Queens New Music Festival

Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame and Vox Novus

Vox Novus returns to the Queens New Music Festival with a dynamic, performer-centered program on May 1 at 7:30 PM at Culture Lab in Long Island City. Led by Robert Voisey—director and presenter of Vox Novus and its Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame project the evening features two Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame sets alongside additional performances that highlight the artistry and collaborative spirit of today’s leading interpreters of new music.

This special presentation of its signature Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame DANCE project featuring toy piano, with pianist Eunmi Ko and choreographer and dance director Rachael Kosch. This program presents a set of fifteen one-minute works, each composed and choreographed as a unique composer–choreographer pairing, creating a series of distinct collaborations that unite contemporary music and dance in real time performance.

Founded in 2012 and produced by Random Access Music, the Queens New Music Festival is an annual, multi-day event dedicated to the creation and performance of new music. The festival brings together emerging and established artists in a curated celebration of contemporary music, featuring a wide range of styles from acoustic composition to experimental and interdisciplinary performance. Reflecting the cultural diversity of Queens, the festival fosters collaboration, premieres new works, and provides an immersive platform for artistic exchange.

This Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame presentation reimagines the concert experience by pairing fifteen composers with fifteen choreographers in a continuous sequence of one-minute works. With toy piano and dance combined into a set, the performance highlights the immediacy, variety, and inventive spirit of contemporary creation.

Queens New Music Festival 2026
Thomas Piercy, Artistic Director

Presented by Random Access Music
4 days – 8 concerts

April 30 – May 3
Culture Lab LIC
5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101

Tickets
General Admission:
Individual Concerts $20 (Students $10)

Festival Pass for all concerts: $60

Tickets may be purchased in advance:
https://events.humanitix.com/queens-new-music-festival

Or by cash or credit at the venue.
Doors open 30 minutes before the performances.

Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame

featuring Alyssa Reit with lever harp

Alyssa Reit is an independent composer, arranger, performer, teacher, and storyteller. Her main body of work has been creating theatrical-musical settings of myths, classic stories, and fairy tales. Her settings have been performed at such venues as the Caramoor Center for the Arts, and NYU Steinhardt’s storytelling series, as well as throughout the US; five were featured in a critically acclaimed tour at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. ​

Highlights include several commissions of H.C. Andersen fairy tale settings for the New York Scandinavian Summer Music Festival, and a production based on the life and work of Botticelli (The Triumph of Love), for which she wrote, arranged and performed the music at its premiere in Italy. Alyssa’s compositions and arrangements have been played at events sponsored by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Greenwich Symphony, as well as at festivals all over the world, most recently at the Encontro International de Cordas in Brazil and the Ottawa Chamberfest in Canada.

As a harpist, she has performed with institutions ranging from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Metropolitan Opera, to contemporary music groups and Irish bands. In collaboration with flutist Sato Moughalian she arranged and recorded traditional Armenian folk music under the auspices of the Perspectives Ensemble (Oror). She has given concerts with John Cage, toured Europe with the legendary Martha Clarke, and traveled the U.S. playing with the world famous vocal group, Anonymous 4.

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  1

  diés und dás

  Jane Wang

  One minute lever harp sonic thread through circular motifs with brief splashes of percussive colors.

  Composer/musician Jane Wang has frequently written and performed her own music for theatre and dance. A 2013 Drama Desk Award “Outstanding Music in a Play” Nominee, she was also selected for three 60x60 projects. She continues to compose and perform remotely (being immune compromised). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Wang_(composer_and_musician)

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  2

  Fairies Dance

  Ken Metz

  The piece is a fantasy with the title suggesting a dance by fairies while the music is performed.

  Ken Metz is a composer who loves music and has devoted his life to it. He teaches music theory and serves as assistant chair of the music department at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

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  3

  Nocturne

  Joshua Paul Daniels

  Writing Nocturne, I began searching for a pitch collection that spoke to me. I became frustrated as most collections I thought about using were simply variations of traditional collections. Eventually, I landed on C-D-E-F#-G-Ab-B. Finding this collection particularly haunting, Nocturne was born.

  Joshua Paul Daniels (he/him/his) is a composer based in Chicago, Il. In 2025 he was commissioned to write The Caged Skylark for CMAC: the University of Chicago Glee Club. He also composed Duo for Drew Hosler with 15 Minutes of Fame, and Impressions for Prepared Piano with Hope Arthur.

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  4

  Catch the heart off guard

  Marina Romani

  The title is taken from Seamus Heaney's poem "Postscript." The piece expresses surprise, amazement, and openness to beauty. "Catch the heart off guard and blow it open," the full line reads.

