Hub New Music

Profile

Called “contemporary chamber trailblazers” by the Boston Globe, Hub New Music is a “nimble quartet of winds and strings” (NPR) forging new paths in 21st-century repertoire. The ensemble’s ambitious commissioning projects and “appealing programs” (New Yorker) celebrate the rich diversity of today’s classical music landscape.

Founded in 2013, Hub New Music has grown into a formidable touring ensemble driven by an unwavering dedication to building community through new art. Across its career, Hub has commissioned dozens of new works and continues to usher in a fresh and culturally relevant body of work for its distinct combination of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. Hub is proud to collaborate with today’s most celebrated emerging and established composers, and is equally proud to count many of them as friends.

Highlights in 2022–23 include concerts throughout the US with presenters such as Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, Soka Performing Art Center, Celebrity Series of Boston, and Brigham Young University. The group also has upcoming residencies at the University of Michigan, University of Southern California, and Brown University.

Beginning in spring 2023, Hub celebrates its tenth anniversary with its largest commission project to date, featuring new works from Andrew Norman, Tyshawn Sorey, Angélica Negrón, Marcos Balter, Donnacha Dennehy, Nico Muhly, and Jessica Meyer. As part of the project, the ensemble launches a fellowship in collaboration with the Luna Lab, awarded to recent alumna Sage Shurman. Other upcoming commission projects include a new concerto, The Bird While, for Hub and Symphonic Winds by Gala Flagello with the University of Michigan Symphony Band, and new quartets by James Diaz and Daniel Thomas Davis.

Hub is also thrilled to give the world premiere of Carlos Simon’s Requiem for the Enslaved at Boston’s historic Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in October 2022. The work was recently released on Decca Classics, in celebration of Juneteenth. The album-length work honors the lives of 272 slaves sold by Georgetown in 1838, and it also features trumpeter MK Zuu and spoken word artist Marco Pavé. Hub’s debut album, Soul House, released on New Amsterdam Records, was called “ingenious and unequivocally gorgeous” by the Boston Globe. The group looks forward to upcoming recording projects with Silkroad’s Kojiro Umezaki and the Asia America New Music Institute and composer Nina C. Young.

Hub New Music is a group of passionate educators whose approach to teaching melds the artistic and entrepreneurial facets of modern musicianship. The ensemble was recently in residence with the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship program, working with 10 outstanding high school aged composers. Other residency activities include those at New England Conservatory, Princeton, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of Texas-Austin, UC Irvine, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2020, Hub launched its K-12 program, HubLab, using storytelling and improvisation to create original pieces with students of any musical level.

The ensemble’s name is inspired by its founding city of Boston’s reputation as a hub of innovation. Hub splits its base of operations between Boston and Ann Arbor, MI. Hub New Music is exclusively represented by Unfinished Side.

Michael Avitabile, flute
Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet
Meg Rohrer, violin/viola
Jesse Christeson, cello

Michael Avitabile

Praised for playing that is “warm and vocal” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Michael Avitabile is a flutist, entrepreneur, and educator dedicated to the music of our time. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Hub New Music, a Boston-based mixed quartet that has quickly become a prominent force among younger contemporary music organizations. As an educator, Avitabile focuses on empowering students with skills to build the arts organizations of tomorrow. His lectures translate the day-to-day experiences of running an artist-led organization into a series of workshops covering topics such as self-management, nonprofit development, and commissioning new work. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan (BM) and New England Conservatory (MM), graduating with top honors from both schools. At Michigan, he was a Shipman Scholar, one of the highest awards given to an incoming student university wide. While at NEC, he received the John Cage Award for Outstanding Contribution to Contemporary Music. In his free time, Avitabile enjoys developing recipes, practicing yoga, and exploring Boston’s many coffee shops. Avitabile is a Powell Flutes Artist.

Gleb Kanasevich

Gleb Kanasevich is a clarinetist, composer, and noise/drone musician. He currently works primarily with feedback and modified instruments, while exploring expressive possibilities in very simple electronic processing. He works often as a soloist and collaborates with composers, chamber music groups, improvisers, noise musicians, death metal bands, and many more types of artists. His blackened noise album Asleep (Unknown Tapes) and the immersive 45-minute Subtraction (Flag Day Recordings) came out to critical acclaim in 2019. His massive drone projects continued in the project If you want to be reborn, let yourself die, released on January 15, 2020.

Meg Rohrer

Detroit-based violinist and violist Meg Rohrer expresses their voice through newly composed projects, inter-arts collaborations, traditional classical works, and improvising. Meg (they/them/theirs) is passionate about the creation of new music. Rohrer is the violinist in Hub New Music, a mixed quartet committed to the commissioning and touring of new repertoire. Rohrer is also the violinist and violist in Virago, a Michigan-based quartet that melds contemporary chamber music with free improvisation. They are also a member of the Kalkaska String Quartet and thoroughly enjoy many forms of chamber music. Meg earned their master’s degree at the University of Michigan, studying with Danielle Belen and Caroline Coade, and holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, where they studied with Blair Milton.

Jesse Christeson

Versatile cellist Jesse Christeson wears a number of musical hats around the country. Usually in the creative workshop with Boston-based Hub New Music, he also travels to serve as Principal Cellist of the Huntsville (AL) Symphony. He held the same position in the Mississippi Symphony for several years prior. Jesse is a founding member of the Inaugural Piano Trio in Jackson, MS, and also returns to collaborate with New JXN. In Boston, he can often be heard performing with start-ups Phoenix and Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra. For several years Jesse was very active as a multi-faceted performer and teacher in Houston, TX. In addition to working as a freelance cellist, he performed as a vocalist in the Houston Grand Opera and Bach Society of Houston choruses. He taught a cello studio at the Rice Preparatory Program and local public schools. Mr. Christeson has frequently spent summers performing at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he featured in the New Fromm Players and orchestra festival. His other summer engagements have included the festivals of Aspen, Brevard, and the National Orchestral Institute. Jesse received his MM from Rice University (studio of Norman Fischer) and his BM from Stetson University in DeLand, FL, where he studied cello (studio of David Bjella), voice, and philosophy.