At the beginning of Asha Tamirisa’s time at Oberlin College and Conservatory, she anticipated, given her love of historical musicology, that she’d spend her undergraduate years pursuing a degree in ethnomusicology. However, when she started going to experimental music shows with friends from the computer music department (TIMARA), she began to fall in love with a genre that, prior to college, she had never known existed. Soon after, she, too, began taking classes in TIMARA, fundamentally changing the way that she would design the rest of her degree.

“I like possibilities. And as an instrument builder I like to do things that are a bit out of the status quo.”

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Exciting alumni news: Rebecca Sigel ’11 is the new Exectuive Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) ICE is a collective of artists committed to performing new music. They have won the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and they were named the Musical America Ensemble of the Year (2014). ICE currently serves as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Mostly Mozart Festival. Congrats, Rebecca!