fivebyfive presents 

Sunday, November 16, 2025
Payton Violins, 250 N. Goodman St.
Rochester, NY, 14607
4:30 PM

PROGRAM

Notes of Gratitude (2017) -

Jennifer Higdon

“Vision, fortitude, faith, belief, humor, enthusiasm, excellent musicianship, warmth, and determination. These are the qualities of one who makes a profound mark on our musical community. Thank you, Linda Reichert, for being that person. I have tried to capture your qualities in notes on the page. I don’t know if it’s truly possible, but watching, listening, and experiencing the history of Network for New Music has been an honor and a pleasure.”

— Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed and most frequently performed living composers. She is a major figure in contemporary Classical music, receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto, a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto and a 2020 Grammy for her Harp Concerto. In 2018, Higdon received the Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University which is given to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. Most recently, the recording of Higdon's Percussion Concerto was inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Higdon enjoys several hundred performances a year of her works, and blue cathedral is today’s most performed contemporary orchestral work, with more than 600 performances worldwide. Her works have been recorded on more than seventy CDs. Higdon’s first opera, Cold Mountain, won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere and the opera recording was nominated for 2 Grammy awards. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press.

Op. 75: After Koechlin (2025) -

Laura Lentz

“This duet draws on the warmth of the Lydian mode to evoke the lush harmonies, atmospheric textures, and expressive lyricism characteristic of French composer Charles Koechlin (1867-1950). The first movement of his Sonata for Two Flutes, Op. 75 — with its fluid interplay and color-rich sound world — was a direct inspiration for this piece. This is an arrangement of the duet for alto flute and bass clarinet.”

— Laura Lentz

Laura Lentz is a flutist, composer, educator, and author of Modal Flute Warmup, known for her expressive playing, innovative teaching, and vibrant curiosity. Praised for her “striking, meticulous flute playing” (Take Effect) and “enviable control and supple phrasing” (Sequenza21), she has commissioned, premiered, and recorded dozens of works by leading composers including JacobTV, Missy Mazzoli, Marc Mellits, and Roberto Sierra.

A founding member and Artistic Director of the new music ensemble fivebyfive, Lentz has created cross-disciplinary programs with institutions such as the Strasenburgh Planetarium, Memorial Art Gallery, and George Eastman Museum. The ensemble’s recent projects include Light & Dark (immersive video performance for the 2024 solar eclipse), Glass Works (new commissions inspired by stained glass artist Judith Schaechter), and Choreograph (music responding to James Welling’s photography).

Several works have been written for or dedicated to her, including JacobTV’s Serendipity2 and Marc Mellits’s Discrete Structures, with her performances broadcast on Performance Today. With nearly 15 releases as a soloist and with fivebyfive, she has championed over 75 new works in the past decade, and appeared with fivebyfive on #2 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Charts in a recent release.

Lentz teaches at Nazareth University, serves on the National Flute Association’s New Music Advisory Board, and presents widely at festivals and universities across the U.S. and abroad.

Reflections of Light - Eric J. Polenik

Bassist Eric J. Polenik has been a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra since 2005 and performed on the orchestra’s Grammy winning album, American Rapture. Polenik fell in love with classical music after hearing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for the first time in a high school general music class. Drawn to the low sounds of the double bass, Polenik began learning to play the instrument at age 16 and, four years later, performed the symphony with the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra as its Principal Bassist.

Polenik is a member of the ensemble fivebyfive, a mixed-quintet dedicated to promoting new music and collaboration. The award-winning ensemble is regularly featured on American Public Media’s Performance Today, as well as on WXXI’s Backstage Pass and Live From Hochstein. Of and Between, the group’s debut album, has been featured on radio and streaming programs throughout the world including I Care If You Listen.

Polenik came to Rochester earning a Master in Music degree from Eastman School of Music after earning his Bachelor of Music from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. Polenik regularly performs with many ensembles in upstate New York including the Buffalo Philharmonic, Slee Sinfonietta at University of Buffalo, Rochester Oratorio Society, and Finger Lakes Opera, and was a member of the eclectic string chamber group Gibbs and Main.

As an educator, Polenik’s mission is to foster a partnership with each student that leads to fast growth through critical thinking, sensory awareness, imagination, and joy. A passionate person, Polenik loves to smile, encourage others, ride motorcycles, disc golf, and play with Ellie the cat. He’s most content practicing the bass! 

Geometric Meters (2019) -

Olivia Kieffer

Dr. Olivia Kieffer is a composer, percussionist, and educator.  A native of Wisconsin, her music has been described as “immediately attractive,” “like a knife of light,” and “honest, to the point, and joyful!”

