folk songs

with guest artists Kristina Bachrach, soprano, and Cheng Jin Koh, yangqin
thursday, may 28th, 2026, 7:30pm
fulton street collective
1821 w. hubbard street
mycelium new music presents folk songs, a program exploring connections between contemporary classical music and musical traditions from around the world. The performance showcases music by three living composers who engage with folk traditions: Saad Haddad’s Selig Licht, which blends with the rhythmic and melodic framework of Arabic music with a Bach chorale, Charles Peck’s colorful and groovy Kindling, which is influenced by bluegrass fiddle techniques, and Cheng Jin Koh’s YAMA, which will feature the composer playing the yangqin (chinese hammered dulcimer) alongside the ensemble. Ethnomusicologist Varshini Narayanan leads a panel discussion with the composers about their compositional influences and musical backgrounds, before guest artist soprano Kristina Bachrach then joins mycelium to perform Luciano Berio’s lush and lyrical Folk Songs. 
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program 
Selig Licht for pierrot ensemble - Saad Haddad
Kindling for pierrot ensemble - Charles Peck
YAMA for yangqin and pierrot ensemble - Cheng Jin Koh
Folk Songs for voice and seven instruments - Luciano Berio

composers

Writing music characterized by “lyrical centers,” that “channeled spirituality” and “vehemence,” Singaporean composer and yangqin, violin performer Cheng Jin Koh strives to transcend cultural boundaries with imaginative storytelling and music making. Her works have been recognized by both the ASCAP and BMI, and have been performed in major venues across the U.S., Australia, China, Taiwan, Japan, the U.K. and Singapore, including the Sydney Opera House, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Lincoln Center, Kyoto Concert Hall, National Concert Hall Taipei, and the Esplanade. Her collaborators include the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Central Conservatory of Music, Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, Verona Quartet, Bergamot Quartet, among several others. Recently, she was commissioned set works for both the 2022 Singapore International Violin Competition and the 2025 National Violin and Piano Competition. She is currently a doctoral fellow in composition at New York University.
Saad Haddad (b. 1992) is a composer that achieves a “remarkable fusion of idioms” (New York Times), most notably in his work exploring the disparate qualities inherent in Western art music and Middle Eastern musical tradition. Recent commissions include an orchestral work for the LA Philharmonic; a piano concerto for IRCAM and the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France; a clarinet concerto for Kinan Azmeh and the Princeton Symphony; two string quartets for the Lydian and Callisto Quartets; and a mixed octet for the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is the recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been in residence at the Ucross Foundation, Bogliasco Foundation, and currently serves as the Composer-in-Residence with the California Symphony. Dr. Haddad holds degrees from Columbia, Juilliard, and the University of Southern California. He also leads a private studio of composers from all around the world. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, daughter, and two dogs, Ivy and Kala. saadnhaddad.com
Charles Peck is a composer whose work has been called “daring” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “wild and shimmering” (Broad Street Review), and “substantial, personal, genuine” (Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music). His music, spanning a range of chamber and large ensembles, has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Albany and Columbus Symphonies, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the JACK Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, and Contemporaneous. Recently awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Peck has also received commissions from the Fromm Music Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the McKnight Foundation, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Alarm Will Sound, the Bergamot Quartet, and Ji Hye Jung and has been named a winner of composition competitions with the New York Youth Symphony, ASCAP, the Lake George Music Festival, Frame Dance, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Symphony in C, the Tribeca New Music Festival, the Boston New Music Initiative, and the Foundation for Modern Music, among others. His music has been featured at a variety of venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cabrillo Festival, the Mizzou International Composers Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer Institute, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Cultivate at Copland House, and the New Music Gathering. Peck is a member of the composition faculty at the University of Pittsburgh.
Luciano Berio (1925 – 2003) was the leading composer of the Italian post war avant-garde. The fusion of art music and authentic folk music, the integration of jazz elements or complex African rhythms, various techniques of collage and quotation, the disregard of genre boundaries, especially in works of music drama – are some of the compositional methods that demonstrate Berio’s originality and the richness of his inventive talent.
Berio was born into a northern Italian family of musicians. From the 1960s onwards, Berio produced a steady succession of works that made him one of the most prominent figures in the New Music movement. These included the fourteen “Sequenza” compositions for a solo instrument, a sequence that continued until 2002. His most famous work is the “Sinfonia”, composed in 1968/69, a fascinating, labyrinthine composition containing musical quotations and texts from Samuel Beckett to Gustav Mahler, which realises in an exemplary manner the idea of an open work of musical art that can be experienced from many perspectives. Luciano Berio died in Rome on 27 May 2003.

guest artists

Soprano Kristina Bachrach has distinguished herself as a dynamic artist, capable of tackling a vast array of repertoire. Recent seasons have seen her debut in Hong Kong performing Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and her Off-Broadway debut, co-starring in a 39-show run of Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson. On the operatic stage she has graced the main stage with Opera Philadelphia, Nashville Opera, Opera Naples, and Gotham Chamber Opera among others. She appeared in the New York premiere of To Be Sung by Pascal Dusapin with the Center of Contemporary Opera, and created the role of Lucinda in the world premiere of Dark Sisters by Nico Muhly. A concert veteran, Ms. Bachrach has been featured in nearly one hundred recitals of art song and chamber music across the country and around the world with such organizations as Musicians from Marlboro, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Lyric Fest, and the Grossman Ensemble. She recently performed with Nexus Chamber Music in the premiere of Upon Wings of Words by Augusta Read Thomas on the Ravinia Festival's main stage. She is a Grand Prize winner of the Artist Presentation Society of St. Louis Competition, the Ziering Conlon International Art Song Competition, and American Prize in Vocal Performance.