Hurdy gurdy, musical saw, banjo, saxophone and drums combine in free improvisation for unconventional instrumentation. Longtime collaborators Kevin Pike (sax) and John Kotchian (drums) integrate multi-instrumentalist David Seay's assortment of ancient and Americana sounds into a free jazz context. This trio of Nebraska artists' current project is entitled "Out of the Plains", an abstract exploration of various moments in the history of the great plains. David Seay is a master artist with the Nebraska Arts Council with over 50 years experience as a performing musician. The Pike/Kotchian duo has recorded two albums, the most recent released on Bocca Lupo Records. Their music has been heard on NPR's All Things Considered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5pdDZiQv1A

tbd. is an Omaha based dance collective created by ten artists with a passion for dance and a desire to see it grow within the community. It is a collaborative effort with no specific artistic director or choreographer. We are all the artistic directors, choreographers, and performers. We do not have a specific style because we wish to incorporate and celebrate distinctive styles, backgrounds, and choreographic elements of each of the dancers within the group. Our mission is to improve ourselves technically as dancers, produce unique and quality work, and continue to create and encourage the growth and appreciation of dance within the community of Omaha.

https://www.facebook.com/tbdomahadance?ref=br_tf

thingNY is a quirky collective of New York composer-performers who fuse electronic and acoustic chamber music with new opera, improvisation, theater, text, song and installation. Founded in 2006 for an ad hoc festival in the historic Loew’s Jersey City Theater, thingNY performs experimental sound works created collaboratively by the core ensemble - Paul Pinto, Jeffrey Young, Gelsey Bell, Erin Rogers, Dave Ruder and Andrew Livingston. 

At Omaha Under the Radar 2015, Paul Pinto and Chicago-based thingNY member Alejandro T. Acierto will perform voice and electronics excerpts from Paul's psychedelic opera-in-progress Thomas Paine in Violence. Verbose, vulgar and funny, Thomas Paine in Violence abstractly explores the mind of the most radical Founding Father, as he and his cohorts travel through space and time, broadcasting politispeak across the radio airwaves.

http://www.thingNY.com

http://www.pfpinto.com

http://www.alejandroacierto.com

http://www.thingny.com

K A T E S is a performing arts duo featuring pianist Kate Campbell and dancer-choreographer Katelyn Halpern. KATES integrates new music with new dance, pushing beyond conventional boundaries to create a cohesive theatrical work that includes narrative, movement, sound, body percussion, and visual-art objects. Each performer is involved in each of these aspects: the choreography responds to the natural movement of a musician, and the musician may occupy the dancer’s space onstage. KATES has been featured at the Dance Conversations series at the Flea Theater in New York, the NewYork SoundCircuit series at DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ.

http://www.katecampbellpiano.com/

Nik Fackler is a musician and filmaker based in Omaha, NE. A year after the release of his first feature film, Lovely Still, he traveled through various parts of North and South America during a promotional tour. It was during this transient period where Nik found himself immersed in a creative "awakening." Fackler wrote song after song in hostels, hotel rooms, and campgrounds, drawing inspiration from the brief encounters and connections that occur in everyday life. Through musical expression, Nik discovered a realm that he has named "Dreama," in which the human condition is explored and underscored by the affinities of being.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/InDreama/120641294671349

Active in music since the 70's Dereck is known for his bass playing skills and diverse musical interests. He has played many styles from punk to jazz to blues to electronic to Cajun. Dereck's current music projects include membership in the bands
InDreama
Cleemann
The Jewel Beast
Paddy O'Furniture
The Pat Higgins Trio
as well as solo and guest appearances.  

http://dereckhiggins.bandcamp.com/

April Faith-Slaker combines various genres of music and the use of technology to create a contemporary sound. Her current project involves the use of statistical and mathematical methods to convert social data into musical soundscapes that serve as an auditory representation of social complexity. With advanced degrees in law, research methods and social policy, she is interested in expanding conversations about social issues beyond the traditional modes of communication, and believes that art and music can be used as alternative lenses for approaching these topics and reaching new audiences.