She is Visiting Professor of Music Theory at Grand Valley State University. She earned a DMA in Composition at University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL) in 2023. Her musical mentors include percussionists Allen Otte and Stuart Gerber, and composers Marc Mellits, Douwe Eisenga, William Susman, Jon Welstead, Charles N. Mason, and Lansing McLoskey. She is the newest member of smol ensemble, a quintet of percussionists and pianists. Olivia is former adjunct music faculty at Reinhardt University (2009 – 2017), where she taught percussion and World Music. She studied percussion at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Georgia State University, and she studied music composition at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

She feels at home in both the classical and rock worlds, and was an active performer in Atlanta’s vibrant contemporary classical music scene for over a decade, including her work as bandleader and drummer for the 7-piece chamber rock band Clibber Jones Ensemble. She is a long-time member of the Chix With Stix Percussion Group. She also performed regularly with the Terminus Ensemble and Bent Frequency, and 2015-2017 was co-director of the Reinhardt Contemporary Arts Festival and Atlanta’s SoundNOW Festival, as well as serving on the Music committee at Eyedrum Music & Art Gallery, where she curated the Composer’s Concert Series. 

Olivia is perhaps best known for her toy piano books which contain 127 miniatures; The Texture of Activity and Playing the Changes, and for her post-minimalist concert band piece …and then the Universe exploded. Since 2012, her compositions have been performed both nationally and internationally. She has been commissioned by Mid America Freedom Band; guitarists Darren Nelsen and Matthew Linder; percussionists Brandon Dodge, Nathaniel Gworek, and Colleen Phelps; toy pianist Amy O’Dell; GremlinsDuo; A/B Duo; fivebyfive; The New Music Conflagration; saxophonists Nicki Roman and Michael Hernandez; tubists Bill Pritchard and Josh Sevigny; the Deuson Pilkington Duo; the SENSORIA series at UW-Milwaukee; Bent Frequency Duo Project; flutist Laura Lentz; the “Pop Rock in Metal” sax quartet consortium; Duo 305; the Forage & Flourish Festival; Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble; Grand Valley State University orchestra; Society for New Music; smol ensemble, and Kontra Duo.

She can be heard as a drummer and percussionist on albums by Clibber Jones Ensemble, the Boston prog rock band Perhaps, the Georgia Brass Band, and the Emory University Wind Ensemble. Her compositions are on albums by toy pianists Amy O’Dell and Jacob Mason, tenor/guitar duet Deuson Pilkington Duo, chamber rock band Clibber Jones Ensemble, woodwind duet GremlinsDuo, and saxophonist Nicki Roman.

Her projects and compositions have been highlighted in Journal for the International Alliance for Women in Music; ArtsAtl; TomTom Magazine; Wide Circles podcast,; WABE-FM (90.1); listening to ladies; Moving Classics TV; Pete’s Percussion Podcast; and the 1track podcast. She is a guest contributor to NewMusicBox and EarRelevant. In 2017 Olivia was Composer in Residence at the Florida International Toy Piano Festival and the Mana Saxophone Institute. 

Olivia serves on the Percussive Arts Society Diversity Alliance and formerly served on the Percussive Arts Society Composition Committee, and is a member of the International Alliance for Women in Music. 

Ten Children #4 (2003) -

Michael Lowenstern

Michael Lowenstern is widely recognized as one of the most innovative bass clarinetists in the world, and has performed, recorded, and toured as a soloist and with ensembles of every variety.

Career highlights include long tenures with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and John Zorn, touring with ensembles as diverse as the Steve Reich Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Klezmatics, and a stint with the New Jersey Symphony as its bass clarinetist. To date, he can be heard on over sixty recordings, three of which have won Grammy awards. Michael has also released eight solo albums…none of which won Grammy awards. 

Michael launched earspasm.com in 1997, initially as a website to sell his first CD, “Spasm.” Over the past 25 years, Earspasm has expanded into the most comprehensive clarinet and bass clarinet online shop in the world, serving single-reed players from across the globe. 

Michael is currently in his 14th year creating content for his YouTube channel, to the delight (and consternation) of millions of viewers across the globe. Lowenstern is a Backun Artist, having contributed to the design of their new bass clarinet, and plays Vandoren mouthpieces, ligatures and reeds. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and partner Katherine Cooke, and dog Piper.

The Hinchinbrook Riffs (2006) -

Nigel Westlake

“Hinchinbrook Island is one of the world’s most diversely beautiful wilderness areas. It lies off the Cardwell coast, halfway between Cairns and Townsville in North Queensland Australia.

Originally populated by the Bandjin people, its current name was given  by Captain Cook in 1770 & it is now listed as part of the ‘Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area’ being Australia’s largest island National Park.
I first encountered the island whilst cruising the coral coast on my father’s yacht in 1975, & I was awestruck & inspired by the overwhelming grandeur of the rugged peaks & lush tropical gorges.

