They are my family, my closest friends, my confidants, and my partners-in-crime. The Cabinet is a troupe of curious artists who inspire me to continue to create, and to do. With them at my side, there are no walls, no obstacles—just art.

Whitney George is a composer and conductor who specializes in the use of mixed media to blur the distinctions between concert performance, installation art, and theater. Utilizing a wide variety of material including literary texts, silent film, stock footage, and visual arts, George's compositions are characterized by an immersive theatricality that thrives on collaboration in all phases of the creative process. Her affinity for the macabre, the fantastic, and the bizarre frequently gives rise to musical programs that evoke the traditions of phantasmagoria and melodrama, challenging musicians to experiment liberally with their stage personae, and audiences to widen the scope of their attention. George’s music, performance art, and installations have had both international and domestic premieres in England, Hong Kong, Austria, the Netherlands, and the east and west coasts of the US. Her works have been performed and premiered by Mivos String Quartet, New York Trombone Consort, Low Brass Connection, Cygnus Ensemble, Transit Ensemble, Fulcrum Point String Quartet, CME (Contemporary Music Ensemble), The Curiosity Cabinet, Cadillac Moon, Contemporaneous, Face the Music, and Vigil Ensemble. Specializing in interdisciplinary, collaborative works, her staged and theatrical compositions have been recognized with numerous awards including the Lehman Engel Award in  the2010, John Duffy Composers Institute Fellowship for two years running in 2010 and 2011, and The Robert Starer Award in 2011. In 2012 a collection of her chamber works was released in the UK by Blue Tapes on a series of cassettes titled Blue Nine: Whitney George. 

Visit www.whitneygeorge.com for more information about her work and upcoming project and performances.

"Committed as strongly to freshness as to intelligibility, Daniel Felsenfeld composes music that’s strong, unusual, intelligent, and considerably skilled."

– Composer John Corigliano

Composer Daniel Felsenfeld has been commissioned and performed by Simone Dinnerstein, the Chorus of Trinity Wall Street and Novus, Opera On Tap, UrbanArias, Metropolis Ensemble, Meerenai Shim, the New York Philharmonic New Music Biennial, NANOWorks Opera, Pasadena Opera, Anti-Social Music, Kathleen Supovè, Two Sense (Lisa Moore and Ashley Bathgate),  San Jose Opera, ETHEL, Great Noise Ensemble, American Opera Projects, The Secret Opera, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Transit, Redshift, Nadia Sirota, Jennifer Choi, Lara Downes, Blair McMillen, Two Sides Sounding, Kristin Elgersma, Eleanor Taylor and Jen Devore, Alcyone Ensemble, Parhelion Trio, Xanthos Ensemble, Friction Quartet, Momenta Quartet, Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne, Cornelius Duffallo, Emily Manzo, Stephianie Mortimore, Mellissa Hughes, Corey Dargel, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Jenny Lin, New York City Opera (VOX), ACME, New Gallery Concert Series, Gabriella Diaz, Jody Redhage, Caroline Worra, Kristin Chambers, Marcy Richardson, Kamala Sankaram, The Jessold Consort, New England Conservatory Philharmonic in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Galapagos Art Space, The Kimmell Center, Jordan Hall, the Kitchen, Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, Wigmore Hall, Stanford University, Harvard University, The Stone, Brown University, Le Poisson Rouge, City Winery, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, and as part of the BEAT Festival, MATA Festival, Make Music New York, 21c Liederabend, Ecstatic Music Festival, Opera Grows in Brooklyn, New Brew, Serial Underground, and John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders.  Collaborations include everyone from Jay-Z and the Roots to Arthur Kopit, Rick Moody, and Wesley Stace. He teaches at Juilliard and the New York Philharmonic, co-founded the New Music Gathering, has written words for the New York Times and the New Yorker (among others), and curates at National Sawdust. 

I’ve always thought of myself as a musical nomad. Like lots of percussionists, I float between different types of music from week to week. Among the many great things that have happened to me since moving to New York, I’ve found the Cabinet to be the most rewarding. Not only do I feel that my years of musical wandering have been put to good use, but I found a place I genuinely like being in. The musicians are fantastic (slightly biased…), the collaborators are always top notch, and the performances are FUN! Some of the most fun I’ve had in NYC is on stage with the Cabinet.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Joe has now been working in the NYC music scene(s) for over two years as a performer, educator, audio engineer, percussion repair tech, and general musical mercenary. A multi-faceted percusionist, Joe has and/or is currently playing in a variety of contemporary and modern ensembles, including Talujon percussion quintet, Innovox Contemporary Sextet, the Curiosity Cabinet, the S.E.M. ensemble, Elevator Rose, Quiet City, the Ghost Ensemble, The IFCP Summer Festival Ensemble, the Ackbar Percussion Trio, Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, and the Birds on a Wire ensemble.