April is classically trained on cello, but has also composed and performed with Irish groups, rock bands, and orchestras. She is also a resident musician and composer with movement theater, ætherplough and most recently, a fellow at the Union for Contemporary Art. 

https://soundcloud.com/datacompositions

https://soundcloud.com/aprilfs

Luke Polipnick, Dana Murray, and Max Stehr have been raising the bar for jazz and creative music in Omaha for over one year. Taking cues from the jazz tradition while extending it into the future, the trio is always searching, always stretching ears and challenging expectations of what a jazz  trio in the 21st century is capable of.

www.lukepolipnick.com

Soprano Liz Pearse is becoming known as a fearless performer of wide-ranging repertoire, reflected in performances spanning from medieval works to world premieres. Liz is one-fourth of Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, recent winners of a Copland Fund recording grant. Acclaimed interpreters and commissioners of living composers, Quince is "a new force of vocal excellence and innovation" (Brooklyn Rail).A frequent chamber soloist, Liz has performed with a number of groups at BGSU - Vier letzte Lieder with the BGSU Philharmonia, Ancient Voices of Children with the New Music Ensemble and countless performances at the MACCM New Music Festival. As a student at IU, her solo appearances included the University Chorale, Women's Chorus, New Music Ensemble, Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, and with a medieval ensemble for BLEMF's Fringe series. She also performed her first Pierrot lunaire with an independent ensemble while at IU.

www.lizpearse.com

Hornist Matthew Oliphant is a new music and chamber music specialist living in Chicago, IL. Oliphant is fast becoming known as an adventurous and courageous young player. As solo hornist with new music group Ensemble Dal Niente, he performs the music of our time by established and emerging composers, as well as classics of the new music repertoire.

Jonathon Kirk is a composer, teacher, and sound artist active in many areas of new music, improvisation, electronic and computer music, and installation art. His work has recently been presented at the Tate Modern in London, the London and Melbourne International Animation Festivals, the Weisman Museum of Art in Minneapolis, the Los Angeles Short Film Festival, Musica Viva in Lisbon, the Courtisane Festival in Brussels, Spark Festival, the Boston Cyberarts Festival, and the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.

http://www.oliphant-horn.com/

The Witching Hour is a gathering of artists dedicated to creating unique theatrical experiences through collaborative innovation – theatre that challenges both ensemble and audience by drawing on the strength of the artistic community that surrounds us.

https://www.facebook.com/bbwitchinghour

Pianist Stacey Barelos specializes in the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly the music of living composers. Regarding her first solo release, The Midwest American Piano Project, the American Record Guide said, “Stacey Barelos...plays with authority and poetic nuance, her beautiful tone captured vividly in this warm recording...” Barelos has done extensive research on the piano music of Henry Cowell, much of which can be seen on her website: www.cowellpiano.com.  Centaur Records released her second CD, Henry Cowell: Piano Music, in 2012. As a composer, Stacey’s works have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe and Australia. Her recent work Rambunction is currently being featured on tour with the New Muse Duo.  Upcoming works includes a piece for the woodwind quintet Black Marigold and collaboration with visual artist Marianne Evans Lombe.

In all musical endeavors, Stacey works to bridge the gap between musician and audience through engaging programming, humor and most recently, crayons.

www.staceybarelos.com

Zimbabwe native Vimbayi Kaziboni(b. 1988) has received considerable acclaim across the globe as a “vigorous” conductor (Wiesbadener Kurrier), “of great intensity” (Neue Musikzeitung) and “absolutely superb interpretation” (composer Unsuk Chin). His young and versatile career has taken him to performances in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan, performing at some of the most prestigious concert halls in the world, including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Hall, Deutschlandfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk and Oper Frankfurt among others.

Performed by Megan Ihnen (mezzo soprano), Bonnie Lander (soprano), and Elisabeth Halliday (soprano), Ophelia Forever is a chamber opera composed in 2005 by Amy Beth Kirsten. 

Ophelia has been portrayed in theater, art, poetry, photography, film, music, and dance over the course of generations. With each generation comes a fresh analysis of her significance to Hamlet, the mystery surrounding her death, and especially her madness. Many interpretations have formed over the years and seem to coincide with an established cultural ethos regarding women of the time. Because Ophelia has served as a social mirror she has reflected the journey of the human spirit that has sought to defy polite social labels, to resist gender-based restraints, and to forge a path that embraces both love and independence. The aim for this piece is to present the multiplicity of the character, the struggle between the aspects, and the eventual resolution of the struggle.

