Parhelion Trio performs the NWEAMO 2020 piece composed by Jennifer Higdon, entitled Dash.
Praised by The Strad magazine for their “effervescent” playing, Parhelion—Sarah Carrier (flute), Ashleé Miller (clarinet), and Andrea Christie (piano)—is a New York City-based ensemble dedicated to bringing virtuosic, robust, and impactful contemporary music to diverse audiences.
The trio’s 2019-2020 season is highlighted by a performance at John Zorn’s iconic venue The Stone alongside Rome prize-winning composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa. The season also marks the launch of Sun Dog Collabs, a three-part contemporary performance series featuring collaborations with all-star guest ensembles and groundbreaking visual artists. This year’s collaborators include ~Nois, Hypercube, The Furies, and Xuan. Parhelion’s season will also include premieres by composers Seong Ae Kim, Ricardo Gallo, Erin Rogers, Bahar Royai, and Peter Winkler.
Parhelion is the recipient of a 2018 New Music USA grant for their upcoming project Dark Matter: A Tribute to Vera Rubin. The project commissions Angélica Negrón, Danielle Eva Schwob, and Alexandra du Bois to create works in tribute to the late astrophysicist. The project is scheduled to launch in 2020. As awardees of the 2019 Barlow Grant, The Parhelion Trio will commission a new work by recent Guggenheim winner, Tonia Ko. The 2019 Barlow commission is part of a larger project Sum & Substance for the 2020-21 season that includes commissions for the trio by composers inti figgis-vizueta, Tonia Ko, Sarah Gibson, and Victoria Cheah.
In summer 2018, the trio travelled to Denmark and Iceland to perform and give workshops alongside Friction Quartet as featured Ensembles in Residence for New Music for Strings Festival. The trio has collaborated in concert with and alongside members of Eighth Blackbird; violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet; composer and singer-songwriter Shara Nova; Danish cellist Henrik Brendstrup; Friction Quartet; and the ensembles CreArtBox, Sugar Cave, Mazumal, Trumpetcello, Unheard-of/Ensemble, and Lydenskab. Parhelion has worked with iconic American composers Jennifer Higdon, Paul Schoenfield, Derek Bermel and Nico Muhly along with one of Australia’s leading choreographers, Ros Warby. The trio was also featured in an interview with Dan Dunford on Episode 44 on his music podcast “Divergent Paths,” which can be downloaded on iTunes.
Highlights from past concert seasons include performances at Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavík, Musikhuset in Aarhus, The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “ETHEL and Friends” Series, Cornelia Street Café, Southampton Cultural Center, CUNY Graduate Center, and Stony Brook University among many others. Parhelion has held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Adelphi University’s “New Music XII”, and New Music For Strings Festival, along with an ensemble fellowship at the 2018 Blackbird Creative Lab.
As strong advocates for contemporary music, Parhelion has presented workshops and performances for young composers of the New York Philharmonic’s “The Composer’s Bridge” program and the National Flute Association’s Annual Convention. Parhelion has presented lecture-recitals and masterclasses for students at Adelphi University and St. Joseph’s College. In the past four seasons, Parhelion has premiered over 20 new works dedicated to or written by the trio. Composers who have written works for Parhelion include: Daniel Weymouth, Annika Socolofsky, Sonia Jacobsen, Sidney Boquiren, Pierre Jalbert, Daniel Felsenfeld, Sunny Knable, Whitney George, David Loeb, Sean O’Boyle, Pierce Gradone and Nikolaj Busk.
Parhelion was a semi-finalist in the inaugural M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition, the largest chamber competition in the world, and was offered a one-year management prize.
The Parhelion Trio was formed in 2010 at the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance at Mannes College The New School for Music.