THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
Guest Artist Recital
Unheard-of Ensemble Ford Fourqurean, Clarinet Matheus Souza, Violin Iva Casian-Lakos, Cello Daniel Anastasio, Piano
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 7:30 p.m. | Opperman Music Hall
PROGRAM After the End of Time (2020) I. Chaos II. Isolation III. Protest IV. Unification V. Aftersounds
Liliya Ugay (b. 1990)
Quartet For Ye Old of Tyme (2025) I. Opening II. Shindig III. Lontano Lullaby IV. Discursion V. Alberti & Piazzolla VI. Crooked Waltz VII. Tune of Choice VIII. Closing
Jesse Jones (b. 1978)
my eyes devour the internet (2025)
Christian Quiñones (b. 1996)
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All… Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers. Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance. Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM Ugay: After the End of Time After the End of Time was written to commemorate Messiaen’s iconic Quatuor pour la fin du temps. With this piece I responded to the feelings surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic fear and uncertainty, detachment and unity, and hope. With the impossibility of concert performances we have to find alternate ways to make music - such a situation creates a resemblance with the history of Messiaen’s masterpiece. Finally, what Messiaen and first performers of the Quatuor profoundly inspired me with, is the persistence - the vitality of live art music, which would continue to be created and find its place no matter what happens in the world it lives in. Quiñones: my eyes devour the internet My eyes devour the internet for chamber ensemble and virtual singer (Vocaloid Synthesizer), explores themes of virtual excess, internet fatigue, and digital humor, drawing from personal experiences with mental health and the online world. Using ALYS, the vocaloid designed for Alter/Ego by company VoxWave, the work dredges the boundaries of human, online, and liminal spaces in-between. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Unheard-of//Ensemble (Ford Fourqurean, Matheus Souza, Iva Casian-Lakoš, and Daniel Anastasio) is a Brooklyn-based clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet dedicated to connecting new music to communities in New York and across the United States through the development and performance of adventurous programs using technology and interactive multimedia. Unheard-of is committed to the idea that new music belongs in every community, and implements this mission through concerts and educational workshops throughout New York as well as on tour. Unheard-of has grown since forming in 2014 into a nation-wide community across multiple artistic genres. With an approach that is open and welcoming of all voices, Unheard-of strives to be a vehicle for development and growth for voices novel and experienced, experimental and traditional, uncomfortable and accessible. Unheard-of Ensemble tours regularly, commissions large-scale multimedia projects, and runs its own summer workshop for emerging composers, the Collaborative Composition Initiative (CCI). Unheard-of ’s Dialogues series brings together composers, artists, and audiences to explore the creative process behind music creation. Their on the water Cultural Ecologies series with the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, invites audiences to the Gowanus for four multimedia concerts each year utilizing Brooklyn’s own Gowanus Canal as our stage. The 2024–2025 season features the premiere of a new 40-minute multimedia commission Ginger Flavored Bubblegum by composer Vicki Leona Nguyen and video artist Phong Tran on Unheard-of ’s Dialogues Series, a mini-portrait of Reiko Füting, partnership with San Antonio-based SOLI Chamber Ensemble presenting new works by Leah Reid, Alexandros Darna, and Asuka Kakitani as part of their 30x30x30 project, and a collaboration with the Association for the Promotion of New Music. The ensemble has residencies and guest artist visits on tour at University of Pittsburgh, Miami University (OH), Denison University, University of Miami (FL), and Rednote New Music Festival at Illinois State University.
Their 2023-24 season featured commissions from Ana Lopez (NNUX) and video artist Martha Maya, Robert McClure and video artist Mare Hirsch, David Crowell, Lila Meretzky, and two premieres by ensemble members Ford and Iva. On tour, Unheard-of visited Georgia State University, Columbus State University, and University of Florida, Ohio University, California State Northridge and University of Wyoming. In prior seasons, Unheard-of presented educational residencies, workshops, and performances at Oberlin Conservatory, Northwestern, Manhattan School of Music, CCM, Kent State University, Washington University of St. Louis, Illinois State University, West Virginia University, University of Texas San Antonio, Texas State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Emory University, Chattanooga State Community College, and University of Georgia, Florida State University, University of Florida, University of Central Florida, and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Unheard-of served as the 2021-22 KEAR ensemblein-residence at Bowling Green State University, and has performed at Constellation Chicago, Crosstown Arts’s series in Memphis, Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival performance at Merkin Hall. To date, the ensemble has premiered over 200 works for their instrumentation. Unheard-of is in the 7th year of their annual composer workshop, the Collaborative Composition Initiative. Their 6th festival was held across San Antonio for the second year with seven performances at San Antonio institutions including San Antonio landmark Mission San José, Evergreen Garden, Ruby City, Agarita Loft, and the UTSA Arts Cube. Their 4th festival took place across Brooklyn on canoes in the Gowanus, at Mise-en_Place, and at Scholes Street Studio. Previous festival years took place online and at Stony Brook University. Unheard-of has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Johnstone Fund for New Music, the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation, the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Barlow Endowment, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the New York Women Composers Organization, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Puffin Foundation. Unheard-of was a recipient of a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant to commission Rome Prize-winner Christopher Stark, 2023 Artistic Projects Grant for their Cultural Ecologies series, and a 2020 Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant made possible with support of the New York Community Trust. Their debut album Unheard-of//Dialogues was released in 2019 to critical acclaim: “a fantastic debut by