Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center presents Hub New Music, performing a dynamic program including compositions by Angélica Negrón, Elijah Daniel Smith, Nico Muhly, Tyshawn Sorey, Andrew Norman, and a new commissioned work by Yaz Lancaster.
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Hub New Music

Called “contemporary chamber trailblazers” by the Boston Globe, Hub New Music is a “prime mover of piping hot 21st century repertoire” (the Washington Post). Founded in 2013, the “nimble quartet of winds and strings” (NPR) has commissioned dozens of new works for its distinctive ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. Hub actively collaborates with today’s most celebrated composers on projects that traverse today’s rich musical landscape.

Recent and upcoming performances include concerts presented by the Kennedy Center, Seattle Symphony, Kaufman Music Center, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Williams Center for the Arts, Yale Schwarzman Center, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center, King’s Place (London), Soka Performing Arts Center, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, and the Celebrity Series of Boston.

To celebrate its recent 10th anniversary, Hub co-commissioned and premiered new works by Angélica Negrón, Nico Muhly, Tyshawn Sorey, Andrew Norman, Jessica Meyer, and Donnacha Dennehy. Upcoming commissioning projects include substantial electroacoustic works by Christopher Cerrone and Daniel Wohl (2025); a work by Yaz Lancaster co-created with Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center (2025); and a collaborative project with composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Bora Yoon (2026).

Hub New Music’s recordings have garnered consistent acclaim. The group’s most recent record with Silkroad’s Kojiro Umezaki, a distance, intertwined, features five works for Hub and shakuhachi, which award-winning multimedia hub I Care if You Listen called “beautiful, haunting music that presents a clear and authentic dialog between varied cultural paradigms and traditions.” Hub’s debut album, Soul House, released on New Amsterdam Records, was called “ingenious and unequivocally gorgeous” (Boston Globe) and “intensely poignant.” (Textura) In 2022, Hub’s album with Carlos Simon, Requiem for the Enslaved , was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Composition.

Hub is also dedicated to educating, inspiring and guiding future generations of artists. The ensemble has been a guest at leading institutions including Princeton University, University of Michigan, University of Southern California, and Indiana University. In 2021, Hub was a resident ensemble for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship program for high school aged composers. As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, Hub designed a fellowship program with the Luna Lab in NYC that was awarded to Luna Lab alumna Sage Shurman.

Hub New Music is Michael Avitabile (flutes), Gleb Kanasevich (clarinets), Magnolia Rohrer (violin/viola), and Jesse Christeson (cello). Currently based in Detroit, the ensemble’s name is inspired by its founding city of Boston’s reputation as a hub of innovation. Hub New Music is exclusively represented by Unfinished Side.

(Photo by Clay Larsen)
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Yaz Lancaster

Yaz Lancaster (they/them) is an experimental artist whose practice is grounded in queer, DIY, and liberatory frameworks. Their work utilizes improvisatory forms, electroacoustic composition, sampling/collage, and relational aesthetics. Cultivation of care & intimacy, Marxist praxis, and accessibility are priorities of their artistic ethos.

Yaz performs as violinist, vocalist, electronic musician & steel pannist in a variety of genres and settings. They’ve had the opportunity to perform at Lincoln Center, The Shed, MoMA, National Sawdust, Public Records, Roulette Intermedium, Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, MASS MoCA and The Poetry Project – as well as iconic DIY spaces like Trans Pecos & Nublu. Their debut album AmethYst released in April 2023 on people | places | records (PPR). Currently, Yaz performs solo sets with violin/voice + extended techniques & electronics that comprise improvisations, songs, and composed music; and with their ambient/noise duo project medium. with gg200bpm (aka gg).

They’ve worked with artists including Andrew Noseworthy, Andy Akiho, BAKUDI SCREAM, ContaQt, Dorothy Carlos, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Lisel, JACK Quartet, Jacolby Satterwhite, Massa Nera, Miss Grit, Nyokabi Kariuki, and Wadada Leo Smith. Yaz has been commissioned by A Far Cry, Beth Morrison Projects, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center (with Hub New Music), Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Castle of our Skins, the Minnesota Philharmonic; and Opera Philadelphia – for which they created PAPER TIGER (2023) with filmmaker Sean Pecknold. Recent projects include scoring + music directing Asia Stewart’s evening-length Fabric Softener at The Shed, a chamber work for International Contemporary Ensemble (2025), and collaboration(s) + offerings with PTP Vision collective.

Yaz is currently a label manager of PPR & a freelance music/arts writer. They hold degrees in violin & poetry from NYU. They enjoy powerlifting, poetics of horror, digital (sub)cultures, QTPOC-led raves, and being an Aquarius stellium. Yaz lives in Lenapehoking (Harlem, NYC) with their little dog Nori.