Mivos Quartet
The Mivos Quartet is devoted to performing works of contemporary composers and presenting diverse new music to international audiences. The quartet, founded in 2008, commissions and premieres new repertoire for string quartet, and is dedicated to creative collaborations with a wide variety of artists. Mivos maintains an active international performance schedule, with regular appearances as ensemble-in-residence at summer festivals. Mivos takes part in many educational residencies at universities and summer festivals, working with young performers and composers to develop their craft, technical skills, and artistic expression. The quartet also runs two composition prizes to help discover and promote emerging composers in the US and abroad. Beyond these activities, Mivos collaborates regularly with guest artists, presents multimedia projects, and performs improvised music.
Photo: Titilayo Ayanga
George Lewis
George Lewis (b. 1952) is an American composer, musicologist and trombonist. He is Professor of American Music at Columbia University and Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Akademie der Künste, and a corresponding member of the British Academy. A MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow, Lewis has also received the Doris Duke Artist Award and the Alpert Award in the Arts. Lewis is widely regarded as a pioneer in the development of AI programs that improvise together with human musicians; he holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New England Conservatory, New College of Florida, Birmingham City University, and Curtis Institute of Music, among others.
Michaela Catranis
Michaela Catranis (b. 1985) holds degrees in piano performance (Peabody Conservatory, Bremen University of the Arts) and composition (Hanns Eisler School of Music). She lives and works in Berlin where she founded interdisciplinary performance ensemble menajiri. Her works have been performed in concert halls such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Berliner Philharmonie, and the KKL Lucerne.
Jeffrey Mumford
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1955, composer Jeffrey Mumford has received numerous fellowships, grants, awards, and commissions. Awards include the Academy Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, and an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship. He was also the winner of the inaugural National Black Arts Festival/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition. Mumford's most notable commissions include those from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition for the Grossman Ensemble at the University of Chicago, Chamber Music America, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, the Library of Congress (co-commission for the Mivos Quartet), the BBC Philharmonic, the San Antonio, Chicago & National Symphonies, Washington Performing Arts, the Network for New Music, Duo Harpverk (Iceland), the Sphinx Consortium, the Cincinnati Symphony, the VERGE Ensemble /National Gallery of Art/Contemporary Music Forum, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust, the Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, Cincinnati radio station WGUC, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, and the Fromm Music Foundation. His music has been performed extensively, by major orchestras, soloists, and ensembles, both in the United States and abroad, including London, Paris, Reykjavik, Vienna, The Hague, Canada, Russia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Mumford has taught at the Washington Conservatory of Music, served as Artist-in-Residence at Bowling Green State University, and served as assistant professor of composition and Composer-in-Residence at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He is currently Distinguished Professor at Lorain County Community College in Northern Ohio. Mumford is published by Theodore Presser Co. and Quicklight Music and represented by Black Tea Music.
Ambrose Akinmusire
Ambrose Akinmusire (b. 1982) is a composer and trumpet player, born and raised in Oakland, California. He was a member of the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble when he caught the attention of saxophonist Steve Coleman. Akinmusire was asked to join Coleman’s Five Elements, embarking on a European tour when he was just a 19-year-old student at the Manhattan School of Music. After returning to the West Coast to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Southern California, Akinmusire went on to attend the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles, where he studied with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Terence Blanchard. In 2007 Akinmusire won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. That year Akinmusire also won the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition and released his debut album Prelude…To Cora on the Fresh Sound label. He moved back to New York and began performing with the likes of Vijay Iyer, Aaron Parks, Esperanza Spalding, and Jason Moran. His Blue Note debut, When The Heart Emerges Glistening, was released in 2011 to rave reviews. Akimusire and Mivos have collaborated for several years, beginning with 2018’s Origami Harvest on Blue Note and 2023’s honey from a winter stone on Nonesuch.