We are thrilled to introduce you to Minato Sakamoto, the winner of our 2020 8SW Composer Competition for his trio, Rondo Americano. A native of Japan, Minato is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Duke University. His description of Rondo Americano is short and succinct: “A Japanese train buff’s imagination of the “good old days” of

Douglas Anderson is among one of the first composers to have written a work for Eight Strings & a Whistle. Commissioned in 2000, his Chamber Symphony No. 3 has received numerous performances since its premiere. Our recording of it was released by Ravello Records in 2016 on Douglas Anderson, Chamber Symphonies 2, 3 & 4.

I think we became familiar with Mark Winges’ work fairly soon after Eight Strings & a Whistle was formed. Our introduction was through a work entitled Dusk Music II, for alto flute, viola and cello. It was my excuse for purchasing my first alto flute and I will always be grateful to Mark for this!

Ina, Matt and I are very excited to introduce you to our first ever 8SW Composer Competition winner, Jorge Amado. Jorge is currently a student at ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte) in Havana, Cuba. His submission to the competition, Eidos II, is a very well crafted, powerful and energetic example of the potential future of chamber

I am very excited to introduce you all to the wonderful flutist and composer Pamela Sklar. Pamela has had an extraordinary career performing with the likes of Dave Brubeck and touring as a soloist with the ever popular Claude Bolling, just to name a few. We are honored that Pamela composed her work, Third Eye, for

A few years ago, one of Ina’s teaching positions included a chamber music class at The City College of New York. It was structured such that the students who signed up for the class got placed in one, maybe two or even three ensembles. The class time itself consisted of a combination of rehearsals and

Merrill Clark composed Sinfonia Ternion Gestalt for us in late 2009/early 2010. It is a five movement through-composed work, centered around a lamenting non-vocal setting of William Butler Yeats’ The Second Coming. Yeats used Christian imagery in his 1919 poem, evoking post World War I, and Merrill uses his musical take on the poem as a means to

Peter Jona Korn’s Aloysia Serenade, Op. 19 is one of the works included on Albert’s Window, our recent release on Ravello Records. We began performing the Serenade long after Korn had died, and our initial research revealed very little other than a website dedicated to his work. The website put Ina in touch with Korn’s wife, Barbara, who was

Many years ago, in fact far longer ago than I care to remember, I had a teaching position at Turtle Bay Music School, a community music school in midtown Manhattan. Although I left Turtle Bay a long time ago, I am still in touch with several students I taught there and one faculty member. That one faculty