Based in New York City, Erin Rogers is a Canadian-American composer, saxophonist, and performance artist dedicated to new and experimental music. Her works explore the intersection of chamber music, sound alchemy, and theatre, using human elements such as vocals, improvisation, and performance practice to inform timbre, gesture, and theme, moving freely between acoustic and electronic worlds.

Erin’s works have been performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Roulette, The Knockdown Center, Cleveland Institute of Music and Merkin Hall, by ensembles such as mise-en, Loadbang, Stony Brook Contemporary Players, Versipel, Hypercube, thingNY, and nief-norf, with recent commissions from the 2018 MATA Festival, Alia Musica Pittsburgh and Decoder Ensemble (Hamburg). Called a “rising star” (Broadway World), her work has crossed genres from theatre-to-installation-to-silence, through collaborations with Orange Theatre, Panoply Performance Laboratory, Harvestworks, and Music for Contemplation. Internationally, her music has been featured at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid; Museum Concert Hall, Taiwan; Le Cité Universitaire, Paris; and the World Saxophone Congress in St. Andrews, Scotland. Her work Trajectories for 5 vocal-instrumentalists was performed for New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, featured on the 2015 Ecstatic Music Festival, covered by the cast of Broadway’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, and is currently available on Gold Bolus Recordings. Her solo performance piece, inspired by pioneering punk-feminist icon Lydia Lunch, was featured at the 2017 Prototype Festival’s “Out-of-Bounds” with solo performances at HERE Arts Center, the original Max’s Kansas City, and Trump Hotel SoHo in a statement of political protest. Her JFund commissioned work, Mother Earth, was premiered by Andrea Lee Smith and the New Thread Quartet at Carnegie Hall. Her music has been featured on French Quarter Festival (New Orleans), Continuum Music Festival (Memphis), Queens New Music Festival, Edmonton Fringe Festival (Canada), Guitars International Guitar Festival, Bowling Green New Music Festival and the 2017 mise-en Festival.

Erin has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Music from Copland House, wild Up, mise-en, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and is a core member of the ensembles: thingNY, New Thread Quartet, HYPERCUBE, and Popebama. Her group HYPERCUBE (saxophone, electric guitar, piano, and percussion) specializes in “fearless and flawless” performances of challenging, cutting-edge repertoire, with a “sense of ensemble that is not to be rivaled.” (Sequenza 21). HYPERCUBE has been featured on Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge Series, Bowling Green State‘s ‘Forefront,’ Series, Wichita State’s Connoisseur Series/New Voices Festival, Kent State University‘s ‘Vanguard Series,’ The Frequency Series (Constellation, Chicago), Oberlin Conservatory, Arkansas State University, Garrick Theatre Bonavista (Canada), the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and (le) poisson rouge, with residencies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM) and Charlotte New Music Festival. Her overly-adrenalized, experimental duo Popebama with percussionist Dennis Sullivan, landed on the scene in 2016 with performances in Brooklyn (Permutations, Home Audio), the first annual VU Symposium in Park City, Utah, the 2017 New Music Gathering, and the 2018 SPLICE Festival (University of Western Michigan), with a featured evening-concert appearance at the 2018 NASA Biennial Conference in Cincinnati. Erin has worked extensively with the Wandelweiser group Music for Contemplation as performer, composer, and recording artist, and has performed worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, and guest artist, from solo recitals in France to cover bands in Australia. As band member and instrumental arranger, Erin has performed with indie pop sensations Helado Negro, Mansour, and Sweet Soubrette, and can be heard at NYC live music venues such as Bowery Ballroom, Rough Trade, Cake Shop, The Bitter End, Pete’s Candy Store, and Joe’s Pub.

Erin is saxophonist and co-artistic director of theatrically-charged experimental ensemble, thingNY. Called an “inventive new music cabal” by Time Out New York, thingNY has brought their blend of performance art and improvisation to theatres, concert halls, art galleries, and DIY venues around New York including Roulette, the Brick Theatre, Powerhouse Arena, Merkin Concert Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Issue Project Room, and The Stone, as well as various historical homes throughout and beyond the metro area as part of their traveling concert/sound installation, IN HOUSE. thingNY has held residencies at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center and Flushing Town Hall, for their mass call-for-scores SPAM project, and has been featured in the Made HERE documentary series. New Music Box hailed thingNY’s first album, the eccentrically excessive opera ADDDDDDDDD, as “rapidfire… pulseracing… all consuming” (New Music Box). Their recent production, This Takes Place Close By, is a powerful operatic work on the topic of storms, for multiple actors, readers and musicians. Developed at Incubator Arts and Standard Toykraft, and toured throughout the East Coast and Canada, the opera received its official premiere in September, 2015 at Knockdown Center, a 50,000 square foot space in Maspeth, Queens, featuring a “stunningly effective mélange of singing, acting, electronics, and extended vocal techniques.” (I Care If You Listen). thingNY’s second album, minis/Trajectories, featuring works by Paul Pinto and Erin Rogers, was released in fall of 2016. Erin will make her piano debut in November 2017, as part of HERE Art Center’s production of Pinto’s Thomas Paine in Violence, directed by Rick Burkhardt, in association with thingNY.

Erin is co-founder and tenor saxophonist of the New Thread Quartet, an “adventurous, rule-breaking” (Matt Mendez, NewMusicBox), ensemble of elite musicians, formed with the mission to develop and perform impactful new music for the saxophone, and to provide high level ensemble playing to feature today’s compositional voices. In 6 seasons, the quartet has commissioned and premiered over 20 new works by composers such as Richard Carrick, Scott Wollschleger, Ben Hjertmann, and Kathryn Salfelder, Max Grafe, and Taylor Brook. Based in New York City, New Thread has performed at Carnegie Hall, Roulette, Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival Benefit, and Monadnock Music, and has performed or recorded more than 30 important works for saxophone quartet including Kati Agocs‘ Hymn on New England Conservatory’s Composer Series at Jordan Hall, a revival of Michael Djupstrom‘s 2001 work Test at Arizona State University’s Katzin Concert Hall, and the premiere recording of Elliott Sharp‘s seminal work Approaching the Arches of Corti for 4 soprano saxophones, available on New World Records. NTQ has conducted masterclasses, residencies, and performances for student saxophonists and composers at Peabody Conservatory, Bronx Community College, Aaron Copland School (Queens College), Montclair State University, and NYU. New Thread is a presenting partner of Composers Now.

Born and raised in Alberta, Canada, Erin completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta and, in 2005, received master’s degrees in composition and performance from Bowling Green State University. Her major teachers were Mikel Kuehn, Elainie Lillios, John Sampen, Marilyn Shrude, William H. Street, Laurie Radford and Howard Bashaw. A featured guest artist at the annual Taiwan Saxophone Camp in Taipei, Taiwan. Erin has given lectures/masterclasses at Peabody Conservatory, Sarah Lawrence College, Montclair State University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Kent State University, and Illinois State University.

From 2006-2017, Erin was production manager at Peermusic Classical, located in midtown Manhattan. She served as board member of the Music Publisher’s Association from 2013-2017. Founded in 1895, the MPA is the oldest music trade organization in the United States. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.