Bergamot Quartet
Bergamot Quartet is fueled by a passion for exploring and advocating for the music of living composers, continually expanding the limits of the string quartet’s rich tradition in western classical music. With a priority given to music by women, they aim to place this new, genre-bending music in meaningful dialogue with the histories that precede it with creative programming, community-oriented audience building, and frequent commissioning.
Bergamot values partnership and collaboration as a vital element of their creative work. Included in their 2023-24 season is the premiere of an evening-length work at Lincoln Center by percussionist Samuel Torres for Bergamot and Latin jazz sextet, collaborating with The Crossing Choir for a premiere of David T. Little’s SIN-EATER, premiering a new work by Robert Honstein for BalletCollective, an evening exploring Hildegard von Bingen with the New York Choral Society, and a collaboration with composer/percussionist Susie Ibarra and her Talking Gong trio. Bergamot operates the monthly concert series “Bergamot Quartet Extended”, happening at Sisters (Brooklyn) this spring, as a medium to showcase their many inspiring collaborators.
In addition, Bergamot is particularly excited about helping young people discover their potential as music creators. Recent engagements include residencies at The Peabody Institute, Princeton University, Towson University, Peabody Institute’s Junior Bach program, and MATA Jr. The quartet is also on faculty at Arts Letters & Numbers’ Creative Music Institute, a workshop open to artists of all ages.
Bergamot Quartet is Ledah Finck and Sarah Thomas, violins; Amy Tan, viola; and Irène Han, cello. Founded at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 2016, Bergamot Quartet is based in New York City and was the Graduate String Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music for 2020-2022.
Ledah Finck, Sarah Thomas, Irene Han, Amy Tan
Find us on Instagram @bergamotquartet
Tropos
Tropos is an ever-morphing collective ensemble of improviser-composers based in New York City led by pianist/composer Phillip Golub and drummer/composer Mario Layne Fabrizio. While Tropos’ members shift from project to project, the multiple iterations of Tropos over the years share an ethos. Tropos is characterized by unusual instrumentations that allow for unique improvisational sound worlds to emerge and inspire its members to write in new ways. All members of Tropos compose for the ensemble while they’re in it. Tropos is also a true collective in that its members share the administrative work and financial costs of each project they are involved with. Its current members are Ledah Finck (violin), Yuma Uesaka (clarinets), and Aaron Edgcomb (drums/percussion), in addition to Golub.
Freddy & Sally
Freddy & Sally is the duo project of Eli Greenhoe and Ledah Finck, named after the duo's childhood bedtime story heroes Freddy the pig and Sally the salamander. Ledah (viola) and Eli (guitar) collaborate on original music that takes its inspiration from the members' roots in folk and Appalachian music and blends this with both their extensive experience working and writing in the medium of contemporary classical music.
earspace
earspace is a contemporary performance ensemble based in Raleigh, NC and dedicated to creating invigorating multi-sensory performances of music worth believing in. We seek to expose the inherent potentials within every moment and space, cultivating visceral reactions unique to every manifestation. Through our projects, we explore the extremities of contemporary performance and work to bring audiences closer to the music they experience. In 2025, we bring Hans Abrahamsen's Schnee to the Southern Exposure festival in SC, for our third performance of the work.
earspace's core members are Vincent Povaszay, conductor and codirector; Richard Drehoff, piano, tech, and codirector; Philip Snyder, flutes; Andy Hudson, clarinets; Ledah Finck, violin; Lena Vidulich, viola; Erin Snedecor, cello; Annie Jeng, piano and horn; Andy Nogul, oboe; Victoria Nelson, percussion.
TRIADS: Arrangements in Site and Sound
TRIADS: Arrangements in Site & Sound explores the relationships between performances of classical music, physical sites, and the communities surrounding them. This performance series, film, and art installation premieres a commissioned work by composer Ledah Finck. Inspired by the embedded histories and acoustic languages of three separate locations—Clifton Mansion, B. Willow, and NomuNomu—different elements of Finck’s composition was performed at each of these sites over the course of three nights. The project culminated in a film installation, by Rachel Schmidt, at In/29 (In Progress) that assembles these fragments and presents the piece in its entirety.
Performed and presented in collaboration with Bergamot Quartet, Pants Trio, and Mind on Fire, this project uses classical music as a case study to question how the built environment implicates bodies and reinforces traditional hierarchies. Ultimately, TRIADS: Arrangements in Site & Sound subverts traditional methods of performance and consumption by breaking down the whole, scattering its components across space and time, and then reconstructing it through site-specific sound recordings and visual explorations.
Atlantic Extraction
NYC-based quintet led by bassist Nick Dunston, featuring Ledah Finck (violin/viola), Stephen Boegehold (drums), Louna Dekker-Vargas (flutes), and Tal Yahalom (guitar).
"...there are solo tracks as well as passages by pared-down versions of the group. Luminous crescendos that exude a natural radiance. Poetic reveries that thrill with their commitment to pith. Frenzied drama that manages to exude grace. Simple taps and gurgles that conjure the natural world. 'String Solo No. 2' actually works as a percussion piece, with Tal Yahalom tapping a parade of feels from his guitar. One section of 'Contraband Peanut Butter' finds Ledah Finck’s violin drone stabilizing a swirl of hubbub just aching to boil over. Dunston has a way with suspense, and his design game is strong. At some points, it’s as if Air were interpreting Anthony Davis’ I’ve Known Rivers or Leroy Jenkins’ Legend of Ai Glatson. Or both at once."
-Jim Macnie, Jazztimes
The Witches
THE WITCHES are Ledah Finck on violin/viola and vocals and Louna Dekker-Vargas on flutes and vocals. We are an experimental duo that transcends the limitations of two treble instruments through a blend of free improvisation, arrangements of everything from Telemann to Stockhausen to Paul Motian, and works we commission from living composers. Our performances might be unified by a theme, such as our 2019 "Visions of Pythia" which explored the mystic othering of women throughout the ages through the eyes of an ancient Greek oracle, or our 2016 set of commissions called Behind the Curtain, celebrating womens' roles as patrons of the arts. Or they might be an improvised dialogue with and reactions to a sonic or physical environment. Our SoundCloud page contains a wide index of improvised music.
