Ibarra leads several ensembles, including Talking Gong Trio with Claire Chase and Alex Peh. She has recorded over 40 albums and performed in events and venues such as Carnegie Hall; the Olympics; and the Sharjah Biennial. Her book Rhythm in Nature: An Ecology of Rhythm is forthcoming, and recent honors include a 2024 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program fellowship, for which she is based in Berlin, and 2024 Charles Ives Fellowship with the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2022 Music Fellow, United States Artists 2019 Music Fellow, TED Senior Fellow 2014, and NatGeo Explorers Storyteller 2020. Susie Ibarra is a Yamaha, Zildjian, and Vic Firth Drum Artist.
Extended Filippino Talking Gong Ensemble
Claire Chase
Claire Chase, described by The New York Times recently as “the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe,” is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. She was the first flutist to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012, and in 2017 was the first flutist to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize for Classical Music from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Chase was the Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall in the 2022-23 season, only the second time in that organization’s history that the position has been given to a performing artist. Chase has performed as a soloist recently with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonia, and San Francisco Symphony, where she is a Collaborative Partner with Esa-Pekka Salonen. In the 2022-23 season, Chase premiered a new double concerto by Felipe Lara with the vocalist and bassist esperanza spalding and the conductor Susanna Mälkki, which was named one of the Best Classical Music Performances of the Year by The New York Times.
Alex Peh
Pianist Alex Peh collaborates with musicians globally in search of shared resonances that emerge from friendship and connection. A 2021 Fulbright Global Scholar and 2019 Asian Cultural Council Fellow, he has worked with notable musicians and composers such as Claire Chase, Susie Ibarra, Anna Clyne, U Yee Nwe, Hafez Modirzadeh, Senem Pirler, and Phyllis Chen. Peh’s work has been presented internationally and throughout the United States. Peh received his musical training from Indiana and Northwestern Universities where he worked with Arnaldo Cohen, Menahem Pressler, Sylvia Wang and Evelyne Brancart. He attended the Banff, Aspen and Tanglewood music festivals where he worked with Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, Claude Frank, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, and Peter Serkin. He is an associate professor of piano at SUNY New Paltz. Peh is a member of Talking Gong, an improvising trio with percussionist, Susie Ibarra and flutist, Claire Chase.
Levy Lorenzo
Filipino-American Levy Lorenzo works at the intersection of music, art, and technology. His body of work spans custom electronics design, instrument building, interactive installation, sound engineering, free improvisation, and classical percussion. Named an "electronics wizard" by the New York Times, he builds, codes, composes, and performs new electronic music. He is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble and a core collaborator in Claire Chase’s Density 2036 project. He has worked with artists such as Peter Evans, George Lewis, Alvin Lucier, Leo Villareal, Autumn Knight, Christine Sun Kim, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steve Schick, and Henry Threadgill. Lorenzo’s work has been featured at MoMA PS1, MIT Media Lab, STEIM, BBC, Rewire, The Hermitage, and Burning Man. Dr. Lorenzo is currently a Professor of Creative Technologies at The New School, College of Performing Arts where he is director of the Nstrument Lab. In 2022, he made his debut as a featured electronic concerto soloist with the NY Philharmonic.
Bergamot Quartet
Bergamot Quartet is Ledah Finck and Sarah Thomas, violins; Amy Tan, viola; and Irène Han, cello. Founded at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 2016, Bergamot Quartet is based in New York City. Bergamot Quartet is fueled by a passion for exploring and advocating for the music of living composers, continually expanding the limits of the string quartet’s rich tradition in western classical music. With a priority given to music by women, they aim to place this new, genre-bending music in meaningful dialogue with the histories that precede it with creative programming, community-oriented audience building, and frequent commissioning. Included in their 2023-24 season is the premiere of an evening-length work at Lincoln Center by percussionist Samuel Torres for Bergamot and Latin jazz sextet, collaborating with The Crossing Choir for a premiere of David T. Little’s SIN-EATER, premiering a new work by Robert Honstein for BalletCollective, and an evening exploring Hildegard von Bingen with the New York Choral Society. Other recent engagements include residencies at The Peabody Institute, Princeton University, Towson University, Peabody Institute’s Junior Bach program, and MATA Jr. The quartet is also on faculty at Arts Letters & Numbers’ Creative Music Institute, a workshop open to artists of all ages.
