ABOUT UNHEARD-OF
Ford Fourqurean (clarinet), Matheus Souza (violin), Iva Casian-Lakoš (cello), and Daniel Anastasio (piano) are Unheard-of, a Brooklyn-based clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet redefining how new music connects with communities. Through adventurous programs blending technology, multimedia, and bold artistic voices, Unheard-of brings contemporary music to life across New York and the United States.
Founded in 2014, the ensemble has grown into a national network of collaborators across artistic disciplines. With an open, inclusive approach, Unheard-of champions both emerging and established composers — bridging experimental and traditional styles, and transforming concerts into immersive experiences. Its work extends beyond the stage through educational workshops, residencies, and a summer program for emerging composers, the Collaborative Composition Initiative (CCI).
Unheard-of presents two New York series, Unheard-of//Dialogues, which invites audiences behind the creative process, and Cultural Ecologies, an on-the-water partnership with the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club that stages four multimedia concerts each year on Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.
HIGHLIGHTS
During the 2026–2027 season, Unheard-of will work with emerging composers across the country touring California and workshopping new compositions with students at UC Davis and CSU Northridge. Their March Texas tour includes performances at Texas State University, the New Braunfels Chamber Music Series, and San Antonio College. The ensemble also has residencies at Louisiana State University and University of Virginia.
Unheard-of’s Fall 2026 performances include a new commission from Kyle Simpson as well as features of new music by emerging composers from their CCI summer workshop. In 2027, Unheard-of is developing new commissions for clarinet, violin, and cello trio with electronics, an under-explored configuration compared to the extensively developed Messiaen Quartet repertoire. New commissions for our 2027 Dialogues series include works by Moon Ha, Hirad Moradi, and Julia Moss as well as the second Dialogues series feature written by composition students at NYU.
The Summer 2026 Cultural Ecologies season centered four programs pairing Unheard-of with artists across genres. The series presents works addressing climate change, race, mental health, and feminism in an open, intimate setting. Featured premieres included Annika Socolofsky’s Let the More Loving One Be Me (5/23), Ford and Brian Ellis’s Ebb and Flow for clarinet, electronics, and spatialized bluetooth speakers on canoes (6/27), a David Bird multimedia premiere for ensemble and video (8/8), and Matthew McBane (9/19), alongside recent Unheard-of commissions. Guest performances included original music by video game funk band Discocactus, Gina Belzacar Lopez and La Orquesta Esa performing her contemporary latin jazz tunes, and Mehrnam Rastegari Trio performing music from her recent Persian folk-fusion album.
In 2025-2026, Unheard-of visited Oberlin Conservatory, Ohio State University, Ohio University, and the Johnstone Fund in November; the University of Missouri–Kansas City in February; and a Florida tour in March, performing at the University of Central Florida, Florida State University, and the University of Florida.
SUPPORT
Unheard-of’s work has been supported by the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, New Music USA, the Johnstone Fund for New Music, the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation, the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Barlow Endowment, the Amphion Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the New York Women Composers Organization, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Puffin Foundation. The ensemble was a recipient of a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant to commission Rome Prize–winner Christopher Stark, the 2023 Artistic Projects Grant for its Cultural Ecologies series, and a 2020 Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant made possible by the New York Community Trust.
EDUCATION
Now in its ninth year, Unheard-of’s annual Collaborative Composition Initiative continues to engage composers in immersive, community-based projects. Their newest iteration takes place in St. Louis at Christ Church Cathedral, High Low, Dissonant Works, and the Kemper Art Museum. Recent festivals in San Antonio and across Brooklyn, including performances on canoes in the Gowanus Canal, at Mise-en_Place, and at Scholes Street Studio. Earlier years were hosted online and at Stony Brook University.
The ensemble has presented educational residencies, workshops, and performances at Oberlin Conservatory, Northwestern University, the Manhattan School of Music, CCM, Kent State University, Washington University in St. Louis, Illinois State University, West Virginia University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Emory University, Chattanooga State Community College, the University of Georgia, Florida State University, the University of Florida, and the University of Central Florida. Unheard-of served as the 2021–22 KEAR Ensemble-in-Residence at Bowling Green State University and has performed at venues including Constellation Chicago, Crosstown Arts in Memphis, and the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival at Merkin Hall. To date, the ensemble has premiered more than 250 works for its instrumentation.