Our Story

Formed in 2020, Newphonia is a mixed chamber quintet of doctoral students in contemporary music at Bowling Green State University dedicated to the performance and promotion of new music. Comprised of mezzo-soprano Katherine Pracht Phares, flutist Claudia Aizaga, oboist David Munro, pianist Sandy Coursey, and double bassist/composer Adam Har-zvi, Newphonia commissions music for their unique instrumentation, performs and provides artistic residencies in the upper Midwest. Awardees of two MACCM grants and first-prize winners of the 2021 Douglas Wayland Chamber Music Competition, Newphonia has been featured on the 2021 BG Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music's New Music Festival, El Festival Internacional de Música de Cámara; The International Music by Women Festival; ArtsX 2020, and the Toledo Museum of Art in professional recording for WGTE Public Radio. In the 2021-’22 season, with support from a MACCM grant and BGSU’s dean of the college of music, Newphonia collaborated in a two-part artistic residency with the composition department at Interlochen Arts Academy; this season, Newphonia participated in a residency with Louisiana State University composers, which culminated as the micro-opera performance, "Operability," conducted by Gabriela Gomez Estevez. Additional projects in 2022-2023 include new commissions and recording of their first album, artistic residency at Western Illinois University,  and the presentation of Hong-Da Chin’s Spread of an Ink Drop on the 43rd Annual New Music Festival for BG Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music.