WoCo Fest 2026: Transcend—Opening Concert

Claire Chase

Described by The New York Times as “the most important flutist of our time,” Claire Chase is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. Passionately dedicated to the creation of new ecosystems for the music of our time, Chase has given the world premieres of hundreds of new works by a new generation of artists. 

She is a MacArthur Fellow and the recipient of the 2017 Avery Fisher Award for Classical Music from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Chase served as the Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall in the 2022-23 season and as Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival in 2025. She currently serves as Professor of the Practice of Music at Harvard University.

Maeve Gilchrist

Join harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist as she shares the story of her artistic journey from her musical childhood in Scotland immersed in the oral tradition of Scottish music to pursuing an interest in improvisation within and out-with the traditional music world and ultimately to her work as a contemporary composer in New York. Learn how Maeve manifests elements of traditional music within her compositional and improvisational technique, transforming tradition into a living, evolving musical language.

In this new multidisciplinary venture by harp innovator and composer Maeve Gilchrist, time is slowed down through the process of careful observation and imagination. The performance is the culmination of a year-long residency at Kaatsbaan Arts Center in Tivoli in 2025, during which Maeve wrote a solo-harp composition each month. Into 12 Dances, she interweaves site-specific recordings, poetry, and visual stimulation she gathered around her home in the Hudson Valley NY. 

I believe that we live in an over-stimulated society and a lot of the busyness that clouds or cushions our day-to-day feels vapid in substance. There is little incentive to make room for the stillness that breeds reflection or imagination. This project is my personal commitment to a monthly observation of where we are: me and the world. A modest sonic snapshot of the most ordinary kind of beauty. The type of joy that is only noticed once taken away. 

Known for her ethereal soundscapes, intricate-interweaving voices, and dynamically rhythmic compositions, Maeve leads us carefully through her own reverent cycle of nature, color, and humanity. In a time of political and environmental shifts, this project is a marked noticing of the absolute wonder of our ordinary world, one month at a time in her adopted home of the Mid-Hudson Valley.

Dr. Caiti Beth McKinney

Join Boulanger Initiative’s Research Manager Dr. Caiti Beth McKinney for a pre-concert talk featuring Germaine Tailleferre’s Quatuor à cordes and Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat Major. Dive into the rich and tumultuous worlds of two composers whose families actively worked against their music and accomplishments, and experience the joy of their compositional triumphs. We will explore the two works by these incredible composers performed at the following concert by Argus Quartet. 

Argus Quartet

The Argus Quartet’s “vivacious foursome” (The New Yorker) is committed to bringing thoughtful and personal programs to both seasoned listeners and audiences new to classical music. The Quartet enjoys projects that celebrate collaboration, community, and risk-taking in venues of all shapes and sizes. Formed in Los Angeles in 2013, the Quartet has performed in some of the country’s most prestigious venues and festivals, including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Ravinia Festival, the Albany Symphony’s American Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West. In 2017, Argus won First Prize at both the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. 

Recent highlights include two appearances at Carnegie Hall, a return to Columbia University’s Miller, and the launch of a new program consisting of works by Indigenous composers. This program features a new composition by Pulitzer Prize finalist Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, commissioned as a National Performance Network Creation & Development Fund Project. The Quartet premiered the program in San Diego, Long Beach, Denver, and Tucson. Other commissions have come from Katherine Balch, Donald Crockett, GRAMMY nominee Eric Guinivan, Hermitage Prize winner Thomas Kotcheff, Jessica Meyer, and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Juri Seo. Argus’ recording of Seo’s works for string quartet was released in May 2019 on Innova Recordings; December 2022 saw the release of Christopher Cerrone’s “The Air Suspended” with pianist Shai Wosner on New Focus Recordings. The Quartet has received grants from the Koussevitzky Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, and the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in support of their commissioning efforts.