As a global music proponent, Joe also plays in Gamelan Dharma Swara and Gamelan Yowana Sari, as well as playing in various jazz combos, Balkans groups, and accompanies Arabic dancers. Joe also held a position as an accompanist in the San Francisco based modern dance company "ODC", currently accompanies for In Mixed Company (Maura Donohue), and regularly accompanies at the 92nd st. Y. He also plays with different orchestras throughout the tri-state area. Joe has collaborated with composers David Lang, Julia Wolf, Marc Mellits, Whitney George, Erik Delucca, Finola Merivale, Adam Cuthbèrt, David Colson, Bob Becker, Dennis DeSantis, Daniel Levitan, Howie Kenty, Daniel Fine, and Luke Schwartz, as well as many others.

Back when I was a teenage music nerd aspiring to be a legit adult music nerd, all I wanted to do was come to New York and play in an ensemble that would inspire me, challenge me, and never let me be too sure of what new music could be. I could not have imagined the various experiences I've since had playing with The Cabinet, and yet in hindsight, it's clear that they are exactly what I wanted, or rather needed: to work amongst friends and cohorts, to collaborative with composers, to make new sounds, and to participate in the production of multimedia events that are spectacular, emotive, and perhaps unexpected.

Lindsey Eckenroth, a native of Reading, Pennsylvania, is a musicologist and flutist currently based in Brooklyn. She has been a member of the Curiosity Cabinet since its inception in 2009. After graduating with a degree in flute performance from New York University in 2008, Lindsey has dedicated herself to the performance of 20th- and 21st-century chamber music, having premiered works by Whitney George, Nicholas R. Nelson, Matt Frey, and Jay Vilnai, among others. She is the recipient of the 2009 De los Mederos Award in Contemporary Music Performance.

As a musicologist, Lindsey is currently pursuing her PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her dissertation, preliminarily titled “Listen Like This: Audiovisual Argument in Rockumentary,” explores how rockumentaries take part in the mythologization of rock while also making arguments about how we should hear that rock. Her writing has been published in Rock Music Studies, American Music Review, and Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture.

Hailed by the New York Times as "excellent" and praised for her "milky" tone by I Care if You Listen, New York based flutist Martha Cargo is committed to the integration of experimental music into various media, be it contemporary art, theater or dance. Equally at home as soloist and chamber musician, Ms. Cargo performs actively with Ensemble sans maître, Ghost Ensemble, Glass Farm, and Tenth Intervention and has collaborated with Erick Hawkins Dance Company and Synthesis Aesthetics Project, with whom she completed a residency at The Field in 2012. She is a recent addition to the roster of Whitney George's project The Curiosity Cabinet and has performed with neoLIT and Tempus Continuum.

Ms. Cargo is dedicated to collaborating with young composers. Over the last few years, she has commissioned and premiered solo works by Jonah Rosenberg,Yangzhi Ma, Anne Goldberg, and Mike Perdue, as well as numerous chamber works. Upcoming this season are performances at Symphony Space and Five Myles (Brooklyn), among other alternative New York City venues. A graduate of Oberlin College's double-degree program in Flute and Chemistry, she completed her Masters in Music at SUNY-Purchase and continued her studies in the Contemporary Program at Manhattan School of Music. She currently works as Assistant to the Music Director at the Americas Society on Park Avenue in Manhattan and as Social Media Coordinator for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.

Raised in Austin, TX, flutist Alice Jones is known for giving performances that are “lively” (New York Times), “delicate and passionate with beautiful articulation and dynamics” (Eleanor Cory, composer).  An avid symphonic, chamber, theater, and contemporary musician, with performances ranging from the Brandenburg Concerti to New York City’s Look and Listen Festival, Alice was praised by Mario Davidovsky as “the flute player who could really play.”  She has been featured as a soloist and as a chamber musician at the Composers Now Festival at Symphony Space in New York City (2010 and 2011), the Yale-China Music Exchange in China (2007 and 2008), the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (2010), and Chamber Music Campania in Italy (2013 and 2014). 

Alice is committed to premiering new chamber music repertoire, including commissions and premieres for flute and percussion from the Long Island Composers Alliance with percussionist Cesare Papetti, for flute and soprano by Gregory Brown, Eric Nathan, and Inés Thiebaut with soprano Mary Hubbell, and with Chamber Music Campania's resident woodwind quintet, the Fiati 5...

