“Some of the most exhilarating playing I’ve heard in years.”
THE PARHELION TRIO
Hailed by New York Concert Review as “excellent” and praised by The Strad magazine for their "effervescent" playing, The Parhelion Trio—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.
This season, Parhelion collaborated with soprano Sharon Harms to premiere a new work for trio and voice by composer Sophia Kunxu Dou on the 2025 Composers Now Opening Festival Night at National Sawdust. Parhelion Trio was also the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers’ ensemble-in-residence for their composition and performance workshops—a project that resulted in a recording session and showcase on WQXR.
“Damn, that was good!”
The ensemble’s recent composer collaborations include partnerships with the award-winning composers Tonia Ko as a commission recipient of a 2019 Barlow Endowment Grant. Lisa Bielawa featured the trio in her 2022 composer residency at John Zorn’s iconic series, The Stone.
Highlights from past concert seasons include performances at Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, The Stone (at the New School), 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, Mannes School of Music, 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. In 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.
As strong advocates for contemporary music, Parhelion is a regular workshop and performance presenter for young composers of the New York Philharmonic’s “The Composer’s Bridge” program (since 2016) and at the National Flute Association’s Annual Convention (Chicago and Minneapolis). The trio has presented lecture-recitals and masterclasses for students at Adelphi University and St. Joseph’s College. Since 2011 Parhelion has had over 100 new works/arrangements written for or by the trio. Composers who have written works for Parhelion include: Anne Sophie Andersen, Lisa Bielawa, Sidney Boquiren, Sean O’Boyle, Nikolaj Busk, Alexandra Du Bois, Sophia Kunxu Du, Mats Edén, 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.
Parhelion’s upcoming 2025 – 26 events include the recording and production of an album, featuring works written for the trio; and an upcoming performance and educational project Dark Matter: A Tribute to Vera Rubin as recipient of a New Music USA grant. Parhelion has commissioned composers Angélica Negrón, Danielle Eva Schwob, and Alexandra du Bois to create works for this evening-length event and is teaming up with TV/film producer Becky Etchberger (producer, Last Night Tonightwith John Oliver) and audio/media production teams to coordinate a concert tour at partnering national space museums and concert venues.
The Parhelion Trio was formed in 2010 at the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance at Mannes College The New School for Music.
