GROUNDTONE

Clara Warnaar is a percussionist, composer, and educator. A member of the long-running International Contemporary Ensemble, Clara finds herself in the heart of new music-making, playing and producing. Ms. Warnaar has also appeared as a guest artist with renowned groups such as Yarn/Wire, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and Ensemble Signal. Her deep interest in new music is evident in her consistent premiering of new works by emerging and interdisciplinary artists, as well as her collaborations with acclaimed composers such as Ted Hearne, Missy Mazzoli, Courtney Bryan, Felipe Lara, Ellen Reid, Ash Fure and Steve Reich.

Her versatility extends beyond the concert hall—Clara has appeared on Broadway in Into the Woods and can be heard on film soundtracks including White Noise, The Fate of the Furious, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Originally from Los Angeles, Ms. Warnaar is based in New York City and Ithaca, where she is serving as Visiting Assistant Professor at Ithaca College (2025–2026).

As a creative music-maker, Clara has released two solo albums of her own music, and performed and recorded as a drummer with Infinity Shred. Her work includes percussion compositions that span experimental and traditional approaches. She also curates A New Age for New Age, a compilation series reimagining the genre, which has grown across seven volumes and featured over 70 artists.

For 25 years, Grammy-winning percussion quartet Sō Percussion has redefined chamber music for the 21st century through an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker). The group is celebrated by audiences and presenters for a dazzling range of work: for live performances in which “telepathic powers of communication” (New York Times) bring to life the vibrant percussion repertoire; for an extravagant array of collaborations in classical music, pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and theater; and for work in education and the community, creating opportunities and platforms for music and artists that explore the immense possibility of art in our time.

A commitment to the creation and amplification of new work, and extraordinary powers of perception and communication have made Sō a trusted partner for composers, helping inspire music that expands the style and capacity of brilliant voices of our time. Sō’s collaborative composition partners include David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Nathalie Joachim, Dan Trueman, Kendall K. Williams, Angélica Negrón, Shodekeh Talifero, claire rousay, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Bora Yoon, Olivier Tarpaga, Bobby Previte, Matmos, and many others.

In May 2025, Sō Percussion embarks on a two-week residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) for two programs, one featuring new collaborations with Helado Negro and Kate Stables (This is the Kit), and the other featuring Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan (Ringdown) performing highlights from the recent Grammy-winning album, Rectangles and Circumstance. Dates with Shaw and Ringdown also include the Barbican in London, the BOZAR in Brussels, Saffron Hall in Essex, and the 92NY in New York City. The season also includes collaborations with composer Viet Cuong; solo shows at the Clark Art Institute in the Berkshires; performances at PASIC, and much more.

Other recent Sō highlights include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Big Ears, Cal Performances, at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Penn Live Arts in Philadelphia, the Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa, the Oklahoma Philharmonic (for David Lang’s man made, written for Sō, and featured in their latest recording with the Cincinnati Symphony and Louis Langrée), the Library of Congress, touring Benin and Burkina Faso with Olivier Tarpaga, and more.

Their latest album, Rectangles and Circumstance, with Caroline Shaw, was released in 2024 on Nonesuch Records, following their debut co-written album with Shaw, Let the Soil Play its Simple Part. Other recent albums include A Record Of… on Brassland Music with Buke and Gase, and – on new imprint Sō Percussion Editions – an acclaimed version of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It, plus Darian Donovan Thomas’s Individuate. This adds to a catalog of more than 25 albums featuring landmark recordings of works by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steven Mackey, and others.

The members of Sō Percussion are the Edward T. Cone Performers-in-Residence at Princeton University. Rooted in the belief that music is an elemental form of human communication, and galvanized by forces for social change, Sō enthusiastically pursues a range of social and community outreach through their nonprofit umbrella, including an ongoing partnership with Pan in Motion; the Sō Laboratories concert series; a studio residency program in Brooklyn; and the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for percussionists and composers.

Becca Stevens is a 2X GRAMMY-nominated songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer known for her emotionally resonant, genre-defying music. Drawing from Appalachian folk roots, a background in jazz, and a love of experimental indie, she creates songs that are as technically daring as they are deeply human. Though often compared to artists like Joni Mitchell and Björk, Stevens has carved out a voice and sound that are unmistakably her own, at once tender, agile, and emotionally rooted. Her work has resonated deeply with a generation of musicians working beyond the boundaries of genre.

