Natacha Diels’ work combines choreographed movement, video animation, instrumental practice, and cynical play to create worlds of curiosity and unease. Recent work includes Papillon and the Dancing Cranes, for construction cranes and giant butterfly (2018/2021), a solo project entitled Somewhere Beautiful (2022), and Beautiful Trouble, an ongoing ‘opera’ for string quartet with the JACK quartet. Forthcoming is a solo album (Carrier Records 2024), a new ‘opera’ for Festival Nueva Opera Buenos Aires (2024), and a work for headphoned audience with La Muse en Circuit for Ensemble Contrechamps (2025). With a focus on collage, collaboration, and the ritual of life as art, Natacha’s compositions have been described as “a tour de force of reckless imagination and confident craft” (Musical America), “a fairy tale for a fractured world” (Music We Care About), and “the liveliest music of the evening” (LA Review of Books). Natacha is a founding member of the composer/performer collective Ensemble Pamplemousse (est. 2003).

This performance is a journey into a strange landscape occupied by sounds and image that are at once familiar and unknown, reassuring and unsettling. The works are divided into three acts— a brief overview of life-to-death (Somewhere Beautiful), an unravelling of cohesion through incessant rigor (Untitled Art Piece), and a directionless journey to a long golden road (The God-Fearing Woodsman).

"Emerging Maestro" (New York Times) trumpeter Steph Richards is a rising force in the creative music scene, having worked with pioneering artists ranging from Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton and John Zorn to St. Vincent, David Byrne and Yoko Ono and her sonic explorations have led to collaborations with performance artists Mike Kelly, Laurie Anderson/Lou Reed. Richards has also worked with creative jazz masters Jason Moran, Ravi Coltrane, Sylvie Courvoisier and others. Driven by a curiosity how listeners interact with music and what sensory variables are open to experimentation, her own compositions have featured across North and South America and Europe. premiering on iconic stages at Carnegie Hall, the Blue-note, Bimhuis and Lincoln Center.