Featured Artists
Aaron Jay Kernis
Guest Composer
Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis draws artistic inspiration from a vast palette of sources woven into the tapestry of a musical language of rich lyric splendor, vivid poetic imagery, and fierce instrumental brilliance. He has been praised for his "fearless originality [and] powerful voice" (The New York Times). Among the most esteemed musical figures of our time, he is dedicated to creating music which can be meaningful to people’s lives, through its expressive intensity and abundance of expression. His music has been heard on major stages globally, performed by the world’s foremost artists and institutions, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco, Melbourne, Dallas, Toronto and Singapore Symphonies, and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series, soprano Renee Fleming, violinists James Ehnes and Joshua Bell, guitarists Sharon Isbin and Jason Vieaux, the New York and London Philharmonics, Philadelphia Orchestra, Walt Disney Company, Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, BBC, Toronto and San the Francisco Symphonies. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is an inductee of the Classical Music Hall of Fame, won the coveted Nemmers and Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition, in addition to the Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 2 ("musica instrumentalis"), and three other Grammy Award nominations. His works have been recorded widely, and he and his work is the subject of Leta Miller's biography, published by the University of Illinois Press. He has been on the faculty at Yale School of Music since 2023.
Katherine Balch
Guest Composer
Described as “some kind of musical Thomas Edison – you can just hear her tinkering around in her workshop, putting together new sounds and textural ideas” (San Francisco Chronicle), composer Katherine Balch is interested in the intimacy of quotidian objects, found sounds, and natural processes. A collector of aural delights, field recordings are often at the heart of her work, which ranges from acoustic to mixed media and installation. A recipient of the 2020/21 Rome Prize and a 2025 Guggenheim fellowship, Balch's work has been commissioned and performed by internationally leading ensembles and presenting organizations including the New York Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, the London Sinfonietta, Tanglewood, Suntory Summer Arts (Japan), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) and the symphony orchestras of Tokyo, Darmstadt, Minnesota, Oregon, Albany, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, and Dallas. Her music is published exclusively worldwide by Schott. She is an Associate Professor of composition at Yale School of Music and holds a D.M.A. from Columbia University. When not making or listening to music, she can be found building windchimes, cooking, or free-ranging with her flock of hens.
[Switch~]
Guest Ensemble
A new music ensemble for the 21st Century, the [Switch~ Ensemble] is a dynamic group of internationally active musicians and composers dedicated to the creation and exploration of cutting-edge works integrating chamber ensemble and technology. Working at the intersection of artistic innovation and collaborative experimentation, the ensemble combines acoustic instruments, electronics, multimedia, and emerging technologies, to expand the possibilities of chamber music and create immersive experiences. Founded in 2012 in Rochester, New York, [Switch~] looks toward the future of contemporary music, commissioning and premiering new work for more than a decade, developing long-term artistic partnerships with dozens of emerging and established composers including Karola Obermüller, Sam Pluta, Kitty Xiao, Igor Santos, Katharina Rosenberger, and many others, while continuing to perform landmark works by influential composers such as George Lewis, Philippe Leroux, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, Julius Eastman, and Stefano Gervasoni. [Switch~] fosters artistic dialogues that extend beyond a work’s premiere, embracing the fluidity of a creative process where the score is a point of departure rather than a finish line–allowing for new and thrilling musical possibilities.
[Switch~] has appeared at leading festivals, universities, and arts institutions throughout the United States and abroad, including EMPAC, the University of Chicago, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, Harvard University, the University of Louisville, the University at Buffalo, Eastman School of Music, Bard College, Cornell University, Ithaca College, June in Buffalo, the Overdrive Festival NYC, the MATA Interval Series, NYCEMF, the Queens New Music Festival, University of Miami, the Image/Sound Festival, San Francisco Center for New Music, the University of Missouri, SPLICE Institute, the VIPA Festival in Spain, the SinusTon Festival in Germany, and more. Commercial recordings include releases of work by Christopher Chandler, Juraj Kojs, Stephen Yip, Dorothy Hindman, Heather Stebbins, and more.
[Switch~] contributes to the future of our field by strongly advocating for and commissioning the music of a new generation of emerging composers. Education and mentorship are central to our mission. Through residencies, workshops, masterclasses, reading sessions, open rehearsals, and recording projects, the ensemble provides emerging artists with direct access to professional performers while helping to build a diverse canon of 21st century repertoire that leaves space for all voices—especially those that have historically been excluded from our field.
2026-27 season highlights include world premieres of commissioned works by Tonia Ko, Lauren Siess, Alex Stephenson, Inga Chinilina, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Jason Thorpe Buchanan, Tobias Fandel, Itzá García, and more, with support from Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Amphion Foundation, and New Music USA, including performances at Illinois State University's RED NOTE Festival, Carnegie Mellon University’s Meshwork Festival, Brown University, and the Performing Media Festival.