Kristin Leitterman defies modern convention as a solo artist of oboe and voice, bringing exciting and unusual programs to audiences. She has made it her responsibility to commission works for oboe/voice, and to date has four completed works by Jason Coleman, MuXuan Lin and Lyle Davidson, with many more to come. She holds degrees from The Hartt School, New England Conservatory and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance where she studied with Humbert Lucarelli, Mark McEwen, and Barbara Bishop. Ms. Leitterman has participated in numerous summer festivals and competitions including, Missouri Fine Arts Academy, Eastern Music Festival, Banff Center for the Arts, Hot Springs Music Festival, the Lucarelli Oboe Master Class, the Midwest Double Reed Society Young Artist Competition (first place) a National Association of Teachers of Singing Competition (placing second) and most recently was a semi-finalist in the Concert Artist Guild’s annual competition in New York City. In addition to performing, Ms. Leitterman is dedicated to bringing music to the younger generations. She has been teaching woodwinds since 2000 and has been a member and officer in the Collegiate Music Educators National Conference. While at New England Conservatory she was a member of a Renaissance Choir committed to bringing music and discussion to the general public and into classrooms. Currently Ms. Leitterman resides in New York City and divides her time between freelancing and working on a DMA in Oboe and Voice Performance at the prestigious City University of New York Graduate Center.

I love playing with the Curiosity Cabinet because of the people and the music. Whitney is a super talented lady who I'm honored to work with and it's been great to be a part of her projects as her work continuously evolves.

The Cabinet's dark and quirky aesthetic fits perfectly with my own so naturally I feel at home around these people. This is the only new music ensemble where my identities as clarinet nerd, goth, and cat lady can be seamlessly united. 

Mara Mayer is a clarinetist and bass clarinetist. She currently plays with The Curiosity Cabinet, Nouveau Classical Project, Feral Children, Curium, mamamama, Contemporaneous, and Banda de los Muertos. Mara is interested in bringing musicians of different genres together to recognize their common threads. 

Mara is also the founder of Home Audio, a monthly house show series featuring experimental music and art.

In addition to playing music Mara is a certified yoga instructor and cat lover. Mara graduated from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester. 

Hugh Ash has taken his trumpet around the globe, performing everything from contemporary classical to standard repertoire, jazz, rock, and world music. Based in Brooklyn, Hugh is a versatile musician and active free-lancer, currently playing with The Curiosity Cabinet and the Metropolitan Brass Quintet as well as with various local orchestras and opera companies. A lover of contemporary classical music, Hugh actively champions work by living composers, performing premieres by Philippe Manoury, Larry Sitsky, and David Maslanka among others. Hugh received his bachelor’s degree in Classical Music and Anthropology from Ithaca College and studied Jazz/Commercial music at The State University of New York at Purchase College, and has studied with such notable trumpet players as Ray Vega, Jon Faddis, Graham Ashton, Vince Penzarella, Kim Dunnick and Vince DiMartino. Prior to settling in New York City, he performed around the world for a number of years with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. 

A native New Yorker, Melissa is both dedicated to preserving the past and forging the future of classical music. She is currently completing her Master's in performance at Mannes College, the New School for Music, and gigs in New York's rigorous freelancing scene. Her most recent project includes Jason Schwartzman's Amazon series "Mozart in the Jungle." As an orchestral musician, she regularly performs at venues such as Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall during the season.

Melissa is a student of Erik Ralske (The Juilliard School, The Metropolitan Opera)

Interactive and multi-media performance are the future of art music—

The Curiosity Cabinet is on the vanguard of such work, and I am happy to be apart of it.

David Whitwell is a trombonist and producer from New York City. He is the principal trombonist of Ensemble Moto Perpetuo and the Britten-Pears Contemporary Ensemble. He is also the founder and leader of the New York Trombone Consort, the Underground Brass, and Trio TBD. As a soloist, he has given recitals throughout Europe and the United States. He is a fierce advocate for new music, having premiered 50+ new pieces for trombone, and his innovations in extended trombone technique have broadened the palate of sounds available to composers writing for the trombone. He has performed at numerous venues such as Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic and the New Museum, and he has made numerous festival appearances including the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), International Audio Art Music Festival (Germany), International Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYC), the San Francisco Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Ojai Music Festival. His production work has taken him to Holland, Austria and across the United States with shows such as Sounds after the OilWar, Brahms and the Beat Poets, and Fear is a Liar, all of which incorporate multimedia elements in conjunction with art music to create a transformative narrative.

David holds a Masters Degree in Trombone Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, and two bachelors degrees in Trombone Performance and Music Education from the City University of New York Brooklyn College. David Whitwell was named a Britten-Pears Young Artist for 2013-2014.

I dig The Curiosity Cabinet as it is a gathering of "One of a Kind", and different people— people who do not fit in the standard frame of the classical musician. It's a group that removes dust from the old books of western music by innovating and breaking the standard of contemporary music, making it more affordable and connected to an audience who definitely don't need any instruction manual to understand and feel the music produced by its performers.

After spending 15 years based in France, playing and touring in almost 20 countries with his Bass Trombone in whatever styles he was asked to play (from Classical and Contemporary Music to Progressive Metal, Electronic Music and Street Art performances), Alix has moved to the North American continent.

