N/A Ensemble

N/A Ensemble is a six-member new music ensemble based in Toledo, Ohio, dedicated to performing new and experimental music. We strive to collaborate with composers to present newly composed music that pushes the boundaries of classical music and expands the horizons of our audience.

Our inaugural season has showcased 4 world premieres, a call for scores in collaboration with Compass New Music, and features on the ArtsX festival at Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo New Music Festival. Two-thirds of our repertoire was written after 2010; more than half were written by women.

In 2018-19, our ambitious project Cabaret N/A  will put theatricality front-and-center. Three composers with vastly different approaches to theater, physicality, and language have been commissioned  to write longform pieces drawing from the cabaret tradition.

naensemble.com

Kleio Music

Kleio Music was founded in 2014 by Anne Dearth, combining her two loves of performance and education.  Inspired by her own experiences of learning to love new music, (in which she wrote it off the first few times are all sounding the same-a sure sign of unfamiliarity with the styles), she tries to introduce new works to audiences in a way they can grasp and connect the work to something they know.  To that end, every performance includes introductory mini-lectures about the works.  The introductions include some biographical data on the composer, what s/he’s thoughts on music and art were, and some ideas about how to listen effectively.

The first concert, The Development of the Modern Flute, guided an audience in Dearborn, MI through the major musical periods of the 20th century using solo flute repertoire.  The program started with Claude Debussy’s Syrinx, explored art for it’s own sake with Density 21.5 by Edgar Varese, found an uniquely American sound in Duo by Aaron Copland, heard Messaien’s avant-garde bird songs in Le Merle Noir, discovered a whole host of new sounds with Afterlight by Robert Dick, and ended up in the blending of blues, classical, and extended techniques in Zoom Tube by Ian Clarke.

The second concert, Fringes, focuses exclusively on music by American composers who are at the edge of classical music.  The program includes a Sacred Harp hymn, and works by Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford Seeger, George Gerswhin, Morton Feldman, Bill Ryan, and Jesse Diener-Bennett.  Come hear how these very diverse composers are on the fringes of classical music, April 29th at 8pm, at South Oxford Space, in Brooklyn, NY.

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS! Grahame Conibear, Tara Sheena, Jane Dearth, Sean Statser, Cisum Percussion, Mickey Diener, Suby Raman, Tina Weishaus, Phyllis Gottlieb, Stanley Habib, Mickey Chung, Claudia Farber, Asaf Peres, Rhonda Bennett, Laura Sheinkopf, David Stern, Audiokite, John West, Florence Friedman Hurwitz, Leslie Anvari, and Erik Goetze.