MATA Festival

MATA Festival We present, support, and commission the music of early-career composers, regardless of their stylistic views or aesthetic inclinations.

Music at the Anthology (MATA) is an incubator for adventurous emerging artists experimenting with composition, multimedia, collaborative performance art, and every imaginable sound in between. Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996 as a way to address the lack of presentation opportunities for unaffiliated composers, MATA has since developed into the world’s most soug

ht-after performance opportunity for young and emerging composers. MATA presents an internationally-recognized festival each spring in New York City of new music by early-career composers selected from a free global call for submissions; MATA Presents, commissioned projects presented at venues and non-conventional spaces throughout New York; and MATA Jr., an evening of music by pre-college composers, mentored by emerging composers, and performed by top performers in new music.

THANK YOU for a most thoughtful review of the opening night of MATA Festival 2026 for New York Classical Review ✨"The g...
05/26/2026

THANK YOU for a most thoughtful review of the opening night of MATA Festival 2026 for New York Classical Review ✨

"The great thing about the MATA Festival is that you never know what you're going to get, which in any kind of festival or concert can also be a drawback.

At MATA it isn't, because the point of the festival under executive director Pauline Kim Harris' tenure is to be as wide open as possible. That's not a slogan, but it came through in how she introduced the fundamental values of the festival at the opening concert Thursday night in the DiMenna Center. Harris pointed out that when MATA announces their call for scores, they get them from all over the world. Significantly, there is no application fee. This may seem minor, but it is a crucial consideration for composers, especially young ones with precarious careers and thriving imaginations.

At its best, a MATA concert is full of wildcards and free of the type of academic consensus that produces exquisitely crafted and aesthetically empty music. Thursday night's concert, though not flawless, had music and performances that were either special events or utterly, even mind-bogglingly, surprising, the kind of thing one craves at new music concerts but infrequently finds." - George Grella

BLACKBOX ENSEMBLE ✨🎺 Leonard Bopp, Conductor/Trumpet🗣️ Amber Evans, Soprano🎹 Yifei Xu, Piano and Managing Director🥁 J Cl...
05/23/2026

BLACKBOX ENSEMBLE ✨

🎺 Leonard Bopp, Conductor/Trumpet
🗣️ Amber Evans, Soprano
🎹 Yifei Xu, Piano and Managing Director
🥁 J Clancy, Percussion
🪈 Annie Nikunen, Flute/Alto/Piccolo and Director of Artistic Planning
🎶 Gabriel Henkin, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet
🎻 Lauren Conroy, Violin
🎵 Jordan Bartow, Cello

* GILLIAN RAE PERRY
* FLORIANA PROVENZANO
* LAILA ARAFAH
MORTON FELDMAN
* KRISTUPAS BUBNELIS
* JESSICA SHAND
* ERICH BARGANIER

NIGHT THREE: Local Musoc [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PM

BlackBox Ensemble is a NYC–based contemporary music ensemble redefining how contemporary music is heard, seen, and experienced. They have presented work nationwide at institutions including Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Clark Art Institute, National Sawdust, and Roulette Intermedium. Recent highlights include Speculative Listening: The Sonic World of Julius Eastman and the site-specific music-and-dance program The Sound of Space Between Us. Inspired by the theatrical and scientific “black box”, the ensemble inhabits the charged space where artistic expression and human experience meet, transforming concerts into immersive environments for interdisciplinary dialogue and new ways of listening.

https://www.blackboxensemble.org/

GILLIAN RAE PERRY ✨ ComposerA PLACE IN-BETWEEN (2024) New York PremiereNIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PMB...
05/23/2026

GILLIAN RAE PERRY ✨ Composer

A PLACE IN-BETWEEN (2024) New York Premiere

NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PM

Biography, Gillian Rae Perry Gillian Rae Perry is a composer and songwriter whose work is dedicated to themes of mental health, vulnerability, and interconnectedness. She grew up on a bird farm in rural Texas and her first compositions were written for the birds.

Perry was the Vanguard Emerging Opera Composer with Chicago Opera Theater for the 2022-2024 seasons and is a 2025-2026 recipient of New Music USA's Creator Fund Grant. Her grant with New Music USA provided funding for her latest album, gilly's garden, set to release April 3, 2026. Her work has been performed by the Chicago Philharmonic, Chicago Opera Theater, Atlanta Opera, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, among others. Perry's work has been described as "sweet and sensitive" (Parterre Box) as well as "gentle, introspective, caring, important, and beautiful" (Music City Review).

With degrees in both film and music composition, as well as growing up a theater kid, Perry actively integrates art forms outside of music into her artistic practice. Perry is also influenced by text and poetry and she released her first collection of poetry, What Will I Wish for Now?, in 2024. Perry holds an MFA in music composition from The California Institute of the Arts and is currently a DMA candidate at the Peabody
Institute.

