Claire Chase, Katinka Kleijn, Cory Smythe, and Seth Parker Woods premiering Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ubique at Zankel Hall in May 2023.
Photo: Jennifer Taylor.
Calendar
TIME OF MUSIC FESTIVAL, FINLAND
Claire Chase travels to Finland for Time of Music, where she will be in residence as both a mentor and an artist, leading workshops and performing. Recital programs to be announced.
Turku Music Festival 2026: Terry Riley & Claire Chase: The Holy Liftoff
Experience an extraordinary journey into Terry Riley’s musical world as Claire Chase performs the European premiere of the multi-layered work The Holy Liftoff together with the TMF Quartet as part of TMF’s opening weekend! The TMF Quartet consists of four top Finnish musicians: Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä, Philip Zuckerman, Hanna Hohti and Markus Hohti.
Tanglewood: Marcos Balter’s “Pan” with Claire Chase
Marcos Balter’s exuberant community-centered Pan takes center stage at Tanglewood, featuring Claire Chase.
WoCo Fest 2026: Transcend with Claire Chase
Described by The New York Times as "the North Star of her instrument's ever-expanding universe," flutist Claire Chase is a trailblazing advocate for contemporary music. A MacArthur Fellow and the first flutist to receive the Avery Fisher Prize, she has premiered hundreds of works and leads the 24-year commissioning project Density 2036, reimagining the solo flute repertoire for the 21st Century. In this performance, Chase presents a curated program of innovative works, including Annea Lockwood's Solo from Elwha!, Liza Lim's "Throat Song" from Sex Magic, her own arrangements of Susie Ibarra's Sunbird and Tania León's Singsong, and Suzanne Farrin's The Stimulus of Loss.
About WoCo Fest
The Boulanger Initiative's annual multi-day Women Composers Festival, WoCo Fest, features works by women and gender-marginalized composers performed by local and nationally-acclaimed performers.
Claire Chase plays Balter, IBARRA, LIM, AND RILEY in San Francisco
Claire Chase is “the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe,” according to The New York Times, and “a rare combination of grace and guts” (Wall Street Journal). Density 2036 is her ambitious and far-reaching 24-year project to create a new body of flute repertory leading up to the 100th anniversary of composer Edgard Varese’s seminal 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. Her San Francisco Performances debut recital program reimagines music for solo flute.
Day of Listening at Wexner Center for the Arts
The Day of Listening is a welcoming, family friendly contemporary, new music experience that blurs the lines between listening, learning, and performing. Led by musician, interdisciplinary artist, and educator Claire Chase, the Day of Listening celebrates Pauline Oliveros, the visionary composer and performer known for her concept of Deep Listening. Community members of all ages are invited to engage with several of Oliveros’s important works composed for open instrumentation and interpretation. Dismantling any distinction between performer and audience, Chase will guide participants through some of Oliveros' best-known compositions such as “The Tuning Meditation” and “Sonic Meditations.” Attendees will have the opportunity to use Adaptive Use Musical Instruments (AUMIs), providing access for anyone of any age or ability to create musical phrases through small movement or gestures.
THE CROSSING: Claire Chase plays Tania León at Carnegie Hall
The Crossing with Donald Nally by Charles Grove, Claire Chase by Walter Wlodarczyk
Three-time Grammy winners for Best Choral Performance, The Crossing has been called “America’s most astonishing choir” (The New York Times). In this concert, the group’s “amazing, immaculate sound, both ethereally light and almost tangibly present” is used to stunning effect in Wang Lu’s At Which Point, an arresting and delicate setting of Forrest Gander’s Pulitzer-winning grief poems. In the New York premiere of Singsong, visionary composer Tania León sets to music the hard-edged “cricket poems” of US Poet Laureate (and fellow Pulitzer winner) Rita Dove, creating a rhythmically charged dialogue between the choir’s kaleidoscopic colors and the virtuosic flute inventions of MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase. Infinite Body—by The Crossing’s first-ever resident composer, Ayana Woods—probes a series of difficult questions and arrives at a shockingly joyful conclusion.
