One of our most rewarding relationships over the past few seasons has been that with the astounding collective known as Wildflower Composers. Founded in 2018 by Erin Busch, this consortium is dedicated to forging a more equitable landscape for those creating music through amplifying the voices of female, non-binary and genderqueer composers. We’ve been privileged to perform works by several Wildflower composers, including Hannah Cai Sobel, Chloe Clark Smith, Clare Howard, Emily Ta and Ray Levitt. We were so excited by these fresh new voices that we wanted to play a larger role in their creative process by asking them if we may come along on the journey through their musical landscape. So, over a few weeks in February 2025, we gathered with five Wildflower Composers at the Esther Boyer College of Music at Temple University and exchanged ideas through the process of composing new works for subsets of our unique instrumentation. What flowed out of our work together was a torrent of ideas, a wealth of possibilities, and the germination of collaborative seeds that resulted in some of our most memorable performances of that season. 

 

Once again, we’ll gather with these extraordinary composers over a few weeks in January and February 2027, and we’ll continue to help each other find new ways to break through the ground and create music that is as unique, authentic, and a true reflection of what we’d all like our musical garden to be. We have no doubt that many of the roots we plant together will flourish and become perennial for years to come.