meet the 2024-25 iQ Test Scholars…

Bobby Ge* (b. 1996) is an American-born, Shanghai-raised composer and media artist whose work engages with themes of communication, home, and hybridity. Described as “expressive and gripping” (Financial Times) and “exciting, frenzied, unpredictable” (CityNews CBR), his work is filled with shimmering textures and restless motion, often undergirded by a wry sense of humor. 

Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has received a diverse array of commissions including a sinfonietta/percussion ensemble piece for the Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, a saxophone concerto for the US Navy Band, a multimedia work for the icarus Quartet, and a song for soprano, ensemble, and electronics supported by New Music USA. The latter, premiered by Mind on Fire, received a 2024 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. 

The coming 2024-25 season sees several notable premieres, including a string quartet for the two-time GRAMMY winning Attacca Quartet, a mixed sextet commissioned by saxophonist Shivam Patel, a Pierrot quintet for Music from Copland House commissioned by their biannual Harvest Fund, and a large-scale symphonic work for the Albany Symphony. Ge will additionally serve as the Artist-in-Residence of the Telos Consort for the year, curating one full evening-length concert while closely advising the rest of their season programming. Other engagements include performances with the New England Philharmonic, Beth Morrison Projects, the New York Youth Symphony, the US Army Band, the Westside Chamber Players, Mycelium New Music, and the Aruna Quartet. 

In previous years, Ge has received fellowships from the MATA Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program. He was named the Composer of the Year by the Sioux City Symphony, the grand prize winner of the New York Youth Symphony’s Jon Deak First Music Award, and a winner of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s call for scores. Ge was the recipient of a Copland House Residency Award and has held additional residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Millay Arts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.

Ge is an avid collaborator and has had the good fortune of sharing his work with a growing list of presenters that ranges from the unorthodox - the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NJ Audubon - to the cutting edge of new music, including Khemia Ensemble, Tesla Quartet, Blackbox Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and So Percussion. 

A dedicated educator, Ge believes firmly in the value of the arts as an expressive and uniting force, and is eager to share this vision with others around him. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University as a Naumburg Fellow, and holds degrees from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (M.M.) and the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.). His primary teachers include Donnacha Dennehy, Nathalie Joachim, Juri Seo, Dan Trueman, Tyondai Braxton, Kevin Puts, Harold Meltzer, and Cindy Cox.

*A note on pronunciation: please read Ge as ‘Jee’ in performance contexts. For those who are curious, though, the original Chinese - 戈 - is pronounced ‘G-uh’ with a hard G.

Learn more at https://www.bobbygemusic.com

Originally from the Greater Philadelphia area, Erik Texter is a graduate student at New York University in the Music Technology program. Texter completed his undergrad at West Chester University of Pennsylvania with a double major in music composition and studio composition.  Erik has written for two Grammy-nominated percussion quartets and other esteemed musicians. He has been selected as one of icarus Quartet’s 2024-25 iQ Test Scholars. His compositions are typically in a minimalist style and seek to explore new techniques and textures. It has been said that he composes with an “economy of means in terms of instrumentation” (GRAMMY® Award-winning percussionist, David Skidmore). His piano duo piece, ataraxia?, was a first-place winner of the 2021 Roz Patton Composition Contest. 

Texter was additionally accepted to take part in the 2021 Creative Musicians Retreat at the Walden School in Dublin, New Hampshire. While there, he composed a harp and vibraphone duet, and was able to perform alongside esteemed flutist and soprano, Alice Teyssier.

His project, t.exter is a project centered around AI art, generative modular synthesis, and film scoring that tries to play into aesthetics including dreamcore, liminal spaces, surrealism, and weirdcore.

Texter is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Audio Engineering Society, and is a brother of the Rho Sigma Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Learn more at https://www.eriktexter.com

iQ Tests application info

icarus’ annual iQ Tests program gives two winning Scholars the opportunity to collaborate on a new piece with the Quartet and be featured in their live performances and studio produced music videos. icarus will take you through the detailed collaboration process behind all of our new works and embark on a professional relationship beginning with the cultivation, presentation, and documentation of your new work for pianos and percussion. We can’t wait to hear your music and work with you!

Eligibility

• Open to composers enrolled in any collegiate degree program during the year of residence with iQ
  
  

Submission materials

• Simple and FREE application

• 2 scores (pdf) of previously written chamber works (for 2 to 8 players)

  • Score files should be named as: “last name_first name_piece title”

  • Demonstration of percussion and piano writing in one or both pieces is preferred if possible

  • Score submissions are NOT limited to traditional Western notation; other visual representations are acceptable, and questions about this can be emailed to Matt Keown at matt@icarusquartet.org

• Link to private Soundcloud playlist of MIDI or recordings (preferred) of submitted scores

• 1-2 page resume

• Names and contact info for 2 references

• A brief (~2 min) “unlisted” YouTube video of the applicant addressing the following:

  • Tell us who you are! What is something about yourself that we won’t find in your other materials?

  • What kinds of music (or what about music) lights you up and has you inspired for your next creation?

  • What in particular excites you about a potential artistic collaboration with icarus Quartet?

• Application and submission portal for materials can be found HERE
  
  

What we are looking for

• Originality and craft

• Promise for a successful career in music

• Professionalism demonstrated through supplemental materials

• Personal and musical authenticity with an attitude geared towards collaboration
  
  

Prizes

• The two selected composers will each receive the following:

  • Two performances during our 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons

  • $1,000 honorarium

  • Workshops with iQ (in person if possible)

  • Up to $500 travel reimbursements for workshops and/or performances

  • Professionally produced video recording

    • Watch and listen to past Scholar works HERE

  • Mentorship from Chair of Composition at the Yale School of Music and Composer-in-Residence at the Aspen Music Festival, Christopher Theofanidis
    
    

Timeline

• icarus is currently not accepting iQ Test applications – please check back here, follow our social media pages, and sign up for our email newsletter (all located at the bottom of this page) for updates and announcements regarding future editions of the program

Questions?

• Contact Matt Keown at matt@icarusquartet.org for any clarifications regarding the iQ Tests program

meet the iQ Test Scholar alumni!
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