Most recently he spent one year in Montreal Canada where he developped his taste for Jazz Music and improvisation, and now finds himself in New York where he can fully embrace his improvisatory and experimental musical practices and experiences as a performing freelancer.

For more information, visit : www.alixtucou.com

I’ve been part of the Cabinet for a couple of years now, and in that time I’ve gotten to know many of the other musicians very well, on both a musical and personal level. I’m fortunate to have that familiarity and comfort with the other players - that’s relatively rare in the NYC freelance scene. It of course helps that they’re excellent musicians and really nice people, too, who are fun to work hard with and to perform with. I also appreciate the strength of vision that Whitney has for the group, and that said vision extends beyond only playing music. The word “multidisciplinary” gets thrown around a lot but it seems unnecessary to use it to describe the Cabinet - because it happens so naturally with this ensemble. The expansiveness of the performances doesn’t feel forced or contrived - just satisfying for all the senses.

An outspoken proponent of experimental sounds and expression, violinist Charlotte Munn-Wood is an active freelancer and chamber musician in New York City and beyond. She has performed in NYC at such venues as the Scandinavia House, (le) poisson rouge, Spectrum, Silvana, the Downtown Music Gallery, the Firehouse Space, and on the Blank Space House Concert series. Abroad, she has performed in Handan, Tianjin, and at the Beijing Conservatory and National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, China. Munn-Wood has collaborated as a soloist and chamber musician with composers Sampo Haapamäki, Jeff Scott of Imani Winds, Sam Pluta, Zae Munn, Emily Praetorius, Sid Richardson, Halldór Smárason, Michael Harrison, and Dan Trueman. This spring she is commissioning a work for solo violin, electronics, and verbalization from Venezuelan composer Icli Zitella. Munn-Wood appears regularly with the Curiosity Cabinet and as a founding member of the Phoenix Quartet, a violin-clarinet-cello-piano ensemble dedicated to the radiance and vibrancy of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. This spring, the quartet presents the first installment of its Messiaen+ project: The End of Time, Deconstructed.  She can be heard improvising in Main Land (with cellist Maria Hadge) and in du.0 (with violinist Aimée Niemann). Munn-Wood is a recent graduate of the Contemporary Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Dr. Curtis Macomber. Away from the violin, she enjoys cooking Mexican food, exploring the wonderful world of Max/MSP, and petting other people’s dogs in the park. 

Things that make me happy: playing the violin, working with composers, innovative performances, non-standard venues for performing, chamber music, and working with talented, intelligent, inspiring, lovely people. It's very rare in life that I've gotten to experience all of those at the same time, but the Curiosity Cabinet never fails to serve all of those to me on a silver platter each and every time I perform with them.

As a winner of the 2013 American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, Adam made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in Weill Hall. Currently based in New York City, Adam has completed his Master’s degree at Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and is in the studio of Masao Kawasaki. He serves as Co-Concertmaster of the Conservatory Orchestra, is a member of the school’s contemporary music ensemble “conTempo”, and also performs with the Chelsea Symphony. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Adam received his Bachelor’s in Performance from Kennesaw State University, where he studied with Helen Hwaya Kim and briefly with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra violinist Kenn Wagner.

For four years, Adam served as concertmaster of the KSU Symphony Orchestra, with which he toured Beijing and Xi’an, China. He has also performed with other orchestras in the southeast such as the Savannah Philharmonic, Georgia Symphony, North Georgia Symphony, Carroll Symphony, Rome Symphony, and Gadsden (Alabama) Symphony Orchestras. As a soloist, he was alternate winner of the 2010 Georgia Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) solo strings competition and winner of the 2010 KSU School of Music Concerto Competition, which led to him performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the KSU Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared as soloist with the University Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Maya Bennardo is a Brooklyn-based violinist and teacher. Maya is passionate about opening the dialogue between composers and performers, and she works tirelessly to promote and perform the music of today. She was a 2014/15 Fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute at MASS MoCA and a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra founded by Pierre Boulez. She regularly performs with New York ensembles such as Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Ensemble Mise-En, and andPlay, the violin/viola duo of which she is a co-founder. Maya holds degrees from New York University (MM) and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM) where she studied with Gregory Fulkerson.

Pedro is an Argentine-born violist. He currently teaches violin, viola, and conducts the orchestra at the Washington Heights Community Conservatory. On viola, he regularly performs with the Metro Chamber Orchestra and the Camerata Washington Heights. He is working with the Camerata as an arranger as well, taking Dominican folk songs to string quartet and harp. He has mainly studied with Ji-Hyun Son and Fred Zltokin.

