yMusic is
Alex Sopp,
Flute
As the flutist of yMusic, The Knights, and NOW Ensemble, the New York Times has praised her playing as “exquisite” and “beautifully nuanced.” Comfortable in many genres, Alex has commissioned, premiered, toured, and recorded with some of the most exciting composers and songwriters of our time. In addition to playing the flute, Alex is a singer and a visual artist.
Mark Dover, Clarinet
Grammy-nominated clarinetist Mark Dover is a man of many horns, maintaining firm roots in classical music while ever-expanding into the vast world of improvised music. Since 2016 he has served as the clarinetist of Imani Winds and has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Albany Symphonies, and the American Composers Orchestra.
CJ Camerieri, Trumpet & Horn
A graduate of The Juilliard School, CJ Camerieri plays trumpet, french horn and keyboards for some of the most important artists of our time. He founded the classical ensemble yMusic, joined Bon Iver—winning two Grammy awards for the band’s sophomore album—and became an integral member of Paul Simon’s touring band in 2014, assuming a pivotal role in the legend’s last two records.
Rob Moose, Violin & Guitar
Rob Moose is a Grammy Award-winning arranger and string player based in Brooklyn. He's written and recorded charts for over 800 albums, including work by Bon Iver, Taylor Swift, Paul Simon and Phoebe Bridgers. As an orchestrator, Moose's work has been performed by the Atlanta, Colorado, Dallas, Indianapolis, and National Symphonies, as well as the Boston Pops.
Nadia Sirota,
viola
Nadia Sirota is a violist, conductor, and Peabody Award-winning producer and broadcaster, known for her “tenaciously good ear and her ability to throw herself bodily into the landscapes that composers bring to her.” (Pitchfork) Nadia joined the Juilliard faculty in 2023, teaching Chamber Music and Graduate Studies, and becoming the school’s first Creative Associate at Large.
Gabriel Cabezas, Cello
Cellist Gabriel Cabezas is a true 21st century musician. A prolific and sought-after soloist and collaborator, he is as comfortable interpreting new works as he is with the pillar scores of the cello repertoire. Gabriel has appeared with America’s finest symphony orchestras, and has premiered dozens of new works by some of the most brilliant composers of his time.
YMUSIC FULL BIO
yMusic is a genre-leading American chamber ensemble. Now in its 16th season, the group is renowned for its innovative and collaborative spirit. Since their inception, yMusic has had a unique mission: to work on both sides of the classical/popular music divide, without sacrificing rigor, virtuosity, charisma or style. They were recently praised by NPR Music as “...Deeply, profoundly skilled. They’ve formed a language all their own.”
Named for "Generation Y”, yMusic and their cohort of composer-collaborators, who include Andrew Norman, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Marcos Balter and Caroline Shaw, have come to represent the vanguard of American Contemporary Music. Simultaneously, yMusic has been tapped to lend their orchestral sound and instantly-recognizable style to recordings and concert projects by a dizzying array of popular artists from Anohni to John Legend to Paul Simon.
yMusic is Alex Sopp, flute; Mark Dover, clarinet; CJ Camerieri, trumpet; Rob Moose, violin; Nadia Sirota, viola; and Gabriel Cabezas, cello. The group was founded Rob and CJ in 2008, who chose its unique instrumentation based on their friendships and the players' adaptability. The yMusic configuration has quickly become a staple orchestration for composers and ensembles inspired by the group’s work.
In 2023, the ensemble released their first album of self-composed work titled, YMUSIC. Written collaboratively by all six musicians, YMUSIC represents a creative breakthrough for the ensemble. “They’ve transcended all the conventions that they were trained in” (NPR Music), presenting "one of the most exciting and confident chamber music releases of the year” (Strings Magazine). yMusic also launched an ongoing collaboration, Stories x yMusic, a series of filmed performances and streaming singles featuring prominent artists performing with the ensemble an intimate acoustic setting.
In addition to their most recent album, yMusic has released four full-length albums of commissioned music, 2020’s Ecstatic Science, 2017’s First, 2014’s Balance Problems, and 2011’s Beautiful Mechanical, Time Out New York’s “#1 Classical Record of the Year.” They can be found performing around the world in a variety of contexts and have performed venues such as the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Madison Square Garden.
PRESS QUOTES
“Deeply, profoundly skilled. They’ve formed a language all their own.” — NPR Music
“yMusic delivers a necessary jolt of rhythmic energy to a generation of composers steeped in nonclassical idioms.”
- New York Times
“a sextet notable for blurring the lines between classical-minded indie rockers and accessible bouts of 21st-century composition.”
- Rolling Stone
“This is not classical music meant to soothe your jangled nerves. This is music meant to fire up the neurons in your brain and keep those neurons on alert”
- Popmatters
“[yMusic delivers] sharp-edged, vivid performances that are at once precision-tooled and full of autonomous life”
- San Francisco Chronicle
“With yMusic the performers act as co-conspirators in the compositional process, interacting with the music as a living document, not an abstract ideal.”
- New York Times
SELECTED PRESS
New Music Friday: The best releases out on May 5 — NPR Music
Review: Carnegie Hall Makes an Intimate Space More Intimate — The New York Times
Crafting a Way for Musicians to Play Together Over Zoom — San Francisco Chronicle
Meet yMusic, Paul Simon’s Genre-Crossing Chamber Ensemble of Choice — Rolling Stone
Bridging Genres and Generations on the Fly — The New York Times
Bruce Hornsby’s New Album is Complex and Untrendy. That’s Why It’s So Good. — The New York Times
yMusic Ignores Genre Boundaries — The Boston Globe
From Mozart to Michael Jackson: The Classical Contenders — NPR
yMusic — The New Yorker