Ophelia Forever is very much indebted to “The Myth and Madness of Ophelia”, an art exhibit spearheaded by Carol Solomon Kiefer of the Mead Art Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was the printed version of this exhibit that not only pointed to non-Shakespearean sources for text but also inspired the concept of three Ophelia’s on stage at once, each representing a different aspect of her psyche, battling for control. Especially significant are the famous painting, Ophelia, 1851-52 by John Everett Millais, Gregory Crewdson’s photograph Untitled (Ophelia) 2000-1, and Linda Stark’s oil on canvas Ophelia Forever (1999).

http://www.meganihnen.com/

http://elisabethhalliday.blogspot.com/

http://www.rhymeswithopera.org/bonnie-lander/

http://www.amybethkirsten.com/

Led by Monya DeBoer and Sara Brown, Lincoln's AperiDance will present a collection of group, solo, and duets of modern and contemporary pieces. Three new event specific pieces will be created to address gender roles in society, human connections and transparency, and another piece on consumerism.

http://ccddance.com/

Ben Melsky is a Chicago-based harpist specializing in new music, solo and ensemble playing, and teaching.  Currently, he is the principal harp for the Joffrey Ballet and Ann Arbor Symphony and has played with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater, Grant Park Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic among many others. He is a member of the with the highly acclaimed Ensemble Dal Niente, with whom he has performed nationally in concerts and residencies.  He has worked closely with or premiered works by George Lewis, Augusta Reed Thomas, Anthony Cheung, Raphael Cendo, and Marcos Balter among others. Recent highlights include appearances with Indie noise-band Deerhoof NYC Ecstatic Music Festival, as the featured ensemble at the Bowling Green State New Music Festival.

http://www.benmelsky.com/

Sean Thomas Boyt and Andy Thierauf have been cross-disciplinary collaborators for the past three years, creating work that spans a variety of genres by using dance and percussion as mediums for engaging performance art. Sean Thomas Boyt is a dancer and choreographer in Philadelphia. He currently dances for The Naked Stark, Anne-Marie Mulgrew & Dancers Co, and SKI BALL. Sean holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Iowa and has danced for Ballet Minnesota, Moving Arts Ensemble, Dancers in Company, Antonia & Artists, and many independent choreographers. Andy is a percussionist and composer specializing in new music and technology. He performs across the Midwest at conferences, symposiums, and music festivals as well as curating a monthly concert series in Iowa City – iHearIC. He is currently finishing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Percussion Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Iowa after receiving a B.M. from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music a M.M. from The Ohio State University. In addition, Andy is adjunct professor of percussion at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Incorporating electronics, improvisation, text, and physical theater, the “dance/perc” duo is constantly experimenting and producing material while refining their practices individually. Sean and Andy have been invited to perform their collaborations across the Midwest and Philadelphia at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Ten Tiny Performances, New Music Symposium, ETC Performance Series, and IC Open City. More information can be found on STBDancing.com and AndyThierauf.com

STBDancing.com

Michael Lewanski enjoys a varied career as a champion of contemporary music and standard repertoire.  He was appointed Assistant Professor of Instrumental Ensembles at the DePaul University School of Musicin 2012 after having served as an adjunct professor since 2007.  He is the conductor of the DePaul Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble 20+ (20th and 21st century music), co-conductor of the DePaul Wind Ensemble, and frequent guest conductor of the DePaul Symphony Orchestra.  Michael is conductor of the internationally acclaimed Chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente.  He attended the 2012 Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music where Ensemble Dal Niente, under his direction, became the first ensemble to be awarded the prestigious Kranichstein Music Prize.  

http://www.michaellewanski.com/

MIMIC is a five-part piece for two performers, Samuel Scranton and Ellen McSweeney, in an intense musical and physical face-off. A "collaborative commission" of Scranton by McSweeney, the piece includes music, text and movement developed by the duo in collaborative sessions. The piece is composed for violin, percussion, speaking/singing voices, found instruments and electronics.

Sam Scranton is a composer/performer who lives and works in Chicago. He has been described in New Music Box as "an artist taking wholehearted risks" and in the New York Times as a "killer drummer". Sam's music has been performed in numerous concert halls and exhibition spaces such as Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), Constellation (Chicago), and Art of This (Minneapolis); and has performed onstage in Berlin, Moscow, London, and Paris with avant rock ensemble volcano!, their music released by Leaf Label (UK). In December 2014, his work will appear on the Chicago's first contemporary art music tape label Parlour Tapes+.


