Music Alum and PhD Student Featured in Washington Post

Stony Brook alum Flannery Cunningham ’18 and PhD student Niloufar Nourbakhsh are highlighted in a Washington Post article, “21 for ’21: Composers and performers who sound like tomorrow.” Both studied with composition faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Music.

Ensemble Decipher after performing at the NowNet Arts Conference on November 4, 2020.

Niloufar Nourbakhsh is part of the music group Ensemble Decipher.


According to the article, “These 21 (as well as the many composers and performers linked throughout this list) represent an array of approaches, identities, experiences and, most of all, exciting ways of imagining what our future together sounds like.”
Cunningham, a composer, “has employed facial mapping and tracking to turn an ensemble of laptops into a voiceless choir. She’s also turned pianos into ersatz printers that plot out new scores across long scrolls of fabric.” 
Nourbakhsh, a pianist and composer, “[has a] fascination with electroacoustic and virtual space that is matched by her sensitivity to history and identity.” She founded the modular and technology-focused experimental music group Ensemble Decipher, which won a SUNY PACC prize in December.

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