Join us for an evening with acclaimed chamber group NOW Ensemble “effervescent, genre-busting” (NPR All Things Considered) in collaboration with pianist/composer Sophia Subbayya Vastek and saxophonist/composer Sam Torres. The event will include performances of brand new works written for NOW Ensemble by Sophia Vastek and Sam Torres, as well as other music by all the artists. Sophia Vastek will open the show with a short, solo piano set.

Saturday, November 16

7:00 PM - doors open
7:30 PM - music starts

* All ages welcome
* BYO (feel free to bring your own drinks/food)
* This venue is not ADA accessible and requires walking up a short flight of stairs to enter

PLEASE NOTE: the venue address will be provided in the confirmation email sent after RSVPing. We are located in the Osgood neighborhood of South Troy, NY, a few blocks south of the canal. If you have any questions about the location or event before purchasing tickets, please contact us.

NOW Ensemble

NOW Ensemble is a dynamic group of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century.

With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, the ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with the musical influences that reflect the diverse backgrounds of its members. NOW Ensemble has brought some of the most exciting composers of their generation to national and international recognition.

NOW has performed at Lincoln Center, the Apples and Olives Festival in Zürich, Switzerland, Town Hall Seattle, Da Camera Houston, and in Carnegie Hall’s Neighborhood Concert Series, Miller Theater, Merkin Hall, the Bang on a Can Marathon, The Kitchen NYC, The Stone, the Carlsbad Festival, the Festival Internacional Chihuahua, the Look and Listen Festival, The Music Gallery Toronto, Town Hall Seattle, Houston Da Camera, among many others.

NOW Ensemble's performances have been featured on NPR's “All Things Considered” and live on WNYC, and their album Awake charted at #1 in Amazon's Classical Chamber Music Charts. “Plan of the City,” NOW's collaboration with filmmaker Joshua Frankel, was praised in the Washington Post as “one of the best matches of visuals to music I’ve seen.” Since 2004, NOW has worked with over 100 composers, including Judd Greenstein, Mark Dancigers, Patrick Burke, Missy Mazzoli, Sean Friar, Kathryn Alexander, San Fermin's Ellis Ludwig- Leone, Nico Muhly, Timothy Andres, and Sarah Kirkland Snider.

Sophia Subbayya Vastek

"Ghostly, delicate, elegant..." (Independent Clauses)

For Sophia Subbayya Vastek, as a second-generation pianist and third-generation musician, the piano has always been home. With a reverence for her collective history, coupled with a restless, exploratory ear, she moves quietly between musical worlds. Over the years she has developed an intuitive, dynamic playing style that’s rooted in tenderness, improvisation, her classical background, and importantly – deep curiosity.

Described as performing with "passion and profound tenderness” (Second Inversion) and “serene strokes and lyrical beauty” (Brooklyn Rail), her music is cinematic and quietly devastating, blossoming into ambient-inspired soundscapes that range from whisper-soft echoes to expressive cascades.

Her most recent LP, In Our Softening (2022), produced by Sam Torres (Polymouth Music), features nine of her own beguiling piano compositions, each track a part of a thoughtfully woven tapestry. Recorded entirely on an upright piano built in 1902 – complete with a giant crack in the soundboard – the album draws listeners in with its vulnerable and vibrant intimacy. Exploring themes of loss, rebirth, and finding softness within an increasingly hard world, the album has been called “a tender and revelatory balm" by editors at I Care If You Listen, “heaven on earth” (Sun 13), and “one of the very best things I've heard all year” by longtime music journalist Steve Smith (Night After Night).

Her debut album, Histories (Innova Recordings, 2017), was produced by Grammy-winning engineer Adam Abeshouse, and described as “a beautiful mosaic of the larger cultural intersections of our world” (Second Inversion). She has also released an EP of the complete solo piano works by composer Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), entitled Lili (2020, reissued 2023).

Equally important to the music itself are the spaces in which Sophia’s music exists. Whether she is performing, curating, or presenting, she is dedicated to creating musical experiences that are grounded in care and intentional gathering. She is currently a co-curator of the popular Lift Series at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. She also hosts concerts in her home – a converted church-space in South Troy called Troy Listening Room.

In 2022, Sophia was recognized as a composer by the New York State Council on the Arts and New York Foundation For the Arts (NYSCA/NYFA) as a Music/Sound Fellow, a statewide program focused on the evolution of contemporary art. Her music has been featured on NPR, BBC, and KEXP, and she has performed across three continents.

Sam Torres

Sam Torres is a Troy, New York-based musician and mastering engineer. He grew up in the Bronx listening to and playing salsa, jazz, and Bach, and then received degrees in jazz performance and computer music composition. All of these musical interests continue to live and evolve through his own work, which is itself striving to be as honest and simple as possible. His debut full length album of meditative music for saxophone and live electronics, called Still, was released in early 2023. His second record is in progress and features an evolution of his custom electronics from Still, augmented by a Buchla synthesizer.

As an audio engineer, Sam has credits on recordings released on American and European labels, Billboard Classical Top 10 charting tracks, award-winning virtual productions, and has also engineered live concerts across the United States. Clients include organizations and artists such as ANTI- Records, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, violinist Jennifer Koh, Peabody Institute, Music of the Americas, New York City Ballet, PS21, World Bank/IMF, and Wordless Music Orchestra, among many others. He also serves as the Director of the Grossman Recording Studio and Assistant Technical Director at the Arthur Zankel Music Center of Skidmore College. Learn more at samtorresmusic.com.