Congaree Trio plays trios by Lili Boulanger, Gabriel Fauré, and Felix Mendelssohn in a private house concert in Philadelphia, PA.

USC faculty Jennifer Parker-Harley, Claire Bryant, and Phillip Bush in a program of music for flute, cello, and piano for Columbia’s chamber music enthusiasts, ChamberPots. Works by Gaubert, Haydn, and more.

Modern Music: Echoes of a Revolution

Galleries and bar open at 5:00 p.m. | Concert 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Celebrate French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850 – 1950 with a live vocal and chamber music performance inspired by the exhibition. Modern Movements showcases a range of French composers spanning the same period — Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Nadia Boulanger, Francis Poulenc, and others — many of whom were closely associated with artists in the exhibition and part of the same currents circulating in French art and culture at the time.

This special presentation features tenor Dominic Armstrong, cellist Claire Bryant, pianist Phillip Bush, mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, pianist Lynn Kompass, and flutist Jennifer Parker-Harley.

The first USC Faculty chamber music concert features performances by voice and strings faculty. Voice faculty Dominic Armstrong and Ashley Emerson, accompanied by the USC faculty string quartet, will perform the world premiere of Rachel Whelan’s maybe there will be Music, which sets poetry by Paul L. Thomas. The program also features Duo Cortona (mezzo Rachel Calloway and violinist Ari Streisfeld); tenor Johnnie Felder, baritone Jacob Will, violinist Bill Terwilliger, and pianist Lynn Kompass in Ralph Vaughn-Williams’ The Last Invocation; and soprano Serena LaRoche joined by a student / alumni choir of eight cellists led by Claire Bryant, in Heitor Villa Lobos’s gorgeous Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5, "Aria (Cantilena)."

We are excited to host the annual SC Cello Choir on Saturday, September 28, 2024, at the University of South Carolina School of Music and the Koger Center for the Arts!

Celebrated Icelandic cellist and pedagogue, Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, will be joining us from Cincinatti Conservatory of Music as our guest artist and clinician for the weekend. Sæunn is an exceptional musician, teacher, and person; I feel very lucky to share her with all of you later next month. I urge you to check out her website, but would like to share something she wrote on her homepage which speaks so greatly to the human and artist she is:

I am a cellist driven by exploration. My passion is for asking questions, searching into the unknown in musical dialogue with audiences and innovative artists. As this examination has the capacity to create meaningful and powerful experiences that can touch the soul and can only exist in the moment, my mission is to create spontaneous compositions, intuitive performances, and experimental collaborations that can cut beyond words and deeply connect us.

We will also be joined by USC alumna, cellist, and composer Buffi Jacobs, a native South Carolinian and former cellist in the touring company of Hamilton: An American Musical!, Buffi has forged a career as a performer/composer and her current work explores the live looping immersive world of cello and visuals. We will also perform two or three of Buffi's arrangements during cello choir!

Saturday 8/28 - Koger Center for the Arts

8:30 Registration / Check-in Koger Lobby

9 - 12 Rehearsals

12 Lunch

2 - 5 Rehearsals

6PM Celebratory Community Concert – Free and open to the public

Congaree Trio — Phillip Bush, piano; Ari Streisfeld, violin; Claire Bryant, cello

Works by Donald Crockett and Felix Mensdelssohn

Alarm Will Sound, one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene” (The New York Times), is thrilled to announce its return to the Time:Spans festival. Known for their adventurous programming and virtuosic performances, Alarm Will Sound promises an evening of groundbreaking music that pushes the boundaries of the classical genre.

This year’s performance showcases an eclectic mix of works from some of the most dynamic and thought-provoking composers of our time including Andrew Norman, Claude Baker, Chelsea Komschlies, Felipe Tovar-Henao, Kelley Sheehan, and Marcos Balter.

Decoda is thrilled to announce the 10th Anniversary Season of Decoda’s celebrated Chamber Music Festival at our new home, tucked away in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, right outside of Asheville, North Carolina, June 23 - 30, 2024. 

Decoda’s new summer partner, Warren Wilson College, aligns harmoniously with our own mission to create, connect, and spread compassion through music. Believing that “the world needs curiosity,” Warren Wilson is a campus community that fosters relationships with community partners through meaningful engagement, sustainable agriculture practices, and by educating the next generation of “curiously insightful, experienced, and capable individuals.” 

