FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ciyadh Wells | Collage New Music | General Manager
info@collagenewmusic.org
Collage New Music Announces 2026-2027 Season:
In Dialogue
Four themed concerts: October 4, November 15, February 28, April 25
Artistic Partners Kebra-Seyoun Charles and Tony Arnold
Conductors Ken-David Masur, Jakub Przybycień,
David Hoose and Eric Nathan
Featuring 4 world premieres of Collage-commissioned works
Boston, MA – Collage New Music announces its 2026–2027 season, “In Dialogue”—its 54th and the third under Artistic Director Eric Nathan. It features four concert programs that bring musical works, cultures, and ideas into conversation, exploring connections that speak to resilience, memory, and shared humanity.
Collage appoints two Artistic Partners in the 2026-27 season: soprano Tony Arnold and double bassist and composer Kebra-Seyoun Charles. In November, Tony Arnold returns for a third and final season as Artistic Partner performing Kurtág’s Scenes from a Novel alongside a world premiere by Peter Child, commissioned by Collage as a companion work to Kurtág’s. Kebra-Seyoun Charles, a 2022 Sphinx Competition Winner, joins Arnold for this program, performing two of their own original compositions, as well as works by Kurtág and a world premiere by Eun Young Lee co-commissioned by Collage and the Korean Cultural Society of Boston.
Collage welcomes guest conductors Ken-David Masur and Jakub Przybycień to lead programs this season. In November, Masur conducts Collage in a celebration of the 100th birthday of György Kurtág at Goethe-Institut Boston. In February, Przybycień, newly appointed BSO Assistant Conductor, leads Collage in the world premiere by the to-be-appointed Collage Fellow (to be announced this summer) and a work by Curtis Stewart that features a side-by-side performance with Longy School of Music vocal students as part of Collage’s ongoing artistic partnership with Longy.
In October, Artistic Director Eric Nathan leads the season-opening concert, “The Fire Within,” featuring a world premiere Collage commission by Ileana Perez Velázquez, in a program that repeats in a tour performance at Williams Collage (November 2) as part of Collage’s upcoming educational residency there. In April, Music Director Emeritus David Hoose conducts the season finale at Longy School of Music, culminating in a performance of Elliott Carter’s landmark sextet Triple Duo.
Collage will continue its artistic partnership with the Longy School of Music for a third season, presenting three concerts, including a side-by-side performance with vocal students, the Collage Composers Colloquium, featuring Curtis Stewart, Kay Rhie and Pablo Santiago Chin as mentor composers, and a reading session of student works.
Tickets and additional information are available here.
For media inquiries and interviews with Eric Nathan, please Ciyadh Wells, Collage New Music’s General Manager at info@collagenewmusic.org
Season Details
Concert I: The Fire Within
October 4, 2026, at 3pm
Longy School of Music, Edward Pickman Hall (Cambridge, MA)
Pre-Concert Talk at 2:00pm with Artistic Director Eric Nathan and composers
The Ann B. Teixeira Concert
Eric Nathan, CONDUCTOR
Catherine French, VIOLIN; Jan Müller-Szeraws, CELLO; Sarah Brady, FLUTE; Alexis Lanz, CLARINET; Christopher Oldfather, PIANO; Craig McNutt, PERCUSSION
“The Fire Within,” led by Artistic Director Eric Nathan, centers on the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity, celebrating the joy and beauty that can emerge through artistic striving, imagination, and invention. The program places wide-ranging voices in dialogue while highlighting composers whose lives and artistic identities have been shaped by immigration and international exchange.
Paola Prestini: Spell (2008)
Clarinet, cello, percussion
Katherine Balch: musica spolia (2021)
Flute, violin, piano, percussion
Niloufar Nourbakhsh: Aid for Sex (2019)
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello
JaRon Brown: Sewn from a quilted puzzle of cloth (2026)
Collage Commission
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello
Ileana Perez Velázquez: New Work (2026)
World premiere, 2026-2027 Collage Commission
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello
Joan Tower: Into the Night (2022)
50th Anniversary Collage Commission
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello
Concert II: Scenes from a Novel
November 15, 2025, at 7:30pm
Goethe-Institut Boston (Boston, MA)
Pre-Concert Talk at 6:30pm with Artistic Director Eric Nathan and composers
The Ferdinando S. Buonanno Concert
Ken-David Masur, CONDUCTOR
Tony Arnold, SOPRANO (2026-27 Artistic Partner)
Kebra-Seyoun Charles, BASS (2026-27 Artistic Partner)
Catherine French, VIOLIN; Heather Braun, VIOLIN; Jan Müller-Szeraws, CELLO; Sarah Brady, FLUTE; Alexis Lanz, CLARINET; Christopher Oldfather, PIANO; Craig McNutt, PERCUSSION, Nick Tolle, CIMBALOM
Led by guest conductor Ken-David Masur, this program celebrates the 100th birthday of György Kurtág through works connected by homage, folk traditions, and reflections on love, loss, and resilience. Centered around Kurtág’s Scenes from a Novel, featuring Artistic Partners Tony Arnold and Kebra-Seyoun Charles, the program includes new works by Peter Child and Eun Young Lee inspired by medieval texts, Korean folk art, opera, and personal tributes to friendship and perseverance, alongside Seyoun-Charles’s blues-inflected compositions and Eric Nathan’s Short Stories, inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach and Kurtág’s lifelong practice of musical homage.
