Yarn/Wire

Yarn/Wire is a percussion-and-piano quartet based in New York. Since 2005, the ensemble has commissioned and premiered works from composers and sound artists, creating music that bridges concert music and sonic experimentation.

Yarn/Wire started in 2005 as four Stony Brook graduates with no plan except to play together. After exhausting existing new-music repertoire, they realized they'd have to actively create music in partnership with composers, sound artists, and noise musicians to reflect their sprawling interests and support varied voices around them. The percussion-and-piano quartet—Russell Greenberg and Sae Hashimoto on percussion, Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer on pianos—creates visceral, adventurous new music at the intersection of concert tradition and sonic experimentation. Their commissioning series, Yarn/Wire Currents, partners with Brooklyn institutions like Roulette and ISSUE Project Room. Since 2014, the annual Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival brings together emerging composers and performers worldwide. What animates the ensemble is the belief that their unusual instrumental pairing—two pianos, two percussion—unlocks sonic possibilities that conventional ensembles can't access.