living composers imaginative programming questioning norms collaborative process narrative experimentation

The City of Tomorrow is both a wind quintet and a ritualistic concert experience. Interpreting the sound worlds of living composers while following narrative traces onstage utilizing lighting and movement, the group performs concerts throughout the United States and has no particular home base.

The City of Tomorrow has performed concerts at Trinity Wall Street, Spectrum, and IN\TER/SECT, (co-presented by Bryant Park and Chamber Music America) as well as the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Series in Chicago, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Michigan, and Red Note New Music Festival in Illinois. The quintet’s work has been supported by residencies at the Banff Center for the Arts & Creativity and the Avaloch Farm Music Institute. 

Their 2021 release Blow on New Focus Recordings (FCR294) features music by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Franco Donatoni and the world premiere recording of a work by Han Lash, which was supported by a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant. The City of Tomorrow’s first album, Nature, released on PARMA/Ravello in 2014, wrestled with questions of human involvement in the natural world and included music by David Lang, Luciano Berio, Nat Evans, and Denys Bouliane.

The City of Tomorrow’s members are in demand as new music specialists, curators, collaborators, and teachers. As an ensemble, they have been in residence at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Berklee College of Music, Indiana University, Tufts, and Yale. Members of the ensemble are on faculty at Boston Conservatory, Louisiana State University, University of Oregon, and University of Memphis.