About Us

CompCord Ensemble is the resident ensemble of Composers Concordance. The ensemble is a mixed chamber band made up of composers/performers. The core members of the ensemble are the directors and associate Directors of Composers Concordance which include Gene Pritsker, Dan Cooper, Peter Jarvis, Milca Parasonic and others. The group is augmented by other composers and performers for each individual project. Acclaimed musicians who have joined the band include: Robert Dick - flute, David Soldier - violin, John Clark - horn, Valerie Coleman - flute, Taka Kigawa - piano, Chanda Rule - voice, Franz Hackl - trumpet, Borislav Strulev - cello, and Kinan Azmeh - clarinet, Max Pollak - tap dancer, Mark Egan - bassist, among others.

Composers Concordance is a presenting organization for contemporary music with a 35-year-history of producing concerts in New York City. It strives to present music in innovative ways, with an emphasis on thematic programming. The Comp Cord Ensemble expands on this objective by focusing on the composer-as-performer within an ensemble setting. Each project asks the selected musicians to contribute compositions based on a particular subject or instrumentation, with an emphasis on experimentation and creating music for the particular members of each program.

In recent years, the ensemble, in its various forms, has performed at The American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Shapeshifter Lab, Spectrum NYC, The San Diego The New West Electronic Arts & Music Festival, The Outreach Festival in Schwaz, Austria and Turtle Bay Music school, The Howland Cultural Center in Beacon NYC, among others. Since 2010 the ensemble has presented an annual concert at William Paterson University

Milica Paranosic

Critically-acclaimed composer Milica Paranosic has established herself as one of New York’s finest and most daring composers, performance artists, producers, and technologists. The New York Times has described her music as: “Amazing…astonishing”; “Like liquor-filled pralines” (-Germany’s Morgenpost); “A painter, a musical Jackson Pollack” (-SEAMUS). Milica’s works range from one-woman multimedia shows and sound installations to operatic and symphonic works. Inspired by her travels and international collaborations, Milica ingeniously incorporates music of her Serbian homeland in addition to cross-continental influences, including sights and sounds of Brazil, Ghana, and China. Milica strives to create new sound worlds in which contrasting concepts vividly coexist in unique textures. She has received numerous awards, prizes and commissions. Milica's music has been performed by such ensembles as The New Juilliard Ensemble, The Juilliard Dance Department, The New York Choreographic Institute, VisionIntoArt, D’Divaz, and The Reflex Ensemble, and noted soloists including Joel Sachs (conductor); Margaret Lancaster (flute); Kathleen Supové (piano); Martha Mooke (viola); and Mari Kimura, Tom Chiu, Airi Yoshioka (violin) and many more. Her recent commission by the American Composers Orchestra and LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton was premièred at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in October 2012. Since 1995, Milica has been on the music faculty of The Juilliard School, where she co-founded and produced Beyond the Machine, Juilliard’s Festival of Electronic Music. She has taught and created curricula in varied settings (Belgrade Music University, San Diego State University, Franklin Marshall College, Brotherhood Sister Sol, and 92nd Street Y). She maintains an active private teaching studio, working with professional musicians and beginners ranging in age from 5 to 93. Furthering her deep commitment to education and outreach, Milica founded Give to Grow, an education initiative which brings music technology to developing communities in Ghana. She recently returned to NYC from Shanghai, China, where she was on the composition faculty of FaceArt Internations, a private music school where she implemented new composition and music technology programs. Milica is a current co-director of Composers Concordance and the music director of Gallery MC in New York City.

Gene Pritsker

Composer/guitarist/rapper/Di.J./producer Gene Pritsker has written over 700 compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. All of his compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles and are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures. He is the founder and leader of Sound Liberation; an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock-etc. ensemble and co-director of Composers' Concordance. Gene's music has been performed all over the world at various festivals and by many ensembles and performers. He has worked closely with Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies. The New York Times described him as "...audacious...multitalented." Joseph Pehrson, writing in The Music Connoisseur, described Pritsker as "dissolving the artificial boundaries between high brow, low brow, classical, popular musics and elevates the idea that if it's done well it is great music, regardless of the style or genre". Classical Music Sentinel writes: "His expressive reach is so wide as to encompass everything from ethno/techno, rock/jazz fusion, classical opera and more, and it all seems to be effortlessly integrated within his anima and comes out through different facets of his persona. You could almost see him as a modern day renaissance man.”
He is the co-director of Composers Concordance (CC Records), co-founder/guitarist of Absolute Ensemble and artist-in residence at the Austrian Outreach Festival.