Ellen McSweeney is a Chicago-based violinist, singer-songwriter, and writer. A performer comfortable in the realms of contemporary classical music, folk/pop music, improvisation, literature, and performance art, Ellen enjoys a diverse and ever-shifting portfolio of collaborative projects. Her string trio, Chicago Q Ensemble, spent the 2013-14 season developing two evening-length, three-woman shows which combine theater with contemporary and classical chamber music. As a member of the six-member cast of Holcombe Waller's groundbreaking show Wayfinders, she has been presented at On The Boards Seattle, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music this fall. She is the principal violinist of the International Chamber Musicians and performs frequently with new-music ensemble Fonema Consort. As the Chicago Regional Editor for NewMusicBox.org, she writes for a national audience about women in music, musicians and money, and the Chicago art music scene. Her debut EP, The Wrong Idea, was released in October 2014.

http://www.ellenmcsweeney.net/

Clarinetist/bass clarinetist Jeff Anderle is currently enjoying an extremely diverse musical life. He is half of the bass clarinet duo Sqwonk, which infuses aspects of classical, folk and popular music into its own distinct style, and is a member of Edmund Welles, the world’s only composing bass clarinet quartet, performing “heavy chamber music.”  An exponent of contemporary classical music, Jeff is the clarinetist of the bi-coastal ensemble REDSHIFT, and  has performed extensively in the SF Bay Area in diverse venues as a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Paul Dresher Electro/Acoustic Band and Magik*Magik Orchestra, as well as with the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Del Sol String Quartet, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and Earplay.  In addition, Jeff is a founding co-director of Switchboard Music, which presents an annual marathon concert featuring composers, ensembles and bands that fuse different genres and styles of music.  Jeff holds a M.M. from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a B.A from UCLA.

http://www.jeffanderle.com/

Jesse Langen studied guitar with Anne Waller at Northwestern University and played in master classes for Oscar Ghiglia, Sergio and Odair Assad, Bob Guthrie, Elliot Fisk, David Russell, Roberto Aussell, Nigel North, and Paul O'Dette. In the summer of 2002, he was a featured soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

On top of many performances in Chicago, across the United States, and in Europe, Jesse has played in the Minnesota Guitar Society Concert Series, the Chicago Segovia Classical Guitar Series (as a member of the Guitar Camerata), the Memphis "Imagine" New Music Series (as a member of the G-Force Guitar Quartet), and at Columbia University in New York.

An avid player of new music, Jesse has premiered dozens of pieces, many of which were written for him. He can be heard as a soloist, in chamber collaborations, and with Ensemble Dal Niente.

http://dalniente.com/dalnienteartists/Langen.html

Brought together by friendship, love of performing great music and a deep-seated desire to share that music, pianist Stacie Haneline, oboist Darci Gamerl and soprano Shelby VanNordstrand founded the ensemble I the Siren in 2010. The evocative name —inspired by the alluring mythological creature—reflects the enchantment and irresistibility of their unique sound. They made their debut in 2011 at the College of St Mary in Omaha, NE.

I the Siren is the faculty trio in residence at the University of Nebraska Omaha, joining 

the Nebraska Touring Artists Roster in 2014. A two-week residency at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen, NH launched their 2014-15 season. Future engagements take them to Kearney, Minnesota, and Wyoming.

www.ithesiren.com

Founded in 2012, Ensemble 768 (pronounced "Ensemble Seven, Six, Eight") is so named because the speed of sound through dry air is 768mph.

Ensemble 768 is the new music ensemble of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The ensemble is dedicated to the performance of student and local composer works as well as masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries. Membership is by audition.