  Marina Romani is an Italian composer and teacher. Her music has been performed in Italy and abroad, at the New Music Symposium (2020 - U.K.), the USA, in the Festival Expresiones Contemporàneas (2020 - Mexico), Argentina, Croatia, in the Festival Osmose (Belgium), Fifteen Minutes of Fame (2023). "

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  5

  Rainy Sunday

  Ross James Carey

  A gently moving melodic line meets Satie’s ‘Gymnopedie no. 1’ on a rainy Sunday. Composed for Alyssa Reit call for scores to mark both the 15th anniversary of Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame and the 100th anniversary of the death of Erik Satie.

  Ross James Carey is a composer and a foreign professor in collaborative piano at Sias University, located in China’s Central Plains. Ross has a special interest in quotation, with ‘Rainy Sunday’ being the third piece of his quoting from (or utilizing the quotation-signature of) the work of Erik Satie.

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  6

  Chiaroscuro

  Ólafur Geir Guðlaugsson

  Chiaroscuro is an Italian visual arts term for bold contrasts between light and dark.

  Ólafur Geir Guðlaugsson is an Icelandic composer born in 1995. Although self-taught for the most part, he briefly studied composition at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts.

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  7

  MYSTIKOS

  ERIK BRANCH

  The melody’s haunting and circling nature and the harmony’s enigmatic, slightly displaced quality, coupled with the harp’s timelessness, made me think of Debussy and Satie’s musical evocations of an imagined, mystical, ancient Greece of clandestine nocturnal rites. Hence the title, which in Greek means “secret,” “hidden,” and, of course, “mystic.”

  ERIK BRANCH is a native of New York City, and received a BA and MA in Music (Composition) from Hunter College. He lives near Orlando, Florida, where he is active as a pianist, musical director, composer/arranger, operatic tenor, and actor on stage and screen.

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  8

  Aphorism op. 13 no. 3

  Faruk Mehić

  Aphorism op. 13 no. 3 is a composition for a solo lever harp dedicated to Alyssa Reit.

  Faruk Mehić is a composer from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is currently studying composition at the Academy of Arts of the University of Banja Luka in the class of prof. Tatjana Milošević Mijanović PhD. More info at: https://farukmehic.com/.

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  9

  The Unbearable Weight of Being

  Ljubica Damčević

  This composition reflects the luggage we accumulate with age — memories, duties, invisible stones in our pockets. We long to walk freely, yet the weight persists. The harp embodies this paradox: seemingly light, celestial as clouds, yet heavy to carry. It is inspired by luggage and airline weight limits.

  Ljubica Damčević obtained Master's Degree in violin at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. After completing studies, she began theater career as a composer, violinist, singer, performer and actress. She was engaged with various theater groups. In addition to her pedagogical work, she performs classical, tango and contemporary music.

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  10

  Waitomo

  Christopher Everest

  A short impression of Waitomo caves in New Zealand, this piece explores the Titiwai (Glowworm's) habitat through a 7/8 dance and colourful harmony.

  Christopher Everest is a prize winning guitarist and composer from New Zealand. Currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, his works have been performed throughout Australasia and draw inspiration from New Zealand scenery and culture.

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  11

  Moss Soft Gleam

  Holland Hopson

  Moss Soft Gleam started from a sketch made on the five-string banjo after a rainy afternoon hike in the hills of north Georgia. The piece includes some quirky harmony by taking advantage of the lever harp's polytonal possibilities.

  Holland Hopson is a sound and media artist, composer and improviser. A multi-instrumentalist, he usually performs on clawhammer banjo and electronics. Holland often augments his instruments with custom-designed sensor interfaces and performs with his own highly responsive, interactive computer programs. Holland’s most recent recording is Sky Sparrow Snow.

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  12

  lostwithiel

  Philip Czaplowski

  Lostwithiel was composed in June 2025, for Alyssa Reit. For this piece I decided to look back to my Cornish ancestors for inspiration, many of whom came from Lostwithiel in Cornwall.

  Polish Australian composer Philip Czapłowski was born in London. In 2003 Czapłowski was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Scholarship. This enabled him to complete a Doctorate in music composition at Monash University.

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  13

  Comme une valse

  Francois Couture

  François Couture is a multidisciplinary musician who stands out because of his great versatility and solid experience in the field. François first studied classical and jazz guitar and arrangement at Cégep de Drummondville.Study composition and writing at Conservatoire de musique de Québec, with Pierick Houdy and Pierre Genest.

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  14

  Being Yourself Presupposes Glimpsing Who You Are

  Juan Maria Solare

  The piece uses the lever harp’s particular tuning possibilities to create harmonic fields that shift between tonal and non-tonal, evoking a “colored G minor.” The title reflects that, in order to be oneself, one must first know (and accept) oneself—but often we glimpse only a fragment of who we are.