THE CROSSING: Claire Chase plays Tania León IN PHILADELPHIA
Claire Chase returns as we revisit Rita Dove’s hard-edged, raw “cricket poems” in Tania León’s endlessly inventive Singsong, which dances its way through a journey of Black singers from pre-slavery to today. Wang Lu’s At Which Point boldly explores the fragility and emptiness of grief found in poet Forrest Gander’s world of those “left behind.” Finally, Ayanna Woods’ Infinite Body, a co-commission of Carnegie Hall and The Crossing, explores how capitalism influences our relationship to our bodies, peering through the lenses of the natural world, burnout culture, and embodiment, to observe and unsettle the notion of our separateness.
THE CROSSING: Claire Chase plays Tania León IN HERSHEY, PA
The return of Claire Chase and the tsunami of energy that comes with her, as we revisit Rita Dove’s hard-edged, raw “cricket poems” in Tania León’s endlessly inventive Singsong, which dances its way through a journey of Black singers from pre-slavery to today. Wang Lu’s At Which Point boldly explores the fragility and emptiness of grief found in poet Forrest Gander’s world of those “left behind.” Finally, Ayanna Woods’ Infinite Body, a co-commission of Carnegie Hall and The Crossing, explores how capitalism influences our relationship to our bodies, peering through the lenses of the natural world, burnout culture, and embodiment, to observe and unsettle the notion of our separateness.
Sky Islands at SUNY New Paltz
Claire Chase reunites with Talking Gong (Chase, Susie Ibarra, and Alex Peh) at SUNY New Paltz, in celebration of Ibarra’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composition Sky Islands. Featuring the Bergamot Quartet.
43rd Central Ohio Flute Association Festival with Claire Chase
Join us for the 43rd COFA Flute Festival on March 7, 2026 with guest artist Claire Chase, Competitions, Sessions, Performances, and more!
This year, we welcome Claire Chase, renowned flutist, interdisciplinary artist, and teacher! She will perform a recital and will also host a masterclass.
The exhibit hall will feature national flute vendors and is the perfect place to try new flutes, browse large selections of flute music, and shop for flute accessories. Requests for specific items can be submitted via this Google Form.
Events will take place in the new Timashev Music Building at The Ohio State University. Registration is open here prior to the event or at the door on the day of the festival.
BORN CREATIVE FESTIVAL TOKYO
Claire Chase brings an exuberant program to the Born Creative Festival in Tokyo, featuring works by Felipe Lara, Annea Lockwood, Marcos Balter, and Terry Riley.
Hermitage Artist Retreat Residency: A Decade of Density / A Lifetime of Story
“A Decade of Density / A Lifetime of Story: An Evening of Flute and Literature,” with Hermitage Fellows Claire Chase and Kirstin Valdez Quade
Claire Chase plays J.S. Bach, Balter, Machaut, Riley, and Saariaho AT the New World CENTER
Claire Chase, “a rare combination of grace and guts” (The Wall Street Journal), joins New World Symphony Fellows to perform works born from Density 2036, her groundbreaking commissioning project that reimagines flute literature over a quarter-century.
Elwha! World Premiere at The Kitchen
Elwha! (2025)
For seven flutes and 7.1 sound
Annea Lockwood, Claire Chase, and the Elwha River
Density 2036, part xii (2025)
The 12th year of the Density 2036 project will feature the world premiere of Elwha!, a new 40-minute electroacoustic work by the legendary composer Annea Lockwood (b. 1939, New Zealand) created in collaboration with Claire Chase. The work is scored for seven flutes, all played by Chase, and multichannel environmental surround sound made from Lockwood’s field recordings of the Elwha River.