Ledah Finck
Ledah Finck is a violinist, violist, improviser, and composer who currently resides in NYC. A passionate creator, performer, and curator of contemporary classical music, she is a member of the contemporary-music string quartet Bergamot Quartet. Her pursuit of contemporary music is strongly supplemented by performing and collaborating in other genres such as jazz manouche, Appalachian and Celtic folk, and experimental music. Compositional projects include commissions by Imani Winds, Alarm Will Sound/Now Hear This, the Bridge Ensemble, The Peabody Community Chorus, and a work for the Bergamot Quartet and percussionist Terry Sweeney, which received a New Music USA grant. She released her first solo album, Mayfly, in 2020 and her second, outside songs, in 2022.
Sarah Thomas
Violinist Sarah Thomas is a performer and educator based in New York City driven by collaboration and connection with both performers and audiences. In addition to being part of the Bergamot family, Sarah has collaborated with a variety of ensembles and artists including Alarm Will Sound, Sō Percussion, arx duo, earspace ensemble, Ensemble Klang, S.E.M. Ensemble, Claire Chase, Dan Trueman, Dan Lippel, Courtney Orlando, and Terry Sweeney. During her graduate studies at the Peabody Conservatory, Sarah was a co-director of the Peabody String Sinfonia, a conductor-less string orchestra whose mission is to bring healing and beauty to people in the Baltimore community. An educator as well as a performer, Sarah is on staff at the Peabody Conservatory’s LAUNCHPad Office and is an Adjunct Lecturer in Peabody’s Professional Studies Department.
Amy Huimei Tan
Violist Amy Huimei Tan is dedicated to exploring the boundaries of artistic experiences through performing and collaborating across a wide range of musical styles and artistic disciplines. An avid chamber musician based in NYC, Amy is a member of the Bergamot Quartet with whom she has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and New York City Center. Amy has also brought new works to life through collaborative performances and recordings with Sō Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, arx duo, Claire Chase, Dan Trueman, Terry Sweeney, and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble for the Kaufman Center’s Luna Composition Lab. This season’s engagements includes being a featured artist with the Louis Moreau Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana, and upcoming appearances with Bergamot Quartet at Roulette Intermedium, and on Kaufman Center’s Ecstatic Music series.
Irène Han
Cellist Irène Han is a dynamic and versatile musician with a deep passion for exploring diverse genres of music. She has performed at venues such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and New York City Center. Irène is a member of the Bergamot Quartet. She also co-leads a chamber project with pianist Chelsea de Souza, dedicated to commissioning works by Asian-American composers, most recently funded by New Music USA. Additionally, she is a member of the Tal Yahalom Quintet, an eclectic group of performers from NYC's jazz, contemporary classical, and Brazilian music scenes. Upcoming highlights include performances at Merkin Hall and Roulette, as well as serving as faculty at the Creative Music Institute of Arts, Letters, and Numbers. She plays “Pierre,” a cello crafted by luthier David Finck.
Lighting Design
Nicholas Houfek
Nicholas Houfek He/Him (Lighting Designer) is a New York City based Lighting Designer. Frequent and recent collaborations include: International Contemporary Ensemble, Marcos Balter’s Oyá with the New York Philharmonic, Claire Chase, Nathalie Joachim, Ojai Music Festival, Silk Road Ensemble, Marc Neikrug’s A Song by Mahler, Anohni’s She Who Saw Beautiful Things, Suzanne Farrin’s La Dolce Morte, George Lewis’ Soundlines, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In The Light of Air, and Ash Fure’s The Force of Things. Recent creations include the ColorSynth and other applications of live lighting for performance. Mr. Houfek has also designed for the Martha Graham Dance Company, Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, and Ian Spencer Bell Dance. He is an ensemble member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, a member of USA829, and a graduate of Boston University.