The past year with the Cabinet has been a very joyous return for me to contemporary music. I'm the son of a composer and grew up around people like Michael Daugherty, Samuel Adler, and Evan Chambers. I even played and recorded some of these composers' music. Seven years ago however, I changed paths and became an early music specialist. I was disenchanted with modern traditional playing and orchestras, and I gave it all up for gut! It's been very fulfilling to come back to modern string instruments in a setting where they idiomatically make sense again. I feel just dumb lucky to be working with these people. Experiencing what Whitney and the rest of the Cabinet doing is inspiring to say the least.

Dan McCarthy's playing has been described simply as “virtuosic” by Seen and Heard International. He is fluent and versatile on a number of instruments and styles ranging from the medieval to modern. He was a part of the first class of baroque violists ever to be accepted into the historical performance program at The Juilliard School, where he was also often featured in performances playing violin, viola d'amore, and viola da gamba. As a modern violist, Dan holds a doctorate in viola performance from the University of Maryland, where he was an active performer in the Washington D.C area, and holds other degrees from the University of Michigan, and the Interlochen Arts Academy. He has also performed and toured extensively throughout North America, East Asia, and Europe with Jordi Savall, Masaaki Suzuki, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and the American Bach Soloists.

Liz Kovalchuk: "New York is so hard, why does anyone bother living here"
Whitney George: "it's for the people on the floor"

As a soloist, Elizabeth has performed recitals in Moscow (Russia), Riga (Latvia), Helsinki (Finland), Cremona (Italy), Toronto, Chicago and New York City. As an orchestral player, she has performed throughout the United States, Canada, China, as well as in Europe, South East Asia and the Middle East. Ms.Kovalchuk has worked with dozens of professional orchestras ranging from the New York Chamber Players to Disney’s broadway international tour of Beauty and the Beast.

Ms.Kovalchuk also leads the Liz Kay Cover Band, singing while playing in bars throughout New York City. Elizabeth received her musical training from Etobicoke School for the Arts, Chicago College of Performing Arts (B.M), the Sibelius Academy as well as Ball State University (M.M) where she was employed as a graduate assistant teaching undergraduate students. Elizabeth Kovalchuk was born in Riga, Latvia and moved to Canada with her family during the collapse of the USSR.

Pat Muchmore is a composer, cellist, and founding member of New York’s renegade punk-chamber group Anti-Social Music. He has studied with John Corigliano, David del Tredici, David Olan and Carolyn Bremer, and received a PhD from the City University of New York Graduate Center after acceptance of his dissertation “Humanity and Mechanicity in the Music of Nine Inch Nails.”  Anti-Social Music recorded an album of his music entitled Fracture: The Music of Pat Muchmore which a Stanford Radio review described as “really crunchy, a kick in the balls – great stuff.”  Pat has received awards from Meet The Composer, CUNY and The Copland Fund. He’s been commissioned by groups such as Newspeak, the New Thread Quartet, Millikin University Percussion Ensemble, Transit Ensemble, Andie Springer, Jen Baker and the Texas A&M University Percussion Ensemble. He’s currently teaching Music Theory and Composition at the City College of New York and Sarah Lawrence College.

Of his music, Time Out Chicago states:  ’The chaos lies somewhere between John Zorn’s Naked City skronk and a nightmarish noir score, a little bit organ-grinder meets meat grinder. But there’s more to this than wild, antagonizing dissonance. Muchmore…has a fine ear for detail.’

Emilio Guarino is an eclectic double bassist with a taste for both the old masterworks and more modern flavors of art. Equally at home in the concert hall or club, his repertoire includes everything from the symphonic war horses to radical experimental works, jazz, and his own compositions.

After finishing college, Emilio quickly found a home in the bustling New York City contemporary music scene and is a regular performer with Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, The Curiosity Cabinet, and Ensemble Mise-en. He has worked with with an eclectic blend of performers, composers, and organizations including The Lucerne Festival Academy, Simon Rattle, Heinz Holliger, Matthias Pintscher, Tod Machover, Robert Black (of The Bang on a Can All-Stars), Jean Philipe Wurtz of Ensemble Linea, Brice Pauset, Philippe Leroux, Franck Bedrossian, Raphael Cendo, David Lang, and many more.

Emilio also keeps busy with several of his own projects. His unique solo performances are regularly featured at the EatDrinkListen Festival in St. Louis, his double bass duo with frequent stand partner Dan Merriman will be performing and presenting at the 2015 International Society of Bassist’s Convention at Colorado State University, and his electronic solo project Monat Mai released its first offering in the summer of 2014.

Tristan Kasten-Krause is a Brooklyn-based double bassist with a drive for modern, avant-grade and emerging sounds. He has collaborated with an array of artists, from working with Steve Reich and Alvin Lucier, playing chamber music with Glenn Kotche (Wilco) and members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, performing adventurous new music with Ensemble Signal and Contemporaneous, to crafting noise records with members of the Cleveland Post-Punk band Cloud Nothings. Tristan holds a Masters degree from the Hartt School where he studied with Robert Black.

