Creating the Future of Vocal Music

The Katy Avery Commissioning Project creates new work at the intersection of voice, collaboration, and interdisciplinary performance—bringing together composers, performers, and artists to make music that challenges genre, expands vocal possibility, and invites deeper listening.

These projects span concert works, experimental ensembles, and large-scale interdisciplinary productions that combine music, dance, film, and visual art. Each begins with a question whether that is how we listen, how we experience the body, or how sound can shape attention and connection.

Your support directly sustains this work by funding the artists who make it possible—composer commissions, performer fees, rehearsals, recordings, and the production costs required to bring new work into the world.

Below are current and upcoming projects you are helping to make possible.

This Silent Music

This Silent Music is a contemplative performance project centered on presence, listening, and collective attention. It creates space for reflection through sound, silence, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The program features three world premiere works that reframe the impulse to “scream into the void” as a shared act of listening—intimate, active, and unresolved.

Performers include Katy Avery, Liz Lang, Darren Lin, and Harvey Valdes, working closely with composers across voice, percussion, oud, text, and experimental sound practices.

A pre-concert conversation with the artists and composers deepens engagement with the creative process.

Support helps complete production of the premiere, including remaining composer commissions (with LJ White fully funded), artist fees, venue costs, instrument rentals, and professional archival recording and photography.

Read more about This Silent Music here & purchase tickets to the premiere.

Collaborators

Liz Lang — Co-producer & Soprano
Darren Lin — Percussion
Harvey Valdes — Oud
LJ White — Composer
Alex Wakim — Composer
Mieke Doezema — Composer
George Abud — Librettist
Becka Phillipson — Astrophysicist Consultant

Bombe Fits: What's Next

Bombe Fits launched with two fully-funded and wildly successful concerts featuring six newly commissioned works, establishing a genre-defying ensemble that blends contemporary classical music with experimental performance and rock band energy.

We now build on that momentum with two upcoming performances at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival (Sept 25 & 26), introducing new audiences to our work.

We are also preparing our debut studio album featuring original artwork by Brooklyn-based artist Nyahzul, alongside plans for residencies, outreach, and touring across Philadelphia and the East Coast.

Support helps us expand this work by funding artist fees, recording and production costs, residencies, outreach programs, and the development of future performances and collaborations.

Learn more about Bombe Fits here & follow us on Instagram: bombe_fits

Body Image Multidisciplinary Project (Fall 2027)

This interdisciplinary work explores body image and disordered eating through music, dance, film, and visual design, centering female-identifying artists and lived experience.

The work features a concert-length composition by Emma Cardon-Wake with libretto by Athena Kildegaard, choreography by Lila Kushner, projections by Kathryn Fulp, and costumes by Jess Holmes.

A proof-of-concept film was created at Icebox Project Space—chosen for its immersive floor-to-ceiling projection capabilities and flexible performance environment—filmed by Katherine Reeves. This material is now being used to secure funding for the full production, planned for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in Fall 2027.

The libretto will also appear in an upcoming published collection, with more details forthcoming.

Support helps complete the proof-of-concept phase and advance development of the full production, including artist fees, production costs, and materials needed to bring the work to its final staged realization.

Katy Avery Commissioning Projects