[5] Two years later, while the members were studying together at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, success at the Concert Artists Guild competition led to the ensemble's first management contract.
Current players in the group include Maiani da Silva, violin; Ashley Bathgate, cello; Lina Andonovska, flute; Zachary Good, clarinet; Lisa Kaplan, piano; and Matthew Duvall, percussion.
[citation needed] Since its founding in 1996, Eighth Blackbird has been active in commissioning new works from composers such as Steve Reich, David Lang, George Perle, Frederic Rzewski, Joseph Schwantner, Paul Moravec, and Stephen Hartke, as well as works from Jennifer Higdon, Derek Bermel, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, David Little, Daniel Kellogg, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, and the Minimum Security Composers Collective.
The group devised a program which centered around Igor Stravinsky's controversial statement that music was, "essentially powerless to express anything at all," and culminated in the indoor premier of John Luther Adams' monumental percussion work Inuksuit.
[14] ''Round Nut Tool'' ''Thirteen Ways'' ''Beginnings'' ''fred'' ''strange imaginary animals'' ''Double Sextet • 2x5'' ''On a Wire'' ''Lonely Motel'' ''Meanwhile'' ''Filament'' ''Hand Eye'' (collaboration with the "Sleeping Giant" composer collective) ''Olagón: A Cantata in Doublespeak'' (collaboration with vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird of the Irish supergroup The Gloaming, Princeton-based composer-fiddler Dan Trueman, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon) ''Singing in the Dead of Night''