The Elwha, a spectacularly beautiful 45-mile river on the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington, runs through the ancestral and spiritual home of the Lower Elwha Klallam people. It is one of several rivers in the Pacific Northwest that hosts all five species of native Pacific salmon and four anadromous trout species. From 1911 to 2014, dams blocked fish passage on the Lower Elwha and decimated the river’s thriving ecosystem, unlawfully driving the tribe off their own land. Local and international advocacy in support of the river and the Klallam people resulted in one of the largest dam removal projects in National Park Service history, beginning in 2011. After the complete removal of the dams in 2014, the Elwha has come back to life. Revegetation efforts have flourished, and the fish population has returned in record numbers, making the Elwha a model for ecosystem restoration projects—and for resilience, renewal, and rewilding—throughout the world.
Drawing inspiration from movements advocating for personhood and legal rights of rivers, Lockwood and Chase approach the Elwha as an equal creative collaborator in the composition of the work. Bamboo water flutes, glissando flutes, piccolos, alto flutes, bass flutes, C flutes, and contrabass flutes merge with an immersive seven-channel mix of the river’s sounds diffused throughout the performance space. Chase’s seven flutes respond to the multilayered and kaleidoscopic pitch, rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic material of the Elwha and its many living inhabitants, alternately conversing with, rising above, and being submerged by the wild musics of this iconic, liberated river.
Elwha! is the 12th cycle of Density 2036, Claire Chase’s 24-year project to develop a new flute repertory leading up to the centennial of Edgard Varèse’s iconic flute solo “Density 21.5” in 2036. The Kitchen has been the presenter of all twelve Density projects to date.
COMPOSER PORTRAIT: ANTHONY CHEUNG AT MILLER THEATRE
In their next installation of the “Composer Portraits” series, Columbia University presents composer Anthony Cheung. Experience the captivating music of Cheung, whose work reveals an interest in the ambiguity of sound sources and shifting transformations of tuning and timbre. Featured performers include Claire Chase, JACK Quartet, and Yarn/Wire.
PROGRAM
Anthony Cheung Improvised Intro for piano (2025)
Anthony Cheung Twice Removed (2024)
Anthony Cheung Tactile Values (2023)
Anthony Cheung The Real Book of Fake Tunes (2015)
THE FROMM PLAYERS AT HARVARD PRESENT: THE MUSIC OF ANNEA LOCKWOOD
Annea Lockwood (b. 1939), recently described by The New York Times as “a composer of insatiable curiosity and a singular ear for the music of the natural world,” brings a robust program of recent works from the last two decades to Harvard. The program includes Becoming Air (2018), a visceral solo work that plumbs the depths of trumpet sound through volatile textures and fragile resonances, at times fading to near inaudibility. Jitterbug (2007) transports listeners to the lakes and backwaters of Montana, where musicians interpret rock photographs as graphic scores, evoking a kind of sonic geology. Buoyant (2013) and Into the Vanishing Point (2019) are two alluringly lush works: the first draws audiences into the world of Lockwood’s visionary field recordings, while the second unfolds a unique soundscape of rubbed piano strings, gently handled objects, and chiming pitches that conjure a plethora of natural images––insects and frogs, wind through trees, and the wings of birds in flight.
Curated by flutist and professor Claire Chase, the evening draws upon Lockwood’s intensively collaborative compositional process by bringing together an array of performers—many of whom commissioned, premiered, and championed these works—including the trumpeter Nathan Wooley, pianist Vicki Ray, percussionist Wesley Sumpter, and the ensemble Yarn/Wire.
A CONVERSATION WITH ANNEA LOCKWOOD
On the occasion of the Fromm Music Foundation concert highlighting the last two decades of her groundbreaking work, the visionary composer Annea Lockwood sits down with writer, photographer, and art historian Teju Cole. Through conversation, they will explore the remarkable collaborative dimensions of Lockwood’s compositional process, with special attention to the works featured on the November 6 performance––Becoming Air (2018), Jitterbug (2007), Buoyant (2013), and Into the Vanishing Point (2019)––and invite the audience into the dialogue. The talk will open with a performance of Lockwood’s bayou borne (2016) by the Harvard New Music Ensemble.
