Erik Carlson has performed as a soloist and with many chamber and orchestral ensembles throughout Europe and the United States. A highly active performer of contemporary music, he is the founder of the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. Mr. Carlson is an enthusiastic proponent of interdisciplinary collaboration, and performs frequently with poets, dancers, actors, and film. He is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Trinity Bach Players, The Momenta Quartet, Talea Ensemble, and the New Chamber Ballet and has recorded for the Tzadik, Albany, and Matador labels. Also a composer and writer, he has had his musical compositions and short plays performed in a wide variety of halls and theaters. He studied violin with Jorja Fleezanis, Ronald Copes, and Robert Mann and holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School.

Joshua Rubin has been working as a chamber musician, orchestra musician, soloist and teacher in New York since 2000. As a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, he has worked closely with many prominent composers including Mario Davidovsky, Philippe Manoury, Magnus Lindberg, George Crumb, Pauline Oliveros, and David Lang. Joshua is featured on albums from the Bridge, NAXOS, Cedille, Tzadik and Focus recording labels. He received degrees in Clarinet and Biology from Oberlin College and his Master's degree from the Mannes College of Music. He studied clarinet with Lawrence McDonald, Mark Nuccio and Yehuda Gilad.

A native of Dallas, Michael Caterisano recently completed his Bachelor's Degree at The Juilliard School, where he studies with Daniel Druckman. He spent two summers in Spoleto, Italy at the Festival dei Due Mondi, and recently toured to Lucerne, Berlin, Helsinki, and London. Michael performed Kurtag’s …quasi una fantasia… with the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes in Zankel Hall. Michael is a member of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and a founding member of the New York Miniaturist Ensemble and O-|, an experimental heavy metal band.

Cory Smythe is a graduate of the music schools at Indiana University and the University of Southern California. As a member of ICE, he has contributed to many premieres, worked with composers Philippe Hurel, Magnus Lindberg, and David Lang among others, and performed in many venues across the U.S. and abroad. Cory has contributed frequently to the Boston-based Firebird Ensemble and Milwaukee's Present Music. As an improviser and jazz musician, Cory has performed with the Greg Osby Four, with Pete Robbins Centric, and in drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey's quartet, whose album "That/Not" (Firehouse 12) was named the 2007 best debut album in the Village Voice jazz critics poll. Cory’s principal teachers have included Luba Edlina-Dubinsky and Stewart Gordon.

Katharine Dain has been praised by the New York Times for her "rich tone," "deep emotion," and "lovely, passionate" performances. She has sung soprano roles in the oratorios of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Purcell, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Britten and Stravinsky as well as Mozart's Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi), Cavalli's La Calisto (Calisto), and several premieres of contemporary operas. She has been a soloist with the Collegiate Chorale, Mark Morris Dance Group, New York City Ballet, New York Virtuoso Singers, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Parley of Instruments, and New England Baroque Soloists in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall (Weill and Zankel) and Lincoln Center (Bruno Walter Auditorium and the New York State Theater) to the Stone, the French Consulate, and the Austrian Cultural Forum. She has co-founded two critically acclaimed chamber groups in New York: Callisto Ascending, a period-instrument ensemble, and Lunatics at Large, a group with a focus on contemporary music. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Mannes College. This summer she will be a Young Artist at the Ravinia Festival Steans Institute as well as giving performances of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berio, and Purcell in New York and in festivals along the East Coast.

Daria Binkowski is an avid performer of contemporary music. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Performance from the Eastman School of Music and will complete her Master's Degree at McGill University in December 2007. Daria performs with the East Coast Composers Ensemble and the Talea Ensemble in New York and other venues throughout the country. She was a member of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble from 2004-2006 and has been a guest artist with Ensemble X and members of the St. Louis Symphony. Daria recently worked with Bang on a Can at their summer festival in Massachusetts, where she became fluent on the whirly and other non-traditional instruments that she hopes to incorporate into her future performances.

Following Christopher Gross' performance of Brian Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II for solo cello at the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Times wrote: "...for 20 minutes this skinny young cellist with a punkish hair cut seemed like a musical master of the universe..." He is a founding member of The iO Quartet, currently the Billy Joel Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at SUNY Purchase. As a soloist, he most recently premiered Milton Babbitt's piece More Melismata for solo cello on the 2006 Focus! Festival. As an active educator, he is on the Teaching Artist faculty at The New York Philharmonic.


246c/389p/479w
home