NTQ has a blast visiting Berklee College of Music in late February! Our two-day residency included a reading session of new compositions by students, a discussion on commissions and funding with Berklee’s Society of Composers, rehearsals with students/faculty, and recital performance on the final day.

For the reading session, we learned 11 new compositions by students Aidan Vogel, Ryan Milford, Len Tetta, Kunal Gala, Luis Enrique McDougal, George Bromley, Young Jun Leon Lee, Daniel Jones, Dai Haraguchi, Jun Matoba, and Davis Feeley. Congratulations to all of them on their work. NTQ was truly impressed by the variety and quality of your music!

To wrap up our visit we gave a recital in Seully Hall that featured music by Berklee students and faculty. The student works programmed included Kunal Gala’s playful splashing puddles, Len Tetta’s driving and energetic Five Miniatures and a Fantasy, and YoungJun Leon Lee’s somber Tsunami. We also performed faculty member Yoon-Ji Lee’s Thump which was inspired by Korean drumming and Richard Carrick’s Harmonixity which was NTQ’s first commission! To round out the program we included one of our newest pieces: Dennis Sullivan As Above, So Below, which utilizes unusual techniques, vocalization, and electronic playback.