Claire Chase at the Gardner Museum
MacArthur Fellow (and Harvard Professor of the Practice) Claire Chase presents a program that alternates between Baroque music and 20th- and 21st-century works at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. One of the world’s great recitalists and champions of flute music, she is joined by distinguished colleagues Aisslinn Nosky, Katinka Kleijn, and Alex Peh on period instruments in this fascinating program.
PROGRAM
Marin Marais Les Folies d’Espagne (1701)
J.B. Boismortier Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 51 (1734)
J.S. Bach Sonata sopr’il soggetto Reale from “The Musical Offering,” BWV 1079 (1747)
Olivier Messiaen Le Merle noir (1952)
Tania Léon Ritual (1987)
Kaija Saariaho Mirrors (1997)
Marcos Balter Alone (2013)
Michael Oesterle Stand Still, mvt. 3 (2013)
Tania Léon Singsong (2023, rev. 2025)
SELECTIONS FROM TERRY RILEY'S "THE HOLY LIFTOFF" (2022-25)
The iconic American composer Terry Riley (b. 1935) began The Holy Liftoff (2022-2025)* as an open-score sketchbook of brilliantly colored drawings for multiple flutes, commissioned by Claire Chase for her multi-year Density 2036 project. Through a realization by Samuel Clay Birmaher, these sketches have since evolved into a multidimensional work blending through-composed material, graphic notation, evocative artwork, and Riley’s signature open-form scoring. Heard now as an eight-voice chorus of flutes (seven pre-recorded and one live, played by Chase), The Holy Liftoffis joined on the program by Riley’s Pulsing Lifters (2022) and Pulsefield 3 (2025), both expanding the modular, improvisatory spirit of the larger project: Pulsing Lifters reimagined for keyboards by Alex Peh, and Pulsefield 3 with its vivid drawings culminating in a return to song—“the oldest and most urgent mode of music-making,” as Chase notes. For this performance, she is joined by Parker Quartet, pianist Alex Peh, saxophonist Neil Leonard, and special guests from the Berklee Interdisciplinary Arts Institute, the Harvard New Music Ensemble, and Students in Contemporary Chamber Music.
HONORING TANIA LEÓN AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
MC 1801
2960 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
PROGRAM
Tania León Singsong for flute (2023/25) (New York premiere)
Tania León In the Field for soprano, string quartet, and piano (2022) (New York premiere)
Tania León Esencia for string quartet (2009)
Tania León Tumbao for piano (2005)
Tania León A La Par for piano and percussion (1986)
Tania León is a lauded composer, conductor, educator, arts advocate, and the newest recipient of the William Schuman Award of Columbia University School of the Arts. This concert celebrates her transformative contributions to the field with a program showcasing the vitality and depth of her vibrant body of work.
Featured performers include flutist Claire Chase, pianist Orion Weiss, conductor Kyle Dickson, the Bergamot String Quartet, soprano Rachel Doehring Jackson, pianist Han Chen, soprano Sophie Thompson, pianist Camila Cortina Bello, and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum.
Tickets will be available starting July 14 at 12pm EST. More info available HERE.
Tania León Photo by Rob Davidson for Miller Theatre
CHASE PREMIERS CZERNOWIN IN LUCERNE
KKL Luzern, Lucerne Hall
Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern
Europaplatz 1
CH-6005 Luzern
Join Claire Chase for a FREE 40-minute concert as part of the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. The program presents a premiere of “Only Wind Instruments (Almost),” a new work by Chaya Czernowin, featuring members of the 2025 Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra and conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni.
More info available HERE!