Stevens grew up in a deeply musical family in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was welcomed into the world to the sound of her father playing an Irish fiddle tune in the delivery room. Her mother was an operatically trained singer and actress, and her father is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and classically trained vocalist. By age two, she was performing in the family’s band, The Tune Mammals, and spent much of her childhood on stage singing, acting, and dancing. Her musical language grew out of folk traditions, classical guitar, and jazz standards, threads she continues to weave into a voice that The Bluegrass Situation calls “conservatory-trained, but utterly unique and enthralling.”

Stevens has many longtime collaborators, including Jacob Collier — with whom she has co-written and performed on each other’s albums — and pianist Taylor Eigsti, whose GRAMMY-winning albums Tree Falls and Plot Armor feature her vocals. She is a core member of Lighthouse Band, formed by the late David Crosby alongside Michael League and Michelle Willis, and she co-leads the international ensemble Mirrors with League, Gisela João, Louis Cato, and Justin Stanton. With League, she also co-wrote and performed on a full album for The Secret Trio, blending Middle Eastern, Balkan, and jazz traditions. 

Stevens has been the bandleader of Becca Stevens Band since 2005, with a longstanding core of Christopher Tordini, Jordan Perlson, Liam Robinson, and Michelle Willis. Her solo albums Regina and WONDERBLOOM have featured a wide range of guest artists, including Laura Mvula, Cory Wong, Jacob Collier, David Crosby, Alan Hampton, Ryan Scott, Roosevelt Collier, Laura Perrudin, Michael Mayo, Kaveh Rastegar, and many others. 

Outside of her bands and albums, Stevens has written music for legends like Antonio Sánchez (“The Bucket”), Ambrose Akinmusire (“Our Basement”), and Kneebody (“Wounds Let In the Light”). She has had the rare joy of sharing the stage and studio with many of her heroes, including Brad Mehldau, Michael McDonald, Chris Thile, Tim Heidecker, Gretchen Parlato, Louis Cole, Vince Mendoza, Brian Blade, The Metropole Orkest, Esperanza Spalding, Vijay Iyer, Lizz Wright and Travis Sullivan’s Björkestra.

Her forays into contemporary classical music have opened up some of her most boundary-blurring collaborations to date. She recorded and premiered Timo Andres’ Work Songs (Nonesuch Records), has performed with Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw, and maintains a longstanding creative partnership with the two-time GRAMMY-winning Attacca Quartet. Their joint album, Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet, earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals, for her and Nathan Schram’s kaleidoscopic reimagining of Radiohead’s “2 + 2 = 5.” She has premiered two works at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall: first as a featured soloist in a commissioned piece by Brad Mehldau, and later as a co-writer and performer in a collaborative premiere with Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke. She has also been commissioned by Melodia Women’s Choir and Princeton Playhouse Choir to create new choral works for voices.

Her passion for text and storytelling extends far beyond the concert hall. She wrote and recorded the original song “Go Rogue” for the film The Idea of You, directed by Michael Showalter, created poetry settings for Nikola Madzirov’s works (performed with Nikola and premiered with Limelight Poetry), and penned the foreword and commentary for The Heart’s Necessities, a posthumous collection of poems by Jane Tyson Clement. Whether she’s writing for voices, strings, the silver screen, or the printed page, Stevens’ work is woven with emotional fluency and a fearless devotion to where the music wants to lead her.

Her latest album, Maple to Paper (GroundUP, 2024), is a stripped-down meditation on motherhood, grief, and transformation. Stevens began writing it while pregnant with her first daughter, all while navigating her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Six months after her daughter was born, her mother passed away. She continued writing through that loss, began recording during her second pregnancy, and finished the final track just six days before giving birth to her second child. Produced and engineered entirely by Stevens in her home studio in Princeton, New Jersey, the album was recorded live with no overdubs and mixed by longtime collaborator Nic Hard. It captures her at her most elemental: voice, guitar, and the alchemy of presence. The record pairs spellbinding guitar work with a raw yet luminous vocal performance, balancing its exacting minimalism with an emotional force that envelops the listener from the first track. Some have said listening to it feels almost voyeuristic, like stumbling into a deeply private moment and being invited to stay. Maple to Paper invites the listener into a much quieter room, unguarded and fully present.

Alongside her work in theaters and studios around the world, Becca is a sought-after educator and mentor, specializing in songwriting workshops, album planning and production, ensemble instruction, and multifaceted career consultation. She’s been invited as a guest teacher and lecturer at numerous festivals and institutions around the world—from serving as regular guest faculty for the Jazz Campus’ “FocusYear Band” in Basel, Switzerland, to guest artist and educator for Ensemble Transience in Hong Kong, to visiting lecturer and composer-in-residence of the alma mater at the University of Colorado. She also runs a private teaching studio and leads 5-week online songwriting courses that center intuition, storytelling, and tools to tame the critic and serve the songs.