A number of musical motives or ‘riffs’ immediately came to mind which I notated & initially incorporated into one of my very first compositions, ‘The Hinchinbrook Riffs’ written for my garage band at the time ‘Eggs Benedict’.

Using the inspiration garnered from a recent walking expedition to Hinchinbrook Island with my son Joel, I decided to revisit the musical fragments collected all those years ago & incorporate them into a piece for solo Guitar & digital delay.

The piece consists of a string of ‘motives’ or ‘riffs’ that are digitally copied within the delay & made to repeat 600 milliseconds (about half a second) after they have been performed ‘live’.  The performer is required to interlock with the delay signal by adhering to a strict tempo indication (100 beats per minute), creating the riffs to interplay & trip over themselves, causing interesting rhythmic & melodic variants that surge & ebb in wave – like formations.”

— Nigel Westlake

Nigel Westlake’s career, spanning almost 5 decades, began as a clarinetist touring Australia and the world with many orchestras, ensembles & bands. He began composing from 1980, receiving offers to write for radio, theatre, circus, TV and film and was appointed composer in residence for ABC Radio in 1984.

From 1987-1992 he was a core member of the Australia Ensemble [resident at UNSW] and in 1992 was invited by guitarist John Williams to join his septet Attacca as performer and composer. His film credits include Blueback, Babe, Ali’s Wedding, Paper Planes, Miss Potter, Babe- Pig in the City, Children of the Revolution, The Nugget, A Little Bit of Soul and the IMAX films Antarctica, Solarmax, The Edge, and Imagine. His television credits include numerous documentaries, telemovies, news themes and station idents.

He writes extensively for the concert hall, receiving commissions to write for orchestras, ensembles and soloists and has received many awards, including two ARIA Awards, 15 APRA awards across both Classical and Screen categories, the 2022 APRA Distinguished Services to the Australian Screen Award and the Gold Medal for Best Original Music at the New York International Radio Festival.

He is a two time winner of the presitigious Paul Lowin Orchestral prize, in 2013 for Missa Solis – Requiem for Eli and in 2019 for Spirit of the Wild – Concerto for oboe and orchestra. In 2020 he was awarded the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award by the University of Melbourne for his 3rd String quartet “Sacred Sky”.

He has conducted all the major symphony orchestras in Australia in performances and recordings of his own works, and in 2016 made his US conducting debut at the Lincoln Centre with the New York Philharmonic and his European debut with the RTE Symphony at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in 2018.

He holds an honorary doctorate in music awarded in 2013 by the University of NSW and was the recipient of the HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship at the Australian National University in 2004.

He is represented by Maggie Rodford (Air Edel, London).

This Homeless Way (2018) -

Jon Russell

“This Homeless Way is inspired by three poems by Jacob Folger, a formerly homeless person who now runs an organization called “Friend to the Homeless” (www.friendtothehomeless.org), whose purpose is “to educate on Homelessness and help people to discover simple things they can do to ease the lives of Homeless People.” All proceeds from sheet music sales and performance royalties from this piece will be donated to homelessness-related causes.”

— Jon Russell

Night Dance (2009) - Jon Russell

“Night Dance is a brief, evocative work for clarinet (or flute) and guitar. It has no specific program, but its circling melodic cells, subtly shifting rhythmic grooves, and undulating harmonies evoke, for me, mysterious nocturnal creatures scurrying and dancing through an enchanted night forest. The seamless integration of improvisation and notated music in the piece makes the performing musicians’ own intuition and creativity an integral component of the work.”

— Jon Russell

Jonathan Russell (b. 1979) leads an active and varied musical life as composer, clarinetist, bass clarinetist, musical event organizer, and music theorist. His wide-ranging and eclectic compositions build on influences from across the musical spectrum, unified by their directness of expression and emotional power. He has received commissions from ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, Symphony Number One, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Imani Winds, Empyrean Ensemble, ADORNO Ensemble, fivebyfive, Wild Rumpus, New Keys, ZOFO piano duo, Nomad Session, Égide Duo, Paradise Winds, and the Great Noise Ensemble, and performances from numerous other ensembles and performers. His music has been recorded by the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, the Kairos Consort, pianist Jeffrey Jacob, The Living Earth show, Imani Winds, the Twiolins, the NakedEye Ensemble, the Égide Duo, and Symphony Number One. Especially known for his innovative bass clarinet and clarinet ensemble compositions, he has also developed a reputation as a skilled arranger of canonical works for implausible combinations of instruments, such as the Rite of Spring, Scheherazade, and The Planets for woodwind quintet, J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for two bass clarinets, and Purcell’s Dido’s Lament for bass clarinet ensemble.

