Ford Fourqurean (clarinet), Matheus Souza (violin), Erica Dicker (violin), Iva Casian-Lakoš (cello), and Daniel Anastasio (piano) form the core of UNHEARD-OF//ENSEMBLE, a contemporary chamber ensemble dedicated to connecting new music to communities across the United States through the development and performance of adventurous programs using technology and interactive multimedia. Unheard-of is committed to the idea that new music belongs in every community and implements this mission through concerts and educational workshops throughout New York, as well as across the United States through touring. Unheard-of’s scope and impact has grown dramatically since forming in 2014, now a nation-wide community across multiple artistic genres. With an approach that is open and welcoming of all voices, Unheard-of strives to be a vehicle for imaginative voices novel and experienced, experimental and traditional, uncomfortable and accessible.

FORD FOURQUREAN is an award-winning clarinetist, electronic musician, and composer based in New York City. He serves as artistic director and clarinetist of Unheard-of//Ensemble presenting unique multimedia concert experiences around the United States.

Known as “a unique force” (The Clarinet Journal), he has toured across the United States with Unheard-of//Ensemble presenting guest artist performances and talks at Northwestern, Manhattan School of Music, Cornell, and Oberlin with a repertoire of over 100 works written for the ensemble. He is Founder and Executive Director of the Collaborative Composition Initiative workshop (CCI//Sessions) bringing together composers each summer from across the country. He has won grants from Chamber Music America, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, the Barlow Endowment to commission Reiko Füting, Alice M. Ditson Fund, Puffin Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Johnstone Fund for New Music, and New Music USA.

Ford has performed across New York from National Sawdust, Carnegie Hall, and Roulette to smaller venues and DIY spaces like Unheard-of’s performance on a floating platform in the Gowanus Canal. As a freelancer, Ford has worked with Contemporaneous, Little Orchestra Society, Fresh Squeezed Opera, Curiosity Cabinet in a guest residency at Queens College, and the Uptown Philharmonic in prior years. He performs regularly with ensemble mise-en. In fall 2019, he performed in Seoul, South Korea with ensemble mise-en as part of Arts Incubator’s Audio Trading Manual.

ERICA DICKER works in a wide variety of musical settings, bridging the realms of notated and improvised music. Taking Auspices (Tubapede Records), her “knockout solo debut,” [Bandcamp Daily] reflects her interest in experiencing eidetic memories as aural phenomena, a sensibility she brings to the Brandon Seabrook String Society, Carl Testa’s SWAY, Prairie Ghost (with Dana Jessen), Blood Luxury (with Dennis Sullivan) and her electro-acoustic trio Vaster Than Empires. A dedicated proponent of new music, Erica is a founding member of the commissioning horn-trio Kylwyria, working to generate interest in and commission adventurous chamber music repertoire for this unique instrumentation. 

Always eager to collaborate, Erica is part of Wavefield, a collectively-organized new music ensemble and serves as an educational ambassador for Anthony Braxton’s nonprofit Tri-Centric Foundation. She has held leadership positions in regional orchestras in the Midwestern United States and section positions in Germany, performs regularly with the Grand Rapids Symphony and served as concertmaster of the Tri-Centric Orchestra, founded to premiere and record the operas of Anthony Braxton. Erica has appeared alongside Braxton in numerous contexts, most recently at the 2019 Berlin Jazz Festival with his ZIM Octet and as a leader in a sixty-musician-strong, six-hour installation of his Sonic Genome in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Engaging others in Braxton’s music inspires Erica as an educator. She has written about and curates performances of his work and leads workshops on free improvisation and creative musicianship. Erica also enjoys her role as an instructor at Lehigh University and member of the Faculty String Quartet there. 

NYC-based cellist, singer, and improviser IVA CASIAN-LAKOŠ is a first-generation American of Mexican-Croatian descent. She performs across the US and Europe with interdisciplinary, genre-bending ensembles Synesthetic Project, Ensemble Illyrica, hear|say, and Unheard-of//Ensemble. Iva’s versatile repertoire ranges from classical cello to boundary-stretching new works involving choreography, singing, acting, improvisation, and more. 

In the 2022-23 season, Iva will perform with Bang on a Can All-Stars and Sasha Waltz & Guests in Concertgebouw Brugge (BE) and Big Idea #2 (Rotterdam, NL). She is also touring in Austria, Croatia, and the Czech Republic with European ensembles Synesthetic Project and Ensemble Illyrica. As the newly appointed cellist of Unheard-of//Ensemble, Iva will also tour in New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. 

Iva collaborated with legendary vocalist and composer Joan La Barbara on a new work for singing-cellist commissioned by Bang on a Can and performed at their virtual marathon, Long Play Festival, and Noguchi Museum series. She has also worked with composers Christopher Stark, David Crowell, Wang Lu, Mak Murtić, and Erika Dohi. Iva enjoys collaborations with visual artists, videographers, and dancers in interdisciplinary projects, often via the Vienna-based artist collective Synesthetic Project.

In 2017, she co-founded Zagreb-based Ensemble Illyrica, a chamber ensemble which performs classical repertoire alongside folk-based music and newly commissioned works. Hailed for their “creative ecstasy, freshness, tonal harmony and rhythmic clarity,” (Novi List) Illyrica has performed in major venues and festivals across Ireland, Czechia, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia, such as Lednice-Valtice Music Festival, Wiener Musikverein, Zagreb Biennale, Scena Amadeo, Kultursommer Wien, Festival Arsana, and Hvar Summer Festival. Illyrica released their first classical album on Hitchtone Music in 2022.