LAILA ARAFAH ✨ ComposerLOCAL PATHS (2023) New York PremiereNIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PMLaila Arafah ...
05/23/2026

LAILA ARAFAH ✨ Composer

LOCAL PATHS (2023) New York Premiere

NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PM

Laila Arafah is a London-based composer whose work explores fragile systems, sonic processes, and forms emerging from interruption, interaction and temporal instability. At nineteen, she received a commission from the London Symphony Orchestra through the Panufnik Composers Scheme, and has since been commissioned by BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra, London Contemporary Music Festival, the London Mozart Players, and Explore Ensemble.
Her music has been performed internationally by Ensemble MusikFabrik, Talea Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, and Quatuor Bozzini, and venues including Aldeburgh Festival, King’s Place, Bold Tendencies, Westminster Abbey, St John’s Smith Square, Bowdoin Music Festival, and KM28 Berlin.
She has held fellowships at Aspen Music Festival (2024, 2025), Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, and IMPULS Festival. Her work has been recognized with awards including the Frank Abell Composer's Award, Leverhulme Grant, Faber Music Grant, International Guitar Foundation, and CoMA Composer-in-Residence (2024). Through these opportunities, she has engaged with composers such as George Lewis, Judith Weir, Hans Abrahamsen, Olga Neuwirth, Chaya Czernowin, and Nico Muhly. Laila is pursuing a Bachelor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music.
Upcoming projects include a chamber work premiering at the Frick Museum in New York, a string quartet for the Britten Pears Summer Academy, premiere at REDNOTE festival with Trio Diorama, a new work for Ensemble Intercontemporain at IYCA, and participation in the composer-conductor fellowship at Grafenegg Music Festival’s Ink Still Wet programme.

KRISTUPAS BUBNELIS ✨ ComposerELIAS BROWN ✨ ElectronicsPLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE TONE (2021) New York Premiere ✨NI...
05/23/2026

KRISTUPAS BUBNELIS ✨ Composer
ELIAS BROWN ✨ Electronics

PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE TONE (2021) New York Premiere ✨

NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PM

Kristupas Bubnelis is a Lithuanian composer based in New York. His work explores microtonality, timbre, and temporal processes, often combining acoustic instruments with electronics. His music frequently draws on architectural thinking about sound, shaping slowly evolving textures and resonant harmonic structures.

His works have been performed internationally by ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Wet Ink Ensemble, Caput Ensemble, and Quasar Saxophone Quartet, and presented at festivals such as the ISCM World New Music Days and the Lucerne Festival Academy. His work has also been featured at the International Rostrum of Composers and the International Young Composers Academy Ticino.
Bubnelis is currently pursuing a DMA in composition at Columbia University, where he studies with Georg Friedrich Haas, Marcos Balter, and Zosha Di Castri. He previously studied at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating with distinction and receiving the DipRAM Award for an outstanding portfolio.
He is a nominee of the Prince Pierre Foundation Musical Springboard Award (2025) and a prize winner of the Eduardas Balsys Young Composers’ Competition (2021). Recent projects include collaborations with the International Contemporary Ensemble and performances at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall.

Conducting leading orchestras and curating imaginative collaborations across artforms, Elias Peter Brown is a quintessentially modern conductor – curious, versatile and future-focused. His projects include CAVE, a site-specific performance for the Brunel Museum, and less than a grain of dust, inspired by Thomas Wilfred’s Light Art. He collaborates with leading contemporary ensembles such as Ensemble Modern and MusikFabrik, and has conducted orchestras including Deutsche Radio Philharmonie and Flanders Symphony, with upcoming appearances at Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Danish Chamber Orchestra. A graduate of Yale and the Royal Academy of Music, Brown was mentored by Esa-Pekka Salonen as Salonen Fellow (2023–24), working closely with him at major international orchestras and festivals.

FLORIANA PROVENZANO ✨ Composer“I am Never Anywhere / Anywhere I Go” (2024) New York PremiereNIGHT THREE: Local Music [SA...
05/23/2026

FLORIANA PROVENZANO ✨ Composer

“I am Never Anywhere / Anywhere I Go” (2024) New York Premiere

NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PM

Floriana Provenzano (1998) is an Italian composer from South Italy. Her music often originates from sound images and visual or physical sensations linked to her places of origin, unfolding into explorations of texture, brightness, and timbre. She frequently employs instrumental preparations, metallic objects, electronics and unconventional materials, aiming to expand the expressive potential of sound.

Her works have been performed by ensembles and soloists such as zone expérimentale, Blaurenz Duo, Ensemble Sillages, Ensemble Suono Giallo, Duo Dubois, mdi ensemble, Manuel Teles and Giulia Zaniboni, and presented at international festivals including impuls (AT), IntAct (TH), Mixtur (ES), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (AT), Trame Sonore (Mantua, IT), Sound of Wander (Milan, IT), Musikàmera (Venice, IT), Ramificazioni (Lugano, CH), among others. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in composition at the Conservatory of Mantua, under the guidance of Zeno Baldi, taking also courses with Maurizio Azzan.

