ABOUT COLLAGE NEW MUSIC

“The core components of the Collage ethos: unapologetically ambitious works by living composers performed with manifest devotion and care, at an exceptionally high level of professionalism”

-The Boston Globe

Collage New Music's mission is to bring the many voices of contemporary music into dialogue. That principle holds at every scale: within a single program, across a season, and in the partnerships, commissions, and educational work that root the ensemble in the life of New England.

Under the Artistic Direction of composer Eric Nathan since 2024, Collage enters its 54th season as a convening space for composers, performers, and audiences — a multi-dimensional organization whose central purpose is to bring people and ideas together.

Since 2024 the ensemble has commissioned twenty-one composers across career stages and backgrounds, many through the new Frank B. Epstein Commissioning Fund: John Harbison, Juri Seo, Angélica Negrón, Wang Lu, Paola Prestini, Erin Gee, Eric Chasalow, Peter Child, Claude Baker, Eun Young Lee, Nomi Epstein, Yaz Lancaster, Ileana Perez Velazquez, April Dawn Guthrie, Jingmian Gong, Stella G. Willoughby, JaRon Brown, Amber Vistein, Ali Can Puskulcu, and Gaston Gosselin. Several of these works have been co-commissioned with national partners, carrying Collage commissions to repeat performances across the country.

Performances now move between guest conductors each season alongside Nathan himself. Anna Handler, Jeffrey Means, and Chris Younghoon Kim have led recently, with Ken-David Masur and BSO Assistant Conductor Jakub Przybycień conducting in the 2026–27 season. A new series of composer portrait concerts has highlighted the music of Joan Tower, Marcos Balter, and Nina Young, with Tania León to follow in 2027. Soprano Tony Arnold serves as Artistic Partner from 2024 through 2027, now joined by bassist and composer Kebra-Seyoun Charles as 2026–27 Co-Artistic Partner.

Education and Engagement

A major priority of Collage's new phase is the development of emerging composers. The Collage Fellows Program, running annually since 2014, has been expanded into a two-year residency with overlapping fellows, offering sustained professional development, workshop opportunities, and a commissioned premiere. The Collage Composers Colloquium gathers composers from across the greater Boston region for a day of workshops and talks with renowned guest composers, and a new internship position brings a college-level student into the working life of the organization.

Collage's community work extends across the region through partnerships with the Longy School of Music, Project STEP, Shelter Music Boston, the Goethe-Institut Boston, and the Korean Cultural Society of Boston.

Learn more about Collage's education and engagement work →

Legacy

Since 1972, Collage New Music has stood out as a leader among adventurous music makers. Formed originally of players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble has grown to draw on the wider professional community in the region, with its artistic personnel including leading freelance musicians working across New England, described by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as "among the finest artists of contemporary (or any other) music."

Collage was founded by BSO percussionist Frank Epstein, who led the ensemble as its first Music Director for twenty years and subsequently served as President of the Board of Directors until his retirement in 2025. Composer John Harbison shared the music directorship for three seasons, and David Hoose led the ensemble for thirty-two years, retiring at the close of the 2023–24 season and now serving as Music Director Emeritus. Gunther Schuller, Charles Fussell, and Seiji Ozawa were among the ensemble's guest conductors in its early decades. Across five decades Collage has performed more than 580 works by more than 260 composers, from the classics of the twentieth century through neglected older works to newly written American music, in programs encompassing solo repertoire, large-ensemble works, theatrical pieces, and fully staged chamber operas. The ensemble appears on the New World, Koch, and Albany labels, and its recording of Harbison's Mottetti di Montale received a 2005 Grammy nomination for Best Performance by a Small Ensemble.

Read Frank Epstein's history of Collage →

CORE ENSEMBLE MUSICIANS