55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102/ E4TT.org/ (510) 684-0505

Media Contacts:

Nanette McGuinness / nanette@E4TT.org

Renata Volchinskaya / renata@E4TT.org

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 10, 2025

 

Ensemble for These Times

 

Announces

 

“After Sleepwalking:

Music by Women and Nonbinary Composers”

 

Featuring 

 

Music by 2025 E4TT/ Luna Composition Lab Call for Scores winner Elisa Kain Johnson 

And by Anna Clyne, Joan Tower, Jungyoon Wie, S.A. Workman, and Andrew Yee

 

Performed by

E4TT (Soprano/ Narrator Nanette McGuinness, Cellist Megan Chartier, and Pianist Margaret Halbig)

with Guest Violinist Maya Victoria

 

Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. 

Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland

(Full calendar listing below)

 

San Francisco - Award-winning SF contemporary chamber music group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) will start the New Year with the seventh edition of its popular annual series, a program of music by women and nonbinary composers, and the start of its second collaboration with Luna Composition Lab, as part of their 10th Anniversary Celebration. Entitled “After Sleepwalking: Music by Women and Nonbinary Composers,” the concert will feature the winning piece from the 2025 E4TT/ Luna Composition Lab Call for Scores, as well as five other works by contemporary composers Anna Clyne, Joan Tower, Jungyoon Wie, S. A. Workman, and Andrew Yee. This concert will be performed at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland on Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 5:00 p.m.

 

ABOUT “AFTER SLEEPWALKING: MUSIC BY WOMEN AND NONBINARY COMPOSERS”

Ensemble for These Times’s annual audience favorite concert of music by women and nonbinary composers will return on January 25, 2026 at 5:00p.m. for its seventh edition in the group’s first appearance at Piedmont Piano Company. The 2026 program will feature the winning piece from the 2025 E4TT/ Luna Composition Call for Scores “Divide and Concur” (2022) for piano trio by Elisa Kain Johnson (b. 2004)—the start of E4TT’s second collaboration with Luna Composition Lab as well as part of Luna Lab’s 10th Anniversary Celebration. The program will feature “A Thousand Mornings” (2020) for piano trio by American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Fellowship awardee Anna Clyne (b. 1980), “For the Sleepwalkers” (2023) for narrator and piano trio by G. Schirmer Prize winner, Jungyoon Wie (b. 1990), “Cinq Petits Morceaux” (2015) for solo piano by SF Conservatory of Music graduate S.A. Workman (b. 1967), “The Light After” (2021) for solo cello by two-time Grammy® winner Andrew Yee (b. 1984), and “Tres Lent” (1994) and its companion piece, “Wild Run” (2018) for cello and piano by Guggenheim fellow Joan Tower (b. 1938).

E4TT (soprano/narrator Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, and pianist Margaret Halbig) will be joined by violinist Maya Victoria. The concert will be presented at the Piedmont Piano Company, 1728 San Pablo Avenue, Oakland.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 

Cellist MEGAN CHARTIER is “unafraid to display gutsy abandon” (South Florida Classical Review). She has performed internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral cellist. Her current positions include core cellist of the Astralis Chamber Ensemble and principal cellist of Opera San Luis Obispo. Past positions include principal cellist of the Miami Symphony and the Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy; she has also recently performed with the San Antonio Symphony One Found Sound, Nu Deco Ensemble, and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. A semi-finalist in the 2017 PRISMA Concerto Competition, she won 1st prize in the Ann Arbor Society of Musical Arts’ 2015 Young Artist Competition and the 2015 Miami Music Festival Concerto Competition, conducted by Grzegorz Nowak of the Royal Philharmonic.

 

Pianist MARGARET HALBIG is in high demand as a collaborative artist in both the instrumental and vocal fields. She is currently Associate Chair of the Voice Department and Principal Vocal Coach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. During the summer, she is Collaborative Piano Coordinator of Interlochen Arts Camp where she coordinates vocal, instrumental, and dance pianists, collaborates on faculty recitals, teaches piano, and plays with students. An advocate of new and contemporary music, Halbig is the pianist for Ninth Planet, a San Francisco-based new music collective where she also serves on the board. She is also a member of Frequency 49, a wind and piano sextet, which performs all over the Bay Area. Margaret earned her DMA from the University of California Santa Barbara and also holds performance degrees from the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory and University of Evansville, Indiana.

