[caution: theatre]
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Past Events
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line upon line presents 2026 Austin Winter Music Festival
Hosted by line upon line January 4th, 6th, 8th and 9th
Thanks to: Rea Charitable Trust, Texas Commission on the Arts and You All!
January 8th
Jessy Eubanks is a singer/songwriter, pianist, composer, and music educator. Originally from Northern Virginia, she moved to Austin to pursue a Bachelor of Music (composition emphasis, voice principal) from the University of Texas at Austin. Since graduating, her focus has been on songwriting and playing piano. As a pianist, she plays for events such as wedding ceremonies, private parties, and at St. David’s Episcopal Church with the Bethell Family Singers, where she also directs the children’s choir. As a songwriter, she performs around the Austin area as a solo artist and with a backing band. Her melancholy, indie-folk style explores themes of love, being a woman, and family connections. She runs an independent music studio in South Austin where she teaches piano, voice, and composition.
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Natacha Diels’ work blends choreographed movement, video animation, instrumental practice, and cynical play to construct worlds that are equal parts wonder and unease. Rooted in collage, collaboration, and the transformation of life into ritual, her compositions forge a poetic logic all their own. Critics have described her music as “brilliant, bananas in the best sense, elegant, eloquent, and loopy” (Steve Smith Night After Night); “a tour de force of reckless imagination and confident craft” (Musical America); “a fairy tale for a fractured world” (Music We Care About), and “the liveliest music of the evening” (LA Review of Books). She is a founding member of Ensemble Pamplemousse (est. 2003), a collective of composer-performers bent on reconfiguring the concert experience, and of WENDY (est. 2024), a trio making continuous sets of experimental theatre that are tender, eerie, and just slightly unstable. Recent projects include Ways to Pass the Day, an opera for two rocks and a mountain, created for Festival Nueva Ópera Buenos Aires (2024); Everything Everywhere, a multimedia spectacle that inquisits the excess of all, in collaboration with Ensemble Adapter (2025); Follow Unfollow, a headphone opera questioning the comfort of comfort— manifested through seductive, beautiful jails— for Ensemble Contrechamps (Festival Archipel, 2025); Somewhere Beautiful, a solo performance in three acts that drifts from life to death, through mechanical rigor and golden absurdity (2022–24); and Beautiful Trouble, an opera for JACK Quartet that assembles fractured moments into a kaleidoscopic meditation on joy, despair, and the human condition (2019–24). Her debut solo album—equal parts confessional and sonic hallucination—was released on Carrier Records in August 2025.
Am I Alive is a new set for theremin-driven snare drum, dismembered metronomes, and perpetually accumulating nonsense phrases that gradually coalesce into crystalline sense. Half-remembered conversations with my machine friends form the work’s text, constructing elaborate stories built of the forever narrowing gap between living (as person) and functioning (as machine). The piece flickers between intimacy and circuitry, drone and chaos, beauty and dissonance, finding solace in its own distorted reflections.
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The Alex Coke & Carl Michel Sextet is a collaborative sextet featuring tenor sax/flute(Alex Coke), guitar (Carl Michel), concert harp (Elaine Barber), pedal steel (Bob Hoffnar), vibes (Carolyn Trowbridge) and upright bass (Dana Wygmans). The sextet explores the boundaries of jazz, classical, new music, folk, improvisation and extended techniques. They have three recordings out on PlayOn Records, “The Emissary” produced during the summer of 2021 and “Emergence” released in 2023. and “Situation,” released in January 2025. The recordings feature original compositions by members of the sextet along with compositions by John Coltrane, Paul Motian, Hildegard, Huddie Ledbetter, Valentin Silvestrov, Carla Bley, Wayne Shorter, Saint-Saëns and Respighi
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line upon line presents 2026 Austin Winter Music Festival
Hosted by line upon line January 4th, 6th, 8th and 9th
Thanks to: Rea Charitable Trust, Texas Commission on the Arts and You All!
January 6th
Louis Goldford is a composer whose works explore emergence, psychoanalytic formal models, and abstract resonances through data sonification and experimental orchestration. He has received prestigious awards including a Fromm Commission from Harvard, a Salvatore Martirano Award, and the ACTOR Project Research-Creation Grant. In 2019, Louis completed his Cursus at IRCAM, supported by the Fulbright Commission in France. Louis has been a Laureate of Fondation Royaumont’s Voix Nouvelles and composer-in-residence at Paris’s Cité internationale des arts. His music has been performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Wet Ink, Talea, and Ensemble Linea, among others, at venues such as IRCAM’s ManiFESTE and June in Buffalo. Louis holds a D.M.A. from Columbia University, where he studied with Georg Friedrich Haas, George Lewis, Fred Lerdahl, and Zosha Di Castri.
