CompWire, a festival of new music and UMBC student composers, features composer-in residence Sofia Kamayianni, the Strata and Voyager ensembles, the Frisof/Pesca Duo, eight senior recitals in one weekend, and more than 25 premiere performances.

The Voyager Ensemble returns to UMBC with The Japanese Connection, featuring musicians and music from Japan! The program celebrates old and new works from Japan, with timeless classic A Way a Lone for string quartet by Toru Takemitsu as well as a world-premiere by Yuriko Hase Kojima, a string quartet based on landscape installation Sunken Garden by the legendary Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi. A special guest artist, James Nyoraku Schlefer, will join the ensemble on shakuhachi (Japanese wooden flute), bringing his own composition 2 Blue for shakuhachi and viola.