Among her latest collaborations there will be a new piece for ensemble Suono Giallo, presented at the Festival delle Nazioni (Città di Castello, PR) on August 2026, and a new project with ensemble Proxima Centauri, premiered at the MAD Festival in Bordeaux (FR) on November 2026.

JESSICA SHAND ✨ ComposerPANOPTICON (2021) New York PremiereNIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨ 7PMJessica Shan...
05/23/2026

JESSICA SHAND ✨ Composer

PANOPTICON (2021) New York Premiere

NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨ 7PM

Jessica Shand is a flutist, producer, composer, and researcher based out of Providence, RI. She
merges contemporary experimental classical, jazz, and electronic performance practices with
mathematics and computer science to (de)construct sound as a relational interface between
and among humans and machines. Her debut release, a solo album entitled Transmutations
(February 2025), unravels vast perceptual landscapes out of flute sound to probe the boundaries of auditory perception.

An inaugural fellow with the Steve Jobs Archive (2023-24), Jessica’s work spans live
performance, studio recording, sound design for film, gallery installations, academic publications, and community workshops. At 20, she became one of the youngest-ever invited speakers at the annual joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and Society for Music Theory (AMS-SMT), where she presented her early writing on artificial creativity and
improvising machines. She has since co-authored publications for the International Conference
on Machine Learning (ICML) as well as the inaugural creative AI track at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).
Jessica has been a Wm. S. Haynes Co. International Young Artist since 2016 and has received
recognition as a flutist from organizations and ensembles worldwide, including first-prize awards
in competitions hosted by the National Flute Association, NPR’s From the Top, National YoungArts Foundation, Music Teachers National Association, and more. She has performed with such ensembles as the American Modern Opera Company, American Repertory Theatre, International Contemporary Ensemble, Aspen Music Festival and School, and National Youth Orchestra of the USA. Her original work has been commissioned and presented by the Harvard University New Music Ensemble, Berggruen Institute, Non-Event, PVD Fringe, New Ear ::
SPATIAL, and more.

Passionate about equity and sustainability across local and global arts ecosystems, Jessica has held positions with the Artistic Freedom Initiative, Advisory Board for the Arts, and Density Arts. She has been invited to give talks and community workshops at the MIT Museum, Interlochen Center for the Arts, UMass Amherst, RIOT! RI, and more.

Originally from Colorado, Jessica holds an M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2024) and a B.A. in Mathematics and Music from Harvard University (2022). While at Harvard, she studied flute performance with Paula Robison as part of the highly selective joint program with the New England Conservatory. Other cherished mentors include Claire Chase, Vijay Iyer, Esperanza Spalding, Miguel Zenón, and Brook Ferguson. She is now further developing her work at Brown University, where she is a second-year PhD student in music and multimedia composition.

ERIC BARGANIER ✨ ComposerCLOCKS AS MANDALAS AS LABYRINTHS (2024)NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PMErich Ba...
05/23/2026

ERIC BARGANIER ✨ Composer

CLOCKS AS MANDALAS AS LABYRINTHS (2024)

NIGHT THREE: Local Music [SATURDAY, May 23] ✨7PM

Erich Barganier is a composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from St. Petersburg,
Florida who currently resides between New York City and Durham, NC. He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores
experimental technology, the edge of noise, improvisation, generative processes, and new forms of notation. His music has been released on New Focus Recordings, People Places Records, cmntx, [walnut+locust], Belts and Whistles Records, Infrequent Seams, Off Latch Press, Nebularosa Records, Pleroma Records, NOUS Records, and
Janus Music and Sound.

Barganier's works have been presented by Bang on a Can, The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Gaudeamus, Mostly Modern Festival, The New Music Gathering, Roulette Intermedium,
National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Diffrazioni Festival, The DiMenna Center For Classical Music, Spectra Malaysia, Arts, Letters, & Numbers, and McGill University, among others.

He has written for Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, current and former members of
the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Sybarite5, Quince, loadbang, and Sandbox Percussion Ensemble, among others. He has served as an artist-in-residence at The Conlon Collective (Utrecht, NL), CIRMMT (McGill University, Montreal, CAN), Westben Artist
Retreat (Westben, CAN), and Oracle Egg (Los Angeles, USA). He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014 and taught English at the Belarus State University of Culture and Arts in Minsk while collecting regional folk songs and performing traditional American music across Eastern Europe.
Barganier is a performing member of the electric guitar/clarinet/electronic experimental music duo Shutterspeed Duo with Ford Fourqurean and is an active soloist on the oud, electric guitar, and mandolin.

Room all set for MATA FESTIVAL 2026 INTERVAL: In Between Silence and Stasis [NIGHT TWO: Intuitive Music] ✨ 7PMSoundcheck...
05/22/2026

Room all set for MATA FESTIVAL 2026 INTERVAL: In Between Silence and Stasis [NIGHT TWO: Intuitive Music] ✨ 7PM

Soundchecking ZOSHA WARPEHA & TISTAN KASTEN-KRAUSE's "Basalt" -- WORLD PREMIERE ✨

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