"THE DIVINE THAWING OF THE CORE" U.S. PREMIERE
Mary Flagler Cary Hall
DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 W 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
Claire Chase and Talea Ensemble present the U.S. premiere of Chaya Czernowin’s “the divine thawing of the core” (2025). This work was co-commissioned by The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust, Darmstadt Summer Course, and the Lucerne Festival supported by Foundation Pierre Boulez.
Tickets go on sale June 2, 2025 and more information can be found HERE.
2025 SALT BAY CHAMBERFEST: CHASE PLAYS TERRY RILEY
TUESDAY, AUG. 12:
7:30pm @ Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta, ME
Pre-concert lecture at 6:30pm
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 13:
7:30pm @ Strand Theatre in Rockland, ME
Claire Chase, flute
Aaron Boyd, violin
Kyu-Young Kim, violin
Jonathan Vinocour, viola
Wilhelmina Smith, cello
Ayano Kataoka, percussion
PROGRAM
FIGGIS-VIZUETA: New work (SBC commission)
DEBUSSY: String Quartet in G minor
RILEY: “The Holy Liftoff”
Join Claire Chase and fellow superstars of the chamber music world for a week of wonderful performances at the 2025 Salt Bay Chamberfest!
Chase will perform Terry Riley’s “The Holy Liftoff” on both Tuesday, Aug. 12th and Wednesday, Aug. 13th at 7:30pm during the festival. More info available HERE and tickets available HERE.
CHASE AT DARMSTADT
Claire Chase returns as a festival artist and flute mentor to the Darmstädter Ferienkurse (IMD Darmstädt) 2025 in Germany! Highlights include workshop performances with the festival students and the world premiere of “The divine thawing of the core” by Chaya Czernowin on August 1st, 2025. This piece was written for Claire on contrabass flute and she will be joined by a small chamber orchestra. To read more about Czernowin’s piece, visit her website HERE under “2025 Premiers.”
More information about the festival and full program can be found HERE.
CELEBRATING TERRY RILEY'S 90TH
Roulette
509 Atlantic Avenue
(Entrance on the Corner of Third Avenue; Accessible Entrance on Atlantic Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Roulette celebrates the occasion of Terry Riley’s 90th birthday with two major works, generative open scores written 60 years apart. To begin the night, Claire Chase gives a solo performance of “The Holy Liftoff” (2024), premiered as part of her Density 2036 project. The 21st NYC IN C, our city’s longest-running annual presentation of Riley’s legendary “In C” (1964), will follow. Organized by musicians Nick Hallett and Zach Layton, the concert brings together a diverse cross-section of the instrumentalists, improvisers, composers, technologists, and vocalists that make up the experimental music ecosystem.
Both a livestream of the performance and student discount tickets are available! More info HERE.
OJAI 2025: TERRY RILEY WORLD PREMIERE
Libbey Bowl
Ojai, CA
Claire Chase, flute
Festival Artists
Steven Schick, conductor
PROGRAM
Leilehua LANZILOTTI ko’u inoa
Pauline OLIVEROS The Witness
Tania LEÓN Singsong (World premiere of solo version)
Terry RILEY Pulsefield 3 (World premiere)
An exuberant all-company 2025 Festival finale includes music by Leilehua Lanzilotti, Pauline Oliveros’s The Witness, and the world premiere of a new version of Tania León’s Singsong adapted for solo flute. The Festival culminates in the world premiere of Terry Riley’s Pulsefield 3, in a joyous celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday.
More info HERE.
OJAI 2025: SUSIE IBARRA
Libbey Bowl
Ojai, CA
Wu Wei, sheng
Alex Peh, piano
Claire Chase, flute
Susie Ibarra and Levy Lorenzo, percussion
JACK Quartet
PROGRAM
Modern Medieval (arr. Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman)
Susie IBARRA New work for sheng and percussion (World premiere)
Tania LEÓN Ritual
Susie IBARRA Sky Islands (West Coast premiere)
The JACK Quartet explores Modern/Medieval with music from the 14th to 17th centuries, renewed for contemporary performance by composers/JACK violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman. The program is followed by the West Coast premiere of 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Music winner Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands, evoking a unique environment of the elevated rain forests in the Philippines with the interlocking rhythms and melodies of Philippine Northern-style bamboo, gong, and flute music, performed on new sound sculptures of gong metals.