The Moving Company is the University of Nebraska at Omaha's modern dance performing group. It is under the auspices of the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation and auditions are open to all University students and members of the Omaha community. It is an intergenerational company with a mission to create new works and to restage historical pieces.

https://www.facebook.com/Ensemble768/info?tab=page_info

Italian-born guitarist and musicologist Giacomo Fiore lives and works in San Francisco. He has performed in Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, and across the U.S., premiering more than a dozen new works for justly-tuned, electric, and classical guitars. Giacomo has released four solo recordings, including his most recent "iv: american electric guitars," which was awarded a Project Grant by New Music USA. As a scholar his research focuses on U.S. experimental music, intonation, and performance; he has published articles in JSAM, TEMPO, Classical Guitar, and the San Francisco Classical Voice. Giacomo is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Tangents Guitar Series, and he lectures at the San Francisco Conservatory, UCSC, and the University of San Francisco.

http://www.giacomofiore.com/

Hannah Mayer is an Omaha-based cellist passionate about contemporary classical music as well as music education.  This past July she performed at the inaugural Omaha Under the Radar contemporary performance art festival.  Ms. Mayer also attended the fresh inc festival in June and is a past participant in the soundSCAPE composition and performance exchange festival.  She is a founding member of Ensemble 768, the new music ensemble at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO).  In 2007, Ms. Mayer started the More than Music mentoring partnership between the Omaha Symphony and Girls Inc. of Omaha.  Ms. Mayer is a four year participant as a music mentor and is now a mentor for the Girls Inc. Pathfinders Program.

Omaha guitarist Ben Eisenberger is active in the local music scene as both a performer and teacher. Ben performs a wide range of musical styles with a variety of artists and ensembles, on several  instruments. Mr. Eisenberger has had many exciting contemporary musical opportunities, including the premiere of Phill Smith’s matryoshka at the Holland Center for the Omaha Performing Arts The Rite Returns festival.  Ben is also a member of Ensemble 768, UNO’s contemporary classical ensemble. Mr. Eisenberger received his Bachelor’s Degree in guitar performance from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) as a student of Hadley Heaven, also playing in master classes with the great guitarist Ricardo Iznaola. In addition to classical, Ben has also released four albums with various Omaha bands, and is an avid Belgian beer enthusiast.

Jason Webb is a creative technologist, OSHW engineer, Maker and general lover of learning with a passion for digital fabrication, non-traditional education and the intersections of art and science.

http://jason-webb.info/

Kayleigh Butcher spent the majority of her life in St. Louis, Missouri, where she began her musical studies. She enjoys all types of repertoire ranging from the early Baroque period to contemporary music of the present day. As an advocate of new and contemporary music, she has been complimented for her "flawless rhythm and nuanced articulations" (WWW Blogspot). She has commissioned numerous new works for herself and for her vocal ensemble, Quince, and has recently been seen in the world premiere of Jamie Leigh Sampson's one-act opera, Wearing White, in a.per.io.dic's John Cage Festival, and performed Tristan Perich's piece "What's thought of as a boundless, continuous expanse...." for 5 sopranos and 15-channel, 1-bit electronics on the Philip Glass: Music with Friends Benefit concert at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn.

She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Vocal Performance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2008 and completed her Master in Music at Bowling Green State University in 2011.  Kayleigh also dabbles with composition, writing fugues and other arrangements for her ensemble,Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, which was recently hailed as "a new force of vocal excellence and innovation" by The Brooklyn Rail. 

http://www.kayleighbutcher.com/

Bassoons Across Nebraska are members of the Omaha and Lincoln Symphony bassoon sections who seek to raise “Bassoon Awareness” throughout the region. Representing the Bassoons on the Omaha Under the Radar festival are James Compton and Karen Sandene, long-time colleagues in the Omaha Symphony bassoon section.  

Joining them will be percussionist Tomm Roland, Coordiinator of Percussion Studies and Multicultural Music at UNO. James Compton serves as Principal Bassoonist of the Omaha Symphony and is an adjunct instructor of bassoon at UNO; Compton is a graduate of the University of Southern California and attended the Juilliard School of Music.  Karen Sandene, is Contrabassoonist in the Omaha Symphony, Second Bassoonist in the Lincoln Symphony, and a music instructor in the Lincoln Public Schools.  She studied bassoon at the UNL with Gary Echols and Albie Michlich, and contrabassoon with Bradford Buckley of the St. Louis Symphony.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bassoons-Across-Nebraska/260984090757460

Atlas Percussion is a fusion of contemporary, classical, world and popular music for percussion trio. Atlas Percussion has performed diverse repertoire in a variety of formal and informal settings including private concerts, educational offerings, and a performance at the Biosphere 2 Earth Day Festival. Founded in 2009, the ensemble is thrilled to perform at the Omaha Under the Radar 2015 festival.

At Omaha Under the Radar, Atlas Percussion will perform percussion music inspired and created through the interactions between humans and nature. The composers Mark Applebaum, Christopher Deane, and Elliot Cole will be featured during their performance.  