In 2024, she made her Broadway debut in Illinoise, returning to the stage in a new light, one that fused her theatrical roots with decades of artistic evolution.

After a twenty year stint in New York City, Becca lives in Princeton, NJ where she can go on walks with her two young daughters, and see a forest of real trees right outside her window. 

The Messthetics formed in 2016 in Washington, D.C., drawn together by mutual admiration: Pirog had grown up listening to Fugazi, the era-defining post-hardcore band anchored by the rhythm section of Lally and Canty, while the bassist and drummer heard the genre-spanning guitar visionary play around town and took note of his unusually inclusive aesthetic. Pirog had played and bonded with Lewis before the Messthetics formed, and in 2019, he invited the saxophonist — whose massive, soulful sound has made him a star of the contemporary jazz scene — to sit in with the group live. The collaboration blossomed and eventually led to the quartet’s 2024 LP.

Apple Cores (out February 7, 2025, on ANTI-) is the latest full-length album from New York tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, “one of the fiercest sounds in jazz today” (The Guardian) with a “penchant for unbound exploration” (Pitchfork). Informed by the rhythms and textures of hip-hop and funk while remaining rooted in jazz, James Brandon Lewis Trio’s Apple Cores was recorded with Chad Taylor (drums/mbira) and Josh Werner (bass/guitar). The recording was a collective compositional process that happened over the course of two intense, entirely improvised sessions.

“If you don’t spend time with your band, you’re not going to really trust that moment,” Lewis says. “I think we’ve spent enough time together to where we can do that. I’ve been playing Chad for like 10 years, so that’s like water right there and me and Josh have been playing together since like 2018.”

The album takes its name and intention from the column that poet and jazz theorist Amiri Baraka wrote for DownBeat in the 1960s. “I was first exposed to Amiri Baraka at Howard University [also Baraka’s alma mater],” says Lewis. “Blues People [Baraka’s groundbreaking 1963 study of Black American music], was required reading. I’m always in constant dialogue with his work.”

In addition to Baraka, the influence of another jazz giant looms mightily over Apple Cores: trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, Don Cherry. In a testament to Cherry’s influence over the music that the trio is playing, Lewis designed each song title as a cryptogram of sorts, making subtle references to Cherry’s life and music.

“The record itself is a nod to Amiri but mainly a nod to Don Cherry, using Amiri as a branch to really get the conversation going,” Lewis explains. “It’s not a tribute in the sense that we’re playing Don Cherry compositions, but that the music is commenting on his musical curiosity.” It’s fitting that Lewis would explore Cherry’s music in this way, as he has paid tribute to him in the past. “This album also picks up the conversation where my 2015 album Days of FreeMan left off. I covered a Don Cherry piece “Bamako Love” from his 1985 album Home Boy (Sister Out). That album exposed me to Don’s risk-taking with his attempts to rap.”

Apple Cores opens with “Apple Cores #1”, a plucky, head-nodding jam that acts as a bridge where hip-hop, bebop, and the avant-garde meet. Werner and Taylor play in lockstep, setting up a foundation for Lewis’ soaring, piercing melody. On “Prince Eugene,” a hazy ballad that combines a dub-reggae bassline and drums with a Zimbabwean mbira, Lewis’ saxophone sings and guides us through the tune’s heavy, minimal groove. Midway through the album, “Remember Brooklyn & Moki” conjures a dark, atmospheric tone as the band pays tribute to Don Cherry’s wife, the Swedish interdisciplinary artist, Moki Cherry, and one of Don’s most beloved albums, 1969’s Where Is Brooklyn?.

The nimble, pulsating “Five Spots to Caravan” is a multi-layered reference to Don Cherry’s creative arc and travels as a musician. It nods to New York’s famed Five Spot where Ornette Coleman made his New York City debut in the fall of 1959 alongside Cherry. Also joined by the drummer Billy Higgins and Charlie Haden on bass, this residency signaled the arrival of Coleman’s radical avant-garde experiments to jazz’s mainstream. The “caravan” in the song’s title is a reference to the Caravan of Dreams performing arts center in Coleman’s hometown, Fort Worth, Texas.

His sixteenth album, James Brandon Lewis Trio’s Apple Cores further cements Lewis as one of the provocative and prolific musical voices of his generation. It follows his breakthrough with JazzTimes’ Album of the Year Jesup Wagon (2021), a dreamlike mosaic of gospel, folk-blues, and catcalling brass bands inspired by inventor George Washington Carver, and Eye Of I (2023), his joyous and exploratory debut for ANTI-.

