Decoda’s roster of versatile musicians share a commitment to creating compelling performances and opportunities to enhance musical discovery in New York City and around the world. Placing equal emphasis on artistry and audience engagement, Decoda’s projects include public concerts, creative approaches to performance training, and community-based collaborations. As a collective of accomplished performers, educators, composers, and entrepreneurs, the musicians of Decoda lead various projects throughout the season and elect artistic directors from its members.
Decoda’s activities are anchored in creative programming and performances of mixed-ensemble chamber music repertoire. In the 2019–2020 season, Decoda concerts are presented by Carnegie Hall, Tertulia, Stony Brook University, Beethoven and Banjos, and University of Kentucky, among others. Artist training residencies include a new partnership with Stockholm’s Royal College of Music. Past engagements include performances at London’s Southbank Centre and Barbican Centre, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Abu Dhabi Festival, San Diego’s Mainly Mozart, Bay Chamber Concerts in Maine, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, and New York City’s Chelsea Music Festival, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and National Sawdust, as well as a three-week tour to South Africa.
For the past six years, the annual Decoda Skidmore Chamber Music Institute in Saratoga Springs and residency at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London have helped to prepare a growing community of creative performers to deeply engage all types of audiences across the globe. At home in New York City, Decoda works with partners such as the Police Athletic League, New York Police Department, New York City Administration for Children’s Services, and WQXR to make music with and for a diverse cross section of people in the city through creative songwriting workshops and interactive performances that support Decoda’s vision to create a more compassionate and connected world through music. Decoda’s social justice initiative, Music for Transformation, empowers the vulnerable and disenfranchised voices of incarcerated individuals; it has received recognition from the Associated Press, Billboard, CNN, Huffington Post, and The Washington Post.
Decoda was founded in 2012 by musicians who first collaborated as members of Ensemble Connect, a two-year fellowship program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. As an affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall, Decoda’s work as an independent collective is inspired by this shared training that focused on developing skills as exemplary performers, dedicated teachers, and passionate advocates for music in communities around the world.