  Juan María Solare (1966, Argentina), works in Germany as composer, pianist, and teaching at the University of Bremen. His music has been performed across five continents, earned 11 composition prizes and garnered over 30 million streams in Spotify. More than 33 CDs by various performers feature his works. https://www.JuanMariaSolare.com

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  15

  Song (Music for Harp) (Op 1025) Dedication to Alyssa Reit

  E. Bugra Balci

  Virtuoso Pianist, Composer Composed 1020 Musics Yamaha Grand Pianos Artist Awarded by NASA, IBM, InVision, Yamaha Full bio at www.ebugrabalci.com/biography

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  RUST

  composed by Melinda Faylor

  performed by Chalotte Munn-Wood, violin and Melinda Faylor, piano

  Entering the second generation iteration of her MeMeMeMe project, RUST is a graphic video score for variable instrumentation. MeMeMeMe was an interdisciplinary piece that premiered in 2023 at the Secret Theater in Brooklyn featuring Charlotte Munn-Wood, violin, voice, and Melinda Faylor, piano and electronics. It is a generative piece, and in its first iteration was audience participatory. Subsequent performances build upon the material generated from the previous performance. RUST explores themes of decay, corruption and post-industrial aesthetics. The source material for the electronics for RUST was extracted from a segment of the MeMeMeMe 2023 production that explored the Doge meme and the audience's thoughts regarding cryptocurrency. RUST has been performed on the Piano+ series at Spectrum (2025) with LCollective.

  Melinda Faylor is a pianist/composer based in NYC who works in various media to weave together dense and mercurial sound worlds using field recordings, synthesized sound and piano. Current projects include a solo album, Melia chamber trio, and Sari-Sari Storybooks with Music. Through her organization, ARETE, she is curating a series of new and experimental concerts at MISE-EN_PLACE in Harlem for 2026-2027. Ms Faylor also does work as a sound designer for dance and theater, frequently collaborating with the Vervet Dance Company of Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the Ma-Yi Theater grant (2021), NMUSA Creator Fund (2023), Queens Art Fund (2023), the Anti-Social Music Tiny Fund (2024) and was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2025). 

  An outspoken proponent of experimental sounds and expression, violinist Charlotte Munn-Wood is an improviser, chamber musician, and sought-after educator in New York City and beyond. Her music and visual art explore the textures and timbres of the natural world and of inner psychological environments. 

  Munn-Wood is a founding member and executive director of the Telos Consort, a group of creatives seeking to reimagine the concert experience through the performance of new and newer works by living composers. The Consort, now entering their third year of concertizing, looks forward to a busy season of three self-produced concerts, educational programs with the Harmony Project and the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center, and guest appearances at the Bridge Street Theatre and the Williamsburg Arts and Historical Society. Telos is partnering this season with art gallery THE BLANC and Mise-En_Place, and has received support from Chamber Music America, the Alice M. Diston Fund, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the University of Michigan. 

  From 2015 - 2025, Munn-Wood was a founding member of Du.0, a two-violin ensemble specializing in experimental contemporary and noise-based improvised music. In 2024, the ensemble released its debut studio album, Thoughts From the Future, on Gold Bolus Records, and its co-composition O Most Noble Greenness on cassette through Orb Tapes. Sought after as a private teacher, Munn-Wood maintains private studios in Manhattan and Westchester County. She recently entered her ninth year on faculty at the Larchmont Music Academy, bringing her inquiry-based teaching approach to children and adults alike. Munn-Wood is a graduate of the Contemporary Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Dr. Curtis Macomber, and of Western Michigan University as a student of Renata Knific. Away from the violin, she is an avid runner and prolific fiber artist.

• 

  Little Decoherence for Piano

  Leslie De Melcher

  performed by Eunmi Ko, piano

  Musical chords collapse in arpeggios, themes and small rhythmic motifs (as the piece is played) just as a quantum system loses its quantum properties (such as superposition and entanglement) due to interaction with its surrounding environment. This should explain the parallel notions of "decoherence" in the piano piece and the quantum sphere. It is matter in action and music matter in motion.

  Melcher studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique, as well as the IRCAM in Paris France. Upon receiving his Premier Prix in Musical Composition, Melcher’s work was published by Symphony Land (String Quartet Aurore and Brass Quintet Nome). In Paris, he received a commission from the French Ministry of Culture for chamber orchestra.

