Spring 2026 / Events

In Stylus Phantasticus | Benjamin Fingland and counter)induction

February 6, 2026, at the Williamsburg Biannual, Brooklyn.

A virtuosic solo work that takes pitch and melodic material from the duo Sgraffito and refracts it through the Baroque stylus phantasticus—that tradition of unmeasured, improvisatory writing defined by rhetorical freedom and sudden shifts in affect. Where Sgraffito staged its negotiations between two voices, this piece internalizes them, collapsing dialogue into soliloquy. The full spectrum of clarinet technique is in play: multiphonics, microtonal inflections, whisper tones, overblown urgency. The work carries traces of its collaborative origins—now transfigured, but not erased.

Khasma Duo premieres Othismos

1 April at Luther College, and 2 April at Lawrence University

The title comes from ancient Greek: the massed physical shove when two phalanxes of hoplites met shield-to-shield. That visceral collision shapes everything here. Rather than dialogue, Othismos stages a kinetic agon—two pianists clashing, interrupting, and pushing back against one another's sound. The musical material reimagines the solo etude Praeludium, redeploying its trills, athletic leaps, and extreme fluidity within a framework of aleatory and risk. Untethered and metered rhythms create a necessary instability: no two performances will be alike.

Ovid in Tomis | BlackBox Ensemble

February in NY; 18 March at Williams College; April at East Carolina University.

A setting of Derek Mahon's poem for soprano, flute, clarinet, string quartet, percussion, and piano. Mahon retells Ovid's exile on the Black Sea as a modern shipwreck—political, social, and artistic isolation in a moment when the structures around us feel like they are collapsing. The poem plays against traditional forms like iambic pentameter; the music does something parallel, translating early Ars Nova polyphony into a Modernist idiom. Ancient models survive, but barely, and only by transformation.