Flutist Tara Helen O’Connor is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, a member of the virtuoso woodwind quintet Windscape and the chamber ensemble Andalucian Dogs.  An artist member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for the past two seasons she also performs regularly with  at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Spoleto Festival USA and Music from Angel Fire. She has appeared on “Live from Lincoln Center” and on A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts.  Among her recent recording projects are Marc Neikrug’s Through Roses with Pinchas Zukerman and actor John Rubenstein, a CD of Bach flute sonatas and a recording of contemporary pieces for flute and piano written for her. She received two 2003 Grammy nominations for her recording of Osvaldo Golijov’s Yiddishbbuk. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, O’Connor teaches masterclasses at the Banff Centre in Canada,  is professor of flute and head of the wind department at Purchase College Conservatory of Music and is on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music and Bard College Conservatory of Music. An avid photographer, she has photo credits in Time Out, Strad and Chamber Music America magazines.

An enthusiastic interpreter of contemporary repertoire, Rane Moore is a member of the Callithumpian Consort and the Talea Ensemble.  Ms. Moore has given numerous premieres of new works and appeared with Boston Musica Viva, Firebird Ensemble, Ludovico Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Guerilla Opera, and Hyperion Ensemble. Festival appearances include the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Open Sound Festival in Colorado, Festival Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo in Leon, Mexico, La Ciudad de las Ideas in Puebla, Mexico, Festival Internacional de Música Clásica Contemporánea de Lima, Spectrum XXI in London, Nevada Encounters of New Music (NEON), Bang on a Can Marathon, Ditson Contemporary Music Festival in Boston, and the Lucerne Festival. Ms. Moore has also been featured as a guest artist at the Royal College of Music and Drama in Wales.Ms. Moore has recorded for Gravina Música, Mode, and Naxos records and holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of California at Berkeley.

Erik Carlson has performed as a soloist and with many chamber and orchestral ensembles throughout Europe and the Americas. He is a highly active performer of contemporary music and has had works written for him by numerous composers, including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Charles Wuorinen, Tom Johnson, and Georges Aperghis.  Mr. Carlson is an enthusiastic proponent of interdisciplinary collaboration, and performs frequently with poets, dancers, actors, and film.  He is the founder of the New York Miniaturist Ensemble and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, The Trinity Bach Players, and the New Chamber Ballet.  He has recorded for the Tzadik, Mode, Albany, Bridge, and Matador labels.  Also a composer and writer, he has had his musical compositions and short plays performed in a wide variety of halls and theaters.  He studied violin with Jorja Fleezanis, Ronald Copes, and Robert Mann, and holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School.

Violist Elizabeth Weisser has performed throughout the Unites States, Europe and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician.  Interested in the relationship between performers and audiences, Ms. Weisser has actively pursued performance and music education in a wide variety of venues and contexts.  As a chamber musician, she has participated in residences throughout the Midwest, in Kentucky and Maine, as well as the Philippines. Ms. Weisser attended Oberlin Conservatory, Mannes College of Music and the SUNY Purchase Conservatory and has studied with Gregory Fulkerson, Ida Kavafian, Laurie Smukler and Ira Weller.  She is a founding member of the iO Quartet.

Following Christopher Gross’ performance of Brian Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II at the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Times wrote: “…for 20 minutes this skinny young cellist with a punkish hair cut seemed like a musical master of the universe…” Gross has performed numerous solo and chamber performances of contemporary music throughout the United States and in Europe. As a soloist, Gross premiered Milton Babbitt’s piece More Melismata for solo cello on the 2006 Focus! Festival and appeared as soloist in Arvo Pärt’s Pro et Contra on the 2005 Focus! Festival. Also highly in demand for mixed ensembles, he is a member of the Talea Ensemble and has played with various new music groups, including the Flux Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Continuum, and at venues including Weill Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Disney Hall, Merkin Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Barge Music, and MoMA.

“…one of the city’s most admired young pianists…” -the New Yorker, Mr. Beck made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra, and has toured Japan as soloist with the New York Symphonic Ensemble.  Other orchestras with which he has appeared include the New Juilliard Ensemble (under David Robertson), Sequitur, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and the Virginia Symphony.

Mr. Beck has performed as soloist and chamber musician at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater, Steinway Hall, as well as on the New York Philharmonic Ensembles Series and WNYC; summer appearances have been at the Aspen Music Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the Monadnock Music Festival. He is an Artist Presenter and regular performer at Bargemusic. He has worked with composers Elliott Carter, Henri Dutilleux, George Perle, and Pierre Boulez.  In addition to the Talea Ensemble, Mr. Beck has performed with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae, New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble 21, Mosaic, Ensemble Sospeso, and S.E.M. Ensemble. His recordings are on the Albany, Bridge, Boston Records, Monument, Mulatta, and Annemarie Classics labels.

Anthony Cheung (born 1982, San Francisco) is a composer and pianist.  As an advocate for new music, he is Artistic Director of the Talea Ensemble in New York. Ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Musiques Nouvelles, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, International Contemporary Ensemble, the French National Orchestras of Lille and Lorraine, the Minnesota Orchestra, eighth blackbird, Dal Niente, and the New York and San Francisco youth orchestras have performed his music. Current and upcoming projects include commissions for the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt and Witten and a Tremplin commission for the Ensemble Intercontemporain/IRCAM in Paris.  Honors include first prize and public prize at the International Dutilleux Competition (2008), the Charles Ives Fellowship and Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2006 and 2003), and several ASCAP awards.  He received his BA in Music and History from Harvard and his MA and DMA from Columbia University, where he taught music history and ear training and served as assistant conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. He is currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. His principal teachers have been Tristan Murail and Bernard Rands for composition and Robert Levin and Paul Hersh for piano, and he studied additionally at Tanglewood, Aspen, Centre Acanthes, Domaine Forget, and Fontainebleau, where he worked with many leading composers. For more information, please visit acheungmusic.com.

An advocate of contemporary music, Alex Lipowski is the Executive Director of the Talea Ensemble and has performed in ensembles such as the SEM Ensemble, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, ICE, and Wet Ink Ensemble. He has been seen on concert stages throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As a soloist and chamber musician he has collaborated with composers including Pierre Boulez, Helmut Lachenmann, Pierluigi Billone, and John Zorn to name a few. Lipowski has presented guest lectures at the University of Virginia Commonwealth, Denver State College, and UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil. Lipowski holds a Bachelors and Masters degree from the Juilliard School.  A career highlight is a tour with Pierre Boulez through Europe and then to Japan performing Boulez’s work, sur Incises. Since 2007, he has performed as Artist-Faculty at the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea.  He has recorded works on Gravina Musica, Naxos, and the Living Artists Label.