I am always looking about for something unique and unusual; it's challenge enough to find that, even moreso if you're holding out for a thing involving truly decent people, too.

Evan Runyon is an American performer and composer based in Brooklyn, New York.

As an acoustic & electric bassist, guitarist and banjo player he has worked with artists as diverse as Robert Black, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the symphony orchestras of Tucson, Phoenix and Cape Cod, Chris Potter and Brice Winston, appeared on the SXSW and Warped Tour stages and contributed to records on Dischord, Albany, Asian Man and Fueled By Ramen.

Evan is founding member of low string ensemble Hollerbrag, leader of avant-jazz-funk band Girls That Wear Ties, principal songwriter for post-punk/hardcore outfit Modern Social Disorders and a core member of ensemble mise-en.

He also is founder & artistic director of commissioning and presenting body Real Loud. His principal mentors have been Robert Black and Louis Levitt.

For me, playing in the Cabinet is all about the process of discovery; discovering new relationships in the music, finding new meanings through collaboration with living composers, exploring new possibilities in performance spaces. With the Cabinet, the end product is always a developed version of what it was at the outset, each performance presenting new challenges and solutions. Being in dialogue with this group of musicians and with audiences of all kinds has offered me some of my most surprising and memorable musical experiences. I play in the Cabinet because I always want to find out what's going to happen next...

Michael Lupo is a percussionist and musicologist currently based in Brooklyn. Lupo began his performance career in 2001 as a drummer for numerous New York City-based rock bands, including Kinetic and Mother Feather, before turning to 20th- and 21st-century classical percussion repertoire. While pursuing his Master’s degree at Brooklyn College, he performed with the Brooklyn College Percussion Ensemble under the direction of Frank Cassara of the Philip Glass Ensemble. Since then, Lupo has performed with the Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Curiosity Cabinet. Lupo’s interest in academic writing led him to the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is currently writing his PhD dissertation on social engagement in the late electroacoustic works of Luigi Nono (1924–1990). Additionally, he is an Assistant Editor for the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), as well as an instructor in the music department at The John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The melancholic tolling of a distant bell, or more likely, a vibraphone, shifting shadows of black and white, mythic creatures of dreams, nightmares, fantasy. The human desire to strive and explore and be loved, to conjure into reality the fantastical images in your mind.... Or maybe to transmute into fantasy the whole of this mundane world that surrounds us- this is the Curiosity Cabinet. I have enjoyed my time getting to know the other musicians involved, many of whom are unique and generous souls. Whitney's continued work ethic and the imaginative scope of her projects reminds me to stay constantly searching and open. I'm thankful for the good music, good people, good times. But mostly I am in it for the free hats, she has many!

Melinda Faylor, a native of Queens, New York, began piano at the age of four at the School for Strings. She received her BM from the Oberlin Conservatory in the studio of Robert Shannon, where she was the recipient of the Dean’s Talent Award. She received her MM in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music, with help from a Masonic scholarship, in the studio of Dr Arkady Aronov. Ms Faylor has experience as an accompanist, chamber musician, orchestral pianist and solo pianist. She has also studied with John Nauman and Elyane Laussade. Summer festivals include the Mannes College of Music IFCP and IKIF Festivals, as well as the Orford, Las Vegas, Tibor Vargas, and Ecole Normale de Musique festivals. She has worked extensively with electronic music and has performed with electronics as part of the SEAMUS and OCEAN festivals, the NYC International Fringe Festival, the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, Hofstra University, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, and at the University of Akron in Ohio. Her passion for contemporary music led her to join Oberlin’s CME (2000-2001) and the New York based TACTUS and Delancey ensembles (2003-2006) as well....

Described by the New Yorker as “the young Irish piano phenom”, Dublin-born pianist Isabelle O'Connell has developed an international career as soloist and chamber musician that has taken her across four continents. Since her Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2002 she has performed around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, U.K. and Ireland, at venues such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Symphony Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival.

Isabelle is co-founder of Grand Band, New York’s six piano sextet, described by the New York Times as: "six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene”. Isabelle also performs with the Crash ensemble, joining them for concerts in North America, Australia and in Ireland. She has also performed with John Adams at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, Meredith Monk at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival and with the ConTempo and New Zealand String Quartets.

A dynamic interpreter and energetic advocate of music by living composers, Isabelle regularly commissions and premieres new works. Her debut solo album RESERVOIR was released to critical acclaim in 2010 and features solo piano music by nine contemporary Irish composers. Her recording of Kevin Volans' Concerto for Piano and Winds with the RTE NSO was recently released on the Lyric FM label.