Decoda cannot wait to celebrate ten years of our unique summer festival, which is dedicated to training the next generation of young artists to rethink and reimagine their role in society. Through outstanding chamber music making, creative collaboration, and hands-on project design and development, DCMF cultivates the vision of community through music with the young artists of tomorrow.

Featuring “some of the brightest young classical musicians in the world” (Time Out New York), Decoda is Carnegie Hall’s first-ever affiliate ensemble, comprising alums of the adventurous Ensemble Connect. Copland’s Appalachian Spring—celebrating its 80th anniversary this season—serves as an inspiration and departure point for this unique program. Experience a premiere composed by and featuring Ringdown, the new electronic cinematic pop duo of Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee; an American folk–inspired septet by Copland’s friend Hanns Eisler written shortly before his expulsion from the US; a new arrangement of Billy Bragg’s setting of Woody Guthrie’s “Eisler on the Go”; and the dynamic Vera by Hannah Kendall.

April 25, 2024 at 7:00 pm

Etherredge Center on the USCA campus

Alexander Borodin: Symphony No. 2 in B Minor
ACO Concerto Competition Winner (TBD)
Antonin Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B Minor – Claire Bryant, cello

As an artist-led collective, Decoda seeks to create a more compassionate and connected world through music – thoughtfully curating outstanding performances of live chamber music, facilitating creative community projects, and inspiring the next generation of musical artists to rethink and reimagine their role in society. Join us for an exciting program performed by this unique ensemble.

This event is presented by the University of New Orleans School of the Arts.

Ari Streisfeld, Claire Bryant, and Phillip Bush perform trios by Lili Boulanger, Donald Crockett, and Felix Mendelssohn.

Faculty recital of the Congaree Trio: Ari Streisfeld, violin; Claire Bryant, cello; Phillip Bush, piano featuring works by Lili Boulanger, Donald Crockett, and Felix Mendelssohn.

Guest artist: selections from David Kirkland Garner’s Eight Songs for Steffen Thomas (2021)

Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 87 (1889)

Antonin Dvořák  (1841-1904)
Ari Streisfeld, violin; Daniel Sweaney, viola; Claire Bryant, violoncello; Phillip Bush, piano

Unsung Romantics  This concert features romantic works for piano and strings featuring Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's (Felix's equally talented sister) Piano Quartet in Ab Major and the epic piano quintet by British romantic, Ralph Vaughan Williams. Sandwiched in between, we will perform some beautiful miniatures for strings by Decoda's own, Evan Premo (bass).

Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall, is an artist-led collective of virtuoso chamber musicians and passionate advocates for music in communities around the world. Praised by the New York Times as “refreshing in the extreme” and by luminary Eric Booth as “the ninja musical artists the 21st century requires”, the NYC-based chamber music collective presents a program called Belonging at Southern Exposure on January 19th, 2024. Seamlessly flowing in time and space, musical selections explore connection, closeness, and the sense of belonging granted through the act of making and sharing art.

Belonging draws roots from medieval monophony of Hildegard von Bingen, explores the warmth of a mother and the whimsy of a child from works by Sarah Kirkland Snider and Chick Corea, to the discovery and meditation of the natural world by Decoda’s own Evan Premo and Brad Balliett.

The program shines a spotlight on Decoda’s celebrated creative community program, Music for Transformation, which serves incarcerated people around the United States. Decoda will perform three original works by incarcerated musicians, including one from a South Carolina prison, Lee Correctional Institution, where Decoda has been in residence since 2014.

Join me and my stellar Gamecock Music colleagues, pianist, Phillip Bush and violinist, Ari Streisfeld for a program centered around the stunning Sonata for Cello and Piano by Francis Poulenc (on his 125th birthday!) and paired with some unknown gems by sisters Nadia and Lili Boulanger and Catalan composer Enrique Granados. The evening explores the rich musical language of the early to middle 20th century France.

with Joe Eller, clarinet and Lynn Kompass, piano

USC Concert Choir Selected for National Conference in Atlanta

Concert Choir’s program will feature the music of award-winning British composer Cecilia McDowall. BBC Music Magazine describes her music as “sometimes richly tonal, sometimes more exploratory in harmonic range, her music is always full of invention.” A featured work will be McDowall’s “Night Flight,” for choir and cello. USC cello professor Claire Bryant will accompany the choir.

Norcross United Methodist Church featuring the music of Cecelia McDowall

Featured ensemble at UMBC’s new music festival, Livewire

World premiere of new work by composer Perry Goldstein.

Featured Performance on the closing evening of the Santa Fe Institute Lake City convening, Lake City, South Carolina.