You’re Invited…

Myths, Murmurs, & the Macabre

Network's strength lies in saying yes: to compelling composers, adventurous performers, unconventional venues, and curious audiences. This season is about trusting those instincts and celebrating collaboration as our defining practice as we turn into the next quarter of the century.

As we enter 2025-26, every project this season emerges from genuine artistic partnership that points toward what's ahead. I have been playing Leo Brouwer's music for 35 years, and it is out of deep respect and reverence that I present a composer portrait concert of his music including a featured commission and world premiere. Our West Chester University residency brings us both Adam Silverman's No Time to Total Alone Time—a pandemic work that will receive its long-awaited premiere, and Mark Rimple's new work Nonstandard Deviations for bass clarinet, electric guitar, and cello written specifically for our ensemble, alongside student readings and recordings that showcase emerging talent.

Carla Kihlstedt joins us as both composer and singing violinist for her macabre Edward Gorey cycle, 26 Little Deaths—the ultimate collaboration between creator and performer. Our return to Haverford College's Arboretum with Eve Beglarian's forest of double basses represents our ongoing partnership with spaces that transform how music is experienced, and with audiences willing to follow us into the woods.

Philadelphia's 250th anniversary becomes a lens for examining how we tell stories differently now. Featuring mandolinist Ekaterina Skliar, this concert traces the city's journey from colonial origins to contemporary complexity in a theatricalized collaboration that asks what history sounds like today. Our educational partnerships—West Chester University's emerging voices, our All City Orchestra Summer Academy at the Mann Center prove that the most vital contemporary music happens when institutions Myths, Murmurs, & the Macabre.

We say yes to composers and performers, universities and communities, traditional venues and unconventional spaces, audiences ready for surprise. As we enter this new quarter-century, collaboration isn't just how we work, it's how we're writing the future.

— Thomas Schuttenhelm, Artistic Director

Explore the Season