Multiple Live Performances Every Day
Tuesday June 11 through Sunday June 16 at MITU580
(580 Sackett Street, Unit A – Ground Floor, Brooklyn NY 11217)
Tickets on Sale Now at ChamberQUEER.org
All Events on Sliding Scale Pricing – No One Turned Away
Many Shows Will Be Livestreamed at ChamberQUEER.org
ChamberQUEER is thrilled to present Constellation, the organization’s 2024 Pride Month celebration of queer community, diversity, and excellence in chamber music. Featuring multiple live performances and workshops every day, ChamberQUEER 2024: Constellation will run Tuesday, June 11 through Sunday, June 16 at MITU580, the performance space of Theater Mitu, located at 580 Sackett Street Unit A, Ground Floor, Brooklyn NY 11217, with additional community events at nearby meeting spaces.
ChamberQUEER 2024: Constellation is the organization’s sixth annual Pride month festival. The Fringe Festival-style format of this year’s series highlights a variety of queer artists from around the world in engaging concert programs and innovative community events. Featured artists include Jessie Montgomery’s big dog little dog, Andrew Yee, Caroline Shaw’s new project Ringdown, Luna Composition Lab, Kebra-Seyoun Charles, Gaia Music Collective, Parker Ramsay, and many more. The festival will provide a diversity of affordable cultural programming that platforms queer artists during Pride month, including family-friendly, sensory-friendly, and free events.
A full outline of programming and artists, including descriptions of planned presentations and community events, is below. Most days feature a 5:30 Happy Hour show followed by a 7:30 evening show, with additional events spread throughout the day. Evening shows are $35, with $55 supporter tickets and $20 student tickets, except for our Closing Night Celebration, for which tickets are $55, with $75 supporter tickets and $35 student tickets. All other events are for a $20 suggested donation, with at least one event per day designated as a free event. Livestreams of certain events are available for a $15 suggested donation. In alignment with our mission, no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. This program is also supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and in partnership with the City Council.
Constellation Performance Details
Unless Otherwise Noted, All Events Take Place at MITU580
Doors for All Shows are 1/2 Hour Prior to Showtime
1:00PM – Sound Bath with Bloom Sound Collective
Bloom Sound Collective is a community of musicians and sound healing artists that create safe and supportive spaces for sonic exploration and self-discovery through sound baths and immersive concerts. Since its founding in 2022, the Collective has worked with renowned collaborators in New York City including the World Trade Center, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Choral Chameleon, Sound Mind Live, Yvette Vexta, and Spirituality Week NYC. Bloom’s signature “choral sound bath” molds vocal repertoire with traditional sound healing instruments and has been produced across the city and the greater northeast, bringing sound meditation to new audiences through innovative and first-of-its-kind programming.
5:30PM – Happy Hour with big dog little dog
This event will be livestreamed.
big dog little dog is the mild-melding duo project of violinist/composer Jessie Montgomery and bassist/songwriter Eleonore Oppenheim. Their music has been described many ways, but perhaps the most apt so far has been “post-minimalist groove Americana.” The pair use an improvisational composition technique that draws on many genres and their experience as native New Yorkers to create lush, cinematic soundscapes that are by turns sweeping and achingly intimate.
7:30PM – Teiya Kasahara and David Eliakis: Project [T]: A Mixtape
This event will be livestreamed.
