Collage New Music: "Missing Words"

BIOGRAPHIES

• KÜNSTLERISCHER LEITER Eric Nathan

  

  Eric Nathan’s (b. 1983) music has been called “as diverse as it is arresting” with a “constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “a marvel of musical logic” (Boston Classical Review). His work has received international acclaim with performances by the National Symphony Orchestra, Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, Dawn Upshaw, and Jennifer Koh, as well as at Carnegie Hall and the Aldeburgh Festival.
  
  Recent highlights include three commissions from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including the space of a door, premiered by Andris Nelsons and released on Naxos; and Concerto for Orchestra, which opened the 2019–20 season. Opening (2021), co-commissioned by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Koussevitzky Music Foundation, was broadcast nationally on PBS. His flute concerto The Seas Between Us will be premiered by four Mexican orchestras in 2025–26 with flutist Alejandro Escuer. National Sawdust has commissioned an evening-length work for cellist Jeffrey Zeigler and Gandini Juggling to premiere in 2026.
  
  Nathan has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic (2014 Biennial), Chamber Music Society of LincolnCenter, Eighth Blackbird, Tanglewood,TonhalleDüsseldorf, Yellow Barn, and Aspen Music Festival. He is a recipient of the Rome Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held residencies at MacDowell, Copland House, and Civitella Ranieri. His portrait albums appear on Albany Records, BMOP Sound, and New Focus.
  
  He is Associate Professor of Music at Brown University, where he received the Wriston Fellowship for teaching excellence. Nathan is Artistic Director of Collage New Music, Boston’s oldest contemporaryensemble. From 2019–2025, he was Composer-in-Residence with the New England Philharmonic and in 2024 became inaugural Director of its New Music Readings. He holds degrees from Cornell (D.M.A.), Indiana University (M.M.), and Yale (B.A.).

• DIRIGENTIN Anna Handler

  

  The German-Colombian conductor and pianist Anna Handler has been performing on stages and in concert halls around the world since her debut at Salzburg Festival in 2022.
  
  In December 2024, Anna Handler was appointed Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, a position she will begin in the 25/26 season, where she is scheduled to conduct eleven opera performances during her first season. She was previously a Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 23/24 season and following her debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall, she wasimmediatelyinvited to conduct the orchestra at Hollywood Bowl in July 2025. After winning the Assistant Conductor position of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, appointed by Andris Nelsons, she is set to debut at Tanglewood Music Festival with the orchestra in August 2025. In the 25/26 season, she will make her subscription debut with Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall in Boston. Upcoming debuts also include Dresden Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic Brass and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
  
  Following her successful debut at the 2022 Salzburg Festival as Music Director of theKát’aKabanováfor the renowned Opera Camp series, Handler has returned to the Salzburg Festival to conduct Ravel’s L’Enfant et lessortilègesin the 2023 season and Carl Orff’s Die Kluge in the summer of 2024.
  Handler’s debuts with internationally renowned orchestras such as the LA Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonicand the Frankfurt Radio Symphony mark furtherhighlights of her career to date. She has worked with soloists including Barbara Hannigan, Okka von derDamerau, Sabine Meyer, and Yo-Yo Ma.
  
  Previously, Handler worked as an assistant with renowned conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, including conducting the incidental music from Mazeppa with the Berlin Philharmonic in Baden-Baden. At the Bayerische Staatsoper, she took over the musical direction of the production Eva und Adam, which premiered at the 2019 Munich Opera Festival. The production uses music from Haydn’s DieSchöpfungand was performed by young people from around Munich who came to Germany as refugees.
  
  Handler grew up in Munich and initially studied piano and conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich before continuing her studies at the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar, the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale diImola and theFolkwangUniversity of the Arts. She completed her master’s degree in conducting at the Juilliard School in New York in May 2023. At Juilliard, she was the first conductor ever to receive the prestigious Kovner Fellowship.
  As director of the Ensemble Enigma Classica, which she founded in 2019, Handler works with renowned soloists. She is particularly interested in technology-supported music mediation in real time. Conducting from the piano and chamber music collaborations with violinist Laura Handler are an important part of her musical identity.
  Handler received the Rising Star Award from the European Cultural FoundationEuropamusicaleand is a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life. She was also awarded the Maria Ladenburger Prize for Music in cooperation with WDR, theCusanuswerkFoundation and Deutsche Grammophon.
  
  Anna Handler is represented worldwide by Tanja Dorn at Dorn Music.