“Some of the most exhilarating playing I’ve heard in years.”
PARHELION TRIO
Hailed by New York Concert Review as “excellent” and praised by The Strad magazine for their "effervescent" playing, Parhelion—Sarah Carrier (flute), Ashleé Miller (clarinet), and Andrea Christie (piano)—is a New York City-based ensemble dedicated to bringing virtuosic, robust, and impactful contemporary music to diverse audiences.
The trio’s 2022-2023 season features premieres of new works written for the ensemble by award-winning composers Tonia Ko and Lisa Bielawa. The trio has recently commissioned composers Angélica Negrón, Danielle Eva Schwob, and Alexandra du Bois to create works for their upcoming project Dark Matter: A Tribute to Vera Rubin as recipient of a New Music USA grant.
“Damn, that was good!”
In summer 2018, the trio travelled to Denmark and Iceland to perform and give workshops alongside Friction Quartet as featured Ensembles in Residence for New Music for Strings Festival. The trio has collaborated in concert with and alongside members of Eighth Blackbird; violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet; composer and singer-songwriter Shara Nova; Danish cellist Henrik Brendstrup; multimedia artist Xuan; and the ensembles ~Nois, CreArtBox, Friction Quartet, Unheard-of/Ensemble, Sugar Cave, Mazumal, Trumpetcello, and Lydenskab. Parhelion has worked with iconic American composers Jennifer Higdon, Paul Schoenfield, Derek Bermel and Nico Muhly along with one of Australia’s leading choreographers, Ros Warby. The trio was also featured in an interview with Dan Dunford on Episode 44 on his music podcast “Divergent Paths,” which can be downloaded on iTunes.
Highlights from past concert seasons include performances at Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavík, Musikhuset in Aarhus, The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “ETHEL and Friends” Series, Cornelia Street Café, Southampton Cultural Center, CUNY Graduate Center, and Stony Brook University among many others. Parhelion has held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Adelphi University’s “New Music XII”, and New Music For Strings Festival, along with an ensemble fellowship at the 2018 Blackbird Creative Lab.
As strong advocates for contemporary music, Parhelion has presented workshops and performances for young composers of the New York Philharmonic’s “The Composer’s Bridge” program and the National Flute Association’s Annual Convention. Parhelion has presented lecture-recitals and masterclasses for students at Adelphi University and St. Joseph’s College. In recent seasons, Parhelion has premiered over 20 new works dedicated to or written by the trio. Composers who have written works for Parhelion include: Lisa Bielawa, Sidney Boquiren, Sean O’Boyle, Nikolaj Busk, Alexandra Du Bois, Daniel Felsenfeld, Ricardo Gallo, Whitney George, Pierce Gradone, Seong Ae Kim, Sunny Knable, Tonia Ko, Pierre Jalbert, David Loeb, Angélica Negrón, Danielle Eva Schwob, Annika Socolofsky, Daniel Weymouth, and Peter Winkler.
Parhelion was a semi-finalist in the inaugural M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition, the largest chamber competition in the world, and was offered a one-year management prize.
The Parhelion Trio was formed in 2010 at the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance at Mannes College The New School for Music.
