Sounding/BODY: Philomela Fragments with Terns & Ah Young Hong

Doors at 6:30pm

Tickets:

$10 Student - use code STUDENT at checkout

(Valid Student ID will be requested at the door)

$10 IMSS Members Presale - use code IMSSMEMBER at checkout

(Valid IMSS Membership card will be requested at door)

$15 GA Presale

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$15 Student & IMSS Members (With valid ID & Membership Card) at Door

$20 GA at Door

Join Terns—flutist Sasha Ishov and bassist Will Yager—for an evening of world premieres celebrating the uncommon pairing of flute and double bass. Terns will be joined by internationally acclaimed soprano Ah Young Hong for the world premiere of Philomela Fragments by Michael Hersch. The program also features world premieres by Carlos Bandera and Alexa Rinn, alongside additional repertoire for the ensemble.

Bringing together three distinct musical voices, the program explores the expressive possibilities of two instruments occupying opposite ends of the acoustic spectrum. Through close collaborations with composers, Terns is building a new body of repertoire for flute and double bass while expanding the possibilities of this unusual instrumental pairing.

Terns’ 2026–27 commissioning project is supported by New Music USA’s Creator Fund.

This project is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

The International Museum of Surgical Science acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Terns is a flute and double bass duo founded by flutist Sasha Ishov and bassist Will Yager. Through the uncommon pairing of flute and double bass, the ensemble explores overlooked repertoire while building a substantial body of new works through long-term collaborations with living composers. Current projects include commissions by Michael Hersch, Carlos Bandera, Alexa Rinn, and Christine Burke, with additional collaborations in development with Michelle Lou and Osnat Netzer. Alongside its performances, Terns develops educational and community engagement initiatives that foster meaningful connections with contemporary and experimental music. (IG: @terns_duo)

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Sasha Ishov (Flutist): Sasha Ishov is a Russian-American flutist whose work expands the flute’s expressive possibilities at the intersection of performance and research. Praised for his “well-sounded and lucid” artistry (San Diego Union-Tribune), he bridges contemporary and classical traditions through solo, chamber, and orchestral performances and experimental collaborations with technology and new media. (website: sashaishov.com | Instagram: @sasha.ishov)

Will Yager (Double Bassist): Will Yager is a double bassist committed to experimental music, improvisation, and collaborating with other artists in the creation of new solo and chamber repertoire for the double bass. He is a founding member of Terns, LIGAMENT, and the experimental trio Wombat. Yager is currently on faculty at the University of Northern Iowa. (website: willyager.com | Instagram: @yagerwill)

Ah Young Hong (Soprano): A “transfixing” (The New Yorker), “absolutely riveting” (Chicago Tribune) soprano of “fearlessness and consummate artistry” (Opera News), Ah Young Hong has interpreted repertoire ranging from early music to leading composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. A longtime exponent of Michael Hersch’s music, she has premiered major works including On the Threshold of Winter, Poppaea, and and we, each. She has performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Bern, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Klang, FLUX Quartet, and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, among others. Hong is Associate Professor in the Vocal Studies Department at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.

Michael Hersch (Composer): A composer of “uncompromising brilliance” (The Washington Post) whose work has been described by The New York Times as “viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music ... claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity,” Michael Hersch is widely considered among the most gifted composers of his generation. Composer Georg Friedrich Haas has written that Hersch “is the explorer of an unconditional, radical expressivity that reveals the human abyss without any palliation.” Recent performances include his Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Ensemble intercontemporain in Paris, and at the Lucerne Festival Forward. Other recent events include his MEDEA with Sarah Maria Sun and Ensemble Musikfabrik and anonymous beneath the lemon trees with Ah Young Hong and the Talea Ensemble.

Alexa Rinn (Composer): Alexa Rinn is a composer whose music aims to access a visceral immediacy of perceptual experience and feeling. Her love of indie rock, shoegaze, and other heavy genres of popular music deeply informs her timbral and structural explorations, and she loves to think about and live inside the moments of change between sonorities. Rinn’s works have been performed and/or recorded by ensembles such as Chicago Composers Orchestra, Unassisted Fold, Omnibus Ensemble, SONAR Ensemble, Quartetto Maurice, Occasional Symphony, Symphony Number One, Duo Riso, and thePeabody Preparatory Wind Orchestra.

Carlos Bandera (Composer): Carlos Bandera is a composer whose music explores the expressive potential of contextualization and transformation of musical materials. He often expands simple elements into large-scale, glacially unfolding musical structures, through which he explores the interplay of harmony, noise, and texture. His music has been performed by groups such as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Dogs of Desire, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, the ~Nois and Cerus saxophone quartets, Ensemble Linea, Earspace, Hebrides Ensemble, and Omnibus Ensemble.

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International Museum of Surgical Science, 1524 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, United States

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