Lavender
2026
for Saxophone quartet, voice-over, and macro cinematography
Written for and performed by ~Nois saxophone quartet
Composer · Audio engineer · Educator
Music between Russian novels and orchestral meditation, just intonation and the moving image.
Recent collaborations with ~Nois, Ekmeles, and the Rutgers University Orchestra.
For commissions, performances, and inquiries:
ethanisaacsound@gmail.com
Selected Works
Biography
About the Composer
Ethan Isaac (b. 1996) is a composer working in just intonation and electroacoustic composition, with a multimedia practice that pairs their music with their own original cinematography. Their work has been performed at Le Poisson Rouge and the Andy Warhol Museum, and by ensembles including ~Nois, the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, and the HELIX New Music Ensemble. Lavender, written for ~Nois, premiered in 2026.
The work ranges from chamber settings of Russian literature to multimedia explorations of childhood morality and our relationship with insects to orchestral meditations drawn from the Zohar, integrating microtonal pitch organization, live electronics, and original visual material within a single compositional surface.
Ethan holds a B.A. from Bard College, where they studied with Kyle Gann and Matt Sargent, and an M.A. from Rutgers University, where they studied with Robert Aldridge and Scott Ordway, and is currently a PhD candidate in Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh under Charles Peck, teaching undergraduate theory and composition while researching new methods of realizing just intonation music, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Charles Ives Society.
Recent work includes Lavender, a multimedia piece for saxophone quartet paired with Ethan's macro cinematography of insects, premiered by ~Nois at the Andy Warhol Museum. Ethan is currently collaborating with sculptor Laura Jean McLaughlin on a multidisciplinary installation for the Imprints project with the International Sculpture Center, augmenting what was originally a visual piece into a full multidisciplinary work, and will travel to Slovenia later this year for a residency with precept.concept.precept.
Ethan also performs regularly around Pittsburgh, with recent appearances at Frick Fine Arts and Government Center. They are one half of two duos: .wad, with Danny Fratina — free improvisation and composed noise music for modular synthesizers and Beacon, Fratina's heavily modified electronic trumpet — and Ethereal Semantics, with Sam Bernhardt, given over to long-form, lyrical improvisations for guitar and live electronics.
Alongside composition, Ethan has worked as an audio engineer under producers Jamey Lamar and Marlan Barry, recording artists including Branford Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval, Tommy Emmanuel, the Dover Quartet, and members of the LA Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, and MET Orchestra.
For commissions, performances, and inquiries: ethanisaacsound@gmail.com