Helmut Lachenmann @ 90

Jeffrey Means is an American conductor with a special interest in modern and contemporary repertoire. Well-noted for his exacting interpretations of even the most demanding scores, Means has spent the last 15+ years leading concerts of landmark 20th and 21st Century works throughout the US, EU and elsewhere in the world.
Based in Boston, Means has frequently conducted many of the new music ensembles in Boston and New York. Among them are the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Talea Ensemble, Switch Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, Dinosaur Annex, Mimesis Ensemble, Firebird Ensemble, Ludovico Ensemble, Guerilla Opera, and many others. Means is the conductor and artistic director of Sound Icon, whose performances have been named among the best of the year multiple times by the Boston Globe. He has worked with many of the preeminent composers of our time, including Hans Abrahamsen, Pierluigi Billone, Chaya Czernowin, Georg Friedrich Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Liza Lim, Tristan Murail, Steve Reich, Roger Reynolds, Salvatore Sciarrino, Steven Takasugi, Jennifer Walshe, and numerous others. In many cases, Means has led US or world premieres of major works by these composers.
Conducting engagements with ensembles or music festivals have taken Means to Canada, Argentina, France, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Italy and across the US. Highlights of the current 2025/26 season include conducting on the Boulez centenary concert in Helsinki, leading the Talea Ensemble in a major work by Eric Chasalow, and conducting concerts and directing the percussion ensemble at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM).
Means was assistant conductor of Spoleto Festival USA from 2016 through 2018, and of the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2016 and 2017. In these positions, he assisted Alan Gilbert, Susanna Mälkki, Matthias Pintscher, John Kennedy, Heinz Hollinger, and others. In 2009, he was one of two conductors selected to study with Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy, which he participated in an additional time in 2011. He has since maintained a close relationship with Boulez's music, having conducted most of his ensemble works.
Means remains an active percussionist. Prior to becoming a conductor, he maintained a robust playing schedule with orchestras and ensembles in and around Boston. He has performed much of the standard chamber repertoire for percussion, including most of the signifi cant works for percussion trio with his friends and colleagues Mike Williams and Nicholas Tolle. As a percussionist, Means has worked with many key composers of the American avant-garde, including Alvin Lucier, Frederick Rzewski, Christian Wolff, and John Zorn. He was a percussion fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center prior to pursing a Master's Degree.
Jeffrey is an ardent educator. He is a professor of conducting at the Berklee College of Music, and has guest conducted at New England Conservatory and Boston University. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in percussion (awarded with distinction in performance) and a Master's Degree in conducting from New England Conservatory. At NEC, he received the Gunther Schuller Medal (awarded to one outstanding graduate student annually), the Toujée Alumni Award, and the John Cage Award.

Yoko Hagino was born and raised in Japan, where she began her piano studies at the age of 4. As a child, she performed her own compositions, which took her to Europe and the United States, including performances as a concert soloist with the Czech Symphony, the University of Southern California Symphony, Kyoto City Symphony, and Ensemble Orchestra Kanazawa. Hagino has appeared as a soloist with Osaka Century Orchestra, UMass Boston Chamber Orchestra, Key West Symphony Orchestra, White Rabbit Sinfonietta, and has also performed various piano recitals ranging from the music of Bach to contemporary repertoire. Hagino is a prize winner of the Steinway Society Piano Competition, the First International Chamber Music Competition, the All-Japan Selective Competition of the International Mozart Competition, and Chamber Music Competition of Japan. She received her bachelor’s and her master’s degrees with honors from Tokyo National University, where she won its concerto competition. She earned an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Victor Rosenbaum and also won the school’s concerto competition. Hagino completed a Performance Diploma at Boston Conservatory, where she was a student of Michael Lewin and also received the Churchill Scholarship.
She has been invited to play at the Bösendorfer Piano Recital Series in Tokyo, Japan, the Harvard Musical Association, Boston Steiner Hall, the Killington Music Festival, the Boston Conservatory New Music festival, the William Kapell Music Festival, and at Steinway and Sons in Kamen, Germany. She also has appeared live on Suisse Romande Radio in Switzerland. As a devoted chamber musician, she is the Co–Director of “Die Musiker Witz,” and has given many concerts in various locations in Japan. She has performed with contemporary ensembles such as White Rabbit during their Ensemble Residency at Harvard University, Alea III, Ludovico Ensemble, ENSEMBLE / PARALLAX, and Sound Icon. She has been a staff pianist at the Boston Conservatory and is a faculty member of Concord Conservatory, The Key West Young Artist Program, and Morgan State University Summer Opera Workshop in Baltimore.

Mike Williams is a Boston-based performer specializing in contemporary music. He has performed with local ensembles including Sound Icon, Ludovico Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Harvard Group for New Music, and Composers in Red Sneakers among many others. Williams has been involved in numerous recording projects released on the Cantaloupe, BMOP Sound, Albany, and Northwest Classics labels. As an orchestral and chamber musician he has appeared at the Festival de Mexico, Gaudeamus Music Week, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and the New Hampshire Music Festival. Active in the creation of new works, Williams is the artistic director of Guerilla Opera, an ensemble that exclusively commissions and premieres new chamber operas. Highlights of this season include the world premiere of Rudolf Rojahn’s Deus ex Machina for solo percussion during The Boston Conservatory New Music Festival and the US premiere of Stefano Gervasoni’s concerto for percussion Epicadenza with Sound Icon.
Williams holds MM and BM degrees from The Boston Conservatory where he won top prizes including the Concerto Competition in 2004. He also completed a year of advanced study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam during which time he regularly performed with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra under Peter Eötvös and was a guest lecturer and solo recitalist at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. Williams was awarded a fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center and attended The Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance in New York. His main teachers include Peter Prommel, Pat Hollenbeck, Sal Rabbio, and Nancy Zeltsman.