The latter paved the way for The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (2024), a collaboration with experimental jazz punk trio the Messthetics. Recently named their Rising Star as both Artist of the Year and Composer of the Year, Downbeat declared: “James Brandon Lewis does not take the easy road. Having forged a singular sound on the tenor saxophone, he could simply devise settings that showcase his brawny tone. Instead, he has rooted his recent music in extramusical research.”

Lewis also issues a challenge to his peers and the listener on Apple Cores: we must continue to keep jazz’s long and storied history close to our hearts and minds. By doing this, we can keep the innovations of our forebears alive, enriching our present-day experiences along the way.

“Just thinking about all of the different influences that Don Cherry opened himself up to,” Lewis said. “That should be a regular example of how to remain curious. My slogan with the trio is that I’m chasing energy, and that energy can be any type. This joint is hittin’ and I hope people receive it that way.”

Parker Ramsay has forged a career that defies classification. Whether premiering, rediscovering, or transcribing, he dedicates himself to expanding the harp’s repertoire, bringing the instrument to conversations — and audiences — it had never before known.

Ramsay has given solo performances at Alice Tully Hall, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, The 92nd Street Y, the Phillips Collection, Cal Performances, Shriver Hall, IRCAM, King’s College, Cambridge, the Spoleto Festival USA, and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA. He has collaborated with ensembles such Mark Morris Dance Group, Apollo’s Fire, and the Van Kuijk Quartet, and has undertaken residencies at the University of California, San Diego, Princeton University, and IRCAM.

Ramsay’s 2020 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations was praised as “remarkably special” (Gramophone), “nuanced and insightful” (BBC Music Magazine), “relentlessly beautiful” (WQXR), and “marked by a keen musical intelligence” (Wall Street Journal); he celebrated the album’s release with a performance at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. His latest album, released in October 2022, features The Street, a new concert-length work for solo harp and text by Nico Muhly and Alice Goodman, which premiered at King’s College, Cambridge in April 2022 and received its U.S. premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA the next month. Since then, Ramsay has performed The Street throughout the United States and United Kingdom, most recently with new choreography by Mark Morris Dance Group.

A fierce advocate for new harp music, Ramsay premieres pieces which explore the frontiers of his instrument’s capabilities. In May 2025, he debuted at New York City’s 92nd Street Y with a slate of works written in his name: the world premiere of Aida Shirazi’s A Dream Within a Dream for harp, voice, and live electronics; Marcos Balter’s Omolu, commissioned in 2021 by Columbia University’s Miller Theatre for their podcast series Mission: Commission; and Artun Çekem’s 2024 HARP (Haptic-Adaptive Remembrance Processor), which harnesses a custom touch-based interface to synthesize its operator’s live input in real time. In the 2024-25 season, he made debuts at Utrecht’s Gaudeamus Festival with Lucy McKnight’s when i am among the trees (written for a custom-built harp-organ pipe-percussion instrument); in Dublin with a new evening-length harp-and-voice work by Connor Way and Iarla Ó Lionáird; and at Montreal’s Salle Bourgie with the Quatuor Van Kuijk. In 2023, Ramsay made his Paris debut with Josh Levine’s Anyway, the culmination of a yearlong residency at IRCAM. In April 2025, he chronicled his commissioning efforts in a guest essay for The New York Times.

Equally comfortable on modern and historical harps, Ramsay co-directs the New York period-instrument ensemble A Golden Wire with viola da gamba player Arnie Tanimoto; they tour the United States extensively, having appeared at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Aspect Chamber Music Series, Chatham Baroque, and Bach Ascending. He has presented talks, performances and lectures on period instruments at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon University,  and the Royal Academy of Music, London. As a writer, he has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Early Music America, and VAN.

In the 2025-26 season, Ramsay reprises The Street at the newly-reopened Frick Collection in New York. Also in New York, he returns to the Kaufman Music Center for a solo harp-and-harpsichord recital centered around new works by Georg Friedrich Haas and Christopher Trapani, and to The Bohemians, Brooklyn Public Library, and Aspect Chamber Music Series with A Golden Wire.

Raised in Tennessee, Parker began harp studies with his mother, Carol McClure. He served as organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge before pursuing graduate studies at Oberlin and Juilliard. He lives in New York City and is pursuing a Ph.D in historical musicology at Columbia University.