Project [T]: A Mixtape is the first artistic iteration of a new project from Canadian duo Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野 (they/them), opera singer and theater creator, and David Eliakis (he/him), piano. The concert will be the premiere of Kasahara’s 5-year autobiographical account of their professional career and personal life as they document their transition in real time. Kasahara was assigned female at birth and identifies as a trans(masculine) non-binary person. Throughout the past two decades their voice has been classified as a high-voiced “treble” singer or soubrette, lyric coloratura soprano, and dramatic soprano, and with these categorizations they have endured the weight of stereotypical feminine gender expectations associated with these voice types and the roles they have been cast to play (ex. The Queen of the Night, Lucia di Lammermoor, Madama Butterfly, etc). Kasahara will reflect on their gender and musical journey thus far: the voice that has led them to this moment of transition in their life, the music that has shaped who they are, and to look ahead to what is to come. Repertoire for A Mixtape will include songs by Handel, Puccini, Purcell, Medtner, Mozart, Schubert and Verdi; American composers Barber, Blitzstein, Rorem, Copland, and Sondheim; and Canadian composers Ian Cusson and Leslie Uyeda. For more on Project [T], follow @projecttdoc or visit projecttdoc.com.
10:30AM – InfraSound and ChamberQUEER Collaboration
Dancing to the Music of You is a multidisciplinary collaboration between a team of queer NYC-based artists and organizations including InfraSound, ChamberQUEER, and sound designer Alex Gray. Through improvisation, lighting, sound, and spatial design, and musical composition, Dancing explores life and work as a queer artist, how we conceptualize queerness through fashion, posture, and movement, and how we build community around our shared experience of queer embodiment. Curated works from ChamberQUEER and InfraSound will be performed throughout the morning, activating the space. The event will also incorporate the whole complement of artists welcoming the audience into an extended improvisation, culminating in a celebratory synthesis of artistic mediums.
2:00PM – FREE EVENT TBA
6:00PM – Eric Umble and Tori Cheah
A long-duration piece for clarinet and electronics installed in the theater will foster a communitarian space and allow audiences a meditative, come and go as you are experience, culminating in a disco dance party DJ’ed by Eric beginning around 8:30 PM. Eric Umble is a versatile, award winning clarinetist hailed as lovely by New York Arts, and known for his “… nuanced and coloristic playing” (The Clarinet). Eric enjoys a diverse international career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and music educator. An advocate for and avid performer of contemporary music, he is founding member of SoundMind, sTem, DuoHelix, Wavefield, and Pink Noise ensembles; all champion music by living composers. Victoria Cheah is a composer whose work concerns boundaries, transitions, sustained effort, and intimacies within social-performance rituals. Her work has been commissioned and/or featured by ensembles and presenters including Talujon, Either/Or, Non-Event, Switch Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Han Chen, andPlay, Yarn/Wire, Wavefield Ensemble, MATA Festival, Guerilla Opera, Ensemble Dal Niente, Vertixe Sonora, Marilyn Nonken, PRISM Quartet, and performed by many others.
10:30AM – Elly Kace: Hybrid Yoga Session + Sound Bath
Elly Kace is a certified sound healing/yoga/meditation facilitator and singer based in Brooklyn, NY. Kace will offer an intuitively based energy work and sound healing session rooted in ancient yogic practices with a focus on radical self acceptance. She also writes indie pop incorporating sound healing instruments and intentions as a tool for her students in their self practice, which can be found on all streaming platforms and will be incorporated into her session.
2PM – Luna Composition Lab Open Workshop
This event will be livestreamed.
As part of a new collaboration between ChamberQUEER and Luna Composition Lab, a roster of CQ players will workshop commissions from LCL alumni Lili M. Namazi (2022–23) and Sage Shurman (2019–20) and a new arrangement by Devon Lee (2020-21) in preparation for performances of these new works in fall 2024. CQ musicians will then moderate a Q&A/talkback with the composers and audience.This partnership is made possible through the support of the New York Community Trust. Founded in 2016 by composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, Luna Composition Lab provides mentorship, education, and resources for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13-18.
5:30PM – Happy Hour with ChamberQUEER’s Jules Biber, Danielle Buonaiuto + Brian Mummert
This event will be livestreamed.
