SEPTEMBER 2025

Goethe String Quartet
September 28-October 2, 2026

Luke Hsu and Laura Rickard, violins; Marthe Husum, viola; and Rainer Crosett, cello

Our quartet residency at Yellow Barn will focus on deepening our relationship with composer, Reinaldo Moya, and the beautiful, one-movement work he wrote for us last year, Farbkreis (color wheel). Inspired by Goethe’s color theory, Reinaldo is now expanding this into a larger-scale work focused on other aspects of Goethe’s writing, including his study of botany. We have discussed with Reinaldo how Goethe writes, "from top to bottom a plant is all leaf, united so inseparably with the future bud that one cannot be imagined without the other" - an idea that has clear parallels to music and the compositional process. 

—Goethe String Quartet

EZRA
October 21-27, 2026
[Recording Residency]

Saturday, October 24
7:30-9pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Work-in-Process performance & conversation | Request tickets
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EZRA describes themselves as a “collective of classical, jazz, rock, and bluegrass musicians focused on the creation of genre-crossing and style-inclusive new music”, but perhaps more descriptive of their collective personality, is the working title of the album they come to Yellow Barn to record this October; Klink, Tink, & Tune, which pianist Xak Bjerken feels describes “both the playful attitude of the project and the sound profile of some of the tracks”. 

In addition to Xak, members of the trio are composer and multi-instrumentalist, Jesse Jones, and mandolinist, Jacob Jolliff. In addition to a Yellow Barn Steinway piano and harpsichord, Xak will be tickling the keys of a Silbermann fortepiano (a copy of an early instrument from CPE Bach's day) and a portable Indian harmonium. Finally, Xak’s son, Misha, adds his accomplished double bass playing to this residency project.

Imagine Beethoven and Bartók, appearing on the same bill alongside original works of bluegrass, rock, and jazz. It’s about time!

JACK Quartet Studio
November 9-13, 2026

JACK Quartet
Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violins; John Pickford Rochards, viola; Jay Campbell

JACK Studio Residency artists (2026-2028)
Camila Agosto and HAN

Composer mentor, Juri Seo

We conceived JACK Studio to help address inequity in our field by creating a free application process for music artists at various stages in their careers as composers, then offering selected artists opportunities to develop new work, hear their music performed by JACK Quartet, consult with mentors in the field, and receive recorded documentation.

By bringing together diverse groups of excellent and adventurous people in a focused and enjoyable setting to not only create new artistic projects, but to contribute to the evolution of the JACK Studio project itself, we have created an artistic ecosystem to link people that otherwise may not have had these opportunities, while simultaneously expanding the variety of musical artists with whom JACK Quartet has the opportunity to collaborate. 

—JACK Quartet

“Mountain Time: Making music inspired by place”
Kevin Wass, tuba
February 8-21, 2027

Saturday, February 20
7:30-9pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Work-in-Process performance & conversation | Request tickets
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It was in 2015 that I began working in multimedia, improvising, and thinking about music inspired by and performed in natural spaces. “Mountain Time” is my first foray into formal composition, a series of multimedia works based on different locations in North America. Alongside works based on segments of the Colorado Trail, the North Fork/Dunraven area of Rocky Mountain National Park, and Banff National Park, my Yellow Barn residency will be spent creating a work based on winter trails around Putney. 

—Kevin Wass

Kevin’s Yellow Barn Residency will be his very first visit to Vermont. 

Alexander Goehr’s “Sing Ariel” (1990)
February 22-March 1, 2027

Austin Philemon, conductor; Amber Evans, mezzo-soprano; Tynan Davis, soprano; Madeline Healey, soprano; Richard Valitutto, piano; Tim Leopold, trumpet; Brian Walsh, clarinet/saxophone; Madeline Hocking, violin; Sam Zagnit, double bass
Lucy Shelton, coach; Sam Fairbrother, dramaturge

Sunday, February 28
7:30-9pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Work-in-Process performance & conversation | Request tickets
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Alexander Goehr’s “Sing Ariel” (1990) is a bestriding of 20th-century musical expressions with an unconventional instrumentation for mezzo-soprano, two sopranos, piano, trumpet, clarinet/saxophone, violin, and double bass. It requires preparation time to build ensemble complicity from scratch, composed of musicians with ability to work across musical styles. We believe this eccentric ensemble commitment is the essence of the piece, stemming from its dedication “to Oliver Knussen; in friendship”.