Miranda Cuckson has delighted audiences with her playing of a wide range of music and styles, from older eras to the newest creations. A distinctive and greatly acclaimed soloist and collaborator, she performs at venues large and small, from casual spaces to concert halls. These have included the Berlin Philharmonie, Suntory Hall, Casa da Musica Porto, Teatro Colón, Cleveland Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Strathmore, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series, 92nd St Y, National Sawdust, and the Ojai, Bard, Marlboro, Portland, Music Mountain, West Cork, Grafenegg, Wien Modern, and LeGuessWho festivals. Miranda made her Carnegie Hall debut playing Piston’s Concerto No. 1 with the American Symphony Orchestra. She recently premiered Georg Friedrich Haas’ Violin Concerto No. 2 with four orchestras in Japan and Europe, and Violin Concerto by Marcela Rodriguez with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México. Upcoming concerts include recitals at San Francisco Performances and on tour in Germany, and a performance of the Haas concerto in Vienna.

Reflecting her deeply felt perspective as a multiethnic American, Miranda works with an array of artists from many backgrounds. She has given innumerable premieres, had many substantial works written for her, and works with promising young artists and the most renowned composers of our era. She is a member of interdisciplinary collective AMOC* and founder/director of non-profit Nunc. She has guest curated at National Sawdust and done programming of chamber concerts at the Contempo series in Chicago and Miller Theater in New York, among others.

Miranda’s many lauded albums include Világ featuring the Bartok Solo Sonata along with new works; a live recording of the Ligeti Violin Concerto; the Korngold and Ponce concertos; several albums of music by major American composers; Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski on ECM; Melting the Darkness, an album of microtonal and electronic music; and Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, which was named a Best Recording of the Year by The New York Times.

Miranda is an alumna of The Juilliard School, having studied there from Pre-College through her doctorate, and she was awarded the school’s Presser Award. She teaches at the Mannes School of Music at New School University.

Jay Campbell is a cellist actively exploring a wide range of creative music. He has been recognized for approaching both old and new music with the same curiosity and commitment, and his performances have been called “electrifying” by the New York Times and “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving” by the Washington Post.

The only musician ever to receive two Avery Fisher Career Grants — in 2016 as a soloist, and again in 2019 as a member of the JACK Quartet — Jay made his concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and in 2016, he worked with Alan Gilbert as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward, part of the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2017, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival along with frequent collaborator violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, where he gave the premiere of Luca Francesconi’s cello concerto Das Ding Singt. In 2018 he appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has recorded the concertos of George Perle and Marc-Andre Dalbavie with the Seattle Symphony, and in 2023/2024 will premiere a new concerto, Reverdecer, by Andreia Pinto-Correia with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal, and in Brazil with the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo. In 2022 he returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as curator and cellist for his second Green Umbrella concert, premiering two concertos by Wadada Leo Smith and inti figgis-vizueta.

Jay’s primary artistic interest is the collaboration with living creative musicians and has worked in this capacity with Catherine Lamb, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, Tyshawn Sorey, and many others. His close association with John Zorn resulted in two discs of new works for cello, Hen to Pan (2015) and Azoth (2020). Deeply committed as a chamber musician, he is the cellist of the JACK Quartet as well as the Junction Trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao, and multidisciplinary collective AMOC.

Order of the Illusive is Geoff Gersh on guitar and electronics, Bradford Reed on the pencilina (an instrument of his own design) and drums and Zach Layton on 17 string bass and effects. 

Since 2012 we’ve created and performed live scores for dozens of films at venues in and around NYC including Nitehawk Cinema, Alamo Drafthouse, Film Noir Cinema as well as the Linda in Albany, TSL in Hudson, Tinker St. Cinema in Woodstock, Upstate Films in Saugerties and Proctors Theater in Schenectady. We’ve also worked with educators at NYU, Siena College, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Union College. 

We have a modern approach to live scoring using the sounds of experimental and ambient rock (ie. Can, Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sunn 0))), Pink Floyd and Brian Eno) to bring the experience of silent film to contemporary audiences. Additionally, we have developed methods that allow us to be flexible and spontaneous with live scoring and are very open to expanding our repertoire as well as collaborating with filmmakers. 

Films in our repertoire include: Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary, He Who Gets Slapped, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Joan of Arc, The Unknown, Wings, The Navigator, The Little Fugitive, The Holy Mountain, Faust, Stalker, Broken Blossoms, Seven Chances, Beauty and the Beast, The Artist, One Week, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Epic of Everest, Vampyr, Nosfaratu, Fantastic Planet, A Page of Madness, Peter Pan, The Phantom of the Opera and The Cameraman.