Three of the co-founders of ChamberQUEER – Jules Biber, cello; Danielle Buonaiuto, soprano; and Brian Mummert, baritone – will perform sets exploring and expanding the range of what is considered “chamber music.” As Duo Calisto, Biber & Buonaiuto perform works by queer composers for soprano and cello, and bring their own take to some beloved queer anthems. The event is rounded out by trio and quartet performances from the whole group.
7:30PM – Amir Farsi and Maxwell Foster
This event will be livestreamed.
In a nation as diverse as America, where the very definition of “American” continues to expand, what does American classical music truly sound like? Flutist Amir Hoshang Farsi presents a recital in collaboration with pianist Maxwell Foster examining that question by showcasing works by queer and POC composers, as well as composers who have immigrated to the United States. Join Farsi and Foster to explore the rich tapestry of voices that have shaped, and continue to shape, the ever-evolving American sound.
2PM FREE EVENT TBA
5:30PM – Happy Hour with Coady Green and Elizabeth Van Os
This event will be livestreamed.
Internationally-award-winning concert pianist Coady Green presents a kaleidoscopic and joyous exploration of works by a diverse group of queer living composers. Aside from the evocative, nuanced etudes of Nico Muhly, this program is a celebration and promotion of music from Green’s native Australia, with nearly all the works on the program being US premieres. Featuring Elizabeth van Os on Meta Cohen’s Delphi Songs, the concert also includes premieres by James Rushford and Bryn Renard, along with other repertoire from Green’s years-long history of commissioning new works.
7:30PM – Parker Ramsay
This event will be livestreamed.
Acclaimed harpist Parker Ramsay presents an evening of new works for harp and electronics by Lucy McKnight, Janet Sit, and Kennedy Dixon – all created specifically for him. This concert will be performed in three sets, with mingling and drinks between pieces, in an elevated cabaret atmosphere.
10:30AM – 1:00PM – Songwriting with JL Marlor
Ever wanted to write your own song? Join indie-rock front person and composer, JL “Jess” Marlor (she/they) for an interactive hands-on workshop that will have you composing, writing, and performing your own original song. Designed for people ages 7 and up (including adults!) No instrument skills necessary, but bring an instrument if you play one. For those who do not want to play, we encourage bringing a laptop or tablet to begin making and exploring sounds. JL Marlor will be joined by Kasey Blezinger to flesh out any of your songs with guitar and percussion.
1:00PM – Community Sightreading Party (FREE EVENT, RESERVE TICKETS HERE)
Bring your instrument, some sheet music you’d like to play through, and an adventurous spirit to ChamberQUEER’s Community Sightreading Party! Musicians of all abilities and instruments/vocal ranges are welcome; at our last party, we had baritones singing cello lines, violinists & flutists playing soprano duets, and much more. If you’re a composer, feel free to bring along one of your own scores – we’ll try to read through as much music as we can (though FYI the crowd is likely to be string player & singer-heavy).
3:00PM – FREE EVENT TBA
5:30PM – Happy Hour with Kebra-Seyoun Charles and Kobe Atwood Courtney
This event will be livestreamed.
Instrumentalist Kebra-Seyoun Charles joins forces with dancer-choreographer Kobe Atwood Courtney and a team of dancers to present a workshop performance of their new evening-length ballet, Enby. This performance will incorporate choreography created live in the room, and will also include several movements from the full work and other music by Charles.
7:30 PM – Outcalls: Release The Gowns
This event will be livestreamed.
Release the Gowns is a theatrical variety show written by Outcalls and featuring brand-new music from their record Greatest Hits, vol. 1. Celebrate the journey of Britt Olson-Ecker and Melissa Wimbish’s friendship, bandleading partnership, and their continuing survival of the patriarchy, spanning over a decade of collaboration. Directed by Genevieve de Mahy of Single Carrot Theatre and joined by an all-star band, Release the Gowns will leave you heavy breathing.