More info HERE.
OJAI 2025: HOW FORESTS THINK
LIbbey Bowl
Ojai, CA
Wu Wei, sheng
Kathryn Schulmeister, bass
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Claire Chase, flute
Alex Peh, piano
JACK Quartet
Festival Artists
Steven Schick, conductor
PROGRAM
JS BACH Chorale Prelude, Vor deinen Thron, BWV 668
Sofia GUBAIDULINA Meditation on the Bach chorale Vor deinen Thron, BWV 668
Tania LEÓN Hechizos
Liza LIM How Forests Think
Music by Bach, Sofia Gubaidulina (inspired by Bach) and Tania León, precede the West Coast premiere of the large-scale How Forests Think by Liza Lim, a work inspired by the imagery of ancient forests as vibrant, symbiotic communities that, as the composer writes, “that nourish the old connections and keep a song going. One might think of a forest as a choir or certainly as an ensemble. Stories, dreams, and thoughts inhabit multiple forms in a living matrix.
More info HERE.
OJAI 2025: CRAIG TABORN
NOTE: There are TWO performances of this program: June 7 at 3:30PM and June 8 at 2:30PM
Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School
Ojai, CA
Claire Chase, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Craig Taborn, piano
Susie Ibarra, percussion
Levy Lorenzo, electronics
Craig TABORN Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms
A concert centered on the West Coast premiere of Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms for flute, clarinet, cello, piano and electronics by the endlessly inventive composer-pianist Craig Taborn. The work is inspired by a dream in which plants awake, blossom, grow and change as the dreamer walks through a garden.
More info HERE.
OJAI 2025: "CHAMBERS"
Libbey Bowl
Ojai, CA
Claire Chase, flute
Katinka Kleijn, Seth Parker Woods, cello
Cory Smythe, piano
JACK Quartet
PROGRAM
Marcos BALTER Chambers
Leilehua LANZILOTTI ahupua’a
Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR Ubique (West Coast premiere)
A program centered on the West Coast premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ubique for flute, two cellos, piano and electronics, a work of enigmatic lyricism by a composer who is inspired by the “musical qualities of nature.”
More info HERE.
OJAI 2025: MORNING MEDITATION
Ojai Meadows Preserve
Ojai, CA
Claire Chase and Michael Matsuno, flute
M.A. Tiesenga, saxophone
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Susie Ibarra, percussion
PROGRAM
Susie IBARRA Sunbird (West Coast premiere)
Susie IBARRA Kolubrí
Pauline OLIVEROS Horse Sings From Cloud
This program is free and open to the public!
Special thanks to the City of Ojai Arts Commission for supporting this event.
OJAI 2025: THE HOLY LIFTOFF
Libbey Bowl
Ojai, CA
Leilehua Lanzilotti, viola
Jay Campbell, Katinka Kleijn, Seth Parker Woods, cello
Claire Chase, flute
JACK Quartet
USC Cello Ensemble
Steven Schick, conductor
PROGRAM
Leilehua LANZILOTTI ko’u inoa
Sofia GUBAIDULINA Mirage: The Dancing Sun
Julius EASTMAN The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc
Terry RILEY The Holy Liftoff (Realization by Samuel Clay Birmaher)
Music for a “chorus of cellos” by Julius Eastman precede “The Holy Liftoff,” the most recent work by pioneering American composer Terry Riley, played in Ojai by Claire Chase and the JACK Quartet. Written as a series of musical sketches and brilliantly colored drawings, an exuberant and energized work represents a culmination for Riley, who says “I feel like this piece sums up a lot of things I’ve worked for.”
More info HERE.