American pianist Steven Beck continues to garner impressive acclaim for his performances and recordings worldwide. Praised by the New Yorker as “one of the city’s finest young pianists”, a recent New York concert by Mr. Beck was described as “exemplary” and “deeply satisfying” by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times.

Highlights of the 2013-14 season include performances with the Alabama Symphony, recordings of Carter's late piano works for Bridge Records' Carter series, and a performance of Messiaen's final work, "Concert a Quatre", with the New York Youth Symphony. In addition, he is repeating his annual performance of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” on Christmas Eve at Bargemusic; this has become a New York institution.

In the words of New York Times critic Allan Kozinn, Mr. Beck is "an eloquent and persuasive performer of contemporary works"; he has worked with Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Charles Wuorinen, John Zorn, Beat Furrer, George Perle, and George Crumb, and performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae and the New York New Music Ensemble. He is a member of the Talea Ensemble, the Knights, and the piano duo Quattro Mani.

Hailed as possessing "a deep reservoir of expressive devices" by The New York Times, soprano Justine Aronson employs artistic and technical versatility to create passionate performances. Her interpretations have captured the attention of those producing new music, earning her premiers of works by composers including David Lang, Daron Hagen, Christopher Cerrone, Aaron Jay Kernis, Thomas Pasatieri, Fred Hersch, Benjamin C.S. Boyle, Nicholas Deyoe, Andrew McIntosh, Curt Cacioppo, Michael Bennett, and Philip Rice.  Specializing in baroque and contemporary repertoires, Ms. Aronson has appeared in concert as a soloist with The New York Festival of Song, The Lucerne Festival Academy, The Bard Music Festival, Princeton Pro Musica, Reno Kantorei, The Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, The Masterwork Chorale, the Westminster Summer Festival, and the Los Angeles-based modern music collective wild Up, among others.  She is equally at home with traditional repertoire, portraying roles including Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), Despina (Così fan tutte), Yum Yum (The Mikado), Monica (The Medium), Nuria in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, and Yniold (Pelléas et Mélisande). Ms. Aronson currently resides in Brooklyn. www.justinearonson.com

The Cabinet unquestionably represents a collection of people, of artists, of characters both unique on their own and together to form a malleable and living form that creates a confab always evolving, continuously morphing as the moment might call. At its core, Whitney George’s eye sharpened on that which she is most curious about. This focus and exploration allows a place for all of us to be more deeply curious about ourselves in a time where so many would put us in a box, slap a label on us. The ever changing Cabinet takes away the labels and expectations; we’re able to be what we may not always be able to see and explore figuratively new shelves upon which we might be called to place ourselves. To me the cabinet means possibility, it means the unknown, and nothing could be more provocative.  

Praised as "superb", "luscious-toned", "extraordinarily precise and expressive", and "dramatically committed and not averse to risk" by the New York Times, young American soprano Sharon Harms is known for fearless performances and passionate interpretations of works new and old for the recital, concert, and operatic stage. Sharon has premiered the music of some of today's leading composers and her repertoire spans a versatile spectrum of periods and styles. A wide array of collaborations have put Ms. Harms in venues around the world. She is a member of the Argento Ensemble and the Curiosity Cabinet and has sung with Alter Ego Ensemble, Baroque Band of Chicago, Center for Contemporary Opera, counter)induction, Da Capo Chamber Players, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Mise-en, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Signal, Larchmere String Quartet, Lima Symphony Orchestra, MET Opera Chamber Orchestra, New Chamber Ballet, New Dramatists, New Fromm Players, Orchestra of the League of Composers, Pacifica Quartet, Princeton Festival Opera, Pueblo Symphony Orchestra, Simon Bolivar Orchestra, Slee Sinfonietta, Southwest Chamber Ensemble, and Third Coast Percussion. Recording projects include a 2013 Latin Grammy nomination for Gabriela Ortiz' Aroma Foliado with Southwest Chamber Ensemble, and a CD of new vocal works by Louis Karchin with Da Capo Chamber Players on Bridge Records. She will also be featured on various forthcoming recordings of new pieces by William Bolcom, John Eaton, Jesse Jones, Lowell Liebermann, and Charles Wuorninen.  Visit www.sharonharms.com for more information.

My experience performing with The Cabinet is like entering a lucid dream, that while painfully beautiful and dark at times, leaves me not wanting to wake and break the spell. Physicality, strength, lines, the human voice, the air I audibly breathe and expel to make my expression possible-this is what The Cabinet enables me to bring with pleasure to the eyes and ears of all who want to experience new music in a unique way that appeals to all the senses.

