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La Crosse New Music Festival

About Calendar of Events Visiting Artist Biographies Contact Past Events

About the event

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8
Annett Recital Hall, 152 Lowe Center for the Arts

This year’s festival is shaped by a subtle but consistently present theme of Music and its Connection to Place. Dr. Jonathan Borja will perform Homelands, a piece that “questions the meaning of home when it is in political turmoil, devastated by a natural disaster or a human disaster.” Dr. Mary Tollefson will perform variations on a Lebanese folks song. Members of UWL’s Wind Ensemble will perform James Webb’s Pillars, a piece that meditates on details within a famous photograph of a stellar nursery.

This year’s festival also features three special guest performers. Flutist and New Music specialist Sasha Ishov will present a concert of solo flute music and violin/piano duo Eric Miller and Sue Ellen Dubbert will present an all-Arvo Pärt program, featuring Leanne Kelso. We are also honored this year that Zeitgeist, the long-standing pillar of New Music in the Twin Ciites and beyond, will be performing works by Brent Michael Davids and Randy Bauer.

All events for the 2025 La Crosse New Music Festival take place in Annett Recital Hall of the Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts, UWL Campus.

Calendar of Events

Thursday, November 6

Concert #1: (un)settled

November 6, 7:30 p.m. | Annett Recital Hall, Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts

Featuring the Logan High School New Music Ensemble playing John Zorn’s Cobra, the members of the UWL Chamber Winds, flutist Alyssa Gaines, Dr. Jonathan Borja and Dr. Mary Tollefson.

Full details here.

Friday, November 7

Roundtable Discussion: "New Music is Local Music"

November 7, 2:15 p.m. | Annett Recital Hall, Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts

 

(un)familiar Concert

Concert #2: (un)familiar

November 7, 7:30 p.m. | Annett Recital Hall, Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts

Featuring Chicago-based flutist Sasha Ishov, playing works by Javier Álvarez, Sofia Gubaidulina, Libby Larsen, Liza Lim, Tristan Murail, Paul Novak, Augusta Read Thomas, and Alvin Singleton.

Full details here.

Saturday, November 8

(meta)physical Concert

Concert #3: (meta)physical

November 8, 4 p.m. | Annett Recital Hall, Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts

Violinist Eric Miller and pianist Sue Ellen Dubbert, featuring violinist Leanne Kelso, play a wide range of pieces by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

Full details here.

region(less) Concert

Concert #4: region(less)

November 8, 7:30 p.m. | Annett Recital Hall, Truman T. Lowe Center for the Arts

Featuring Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble, playing The Last of James Fenimore Cooper by Brent Michael Davids, a composer who is an enrolled citizen of the Mohican Nation, and Holding Patterns by Randy Bauer, a composer and jazz musician based in Minneapolis.

Full details here.

Visiting Artist Biographies

Flutist Sasha Ishov

Sasha Ishov

Sasha Ishov is a Russian-American flutist exploring how performance and research intersect to expand the flute’s expressive possibilities. Praised for his “well-sounded and lucid” artistry (San Diego Union-Tribune), his work bridges contemporary and classical repertoire through solo, chamber, and orchestral performances and experimental collaborations with technology and new media.

He has premiered more than 100 works and performed at the Ojai Music Festival, BBC Proms, Carnegie Hall, June in Buffalo, and the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics in Graz, as well as with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and San Diego Symphony. Sasha co-leads Offscreen with percussionist Michael Jones and a new duo with bassist Will Yager. His project PrismaSonus, presented at Harvard University and the Qualcomm Institute, examines how technology shapes performer–composer communication.

He has lectured at UC San Diego and the North Carolina Governor’s School, and holds degrees from UC San Diego (DMA) and Eastman (BM). Sasha is a Miyazawa Artist.

Ishov plays in the La Crosse New Music Festival's Concert #2: (un)familiar.

Zeitgeist

Lauded for providing “a once-in-a-lifetime experience for adventurous concertgoers,” Zeitgeist is a new music chamber ensemble comprised of two percussion, piano and woodwinds. One of the longest established new music groups in the country, Zeitgeist commissions and presents a wide variety of new music for audiences in Minnesota. Always eager to explore new artistic frontiers, Zeitgeist collaborates with poets, choreographers, directors, visual artists and sound artists of all types to create imaginative new work that challenges the boundaries of traditional chamber music. The members of Zeitgeist are: Heather Barringer, percussion; Patti Cudd, percussion; Pat O’Keefe, woodwinds; Nicola Melville, piano.

Zeitgeist performs in the finale concert of the 2025 La Crosse New Music Festival titled region(less).

Zeitgeist Ensemble