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James Parker (b. 1992) is a composer, sound artist, and bandoneonist based in Ithaca, New York. He works across various media, including performance, installation, composition, and improvisation. His work addresses questions of aesthetic slowness and varying modes of attention by engaging in gradual, loosely structured transformational processes. Most recently, his work has been inspired by repetitive natural processes, medieval applications of rational intonation, and a thorough inquiry into techniques and practices of field recording.
He has been a fellow at Can Serrat, twice at The Atlantic Center for the Arts, and OneBeat. His works have been performed by Loadbang, AndPlay, TAK Ensemble, Dither, Invoke, and Unassisted Fold, and has been commissioned by Austin Soundwaves, Collide Arts, Tetractys New Music, and Austin Unconducted. James is currently a doctoral candidate in Composition at Cornell University.
In soil horizons, long tones from the bandoneon are recorded and looped, gradually layering into a dense, sustained sound mass. Nuances in pitch and timbre animate the texture as it grows, saturates, and eventually dissolves. The piece focuses on repetition, resonance, and the slow transformation of sound over time.
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Bob Hoffnar is a composer/pedalsteel player living in Austin, TX. Hoffnar graduated from Purchase Conservatory of Music, Purchase, NY in 1998 with a BFA in Composition. Further private studies included time with such musical luminaries as Lamonte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, and Ernest Tubb’s steel player Buddy Charelton. As a performing musician he has recorded, performed and toured with artists as diverse as Nora Jones, Iggy and the Stooges, Butch Morris, Catherine Lamb and Patsy Montana. The bulk of his creative output over the last 8 years is based on the exploration of ratio based harmonic systems and their relationship to physical space with his Prismatic Listening installations.
Christopher Trapani earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard, then spent most of his twenties in London, Istanbul, and Paris, where he studied with Philippe Leroux and worked at IRCAM. At thirty he moved to New York City, earning a doctorate at Columbia in 2017. He is currently Assistant Professor of Electronic Music and Digital Media at Louisiana State University. Recent commissions have come from Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, and Radio France. His works have been heard at Carnegie Hall, Southbank Centre, Wiener Konzerthaus, Ravenna Festival, and Wigmore Hall.
Christopher is a Guggenheim Fellow (2019), winner of the Rome Prize (2016) and the Gaudeamus Prize (2007). Waterlines, his debut portrait CD, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2018, followed by Horizontal Drift in 2022 and Noise Uprising in 2024. Christopher splits his time between his hometown of New Orleans and his European base in Palermo, Sicily.
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Trevor Van de Velde (he/him) is an experimental composer, sound artist, instrument builder, and creative programmer based in NYC. His practice is oriented toward exploring the relationship between technology, play, and hybridity through electroacoustic composition, custom-built electronics, and mixed-media. He is the recipient of the Nicola De Lorenzo Prize, Eisner Prize, Hopkins Center for the Arts Art+Technology grant, and the Rhizome Micro Grant. He has presented work internationally at festivals, institutions, and galleries such as MICF, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, DNMA, Fridman Gallery, Water Street Art Projects. In addition, he has collaborated with a variety of performers and ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Chromic Duo, Bergamot Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Thin Edge Collective, Aksiom Ensemble, Tak Ensemble, and Jennifer Mong. He was previously an Art+Code Fellow at NEW INC. He is currently a doctoral candidate at NYU.
COCKPIT is a performance project exploring themes of technological embodiment, boyhood, and video games through musical performance. It’s inspired by the complicated history of Yamaha Pianos as being one of the top providers of both pianos and agricultural drones. It is also inspired by a drawing I made when I was 6 where I was driving a piano on a racetrack.
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line upon line presents 2026 Austin Winter Music Festival
Hosted by line upon line January 4th, 6th, 8th and 9th
Thanks to: Rea Charitable Trust, Texas Commission on the Arts and You All!
January 4th
Julie Herndon is a composer, performer, and sound artist whose interdisciplinary work explores the relationship between body, sound, and technology. Her work invites listeners into intimate, unpredictable sonic worlds—described by Kulturpunkt as “truly brilliant” and by San Francisco Classical Voice as “surprisingly expressive.” Herndon has shared her music internationally, from Germany’s Blaues Rauschen Festival to National Sawdust in New York and Música Estranha in Brazil. Recent collaborations with Decoder, JACK Quartet, and [Switch~ Ensemble] investigate the convergence of social and musical ecologies. A graduate of Stanford University and Mills College, she is currently Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at Cal Poly.
