Masterclass: New Music Ensemble-in-Residence Yarn/Wire

Yarn/Wire will work with various instrumentalists and chamber ensembles performing works of New Music.

About Yarn/Wire

Described by The New York Times as “key figures from the contemporary music scene… with unmistakable devotion and excitement” and “wildly virtuosic” by The Wire, Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Russell Greenberg and Sae Hashimoto, percussion; Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianos) dedicated to the promotion of creative, experimental new music.

Yarn/Wire’s 20th anniversary season in 2025-2026 includes its New York Philharmonic debut, a celebratory Pop Up Festival at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, the premiere of Endlings by Raven Chacon and John Dieterich at the Time:Spans Festival, Swoonfest with TAK Ensemble, ISSUE Project Room in new works by Nate Wooley, Annea Lockwood’s Into The Vanishing Point at Harvard University, Composer Portraits of Anthony Cheung and Andrew McIntosh at Miller Theatre at Columbia University, and more.

Since its formation in 2005, the ensemble has become a fixture at the world’s preeminent halls and music festivals, and through hundreds of commissions, Yarn/Wire has championed composers including Annea Lockwood, Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Ingrid Laubrock, Ann Cleare, Catherine Lamb, Sarah Hennies, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Sam Pluta, Tyondai Braxton, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. In addition, their ongoing commissioning series, Yarn/Wire/Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music in partnership with a variety of Brooklyn-based institutions, including Roulette, Blank Forms, and ISSUE Project Room.

Since 2014, the ensemble has hosted the annual Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival for composers and performers interested in exploring the collaborative side of contemporary music. A strong advocate for education, Yarn/Wire has presented collaborative workshops, masterclasses, and residencies at Princeton, Columbia University, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Duke, Northwestern, and Cornell universities, among others. For more information, please visit www.yarnwire.org.

What others are saying about Yarn/Wire:

“Key figures from the contemporary music scene…they play these subtly restless new works with unmistakable devotion and excitement.” – The New York Times

“Yarn/Wire Mesmerizes at Lincoln Center Festival.” – The New York Times

“Standing on narrow Wall Street, with marble temples to finance soaring up overhead, I felt as if I were in a modern-day secular cathedral.” – NPR

“Yarn/Wire may well be the most important new music ensemble on the classical scene today.” – New York Classical Review