a group that has been doing more than their part to inject vitality into the new music scene for the last few years” ( Jeremy Shatan, An Earful). The album’s eclectic repertoire has garnered the attention of critics from ArtsATL (“Powerfully evocative”), Steve Smith of National Sawdust Log (“scintillating and evocative”), and Creative Loafing Atlanta (“mellifluous magic”). ABOUT THE COMPOSERS Liliya Ugay (1990; Tashkent, Uzbekistan) is a composer and pianist whose work focuses on exploration of immigrant experience, female physicality, and motherhood routine, often through storytelling and drawing inspiration from material tools, such as folk instruments and children’s toys, capturing “curiosity, awkwardness, and wonder to play” (Modern Notebook). Her music has been described as “evocative” (Washington Post), “assertive, steely... [then] lovely and supple writing” (Wall Street Journal), “fluid and theatrical, with lancing atonal gestures brushing up against folksounding materials... creative decisions all serve clear, expressive purposes — the music makes its case with immediacy”
(The Art Fuse), as well as “vivid, yet ultimately enigmatic” (South Florida Classical Review); praised as “exquisite and heartwarming” (Navona) music that “tugs at our heart strings” (OperaGene), and her orchestration skills labeled as “strong” (DC Theatre Scene) and “with range of colors and textures [that] is really striking” (Boston Classical Radio). Among performers of her works were Yale Philharmonia, Nashville and Albany Symphonies, American Composers Orchestra, New England Philharmonic, Raleigh Civic Symphony, The Next Festival of Emerging Artists; ensembles such as Aspen Contemporary Music Ensemble, Borealis wind quintet, icarus Quartet, Victory Players, Unheard-Of//Ensemble, Music from Copland House, Molinari Quartet, Ensemble Flageolet, ensemble vim, Antico Moderno, Omnibus, Convergence; soloists such as Paul Neubauer, Andrea Lam, Noël Wan, Sunmi Chang, Clara Yang, Melvin Chen, Robert Fleitz, Min Kwon. Her works were featured at Aspen, Norfolk, Chelsea, Darmstadt, New York Electroacoustic and Chicago Electroacoustic festivals, American Composers Festival, MIFA, Boston New Music Initiative, CAMPGround, Convergence, and Venice Biennale, at the venues including John Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Merkin Hall, Steinway Hall New York, Pablo Casals Symphony Hall, and in the places such as Mission Concepción (UNESCO World Heritage site) and Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Ugay’s operatic collaborations include Washington National Opera and American Lyric Theater, for which she was a commissioned composer-in-residence; most recently, she has worked with activist opera company White Snake Projects on the virtual opera “Fractured Mosaics” uncovering the experiences of Asian-Americans, and the series “Let’s Celebrate” creating an opera about Nowruz - Persian New Year. Recordings of Liliya’s music were featured and produced by NPR, New England Public Media, Parma/Navona, and many classical music stations such as WGBH, PBS, WSMR. Named “2024 Distinguished Composer of the Year” by the Music Teachers National Association, Liliya has received recognitions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, Yale University, International Alliance of Women in Music, as well as grants from Opera America and National Endowment of the Arts. Since 2019 Liliya serves on the composition faculty at Florida State University, where she directs FSU New Music Ensemble Polymorphia, which, to this date, presented 22 programs featuring over 120 compositions by living composers, in addition to special concerts such as Music by Korean Women Composers and Silenced Voices series. Ugay holds master and doctorate degrees from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Aaron Kernis, Martin Bresnick, Boris Berman, Christopher Theofanidis, and David Lang. Above all, Liliya is a dedicated mother of a 6-year-old Julian who loves making sounds and practicing violin, inspiring his mother every day. Performed extensively across North America, Europe, and Asia, the music of composer Jesse Jones has been described as “striking,…elegant and poised” (New York Times), “engaging…eerie, and well-written” (Los Angeles Times), “fascinating,“ and possessed of “the melodic earthiness of Britten” (New York Classical Review). Jones’s music has been heard in venues such as Lincoln Center, Avery Fischer Hall, St. John’s Smith Square (London), the Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam), Glinka Hall (St. Petersburg), the Paul Hindemith Foundation (Switzerland), the American Academy in Rome (Italy), and the St. Matthäuskirche (Berlin), among other venues. Winner of the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Jones has received commissions and premieres from many of the world’s leading ensembles and soloists, including the Juilliard String Quartet, Ensemble Recherche (Germany), Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, the English Symphony Orchestra, Cochlea (Switzerland), and from Tanglewood, Aspen, the Barlow Endowment, and many others. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Heckscher Foundation, and Aldeburgh Music’s Jerwood Foundation.
Jones holds a DMA in music composition from Cornell University. His music is commercially available on the Innova, Summit, Albany, Equilibrium, Bridge, and New Focus labels. Christian Quiñones is a Puerto Rican composer who explores personal and vulnerable stories through the lens of cultural identity. From sampling to auto-tune, interactive multimedia, Christian is interested in interacting with existing music to create intertextual narratives. His music has been performed by leading ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Jack Quartet, the New York Youth Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, American Composer Orchestra, Nois~, Yarn-Wire, TAK Ensemble, the icarus Quartet, the Bergamot String Quartet, Hub New Music, and Dal Niente. Recently Christian was selected as a fellow for the 2024 MATA Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and as a composer in residence at the Copland House. Other fellowships include Cabrillo Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Earshot Underwood Orchestra Readings and the Eight Blackbird Creative Lab. He has received commissions from the New York Youth Symphony, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, Transient Canvas, the icarus Quartet, the Bergamot String Quartet, and the Victory Players where Christian was the 20182019 composer in residence. Christian graduated from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico (B.M.) and the University of Illinois (M.M), where he was the recipient of the Graduate College Master’s Fellowship. Currently, Christian is a Ph.D. President’s fellow at Princeton University.