Claire Chase

An Evening of Performance and Conversation: An evening of solo works by Felipe Lara, Suzanne Farrin, and Marcos Balter, including a conversation with President Damian Woetzel View Program

2020 ChamberFest: Performance and coaching of Alvin Lucier’s Monteverdi Shapero with Classical, Jazz, and Historical Performance students joined by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with Lucier in attendance View Program

Open Repertoire Classes with Woodwind Students: Discussion of Edgard Varèse’s Density project, Vijay Iyer's piece Five Empty Chambers, and experiences with commissioning solo flute repertoire

Virtual Performance of Five Empty Chambers: A prerecorded performance of Vijay Iyer’s Five Empty Chambers performed by Chase and an ensemble of Juilliard students, alumni, and faculty from the college and preparatory divisions View Video

Pan: Workshop of Marcos Balter’s Pan with an ensemble of Juilliard students, staff, faculty, and alumni from the College and Preparatory divisions

Commissioning Original Works: A Conversation With Creative Associate Claire Chase

The Lab: Inspired by Density 2036: Creative Associate and MacArthur “genius” award winner Claire Chase mentored three pairs of College and Preparatory Division students as they composed and performed new works for solo flute. Creative Associate Jennifer Koh mentored four pairs of College Division students as they composed new works for solo violin inspired by excerpts of Bach partitas and sonatas. These multimonth intensives culminated in March in seven world premieres hosted by Chase and Koh at Chelsea Factory. 

Claire Chase is a soloist, collaborative artist, curator and advocate for new and experimental music. Over the past decade she has given the world premieres of hundreds of new works for the flute, and she has championed new music internationally by building organizations, forming alliances, pioneering commissioning initiatives, and supporting educational programs that reach new audiences. Chase founded the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2001, was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012, and in 2017 was the first flutist to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She is in the midst of a 23-year initiative called Density 2036 to commission an entirely new body of repertoire for solo flute leading up to the centennial of Edgard Varese’s seminal 1936 flute solo Density 21.5. A deeply committed educator, Chase was co-artistic director of Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity’s summer music programs from 2017-2019, where she and her co-director, Steven Schick, founded Ensemble Evolution, an intensive program for emerging musicians seeking to reimagine the 21st century new-music ensemble, and Evolution of the String Quartet (EQ), a program for young string quartets and composers that combines historically-informed practice, traditional repertory and the newest of new music. Chase is professor of the practice of music at Harvard University, where she teaches courses on ensemble building, cultural activism, and collaboration across disciplines. She lives in Brooklyn.