NOW Ensemble is a dynamic new music group that is dedicated to the presentation of works by emerging composers. Formed as a means of facilitating communication and shared music-making between composers and performers, we give chamber music a new sound and a new vitality for the next generation of musicians, composers, and listeners. For repertoire, the group relies on the creation of new music for the ensemble, making composers and composition an integrated part of every performance. Our audience is a cross-section of the New York music scene, capturing listeners from all generations, and fans of many musical genres. Our shows are lively, unpretentious events, featuring musicians of the highest caliber in a context that younger audiences find comfortable and older audiences find refreshing.

Based in New York City, NOW Ensemble has performed at a variety of concert halls, art galleries, and clubs around the city, including Merkin Concert Hall, The Wave Hill Cultural Center, BAM Café, the Knitting Factory, the Tenri Cultural Institute, Galapagos Art Space, the Juilliard School, VIM: TriBeCa, Williamsburg's DuBuQuE Concert Series, and the Look & Listen Festival in Chelsea's Robert Miller Gallery. We have toured Southern California, been in residence in numerous prestigious universities, and were recently heard on the world famous 2007 Bang on a Can Marathon at the World Financial Center. WNYC's John Schaefer singled us out for special mention in his broadcast of the Marathon, playing us at the beginning of the broadcast and calling us "one of the great surprises of the 2007 Marathon." We have been praised by critics such as Alex Ross of the New Yorker, who gave us special mention in a 2006 article about Steve Reich, and Steve Smith of the New York Times, who praised our "highly attractive, rock-influenced works" at the Bang on a Can Marathon.

NOW Ensemble is engaged in our second annual fundraising drive. We funded our new album, NOW, entirely on our own, with concert revenues. We have no professional management or publicity director of any kind, and rely on concert revenues to pay our artists. We need to raise additional money in order for the following purposes: 1) To pay artists' fees for shows and programs (such as educational events) that do not provide a substantial fee to the ensemble, 2) To cover overhead, including part-time management for scheduling, website maintenance, publicity mailings, and other tasks, and 3) To commission composers to write new works for NOW Ensemble, without which we would have no new repertoire to perform, given the idiosyncratic instrumentation of the group.

NOW Ensemble formed at the Yale School of Music in 2003, as a response to the lack of interactions between composers and performers. The group was originally a more wide-open new music ensemble, but was eventually refined to include a set instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano. In the Fall of 2005, NOW Ensemble toured the Northeast as part of Free Speech Zone (fszproductions.com), a tour of politically-themed, provocative new music that reached audiences in New York, Boston and New Haven. In the Spring of 2006, NOW Ensemble was the featured visiting group at the Carlsbad Music Festival (carlsbadmusicfestival.org) in Carlsbad, California, the concluding show in a tour of Southern California that included two shows in Los Angeles and a visit to CalArts. Recent concerts include a trip to Chihuahua, Mexico, for the Festival Internacional de Chihuahua; a visit to Pittsburgh for a concert as part of their Music on the Edge series; a residency at Princeton University with the PhD composers; and a show at New York's esteemed nightclub, Le Poisson Rouge. Upcoming events include a spot on the MATA Festival, a trip to Cincinnati's MusicNOW festival, and the premiere of a new work by composer Missy Mazzoli and filmmaker Stephen Taylor, as part of the new york: new amsterdam showcase at Galapagos Art Space. With these performances in New York and around the United States, NOW Ensemble has brought new music to the attention of the public as an essential and crucial part of our developing culture, engaging young audiences and non-musicians, as well as regular concertgoers, with a new vision for contemporary chamber music.

NOW Ensemble is:<br><br>
Patrick Burke, composer<br>Sara Budde, clarinet<br>Logan Coale, bass<br>Mark Dancigers, electric guitar and composer<br>Judd Greenstein, composer<br>Michael Mizrahi, piano<br>Alex Sopp, flute<br><br>
guest artists have included:<br><br>
Sarah Chalfy, voice<br>Ian Frye, drums<br>Ayano Kataoka, percussion<br>Jeremiah Duarte Mills, flute<br>Andrew Rehrig, flute<br>Peter Rosenfeld, bass (emeritus)<br>Peter Seymour, bass