Dan Cooper

Composer-Bassist Dan Cooper was born and raised in Manhattan, and educated at Columbia, NEC, and Princeton. The recipient of an Aaron Copland fellowship to Tanglewood, he has received awards, commissions, residencies, and premieres from Albany Symphony, Albany Records, ASCAP, Artists International, B3+, Cary Trust, Circadia, Electro-Music, ESYO, Engine 27, Femmes Four, Fontainebleau, Imani Winds, ISC, June in Buffalo, Lumina String Quartet, Majestic Brass, Meet the Composer, NARAS, NEA, NEC, NJSO, NYNME, NYYS, North River Music, Norwalk Youth Symphony, Palisades Virtuosi, Scotia Festival, ACO / Sonic Festival, Sweet Plantain, Vox Novus 60x60, Walter W. Naumburg Fund, and Zentripetal Duo, among others. He has performed at Anadolu Auditorium Istanbul, Austrian Cultural Forum, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, BNH, BWAC, Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Casino de Paris, CBGB, Chicago Theater, Davies Hall, Dom Omladine Beograda, Drom NYC, Galapagos Art Space, Gallery MC, Grande Auditório do Centro Cultural de Belém Lisbon, Hong Kong City Hall, IndieScreen, Intar Theater, Irving Plaza, Joe's Pub, Jordan Hall, Koseinenkin Hall Osaka, Le Poisson Rouge, Lisner Auditorium, Mäntyniemi Helsinki, Massey Hall, Mercury Lounge, Munich Philharmonic Hall, Nublu, Palau de la Música Catalana, Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Pori Jazz Festival, Rockefeller Center, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Royce Hall UCLA, Shapeshifter Lab, Shrine NYC, Spectrum NYC, Staatsoper Berlin, Sydney Opera House, Taplin Auditorium, Teatro Albeniz Madrid, Teatro Cultura Artística São Paulo, Teatro Grand Rex Buenos Aires, The American Airlines (Selwyn) Theatre, The American Museum of Natural History, The Blue Note, The Gershwin Hotel, The Harvard Club, The Knitting Factory, The Metropolitan Room, The Players Theatre, The Stone, and Town Hall, among others, plus broadcasts on NBC, BBC, Radio France, Bravo, and RAI. Cooper endorses Overwater basses of Carlisle, U.K. He is a music professor at SUNY-FIT, and also teaches at the 92nd St Y School of Music and Greenwich House. Cooper is a co-director of the 501(c)(3) chamber music series and record label Composers Concordance, distributed by Naxos.

Peter Jarvis

Peter Jarvis is a percussionist, drummer, conductor, composer, music copyist, print music editor, and college professor. He teaches music at Connecticut College and William Paterson University. He serves on the Board of Directors of Composers Concordance. Jarvis composed, orchestrated, arranged and performed music for Moonrise Kingdom, a film by Wes Anderson. Moonrise Kingdom received a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Score" and an Academy Award nomination in 2013. Jarvis has also performed his own solo percussion music for several episodes during the second and third seasons of the HBO Series "Boardwalk Empire." As a freelance musician, Jarvis has performed as a soloist, chamber player, Broadway musician and as conductor with chamber music ensembles including The Comp Cord Ensemble, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Group for Contemporary Music, Talujon, The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble (which he directs) and in orchestras and with choruses. He has performed for PBS, Russian and Hong Kong television. The New York Times has said about Jarvis's conducting: ". . .[He] did full justice to its rhythmic complexities; Mr. Jarvis and his forces richly deserved the standing ovation they received." As conductor he has appeared with the Saint Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Ensemble21 and several other groups. He has appeared as guest conductor on the San Francisco Symphony’s New and Unusual Music Series with the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble. His compositions are published by Calabrese Brothers Music, LLC, Indian Paintbrush Productions and L-T Music Publishing. He is a member of Broadcast Music Incorporated.