Currently, the members of Atlas Percussion join forces only a few times a year for performances given the distance between its members. Kyle Maxwell-Doherty currently freelances in New York City as a percussionist and dance musician. Dr. Scott Shinbara is Instructor of Percussion and Ethnomusicology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Alex Wier currently resides in Phoenix and is an adjunct instructor at Phoenix College and completing a D.M.A. at Arizona State University. 

Nat Evans, together with Jeremiah Cawley, will present a new non-narrative theatrical work for percussion, electronics, field recording and tenor composed by Nat Evans. The ideas for the piece will be drawn from Evans' time walking the 2600-mile Pacific Crest Trail over the course of five months in 2014. 

Seattle sound artist and composer Nat Evans creates site-specific events that fuse nature, community and subjectivity of experience, electro-acoustic works for interdisciplinary projects, as well as concert works for chamber ensembles. His work is regularly presented across the United States and has also been performed in Europe, South America, Australia and China. Evans has received numerous commissions including the Seattle Percussion Collective, the Harrison Center for the Arts, The Henry, Odeon Quartet, The City of Tomorrow, Portland Cello Project, ALL RISE, The Box Is Empty, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, among others. His music has been featured on a number of radio stations in the United States, WNYC's New Sounds with John Schaefer, as well as BBC3, and in the 2011 Music Issue of The Believer. He studied music at Butler University with Michael Schelle and Frank Felice.

http://natevansmusic.com/

Jeremiah Cawley is a conductor and tenor whose interests and performance experience extend from the music of the Renaissance to contemporary art music. Jeremiah has conducted multiple world and US premieres, including music by Steve Reich, David Lang, and Louis Andriessen, and Michel Van Der Aa.  He founded the Seattle-based new music ensemble The Box Is Empty, and has worked closely with contemporary groups including The Riot Ensemble (London, UK) and Chamber Cartel (Atlanta). Jeremiah has served as music director for the Seattle-based Vespertine Opera Theater, with whom he most recently conducted Benjamin Britten’s Rape of Lucretia. 

http://jeremiahcawley.com/

As dedicated advocates of new music, Quince regularly commissions new works, providing a wider exposure for the music of living composers, and supports the efforts of concert series and universities who strive to incorporate contemporary repertoire into their programming.  Quince has recently been seen on Vicky Chow's Contagious Sounds Series, a.per.io.dic's John Cage Festival in Chicago, on the Philip Glass: Music with Friends benefit concert at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, and at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE.

Comprised of vocalists Elizabeth Pearse,  Kayleigh Butcher,  Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, and Carrie Henneman Shaw Quince thrives on unique musical challenges and genre-bending contemporary repertoire.

www.quince-ensemble.com

Danny Clay is a composer / sound artist / teaching artist / general noise-maker from Ohio, currently based in San Francisco. His work draws upon elements of unusual musical traditions, found objects, archival media, toy instruments, digital errata, local history, graphic notation, children's theater, and the everything-in-between.

As a teaching artist specializing in composition with elementary schoolers, he has worked with Little Opera, the San Francisco Opera, 826 Valencia, Thingamajigs, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC), and currently curates Project Object, a net-label of experimental music by kids.

He also serves as a resident curator at the Center for New Music in San Francisco, sporadic host of Music from Other Minds on KALW radio, and occasional writer for I Care If You Listen blog and magazine.

http://www.dclaymusic.com/

Praised for her "beautiful tone" by KCMetropolis, Katherine Woolsey enjoys a versatile career as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician.  She currently performs with the Topeka Symphony Orchestra, Midwest Chamber Ensemble, and Kinnor Philharmonic, and has shared the stage with members of Fifth House Ensemble, Arianna String Quartet, and Bernadette Peters.  As a soloist, Katherine has performed recitals throughout the United States and Europe, and has been invited to participate in conferences for Electronic Music Midwest, Society for Composers, Inc., and the International Double Reed Society.  Dedicated to expanding the solo and chamber repertoire for oboe and English horn, she has recently commissioned solo and chamber works from composers Bill Douglas, Jon Fielder, Jonathan Hannau, Craig Davis Pinson, Daniel Morel, and Jason Charney.  She has participated as a performance fellow at the soundSCAPE and fresh inc festivals, and was featured with members of Fifth House Ensemble as part of Make Music Chicago.  A devoted pedagogue, Katherine is the Instructor of Oboe at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

