Upcoming Events
On Tour: St. Louis, Fire Ecologies
Unheard-of returns to St. Louis to perform Christopher Stark’s Fire Ecologies. Christopher Stark’s six part Fire Ecologies is a musical homage to the global environment as it faces a perilous future. Stark was first inspired to write the work after traveling the American West in the summer of 2020 and observing several wildfires ravaging the landscape of California, Montana, Oregon, and Colorado. Stark’s expansive score is matched to the vast subject matter; the large-scale structural movement of the work happens on a stretched time scale, as the trajectory of climate transformation unfolds in slow motion in human terms, albeit alarmingly fast in light of geological and biological trajectories.
Dialogues Series: This World and Another Album Release Show
Unheard-of’s Dialogues Series returns on October 31st, 7:30PM at Mise-en_Place with two commissions exploring two sides of memory and the release of David Crowell’s new album This World and Another. They perform the full premiere Transcending Oh by Leila Adu, written in the wake of her mother’s passing. The work delves into the process of mourning and eventual transcendance from grief. The work itself celebrates memories of life and the beauty of creativity. David Crowell’s Memories of the Imagined weaves together sonic memories as elements of jazz feel, post-minimal pulse, and oozing harmonic miasma blend together. “As the music progresses,” says Crowell, “performers are drawn progressively deeper into the complex, hazy swirl of electronics, only to emerge from the dream with cathartic clarity.” Unheard-of also performs Yeeun Sim’s scintillement.
On Tour: California
Unheard-of is in residence at California State University Northridge for the second time, working with Kyle Simpson’s media composition program students between November 8th and 10th. They then visit University of California, Davis to work with composition students as part of UC Davis’s Artist in Residence (AiR) program. They perform two concerts on November 12th and 13th as well as recording new works by the composition studio.
Dialogues x New York New Music Festival
Unheard-of performs trios by David Bird, Meg Okura, Max Eidinoff, and Ben Wallace, exploring sounds in between worlds from the fantastical to sonic memory and imagined futures. The program opens with Meg Okura’s Phantasmagoria described as a musical odyssey into a world more surreal than even the most fantastical dream. David Bird’s Hysteresis blends electronics, video, and expansive sonic textures that weave through time. Max Eidinoff’s Converging on a Critical Band expands the trio into a processed meta instrument. Ben Wallace’s Crash Out ends the program with persistent 90s rave and a fever dream.
Dialogues Series: Moon Ha Premiere
Unheard-of performs trios by David Bird, Meg Okura, Ben Wallace and a premiere by Moon Ha, exploring sounds in between worlds from the fantastical to sonic memory and imagined futures. The program opens with Meg Okura’s Phantasmagoria described as a musical odyssey into a world more surreal than even the most fantastical dream. David Bird’s Hysteresis blends electronics, video, and expansive sonic textures that weave through time. Ben Wallace’s Crash Out ends the program with persistent 90s rave and a fever dream.
Cultural Ecologies Series 2026: Unheard-of and the Gowanus Dredgers present Mehrnam Rastegari Trio
On September 19th, Unheard-of presents a new expansive electroacoustic commission by Matt McBane exploring underwater topographies in acoustic and synth forms paired with a set by Mehrnam Rastegari and her trio. Rastegari is a prominent Persian musician, award-winning film score composer, and master Kamancheh player bringing Persian music in new directions with inflections of rock, jazz, and modern fusion.
CCI 2026:Musical Miniatures @ Kemper Art Museum
Join Unheard-of, the CCI fellows, and our composition faculty for an immersive experience exploring the galleries of the Kemper Art Museum. The group will present a set of musical miniatures paired with artworks throughout the museum, running twice on August 15th (3PM and 4:15PM).
CCI 2026: Premieres @ Dissonant Works
Unheard-of performs multimedia premieres written by our festival fellows Yeeun Sim, Max Eidinoff, Emelia Ulrich, Jason Zhang, Dayton Hare, HoiPui Chen, Alex Brown, Preston Posey, and Yeonsuk Jung. These emerging artists from across the United States worked with Unheard-of to develop dynamic works for Unheard-of and electronics.
CCI Pop-up: Unheard-of//Mixtape
Unheard-of Ensemble and guest composition faculty from the Collaborative Composition Initiative (CCI) //St. Louis composition workshop perform a mixtape of recent premieres from solos, duos, and trios to interactive pieces for audience members and cellphones. Unheard-of performs Ben Wallace's drum and bass rave Crash Out, Ford performs a selection from his work Ebb and Flow for clarinet, electronics, and audience based on the tides of Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, and you might even hear Daniel Anastasio perform and explore a classical piano masterwork or two. Grab an ube matcha latte or purple rain drink and join in the fun!
CCI 2026: Sonic Ecologies – Multimedia Music at High Low
Unheard-of performs multimedia premieres with explosive visuals, hyper-pop electronics, and prophetic musical storytelling. This program features Christopher Stark’s Maple, Annika Socolofsky’s Let the more loving one be me, a new premiere from David Bird, and Christian Quiñones’s My Eyes Devour the Internet.
Stark’s Maple captures the intensity and devastation of Yellowstone’s 2016 Maple fire through bending electronic loops and field recordings morphed into dance rhythms, examining the anxiety in between the forces of nature and technology. Socolofsky’s Let the more loving one be me is a sonic documentary of the histories and stories of queer elders, capturing their stories while they are still here. Quiñones’s My Eyes Devour the Internet is a maximalist romp through digital excess, from overpowering virtual vocaloid synths to the overpowering meme-fluenced hyperpop.
CCI 2026: Opening Concert –Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time
Unheard-of Ensemble kicks off their annual Collaborative Composition Initiative workshop performing Olivier Messiaen’s monumental Quartet for the End of Time. Written in 1941 while Messiaen was a prisoner of war, the Quartet tells the story of the book of Revelation while meditating on his faith and the eternal. The story of the Quartet’s composition is one of resilience, persistence, and friendship between Messiaen, clarinetist Henri Akoka, violinist Jean le Boulaire, and cellist Étienne Pasquier.
Unheard-of also performs the Midwest premiere of CCI Composition Faculty Liliya Ugay’s After the End of Time. The work written in 2020 is a modern homage to Messiaen. It responds to the feelings surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the fear and uncertainty, detachment and unity, and hope.
Cultural Ecologies Series 2026: Unheard-of and the Gowanus Dredgers present Ginita y La Orquesta Esa
On August 8th, Unheard-of presents a new premiere for the ensemble, electronics, and video by David Bird, composer, producer, and multimedia artist praised for his “inventive, mind-expanding electroacoustic soundscapes” (An Earful). Unheard-of is joined by special guest band Ginita y La Orquesta Esa for a closing set of latin Jazz tunes from the group’s latest self-titled album!
Cultural Ecologies Series 2026: Pop-Up 1: Ebb and Flow
6/27/26 – Ebb and Flow
Our clarinetist Ford and music technologist/composer Brian Ellis are presenting a site-specific pop-up on June 27th 7:30PM at the 2nd Street Dock performed from canoes, tracing the flow of the Gowanus Canal from the Flushing Tunnel to the 2nd Street Boathouse. This opening pop-up titled Ebb and Flow is a limited seat event that is the first of smaller pop-up experiences bringing people together for on the water musical journeys. Iva will present a short set for the opening night.