Kettle Corn New Music is about sharing music with friends. During our college years, we often played our favorite music for one another, sitting in our dorm rooms, passing around a big bag of kettle corn. We frequently found these listening sessions to be a rewarding alternative to more formal, traditional concerts, and we want to bring this experience to a public forum.

We feel passionately that contemporary classical music of the highest quality can be shared in a relaxed and welcoming environment. We go to movies to enjoy ourselves, even when our minds are challenged and stimulated. In the same way, Kettle Corn New Music presents music drawn from a broad range of styles and aesthetic backgrounds in an atmosphere where it can be heard as both entertaining and thought-provoking. Kettle Corn New Music isn't about a particular style or a group of composers. Rather, it's an approach to listening that embraces music as both art and entertainment.

Broad gestures, rich textures, and narrative sweep are hallmarks of the "compelling" (New York Times), "shapely, melody-rich" (Wall Street Journal) music of composer and Artistic Director Alex Weiser. Born and raised in New York City, Weiser creates acutely cosmopolitan music combining a deeply felt historical perspective with a vibrant forward-looking creativity. Weiser has been praised for writing "insightful" music which is "of great poetic depth" (Feast of Music), and for having a "sophisticated ear and knack for evoking luscious textures and imaginative yet approachable harmonies" (I Care If You Listen). An energetic advocate for contemporary classical music and for the work of his peers, Weiser co-founded and directs Kettle Corn New Music, an "ever-enjoyable," and "engaging" concert series which "creates that ideal listening environment that so many institutions aim for: relaxed, yet allowing for concentration," (New York Times) and was for nearly five years a director of the MATA Festival, the "the city’s leading showcase for vital new music by emerging composers" (The New Yorker).

Hailed as a "confident, fully-grown composing talent" (The Washington Post), a "big discovery" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) and a "confident new musical voice" (The New York Times), composer and Artistic Director Chris Rogerson’s music has been performed by orchestras across the United States, including the San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Esteemed performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, Ida Kavafian, Anne-Marie McDermott, and David Shifrin have championed his work at venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Symphony Center in Chicago. His 2018-2019 season includes new works for the Attacca Quartet, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and the Escher Quartet. A Theodore Presser Career Grant recipient, Mr. Rogerson has received awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, ASCAP, BMI, Chamber Music America, and New Music USA. Mr. Rogerson is represented by Young Concert Artists and attended the Curtis Institute, Yale, and Princeton; he now serves as Co-Artistic Director of Kettle Corn New Music and on the Musical Studies Faculty at the Curtis Institute.

Composer and Publicity Director Emily Cooley is a Philadelphia-based composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music described as “masterfully written and orchestrated” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and “a beautiful delicacy” (Vermont Today). Frequently in dialogue with works of contemporary fiction and critical theory, her music questions conventions of narrative, re-imagines emotional expression, and explores the dynamics of power and vulnerability. Her orchestral works have been performed by the Nashville, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Louisville, Milwaukee, Berkeley, Sioux City, and Eastern Connecticut symphony orchestras; the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra; and numerous university orchestras. She has been in residence at Yaddo and Copland House, and she received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2015. Current projects include commissions from the PRISM Quartet and the Michael Steinberg and Jorja Fleezanis Fund, as well as the release of a multi-track cello album in collaboration with cellist Ashley Bathgate of the Bang On a Can All-Stars. Originally from Milwaukee, WI, Emily is a graduate of Curtis, USC, and Yale.

Lauded by the New York Times as "plush, elusive" and "alluring," the music of composer and Development Director Loren Loiacono (b. 1989) has been performed at Carnegie Hall's Stern and Zankel Halls, Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall, the DiMenna Center, St. Petersburg's Small Hall, and on WSHU and WQXR's Q2 radio. A native of Stony Brook, New York, she is currently pursuing her Doctorate in composition at Cornell University, where she is a student of Steven Stucky. She previously received her M.M. and B.A. from Yale University. Her works have been performed by such ensembles as the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, 5th House Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, and many others. She has received awards from ASCAP's Morton Gould Awards (2013, 2005), New York Youth Symphony's First Music Commissioning Program (2014), Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute (2015), and the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (2006), and been a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, and Copland House's CULTIVATE, among others.