  In the USA, New York’s Central Presbyterian Church commissioned and premiered his major Cantata, The Spirit of Our Time, for church organ, strings, mixed choir and children’s choir, soprano solo and piano. Mad. Brass for brass band, percussion and children’s choir was premiered in New York’s Madison Square Park and Monday Nights for Wind Orchestra and Percussion was first performed in Westport, CT. His Opera, The Crytal Dome for mixed media won a “Best New Contemporary Opera” award in New York City. In Canada, Alone, for mixed choir, prerecorded 5.1 surround sound and 3D digital animation was premiered at the Miles Nadal JCC in Toronto. His four-movement themed Dark Matter for live Flute and Two Channel Fixed Media was performed in Paris (2017), Toronto and Iowa’s University of Electronic Music. The performance of his TAOv29 for Soprano solo and Balinese digital Orchestra was performed in 2017 at the Tranzac in Toronto. Melcher released 4 new albums in the last two years, and NOTUS Publications published his 6 Mutations for Piano on Dowland’s in Darkness Let Me Dwell in 2023.

• 

  sang de glacier

  Emily Koh

  performed by Eunmi Ko, piano and toy piano

  sang de glacier (French for 'glacial blood') is the phenomenon of alpine snow turning pink or red due to blooms of snow algae (such as Chlamydomonas nivalis), which use pigments to protect themselves from ultraviolet light, potentially accelerating melting. As a non-French speaker, I read this also as 'sang the glacier', which imagines the swansong a glacier might/will sing as it nears its end.

  Emily Koh (b.1986) is a Singaporean composer+ based in Atlanta, Georgia whose music reimagines everyday experiences by sonically expounding tiny oft-forgotten details, and explores binary states such as extremities/boundaries and activity/stagnation. She especially enjoys collaborating with creatives of other specializations.

  Described as “the future of composing” (The Straits Times, Singapore), Emily is the recipient of awards such as the Copland House Residency Award, Young Artist Award (National Arts Council, Singapore), Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize (Asian Composers League), ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Prix D’Ete (Peabody), and the Macagnoni Prize for Innovative Research (University of Georgia). Her work is supported with commissions, grants and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, National Arts Council (Singapore), Opera America, New Music USA, MacDowell, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, American Composers’ Orchestra, Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, the Paul Abisheganaden Grant for Artistic Excellence (National University of Singapore) and others. Described as “beautifully eerie” (New York Times), and “subtley spicy” (Baltimore Sun), Emily’s music has been performed around the world, and is published by Babel Scores (Europe) and Poco Piu Publishing (worldwide).

  Emily is currently Associate Professor of Music Composition at the University of Georgia, USA

Eunmi Ko, piano & toy piano

Eunmi Ko is a Korean-born pianist, composer, and new music advocate recognized for her expressive, genre-crossing performances and dedication to contemporary repertoire. Praised for her “kaleidoscopic” artistry, she has appeared internationally at major venues including Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, collaborating with composers and artists across disciplines.

Ko is co-founder and artistic director of the Contemporary Art Music Project (CAMP), a platform for innovative programming that brings together music, visual art, and performance. Through CAMP and its CAMPGround festival, she has commissioned and premiered works by a diverse global community of composers.

She has been featured in Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame (FMOF), the Vox Novus signature project that presents 15 one-minute works selected through an international call-for-works. Her participation highlights her ongoing commitment to emerging composers and the development of new repertoire through collaborative performance.

Ko serves as Associate Professor of Piano at the University of South Florida, where she mentors the next generation of musicians while continuing to champion new music through performance, commissioning, and artistic leadership.

ONE MINUTE MORE

Frolic In An Endlesss Sky for Toy Piano

B. Allen Schulz

FULL CAST with choreographed improvisation with Rachael Kosch

B. Allen Schulz is the great-grandson of vaudevillian Trumpeter-singer Ollie Powers, who active in Chicago in the ca. 20’s. Allen’s compositional activities are wide-ranging and eclectic, with works including solo guitar, full orchestra, SATB choirs, chamber music, computer-generated and electronic music, traditional Japanese temple music, and works for student-level bands. Allen is the founder and president of Random Access Music, a decade+ organization that produces concerts of its composer-performer members in Queens and and Manhattan, NY. He is also the founder of the Queens New Music Festival, held, usually, in May. Allen’s awards include The John Cage Prize for Composition from Brooklyn College, Honorable Mention for his “Passages for SATB choir and recorder” from Oregon University Peace Through Song competition, and recognized as one of the best new works for solo flute by the National Flute Association for his “Crazy Cat Lady”.

Allen is also the survivor of a cardiac arrest in 2014, which caused a devastating brain injury that kept him from composing for 6 years. Upon his return in 2020, he began leading Random Access Music and the new music festival once again.

This short dance is performed full cast of dancers with a choreographed improvisation by dance director Rachael Kosch.