NOW Ensemble

NOW Ensemble is a dynamic group of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century. With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, the ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with the musical influences that reflect the diverse backgrounds of its members. NOW Ensemble has brought some of the most exciting composers of their generation to national and international recognition.

In recent seasons, NOW has performed at the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State, Lincoln Center, the Apples and Olives Festival in Zürich, Switzerland, Town Hall Seattle, Da Camera Houston, and in Carnegie Hall’s Neighborhood Concert Series. NOW has performed at Miller Theater, Merkin Hall, the Bang on a Can Marathon, The Kitchen NYC, The Stone, the Carlsbad Festival, the Festival Internacional Chihuahua, the Look and Listen Festival, The
Music Gallery Toronto, Sarasota's New Music New College, the Southern Exposure Series, Pittsburgh's Music on the Edge, Cal Arts, MIT, Juilliard, among many others.

From 2016-2018 they were the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at San Diego’s Art of Élan. In June 2019 NOW Ensemble’s album Rounder Songs was awarded an Independent Music Award (IMA) for Best Eclectic EP. November 2021 saw the release of their seventh album, Before and After, on New Amsterdam Records. About their recent premiere of Judd Greenstein’s opera A Marvelous Order, The Wall Street Journal wrote that “NOW Ensemble supplied distinctive individual timbres combined with rhythmic precision and dynamic forward motion.”

NOW Ensemble's performances have been featured on NPR's “All Things Considered” and live on WNYC, and their album Awake charted at #1 in Amazon's Classical Chamber Music Charts. “Plan of the City,” NOW's collaboration with filmmaker Joshua Frankel, was praised in the Washington Post as “one of the best matches of visuals to music I’ve seen.” NOW has worked closely with over 100 composers, including Judd Greenstein, Mark Dancigers, Patrick Burke, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Sean Friar, Missy Mazzoli, Kathryn Alexander, San Fermin's Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Nico Muhly, Timothy Andres, and Sarah Kirkland Snider.

Highlights of the 2022-23 season include touring behind their new album, Before and After, the world premiere of Judd Greenstein’s opera A Marvelous Order at Penn State University, and performances in venues throughout New York State, supported through a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

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