Jonathan approaches performing with the same curiosity and omnivorous appetite as composing. Originally trained as a classical clarinetist, he also plays klezmer and Balkan music, improvises, and is especially known for his unique and innovative approach to the bass clarinet. He has been a member of two ground-breaking bass clarinet chamber ensembles: the legendary heavy metal-inspired Edmund Welles bass clarinet quartet and the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, which has commissioned numerous new works and released three albums. He is also the leader of Bass Clarinets Boston, a 15-member professional bass clarinet ensemble based in the Boston area. He has appeared as soloist with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the West Point Military Academy Band, the Princeton University Orchestra, Harvard’s Bach Society Orchestra, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, the Great Noise Ensemble, the NakedEye Ensemble, the Omaha Symphonic Winds, and the Peninsula Symphony, among others. He is also co-founder of the Switchboard Music Festival, which for ten years presented an annual marathon concert of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most creative and innovative composers and performers.

Jonathan frequently conducts his own compositions, as well as premieres of works by student and emerging composers. A dedicated and creative educator, he has taught Music Theory at San Francisco Conservatory, Harvard, and MIT, and Composition at the SF Conservatory’s Adult Extension and Preparatory Divisions. He has also given clarinet and bass clarinet master classes throughout the United States, and in Europe, Mexico, and New Zealand.

Jonathan has served as Music Director for five highly acclaimed dance productions with choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton. His work on their June 2011 production, The Experience of Flight in Dreams, earned him a nomination for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text.” He has written concert reviews for the San Francisco Classical Voice and Bachtrack, and feature articles for NewMusicBox and The Clarinet. Building on recent research into the geometric modeling of pitch space, his doctoral dissertation presented a new harmonic analysis of the entire Rite of Spring. He is currently working on a thorough re-imagining of the standard Music Theory curriculum to make it more inclusive and relevant to the 21st-century musician. He has a B.A. in Music from Harvard University, an M.M. in Music Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton University. His primary composition teachers have included Paul Lansky, Dmitri Tymoczko, Dan Trueman, Barbara White, Steve Mackey, Dan Becker, Elinor Armer, Eric Sawyer, John Stewart, and Eric Ewazen. His clarinet teachers have included Janet Greene, Alan Kay, and Jo-Ann Sternberg. He currently lives in Cambridge, MA, with his wife and son.

about fivebyfive

Described as “classical turned loose in the toy store,” “top-flight,” and “imaginative,” fivebyfive is an award-winning, artist-led ensemble known for its impeccable musicianship, adventurous spirit that permeates innovative, cross-genre programming and community engagement. Based in Rochester, NY and formed in 2015, the group has a mission to engage audiences in the collaborative spirit and creativity of today’s dynamic chamber music. To realize its mission, fivebyfive presents innovative programs featuring today’s chamber music by commissioning, developing, and performing music by the most forward-thinking composers, advocating for creators who are underrepresented in the field and collaborating with a wide range of partners. 

fivebyfive receives organizational funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) since 2022 and has also been awarded artist support awards for new works by composers Jessica Meyer, Roberto Sierra, Emily Pinkerton, and Steven Danyew. The group has been chosen twice as a New Music USA Organizational Development Fund Recipient which recognizes outstanding organizations that work regularly with—and support the development of—music creators and artists, offering a critical community resource. In early 2023, fivebyfive presented a showcase performance as part of the national conference of Chamber Music America.

fivebyfive has appeared on WXXI Classical 91.5’s programs Backstage Pass and Live from Hochstein, was featured on Performance Rochester and Performance Upstate, and has also appeared nationally on American Public Media’s Performance Today with host Fred Child.

fivebyfive became a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in 2017, and has released three albums: Of and Between (2021), Breath & Fire (2023), and The Play Album (2023). Their fourth album, Eclipse, on the Grammy-nominated Bright Shiny Things label, debuted at #2 on the Traditional Classical Billboard chart for the week of November 8, 2024. fivebyfive’s fifth album release (2024) features a new work by Grammy-nominated and Latin Grammy winner Roberto Sierra, "Sonidos de Tlön", commissioned by fivebyfive.

This year, the group celebrates its 10th anniversary season. Read more about it here.

About the concert

As part of its milestone 10th anniversary season, fivebyfive is introducing something new - it’s the 4Now Series at Payton Violins, creating an intimate connection between audience and the ensemble.

Mark your calendars for
4Now #3: What’s New?
Friday, April 24, 2026, 7:00 PM
An up-close concert with the potential unveiling of a new recording or video project, offering audiences a joint listen and look!