Ensemble For These Times Unveils 18th Home Season

​Award-winning SF contemporary music group Ensemble for These Times has revealed their 18th Home Season, "Women Crossing/Liminality," the culmination of our two-year initiative exploring women's immigration and identity, along with a new recording, plus their first East Coast tour.

November 7, 2025: "Lines, Circles, and Spirals"

E4TT will kick off its Home Season on November 7, 2025 at Old First Concerts in San Francisco, with "Lines, Circles, and Spirals," featuring 21st century works that engage with the geometrical theme of the concert title (lines, circles, and spirals) in conversation with Duo No.1 by Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) for violin and cello, H. 157 (1927): "Displaced Lines" for solo piano by Latin Grammy nominee, Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad (b. 1978), "Fits + Starts" for amplified cello and tape by Grammy nominee, British-American composer, Anna Clyne (b. 1980), "Ammonite" for piano trio by ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award winner, Japanese-American composer Hannah Ishizaki (b. 2000), "Six Bagatelles" for piano trio by Barlow Prize winner, Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand (b. 1970), "Cavities" (2024) for piano trio by Iranian-American composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh (b. 1992), and "the motion between three worlds" for solo cello by inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993).

Guest violinist Maya Victoria will join soprano Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, and pianist Margaret Halbig. The concert will also be livestreamed on O1C's YouTube channel.

January 25, 2025: "After Sleepwalking: Music by Women and Nonbinary Composers"

E4TT's annual audience favorite-a concert of music by women and nonbinary composers-returns in its seventh iteration with a program featuring "Divide and Concur" (2022) by Elisa Kain Johnson (b. 2004, upper left), the winning piece from the 2025 E4TT/ Luna Composition Call for Scores, the first project in our second two-year collaboration with Luna Composition Lab, which is also part of their 10th Anniversary Celebration. The program will feature "A Thousand Mornings" (2020) for piano trio by Anna Clyne (b. 1980), "For the Sleepwalkers" (2023) for narrator and piano trio by G. Schirmer Prize winner, Korean-American composer Jungyoon Wie (b. 1990, lower right), "Cinq Petits Morceaux" (2015) for solo piano by SF Conservatory of Music graduate S.A. Workman (b. 1967), "The Light After" (2021) for solo cello by Andrew Yee (b. 1984), and "Tres Lent" (1994) and its companion piece, "Wild Run" (2018) for cello and piano by Joan Tower (b. 1938).

E4TT (soprano Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, and pianist Margaret Halbig) will be joined by violinist Maya Victoria. The concert will be presented at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, and will also be livestreamed at no charge (donations welcome) on E4TT's YouTube channel.

March 1, 2026: "E4TT/RMF New Music Piano Summit"

In collaboration with the Ross McKee Foundation, E4TT emerita pianist extraordinaire Dale Tsang and RMF laureates will perform a program of works chosen from E4TT's 2025 Call for Scores for piano four-hands, which took place in July 2025 and yielded 43 scores by 37 composers. The winning works for the program will be announced by August 20, 2025. The concert will be performed live at the Berkeley Piano Club and livestreamed at no charge (donations welcome and most appreciated) on E4TT's YouTube channel.

April 17, 2026: "Women Crossing/ Liminality"

The highlight of E4TT's 2025/26 season will be Women Crossing/Liminality, our annual commissions concert and sixth multimedia collaboration with the Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The program will also be the culmination of our two-year project, "Women Crossing/Liminality," an innovative exploration of women's immigration and identity. The concert will feature three commissioned World Premieres-a new work for voice, cello, and piano by Opera America Discovery winner,

Indian-Hongkongese composer Juhi Bansal (b. 1992), and two pieces with found-object percussion-one also with bass flute by JUNO Award winner, Chinese-American composer Vivian Fung (b. 1975), and one also with violin, cello, and tape by world-famous Rome Prize-winning Black composer, Pamela Z (b. 1956)-along with the World Premiere of the winner in the E4TT/TAC student multimedia composition competition with the San Francisco Conservatory's Technical and Applied Composition Department. Three more works will round out the program: "say it in your heart,say it in your sleep"(2023) for solo piano by 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Hawaiian composer Leilehua Lanzilotti (b. 1985, "Liminal/ity" (2021) for solo cello by Chinese-American BMI Composer Award Sophia Jen Ouyang (b. 2001), and "A Crown for Sonia" (2008) for soprano, cello, and piano by Grammy winning Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian (b. 1981).

E4TT (soprano Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, pianist Margaret Halbig) will be joined by guests percussionist Haruka Fujii, violinist Lylia Guion and flutist Stacey Pelinka. The concert is free to attend at Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall in the Bowes Center at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (RSVPs recommended) and will also be livestreamed at no charge on SFCM's Vimeo channel.

May 16, 2026: "El Tiempo Latine"

E4TT will close our 18th Home Season with a concert celebrating the release of our sixth recording, featuring music by modern Latine composers, "El Tiempo Latine" ("Latin Time"). The program will feature works from the new album by Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities recipient Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972, upper left); Pulitzer Prize winner Tania León (b. 1943); Opera America Discovery Grant composer Carla Lucero (b. 1964); four-time Latin Grammy winner Claudia Montero (1962-2021); and Miss Gay San Francisco 2024 and Miss Golden Gate 2023, Peruvian-American composer Brennan Stokes (b. 1990).