Our residency week at Yellow Barn, with coaching by Lucy Shelton, who premiered and recorded the piece under Knussen’s baton, will establish this sense of kinship amongst the players. We would hope to then present the piece in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and are currently in discussion with the Vaughan Williams Foundation and University of Cambridge about presenting a tour of the work in England.

—Austin Philemon

Lyndon Ji, piano
March 3-10, 2027
[Recording Residency]

With composers Igor Santos and Pascal Le Boeuf

Pianist Lyndon Ji comes to Yellow Barn for the first of his two Artist Residencies devoted to exploring works that expand the piano’s sonic vocabulary. 

I am commissioning new works for solo piano and/or synthesizer by a diverse array of composers, Derek Bermel, Emily Liushen, Cerulean S. Payne-Passmore, Ben Rieke, Igor Santos, Elijah Daniel Smith, Sam Wu, Benjamin Webster, and Zihan Wu. These new works will be “études”, or more specifically “self-studies”, as each composer might interpret that phrase. In each work, the “self” will in some way reflect the composer’s identity.

Lyndon’s time at Yellow Barn will include both working with a number of his commissioned composers, and recording their works, culminating in a public performance in Big Barn next fall.

Anna Dunlap, harp
March 14-21, 2027
[Recording Residency]

With guest psychologist, James Barron

Sunday, March 21
7:30-9pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Work-in-Process performance & conversation | Request tickets
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My program, “Out of Darkness, Into Light,” centers on the importance of mental health and how to continue to look for hope and joy in times of darkness. The works I have selected share a common thread of exploring mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and autism as well as universal experiences of grief and loneliness. Through conversation with audiences, I connect these pieces to personal experience, either of the composers themselves, or those in own life, to help normalize and destigmatize these types of life experiences and conditions for my audience.

My Yellow Barn residency work will focus primarily on the pieces that are newest on the program: Blue Silence, a piece written by Elena Kats-Chernin in honor of her son who suffers from schizophrenia, Du Yun’s The Ocean Within, and Kirsten Agresta Copely’s All That Remains which “taps deep into the well of one’s healing and serenity in the face of adversity or loss.”

—Anna Dunlap

Kintsugi 
Rebecca Merblum, cello
March 28-April 4, 2027

Individual music meetings, March 29-April 2

Saturday, April 3
7:30-9pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Work-in-Process performance & conversation | Request tickets
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The ancient practice of Kintsugi offers an expressive aesthetic for the act of transformation itself. Perhaps the practice of using gold to fill the cracks of broken ceramics offers a visual representation of the art of being alive. One cannot live without hurt if one dares to love. So then, how do we find our gold, and ultimately, how does that become a source of connection with others?

This Yellow Barn Residency offers a chance for gold to be shaped and formed inside the world of sound. In the spirit of Kintsugi, I will intersperse the four solo cello suites of Chad ‘Sir Wick’ Hughes with movements from those of Bach, using this concept as an opening for sharing with others the journey of carving out an identity, finding love, and creating a sense of belonging amidst the inevitable inner cracks. 

Erinys Quartet
With Dana Fonteneau, founder of The WholeHearted Musician
May 4-11, 2027

Wednesday, May 5
Monday, May 10
7:30-9pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Work-in-Process performances & conversations | Request tickets
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Audiences are encouraged to attend both performances to experience the arc of the residency.

The Erinys Quartet was founded in 2018 at the Sibelius Academy. After a residency at the Curtis Institute of Music, and in their current position as the graduate string quartet in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, they now welcome violist, Yeh-Chun Lin, as a new member of the quartet.

Membership changes in any established group are inevitable and present an opportunity for the infusion of new ideas and growth. Now, only a few months after Yeh-Chun joining the quartet, the Erinys take full advantage of this change during their Yellow Barn residency. Guided by Dana Fonteneau, former Yellow Barn cellist now with a degree in psychology, they will explore the intimacies of interpretative communication, as well as how to navigate the logistical intricacies that a musician’s life presents.

Our audience will be invited into their process, as the quartet offers 2 performances of their program, one upon arrival, and the 2nd coming after their residency week of working with Dana. An open discussion will follow each concert.