ABOUT THE ENSEMBLE

“a prime mover of piping hot 21st century repertoire” - The Washington Post 

“contemporary chamber trailblazers” - The Boston Globe

Founded in 2013, Hub New Music is one of today’s leading contemporary music ensembles. Hub has expanded the repertoire for its distinct combination of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello with over two dozen commissions by today’s most celebrated composers. In its thoughtfully curated programs, Hub New Music performs works exclusively written for the ensemble that strike notes of contemporary relevance.

Recent and upcoming performances include concerts presented by the Kennedy Center, Seattle Symphony, Morgan Library, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Williams Center for the Arts, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center, King’s Place (London), Thailand International Composer’s Festival (Bangkok), Soka Performing Arts Center, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Bowdoin International Chamber Music Festival, and the Celebrity Series of Boston. 

Current touring projects include Daniel Wohl’s UFO-inspired electroacoustic piece Mirage, and What If We’re Beautiful, a program exploring queerness, chosen family, and identity with music by Daniel Thomas Davis and choreography by Aaron Loux & Brian Lawson. In recent seasons, Hub has collaborated on commissions with Angélica Negrón, Nico Muhly, Tyshawn Sorey, Donnacha Dennehy, Christopher Cerrone, Carlos Simon, and Kati Agócs, among others. The group has also developed genre-defying collaborations with the Asia/America New Music Institute, Boston’s Urbanity Dance, Silkroad’s Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi), and trumpeter/spoken word artist MK Zulu.

Hub New Music’s recordings have garnered consistent acclaim. The group’s recent album with Kojiro Umezaki, a distance, intertwined, featured five works for Hub & shakuhachi which I Care if You Listen called “beautiful, haunting music that presents a clear and authentic dialog between varied cultural paradigms and traditions.” Hub’s debut album, Soul House, released on New Amsterdam Records, was called “ingenious and unequivocally gorgeous” (Boston Globe) and “intensely poignant.” (Textura) In 2022, Hub’s album with Carlos Simon, Requiem for the Enslaved, was nominated for a GRAMMY award for Best Classical Composition. 

Hub is sought after for its multifaceted educational residency programs, having been recent guests at Princeton University, University of Michigan, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, among many others. In 2021, Hub was a resident ensemble for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship program for high school aged composers. Also in 2021, Hub launched its flagship K-12 educational program, HubLab, that uses improvisation and storytelling to create original pieces with students of all musical levels. 

Hub New Music is Michael Avitabile (flute), Gleb Kanasevich (clarinet), Magnolia Rohrer (violin), and Jesse Christeson (cello). Proudly based in Detroit, the ensemble’s name is inspired by its founding city of Boston’s reputation as a hub of innovation. Hub New Music is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

• A NOTE ON OUR NAME •

Please refer to us in print and digital as Hub New Music

(not HUB new music, or Hub New Music Ensemble, etc.)

Members