Kebra-Seyoun Charles: This is the Day (2021)
Solo bass
Kebra-Seyoun Charles: I Know the Lord Laid His Hands on Me (2024)
Solo bass
Eun Young Lee: Minhwa (2026)
World premiere, 2026-2027 Collage Commission
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello, bass
Peter Child: New Work (2026)
World premiere, 2026-2027 Collage Commission
Soprano, cimbalom, violin, cello, bass
György Kurtág: Shadows from Signs, Games and Messages
Solo bass
György Kurtág: Hommage à John Cage from Signs, Games and Messages
Solo bass
Eric Nathan, “I. Cello” from Short Stories (2021)
Collage commission
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello
György Kurtág: Scenes from a Novel
For Kurtág’s 100th birthday celebration
Soprano, violin, bass, cimbalom
Concert III: Doubles
February 28, 2027, at 3pm
Longy School of Music, Edward Pickman Hall (Cambridge, MA)
Pre-Concert Talk at 2:00pm with Artistic Director Eric Nathan
Jakub Przybycień, CONDUCTOR
Heather Braun, VIOLIN; Jan Müller-Szeraws, CELLO; Sarah Brady, FLUTE; Alexis Lanz, CLARINET; Christopher Oldfather, PIANO; Craig McNutt, PERCUSSION
“Doubles” explores the many ways two voices can interact, collide, and connect. From spatialized instrumental pairings and opposing musical gestures to works inspired by childhood objects, online communication, and social change, the program examines dialogue as cooperation, tension, echo, and interruption. Instrumental and vocal duos unfold across blues, bluegrass, and contemporary classical influences, while collaborations with student performers expand the idea of musical conversation as educational. The concert culminates in two sextets for full ensemble, widening the notion of dialogue from intimate exchanges to larger collective forms shaped by resonance, contrast, and shared musical space.
Eric Nathan: Just A Moment (2021)
Flute, clarinet
Amy Williams: Give Way (2020) and Stop / Yield (2015)
Cello, piano
Sid Richardson: Ratyll (2021)
Bass clarinet, marimba
Kay Rhie: ...in the dreams of another (2023)
Violin, viola
Curtis Stewart: Invention #3: Threat (2024)
Featuring vocal students from Longy School of Music
Viola, cello, two vocalists
Collage Fellow: New Work (2027)
World premiere Collage Commission
Flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, cello
Arthur Levering: Twenty Ways Upon the Bells (1994)
Flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano/celeste, percussion
Concert IV: Triple Duo
April 25, 2027, at 3pm
Longy School of Music, Edward Pickman Hall
Pre-Concert Talk at 2:00pm with Artistic Director Eric Nathan and composers
The Frank B. Epstein Concert
David Hoose, CONDUCTOR
Catherine French, VIOLIN; Jan Müller-Szeraws, CELLO; Sarah Brady, FLUTE; Alexis Lanz, CLARINET; Christopher Oldfather, PIANO; Craig McNutt, PERCUSSION
The season finale welcomes back David Hoose to the podium in a concert whose centerpiece is Elliott Carter’s Triple Duo, a virtuosic work that divides the sextet into three duos. Written in 1983, ten years into Collage’s history, it is paired with Schuller’s work, Duologue from the same year, who just recently celebrated his 100th birthday, a longtime Collage friend and former guest conductor. Longtime Collage friends Richard Cornell, whose 1998 Collage commission is reprised, Yu-Hui Chang and Augusta Read Thomas are featured, with music following in the lineage the two elder composers featured on the second half. Juri Seo’s “Jack-in-the-box” from Toy Store is a high octane romp for solo violin and electronics, moving the duo relationship into the realm of technology. Juri has become a new friend of Collage, continuing our survey of her recent chamber works for a third season.
Juri Seo: “I. Jack in the Box” from Toy Store (2022)
violin, electronics
Augusta Read Thomas: Acrobats (2018)
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano
Yu-Hui Chang: Intersect (2014)
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano
Richard Cornell: The Light of October (1998)
Collage Commission
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion
Gunther Schuller: “IV. Fiddle Music” from Duologue (1983)
Violin, piano
Elliott Carter: Triple Duo (1983)
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion
About Collage New Music
Praised by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “among the finest artists of contemporary (or any other) music,” the musicians of Collage New Music include some of the most outstanding instrumentalists and singers skilled in the musical intricacies, technical virtuosity, and emotional depth that new music requires. The ensemble includes some of the East Coast’s finest musicians, including members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the area’s extraordinary freelance community. The initial ensemble consisted entirely of players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and over the years players from the freelance community have entered the group.
Collage was founded by BSO percussionist Frank Epstein in 1968 who then served as its first Music Director for twenty years. Composer John Harbison then became Co-Music Director for a short period, followed by David Hoose who became Music Director and conductor for thirty-two years, retiring from the position at the end of the 2023-24 season. Starting with the 2024-25 season, Collage’s 52nd, composer Eric Nathan assumed the title of Artistic Director and David Hoose becomes Music Director Emeritus.
Collage’s five decades of compelling music-making have placed it as a leader among adventurous ensembles that nurture that vital intersection of composer, performer, and listener. The ensemble’s repertoire, both wide and deep, reaches from classical twentieth century works, to extraordinary less-known older works, and to marvelous, brand-new creations of American composers. Its diverse programs include solo repertoire, music for larger ensembles, theatrical works, fully-staged chamber operas, and music with extensive electronics.
The ensemble appears on the New World, Koch, and Albany labels, and its recording of John Harbison’s Mottetti di Montale was a 2005 Grammy Nominee for Best Performance by a Small Ensemble. Each season, Collage also hosts a Collage Fellow, an emerging composer-in-residence, and hosts its Collage Composers Colloquium, a day-long examination of young composers’ music.