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Seán Clancy is a composer and performer living in Dublin, Ireland. Seán is the Ad Astra Fellow of Composition in UCD (Dublin). His work is involved in the act of translating non-musical things into music. He writes music for acoustic and electronic instruments, and also uses environmental sounds. Recent highlights include an Opera (The Sound of Things Collected) with author Emilie Pine (2025); the album 4 Sections of Music Unequally Divided by Birmingham Record Company/NMC (2024); Where the Paths End (2023), commissioned by Zubin Kanga for UKRI Cyborg Soloists; and Amaechi (2022) commissioned by the Commonwealth Games, 2022. In March 2026, NMC will release a portrait disc of his work from 2014-2025.
‘Beautifully simple yet elusive’ (The New York Times)
’An affecting reminder of minimalism’s capacity to feel deeply personal and purposeful’ (The Quietus)
Seán Clancy will perform a solo set of new pieces that inhabit the worlds of musique concrète and microtonal drone including a new piece entitled ‘We are not all here’ from his forthcoming album ‘Where the Paths End.’ (NMC 2026) A catalogue of everyday objects once owned by people such as books, tableware, cutlery, and tissues are sounded in glitchy, fragmented intensity, before giving way to ambient spareness, mirroring how grief settles into quiet remembrance.
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The E(XMAS)IST
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The E(XMAS)IST
December 11-13, 18 – 20 @ 7:30 pm
18+A campy Christmas parody of the classic horror film The Exorcist, where Santa fights against dandy demon Krampus to see who’s on top. Festive shenanigans, drag and DIY horror.
Written by Vince Kelly
Directed by CB Goodman
Performed by Kelli Bland, Jay Byrd, Kyle Romero, Vincent Tomasino, & Kat Williams
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The E(XMAS)IST
The E(XMAS)IST
December 11-13, 18 – 20 @ 7:30 pm
18+A campy Christmas parody of the classic horror film The Exorcist, where Santa fights against dandy demon Krampus to see who’s on top. Festive shenanigans, drag and DIY horror.
Written by Vince Kelly
Directed by CB Goodman
Performed by Kelli Bland, Jay Byrd, Kyle Romero, Vincent Tomasino, & Kat Williams
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The E(XMAS)IST
The E(XMAS)IST
December 11-13, 18 – 20 @ 7:30 pm
18+A campy Christmas parody of the classic horror film The Exorcist, where Santa fights against dandy demon Krampus to see who’s on top. Festive shenanigans, drag and DIY horror.
Written by Vince Kelly
Directed by CB Goodman
Performed by Kelli Bland, Jay Byrd, Kyle Romero, Vincent Tomasino, & Kat Williams
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The E(XMAS)IST
The E(XMAS)IST
December 11-13, 18 – 20 @ 7:30 pm
18+A campy Christmas parody of the classic horror film The Exorcist, where Santa fights against dandy demon Krampus to see who’s on top. Festive shenanigans, drag and DIY horror.
Written by Vince Kelly
Directed by CB Goodman
Performed by Kelli Bland, Jay Byrd, Kyle Romero, Vincent Tomasino, & Kat Williams
-
The E(XMAS)IST
The E(XMAS)IST
December 11-13, 18 – 20 @ 7:30 pm
18+A campy Christmas parody of the classic horror film The Exorcist, where Santa fights against dandy demon Krampus to see who’s on top. Festive shenanigans, drag and DIY horror.
Written by Vince Kelly
Directed by CB Goodman
Performed by Kelli Bland, Jay Byrd, Kyle Romero, Vincent Tomasino, & Kat Williams
-
The E(XMAS)IST
The E(XMAS)IST
December 11-13, 18 – 20 @ 7:30 pm
18+A campy Christmas parody of the classic horror film The Exorcist, where Santa fights against dandy demon Krampus to see who’s on top. Festive shenanigans, drag and DIY horror.
Written by Vince Kelly
Directed by CB Goodman
Performed by Kelli Bland, Jay Byrd, Kyle Romero, Vincent Tomasino, & Kat Williams
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arcos presents Holding Up the Void
Holding Up the Void – a new project from arcos
November 21 – 29, 2025Performing Collaborators
Sarah Annie Navarrete, Celeste Camfield, Aída Hernandez-Reyes, Dany Casey, Ciceley Fullylove, Leo BriggsProduction Collaborators
EG Gionfriddo, Eliot Gray Fisher, Celine LassusTicketing/Seating Options:
There are two ways to enjoy the Void*Floor Seating:
With this ticket option, you will sit in-the-round and occasionally be asked to get up from your seat and move to a new seat on the floor. You will be clearly cued by the performers when to do this.Stadium Seating:
With this ticket option, you will have a view of the stage from the risers, We recommend this option if you desire less mobility during the performance or if you prefer a “birds eye view” of the action.*Industry Night (Monday 11/24) seats will be claimed on a first-come, first-served basis with flexible pricing (minimum $10).
About arcos