Katherine holds a Doctor of Music from The Florida State University, where she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in oboe and music education.  Her primary teachers include Cynthia Lambrecht, Mary Ashley Barret, Mark Ostoich, and Eric Ohlsson.

www.katherinewoolsey.com

Flutist Shanna Gutierrez is a dynamic performer and teacher who appears throughout the United States and abroad as a soloist, clinician, and as a member of several chamber ensembles, including Collect/Project and Sonic Hedgehog.  Shanna has received numerous awards and accolades for her performances including, prizes at the 2011 (THINKI) and 2013 (XI) Stockhausen Courses, and the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. She was a founding member of the Chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente, recipient of the 2012 Kranichstein Prize for Interpretation. She has been featured on live radio broadcasts for WFMT Chicago, performances at Carnegie Hall and the Chicago Cultural Center, and contemporary music festivals throughout the US—in addition to concerts and residencies in Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, South Korea, Mexico, and Colombia.

http://www.shannagutierrez.com/

A proponent of contemporary music, Jason Domonkos is active in the Omaha area as a percussion soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Jason holds a B.M. from theUniversity of Nebraska at Omaha and recently completedhis Masters at California State, Sacramento.

 A native of Lincoln, NE, Sophia Potter began her cello studies at the age of 10 with Carol Work.  She received her B.A. in Cello Performance in 2007 from Oberlin College where she studied with Peter Rejto, Hans Jensen, and Amir Eldan.  Sophia has studied chamber music extensively as an undergraduate, graduate, and at summer festivals.  Sophia has played in solo master classes for Norman Fischer and Zuill Bailey, and chamber music master classes for William Preucil, Peter Marsh, Roger Tapping, Lawrence Dutton, Nathaniel Rosen, the Chiara String Quartet, Jacques Thibaud Trio, and the Ames Piano Quartet.  She has received chamber music coaching from the Chiara String Quartet, Paul Barnes, Byron Tauchi, Eric Koontz, Robert Shannon, and Alvin Chow.   

    In the Spring of 2009, Sophia received her M.M. in Cello Performance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied with Gregory Beaver of the Chiara Quartet.   
    In 2010, Sophia moved to Omaha, NE to found The Rangbrook Ensemble. She looks forward to beginning the Rangbrook Ensemble’s fourth season of free chamber music concerts, including an annual new music concert, in September 2015. She plays on a 2008 William Whedbee cello made in Chicago.

http://www.rangbrookensemble.org/cellos.html

The percussion ensemble at the University of Nebraska Omaha, led by Scott Shinbara.

Xylotheque will perform Mauricio Kagel's "Dressur" at Omaha Under the Radar. "Dressur" is a piece which combines percussion and theater. The percussionists are given music and actions that create a drama. The actions are set but the emotions are up for interpretation.

Philip Kolbo
Jared Brown
Raymond Kyaw

Described by critics as "masterful" and "evocative," flutist Christine Erlander Beard is constantly in demand as a soloist, chamber artist, and clinician. Quickly achieving international recognition as a performer and advocate for the piccolo, she has performed extensively across the U.S. and Europe. including nine of the previous eleven conventions of the National Flute Association (2002-2012); the2011 European Piccolo Festival in Slovenia; the 2010 International Flute Festival in France; and two British Flute Society International Conventions (2008, 2012). Her flute festival appearances include St. Louis, Philadelphia, Alabama, Iowa, Vermont, Hot Springs (AR), and Emporia State University. Upcoming engagements include invitations to appear as a guest artist at both the International Flute Festival in Costa Rica (2013) and the Canadian Flute Convention (2013).

Tomm Roland, percussionist, holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from California State University, Sacramento and a D.M.A. in percussion performance from SUNY Stony Brook. Tomm has participated in a variety of music festivals including Music from Bear Valley, The Festival of New American Music, and most recently the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (2001, 2003, 2005, 2006). In addition to sessions for various regional rock and pop projects he has recorded for Summit, Capstone and CRI. His most recent recordings are Take Flight by the Omaha Symphony, Rave On: Live at the Drew, and Billy McGuigan Billy As Billy. Tomm is currently Associate Professor of Percussion/Multicultural Music at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.