Kate Amrine
A passionate and creative performer, Kate Amrine is a trumpet player balancing a multifaceted career from developing new repertoire and curating concerts to freelancing with many different groups in the New York City area. Kate enjoys a varied career freelancing with ensembles such as Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Little Orchestra Society, Wordless Music Orchestra, Experiential Orchestra, Broadway Sinfonietta, Contemporaneous, Protestra, Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass, and her chamber groups eGALitarian Brass and Spark Duo.
Kate is very dedicated to commissioning and performing new music, premiering over 30 pieces both as a soloist and a chamber musician. Kate is one of the founding members of eGALitarian Brass, a chamber group dedicated to breaking the boundaries of brass chamber music today with new music by diverse composers and unique concert experiences. eGALitarian Brass has performed throughout New York City as well as at Newport Classical, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, International Women's Brass Conference, and universities across the tristate area. Kate’s second album This is My Letter to the World was released in 2020 on the Innova record label. The music is inspired by politics and social concepts that addresses issues including gun violence, identity and feminism, meditation, climate change, and immigration. Her first album As I Am features new music by women composers and was released in 2017. Kate has presented solo recitals at various festivals across the world including the International Women’s Brass Conference (in 2019 and 2017), the Music by Women festival (in 2021 and 2018) and the Women Composer’s Festival of Hartford. Kate has also performed several concertos and solos with orchestras across Japan in multiple cities, as well as in her hometown Bethesda, Maryland, and in New York City. Kate has also performed offstage solos at both Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall.
Ford Fourqurean is an award-winning clarinetist, composer, and educator based in Brooklyn. Described by The Clarinet Journal as “a unique force,” he is the artistic director and clarinetist of Unheard-of//Ensemble, a group celebrated for its adventurous multimedia programming and more than 200 commissioned works. Ford connects communities through innovative concerts that blend clarinet, technology, and immersive experiences.
With Unheard-of//Ensemble, he has toured nationally, presenting guest artist performances and residencies at institutions including Northwestern University, the Manhattan School of Music, Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Pennsylvania, and Oberlin. Upcoming highlights for the 2026–2027 season include premieres by Hans Thomalla, Leila Adu, Moon Ha, and Annika Socolofsky as well as album releases of music by Vicki Nguyen and David Crowell; residencies at Louisiana State University, University of Virginia, University of California – Davis, and Cal State Northridge; and a summer 2026 Cultural Ecologies series with collaborators such as Discocactus, Mehrnam Rastegari, and Ginita Lopez and La Orquesta Esa. Ford and Brian Ellis also teamed up to compose and produce a site-specific work exploring the flow of the Gowanus, performed from canoes on the waterway. Beyond Unheard-of, Ford has appeared with Talea Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Wordless Music Orchestra, Little Orchestra Society, Fresh Squeezed Opera, and ensemble mise-en, and has toured internationally with Spark Duo, which recently performed across Thailand, Arizona, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
Artist Statement
Spark Duo is a clarinet and trumpet duo, mixing solos, duos, improvisations, and live electronics and performing adventurous programs across communities. They are actively expanding the repertoire with new premieres to be presented across the 2026-2027 season including premieres by Nicholas Batina, Catherine Neville, Beth Anderson and many more arrangements created by the group itself. Their goal is to expand the repertoire for this unique instrumentation and create accessible chamber music hat can be enjoyed by wind players who typically experience chamber music later in their musical growth.
Starting in 2018, their first tours in 2020 visited Arizona State University, University of New Mexico, University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University and the Interference Series. They have actively commissioned a large repertoire of new works for them using both multimedia and interactive electronics including works by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Sean William Calhoun, Michael O’Callaghan, Cassie Wieland, and Jinhee Han. In past seasons, they toured Upstate New York and Vermont performing at Superior Merchandise in Troy and on The Community of Sound series in Burlington. They have performed across Thailand at Mahidol University, Kasetsart University, and the Prince Royal College in Chiang Mai and in Puerto Rico at the University of San Germain.
