzoli, Sean Friar, Kathryn Alexander, San Fermin's Ellis Ludwig- Leone, Nico Muhly, Timothy Andres, and Sarah Kirkland Snider. 

Highlights of the 2019-20 season include residencies at Antenna Cloud Farm and Lynn University, performances at the College of St. Rose, the Red Note New Music Festival, the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, and in venues throughout New York City. They recorded their new album, Before and After, in early 2020, for release in 2021.