10:30AM – Chamber Music for Kids of All Ages (FREE EVENT, RESERVE TICKETS HERE)
Join us for a musical adventure exploring the colorful world of chamber music! Kids of all ages and their caregivers are welcome to listen, move, make art and ask questions as a string trio led by CQ co-founder Jules Biber plays a range of music that explores the wide variety of sounds, colors and moods produced by a small ensemble. Enjoy this engaging musical “conversation” in a kid-friendly, exploratory atmosphere.
1:00 PM – CircleSinging with Gaia Music Collective’s Matt Goldstein
Gaia Music Collective’s CircleSinging sessions are warm, welcoming spaces for spontaneous group singing, led with joy, passion, and kindness by founder Matt Goldstein. CircleSinging is a vocal jam session, sung by all of us and led by a facilitator in the middle of the circle who invents parts, teaches improvised harmonies, and shapes the music as we flow from meditative moments to vibrant dance parties to heartfelt anthems and everything in between! Circle Singing is done all over the world in many different forms, and, while popularized by musical legends such as Bobby McFerrin and Rhiannon of WeBe3, it dates back to the earliest forms of human singing. No need to be a professional singer: his playful, intuitive approach to singing meets you wherever you are in your vocal journey, and allows professional artists, former choir kids, and shower singers alike to bond, collaborate, & create beautiful vocal music as a spontaneous vocal community.
3:00PM – FREE EVENT TBA
5:30 PM – Closing Night Celebration: Ringdown / Thalea String Quartet / Andrew Yee
This event will be livestreamed.
We’re closing out Constellation with a bang! First, Ringdown (Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee) will play a set of their irresistible “electronic cinematic pop”; then, after a celebratory champagne toast, Thalea String Quartet will perform ChamberQUEER co-founder Andrew Yee’s new String Quartet, premiered by Thalea earlier this year. Yee will then take the stage to perform and facilitate an evening of her music; expect special guests, lots of cross-pollination, and a heck of a good time.
About ChamberQUEER
ChamberQUEER (CQ) highlights LGBTQ+ voices in contemporary & historical music and reimagines the classical concert experience as a radically inclusive gathering space & musical community for the 21st century. We interrogate and experiment with, or “queer,” European art music’s presumed necessities and existing norms: by crafting new narratives from the canon, democratizing performance etiquette and dress, and shattering the performer-audience binary, we create a fresh and inviting environment for a new generation of music lovers.
Founded in 2019 by Jules Biber (cello), Danielle Buonaiuto (soprano), Brian Mummert (baritone), and Andrew Yee (cello), ChamberQUEER operates as a collective of performers, composers, and creators. Our flagship annual Pride festival, staged in Brooklyn each June, has been commended by The New Yorker and listed by The New York Times as a 2022 “Best of Pride” event. During COVID lockdown in June 2020, we created and hosted ChamberQUEERantine, a free-to-access, sixteen-day online event that provided a platform for original work from over 50 queer musicians.
ChamberQUEER devises and hosts additional events, from reading parties and networking opportunities to performances and DEI workshops, throughout the year. We additionally function as a community promoter, helping to contract and support queer musicians nationwide, and as an advocacy group, engaging in residencies at educational institutions and building a free, online resource library for like-minded presenting institutions and performing ensembles. We have worked with Luna Lab, a composition program for young composers of marginalized genders; collaborated with the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s Orchestrating Change programs; and presented at the national conferences of Chamber Music America and Early Music America. ChamberQUEER concerts have been presented by National Sawdust; WQXR at the Greene Space; Death of Classical at Green-Wood Cemetery; Brooklyn Pride; Boulanger Initiative; and premiere New York brass quartet The Westerlies. Our founders and members have represented the organization as ambassadors at chamber music festivals, podcasts, public radio broadcasts, and residencies across the country.
For more information, visit ChamberQUEER.org.
Follow ChamberQUEER
Website: ChamberQUEER.org
Instagram: @ChamberQUEER
Facebook: @ChamberQUEER
YouTube: @ChamberQUEER
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