The New Leaf Ensemble is a Syracuse based chamber music group, dedicated to bringing people right into the center of live, improvised music-making. Alongside the beautiful classical music in our repertoire, we perform music created in the moment based on ideas and suggestions from the audience. Our audiences have told us that they are immediately curious and interested to see classical musicians creating music on the spot, and say that it really keeps them on the edge of their seats to listen for what will happen next.
The members of our ensemble, Jessica Wooldridge King, bassoon, Steve Rosenfeld, piano, and Alina Plourde, oboe have studied improvisation together through the organization Music for People. Our work with Music for People has included learning how to facilitate improvised music-making with diverse groups that may or may not have prior musical experience. We are especially interested in bringing live classical music to new audiences, and giving the audience a role in helping to create a piece of improvised music is a great way to draw them directly into the experience.