 

Soprano and E4TT co-founder and Artistic Executive Director NANETTE MCGUINNESS has performed in 13 languages on two continents in over 25 roles with the Silesian State (Czech Republic), Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Pacific Repertory Opera, Trinity Lyric Opera, and Livermore Valley Opera, among others. Solo concert engagements include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, as well as Shéhérézade (Ravel), Nuits d’étés (Berlioz), Stabat Mater (Rossini), Requiem (Fauré), Gloria (Vivaldi), Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn), Vesperae Solennes (Mozart), and Handel’s Messiah and Solomon. McGuinness has been featured on seven albums with Centaur and Yuggoth Records, and her CD of music by 19th and 20th century women composers, Fabulous Femmes (Centaur)—was called “perfect for the song recital lover” by Chamber Music Magazine. She earned her PhD in Music at UC Berkeley and her MM in Vocal Performance from Holy Names College.

 

Violinist MAYA VICTORIA (Charyyeva) began her musical education at the age of five, studying piano and violin at a specialized music school in Ashgabat where she graduated with honors and toured internationally. In 2016, she was awarded first prize in Turkmenistan’s national competition for music school graduates. Maya continued her education at the Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory in Istanbul, where she performed with Camerata Saygun and took part in numerous concerts, festivals, and competitions as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Turkey. She completed her bachelor’s degree with honors in 2021. Now based in California, Maya is an active member of MTAC, teaches violin and piano, and regularly performs as a soloist and with various ensembles, including the Pacific Chamber Orchestra.

ABOUT ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES

Winner of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES (E4TT) consists of award-winning soprano/Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, pianist Margaret Halbig, and co-founder/ Senior Artistic Advisor composer David Garner. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and 2022, and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. In California, E4TT has performed at the Paderewski Festival, the LAMOTH, UCLA, and in the Bay Area at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues.

E4TT’s five albums have all medaled in the Global Music Awards: “Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood” (2024) featuring music by some of the talented émigré composers who fled persecution during WWII for Hollywood, changing movie music as we know it; “The Guernica Project” (2022), commemorating the 85th anniversary of the horrific carpet bombing of civilians and Picasso’s masterwork in response; “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan” (2020), honoring the centennial of the seminal 20th-century poet; “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (2018), with works by Hungarian émigré Miklós Rózsa, and three of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust; and “Surviving: Women’s Words,” (2016), new music to poetry by women Holocaust survivors. The group recorded its sixth album, “El Tiempo Latine” in summer 2025 for release in spring 2026 on the Aerocade label and launched the second season of its podcast of conversations with underrepresented creatives, “For Good Measure,” in 2024.

CALENDAR LISTING

 

Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 5:00 pm, Oakland, “After Sleepwalking: Music by Women and Nonbinary Composers”

Artists: E4TT (soprano Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, and pianist Margaret Halbig) with guest violinist Maya Victoria

Repertoire: “A Thousand Mornings” (2020) for piano trio by Anna Clyne (b. 1980); “Divide and Concur” for piano trio by 2025 E4TT/ Luna Composition Lab 2025 Call for Scores winner Elisa Kain Johnson (b. 2004); “Cinq Petits Morceaux” (2015) for solo piano by S. A. Workman (b. 1967); “Tres Lent” (1994) and “Wild Run” (2018) for cello and piano by Joan Tower (b. 1938); “For the Sleepwalkers” (2023) for piano trio and narrator by Jungyoon Wie (b. 1990); “The Light After” (2021) for solo cello by Andrew Yee (b. 1984)

Venue: Piedmont Piano Company, 1728 San Pablo Ave, Oakland

Tickets: Advance Purchase (recommended, $25/$15/$5); ($30/$20/$10 at the door)

Info: https://E4TT.org/sleepwalking.html

For more information about E4TT’s 2025/26 Bay Area Home Season, please visit our website.

High resolution jpgs are available for download https://E4tt.org/presskit.html.

 

For more information about E4TT’s latest recording, “Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood,” please visit https://E4TT.org/emigresEPK.html or contact Max Horowitz 347.267.9563 / maxcrossover@gmail.com

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