Sarah Manning

Sarah Manning is a saxophonist and composer.

She draws inspiration from surrealist painter Remedios Varo and works to challenge and transmute music theory and history from jazz, experimental, and chamber music into a surreal landscape that activates the subconscious mind to envision alternate worlds.

Manning has released four critically acclaimed albums, including Harmonious Creature (Posi-Tone 2014), which was a top ten jazz pick of the Los Angeles Times. As a bandleader she has performed at venues including Dizzy’s Club Cola, Roulette, Yoshi’s, and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival as well as The Hundred Years Gallery in London.

Manning is currently working on We Will Not Be Composed, a multimedia piece with author and activist Soraya Chemaly to challenge perceptions of women’s anger in America from silence to somatization to explosion. She is a two time MacDowell fellow in composition, a 2020 and 2021 MAP Fund grantee, and a 2021 NYSCA Composer Commission recipient.

She can be heard on William Hooker’s recent release Big Moon (Org Music 2021).

Magdalena Abrego

Magdalena Abrego is a guitarist, composer, and teaching artist based in Hudson, New York.

Influenced by free jazz and punk, Magdalena’s approach to her instrument playfully confronts tradition and embraces queer experimentalism. Her compositions have been described as an “unpredictable musical journey” (Boston Hassle), both “blissful and beautifully erratic” (Boston Compass), and NPR Music called her guitar tone “wooden, ancient and thick with mystic fuzz.”

Magdalena presently serves as a faculty member in the Contemporary Musical Arts program at the New England Conservatory. Her expertise has garnered invitations to deliver guest lectures and provide guidance to ensembles at esteemed music institutions across the United States, including Berklee College of Music and Dartmouth College.

Magdalena maintains an active performance schedule, spanning North America and Europe, performing at venues such as Jordan Hall, Roulette Intermedium, Bimhuis, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Kirin McElwain

Kirin McElwain is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer working in the realms of improvised, experimental, and contemporary music.

Trained as a classical cellist, Kirin is equally at home in concert halls, recording studios, and DIY venues. As a cellist, she has performed on various film and television scores (HBO, Gimlet Media, PBS, NPR Music, Amazon Prime, YouTube Music), contemporary artists (Post Malone, Ioanna Gika, This Will Destroy You), contemporary dance concerts (Claudia Schreier Company, Harlem Dance Theater, Triskelion Arts), mixed media installations (the MET, James Cohan Gallery, Neue Galerie), and traditional classical and contemporary classical concerts (Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Kimmel Center).

In May of 2023, Kirin completed a residency at Elektron Musikstudion (Stockholm, SE) working with the halldorophone and Buchla 200 system to generate new material for a future solo release.