Wunsch New Music Festival, Sunday, 9-20 through Wednesday 9-22
Guest Artists for the 2026 Festival
Guest Composer-in-Residence: Taylor Brook
Guest Ensemble-in-Residence: TAK Ensemble
TAK Ensemble
Since 2018, the biennial Wunsch New Music Festival at the University of Kansas School of Music has presented concerts by visiting contemporary ensembles, as well as performances by KU faculty performers and composers. The festival begins with a concert of the Kansas Virtuosi, highlighting music by 2026 composer-in-residence Taylor Brook. This year, The Wunsch Festival is proud to welcome TAK Ensemble, one of North America’s leading chamber ensembles for contemporary and experimental music. TAK (Laura Cocks, flute; Madison Greenstone, clarinet; Charlotte Mundy, voice; Marina Kifferstein, violin; Ellery Trafford, percussion) has premiered hundreds of works and recorded seven albums across more than a decade of performing, earning acclaim for “combin[ing] crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (The WIRE), and their “organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity” (New Sounds, WQXR).
2026 Wunsch Festival Ensemble-in-residence TAK ensemble, with special guest Modney, present 2026 Wunsch Festival composer-in-residence Taylor Brooks’ Star Maker Fragments. Based on the groundbreaking 1937 science fiction novel Star Maker by Olaf Stapeldon, Brooks’ visionary concert-length work combines experimental concert music, electronics, and radio drama.
TAK Ensemble performs Star Maker Fragments, by Taylor Brook
Date: Tuesday, 9/22
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Swarthout Recital Hall
Free admission
Taylor Brook, Composer
Faculty in Music Composition and Music Technology at the University of British Columbia, Taylor Brook writes music for the concert stage, electronic music, music for robotic instruments, generative music software, and music for video, theatre, and dance. Dr. Brook crafts music marked by “finely tuned microtonal sonorities as well as unique approaches to the integration of electronic sound and digital media.”
Composer Taylor Brook presents a lecture on his music for the KU School of Music community in Swarthout Recital Hall. Visitors are welcome.
2026 Wunsch Festival Composer-in-residence Taylor Brook public lecture
Date: Thursday, 9/24
Time: 12:30
Venue: Swarthout Recital Hall
Free admission
Schedule of Events
Wunsch New Music Festival: Kansas Virtuosi
Swarthout Recital Hall
Wunsch New Music Festival: Guest Ensembles Recital
Swarthout Recital Hall
September 25-27, 2022
September 25
Concert | 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
Kansas Virtuosi Concert: featuring the music of Marcos Balter and KU Composition Faculty.
September 26
Contemporary Music Workshop: with Marcos Balter and International Contemporary Ensemble.
September 27
Lecture: Marcos Balter.
Ensemble-in-Residence Concert: International Contemporary Ensemble featuring the music of Marcos Balter and others.
November 10-14, 2019
November 10
Concert | 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
Kansas Virtuosi performs music of Melinda Wagner
November 11
Concert | 7:30 p.m. | Cider Gallery, 810 Pennsylvania, Lawrence
Music of KU composition faculty
November 12
Open Rehearsal | 10:00 a.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
Guest ensemble concert featuring Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
Concert | 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
Guest ensemble concert featuring Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
November 14
Lecture | 10:00 a.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
Composer-in-Residence Melinda Wagner
February 13-14, 2019
Feb. 13
Guest Composer Portraits | 12 p.m. | Hall Center for the Humanities
Lectures by Amy Beth Kirsten, Tonia Ko, Hannah Lash and Nina Young
Pre-Concert Talk | 6:45 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
with Amy Beth Kirsten, Tonia Ko, Hannah Lash and Nina Young
Kansas Virtuosi | 7:30 p.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
Presenting music by Amy Beth Kirsten, Tonia Ko, Hannah Lash and Nina Young
Feb. 14
Panel Discussion | 10 a.m. | Swarthout Recital Hall
with Amy Beth Kirsten, Tonia Ko, Hannah Lash and Nina Young
Salon Concert and Conversation | 7:30 p.m. | Cider Gallery, 810 Pennsylvania St.