Hailed by the New York Times for her "clear, pealing voice" (Scarlatti's L'Arianna-The Arianna Project, Musica Nuova) and by Opera News for her “best all-around performance” (Handel's Ariodante - The Princeton Festival) soprano Marcy Richardson is a versatile artist with a passion for baroque, contemporary music, cabaret, musical theater, and pole and aerial dance. She will be appearing once again with Company XIV in their 2016/2017 season, which runs Oct 13th-January 7th 6 nights a week at the Irondale Theater in Brooklyn. She will appear first as Athena in The Judgement of Paris, followed by the reprise of her role as a singing aerialist, pole dancer, and vocalist in Nutcracker Rouge.' In 2015/2016, Marcy completed a 7 month off-broadway season with Company XIV, where she performed as a classical soprano, pole acrobat, aerialist, singing aerialist, and dancer 6 nights a week in their productions of Snow White, Nutcracker Rouge, andCinderella at the Minetta Lane Theater in the West Village. Other recent appearances include shows with L'Opera Burlesque as a singing aerialist at New York City's Duane Park, the 1940's burlesque musical comedy revue Knockers: A Burlesque Musical off Broadway at the Elektra Theater with the Hot Box Girls, Fades Away with Aera Dance at The House of Yes, aerials in the Curiosity Cabinet's Night Like Velvet: in twelve letters at Dixon Place, and classical vocal ensemble in Michael Haydn's Requiem with American Classical Orchestra at St. Ignatius of Antioch.

For someone like myself, with multiple interests & abilities (performer ADD so to speak), Whitney George, Daniel Felsenfeld, and The Curiosity Cabinet provide a musical and theatrical environment that can and does embrace them. I feel as if I've found something akin to a musical home and am humbled that I get the opportunity to be on a stage with this amazing group of intelligent performers.

Heather Michele Meyer made her professional debut as the Governess in The Turn of the Screw. A former Caramoor Apprentice Artist, her opera roles include the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, First Lady in The Magic Flute, Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito and Donna Elvirain Don Giovanni. Her oratorio repertoire has included Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony, Poulenc's Stabat Mater, and Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle. Increasingly in demand as a specialist in the works of living composers, she has premiered andperformed works by Jeremy Howard Beck, John David Earnest, Daniel Felsenfeld, Jennifer Griffith, PaulaKimper, David T. Little, Roxanna Panufnik, and Kamala Sankaram. She has appeared with groups suchas American Opera Projects, Center for Contemporary Opera, HERE Arts Center's CultureMart, the NYComposers Circle, NYC Fringe Festival, and Paola Prestini's Ferus Festival. In addition to the aforementioned work, Ms. Meyer is also a budding aerialist, training in aerialsilks and lyra , and happens to be an educated wine professional specializing in the wines of Austria and Germany. More information can be found at www.heathermichelemeyer.com.

Trying to think about my relationship with The Cabinet is like trying to think about my relationship with gravity, or nitrogen. It's something that feels like its always been there; sustaining me, feeding me, ordering my creative impulses. It's somehow too large and yet too vaporous to pin down and dissect.

The Cabinet is to me because The Cabinet Is

Nicholas R. Nelson holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York where his teachers have included Morton Subotnik, Jason Eckardt, David DelTredici and George Brunner. He has been in residence with numerous ensembles, including the Brooklyn College Conservatory Orchestra under George Rothman and the ConTempo ensemble of Brooklyn College under Ursula Oppens, and has also collaborated with the Remarkable Theater Brigade under Monica Harte who produced the New York City premiere of his first opera, as well as the CYGNUS ensemble, DFE and Ensemble Moto Perpetuo. His pieces have been premiered on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the bi-annual International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, and recently the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music (SEAMUS) national conference in 2011. As a sought-after technologist, Nelson has provided technological and musical design for Jason Eckhardt, Kevin James of the [kaj] ensemble, John Eaton and Amir Shpilman of Ensemble Moto Perpetuo. In addition to electro-acoustic music, Nicholas also provides sound design for theater and film. Shows for which he has designed sound have appeared on the New York, New Orleans, Prague and Hong Kong Fringe Festivals, and the Big Apple Film and City View film festivals in New York City. Currently a doctoral candidate at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Nelson’s research interests include performer / electronics interaction, machine listening and interface design.

For me it is a rare and great pleasure t​o not simply ​be ​among frighteningly gifted musicians, whose ​skill I'm lucky to capture, but to be ​shown​ an even rarer​ ​warmth and sincerity​. There's real music to be found in the framing of their relationships, and their trusting openness is a gift to me.

Laurence Cummings is an Australian pianist who began studies in music at an early age under the guidance of his father. He studied with Roger Heagney in Melbourne, before relocating to New York to join Jeffrey Biegel's studio as a scholarship student at the Conservatory of Music of Brooklyn College (CUNY). Cummings has performed solo recitals in New York and Melbourne, as well as numerous chamber projects. He has been a member of the conTEMPO new music ensemble at Brooklyn College under the direction of Ursula Oppens, with whom he performed the Bartók Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Cummings has also joined The Curiosity Cabinet chamber ensemble in New York for their upcoming season.