Liquid Music

Jlin / n! = 3!
With Daniel Bernard Romain, Leonardo Sandoval & musicians of the SPCO

Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 7:30 pm
Walker Art Center
Copresented by Liquid Music, Northrop, and the Walker Art Center
Produced by Liquid Music and Pomegranate Arts

A math lover, former steel factory worker, and proud resident of Gary, Indiana, Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) has quickly become one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most influential women in electronic music. Jlin’s thrilling, emotional, and multidimensional compositions have earned her praise as “one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre” (Pitchfork). This specially-crafted program demonstrates Jlin’s expansive musical universe with solo electronic material; collaborations featuring omnivorous violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain and renowned tap improviser and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval; and the Kronos Quartet-commissioned Little Black Book performed by members of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Little Black Book is presented in partnership with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

About the Artists

Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) has quickly become one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most influential women in electronic music. She was a 2023 Pulitzer Prize nominee for Perspectives—originally commissioned and performed by Third Coast Percussion.  Her mini-album Perspective, featuring the original electronic versions of the suite, was released to critical acclaim on Planet Mu 2023. Her much-lauded albums Dark Energy (2015) and Black Origami (2017) have been featured in “Best of” lists in The New York Times, The Wire, LA Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Vogue. She has remixed works for major artists including Björk, Max Richter, Martin Gore (of Depeche Mode), Galya Bisengalieva, Marie Davidson, Nina Kraviz and Ben Frost. In the last decade, Jlin has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, the Pathos Quartet, legendary choreographers Wayne McGregor & Kyle Abraham, fashion designer Rick Owens and the visual artists Nick Cave and Kevin Beasley. Jlin has collaborated with contemporary artists including William Basinski, Dope Saint Jude, Holly Herndon, Zora Jones, and the late, iconic SOPHIE. Her latest album, Akoma (Planet Mu), was released on March 22, 2024 featuring collaborations with Philip Glass, Bjork, and Kronos Quartet. Most recently, Wesleyan University commissioned two pieces from Jlin using sounds of Javanese Gamelan, performed live by the Javanese Gamelan Ensemble and Paula Matthusen’s Toneburst Laptop Orchestra. In May 2025, Jlin composed and premiered the first ever piece of electronic music commissioned by the US Library of Congress.  

Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who sees composing as collaboration with artists, organizations and communities within the farming and framing of ideas. He is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator, and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (New York Times), Roumain has worked with artists from J’Nai Bridges, Lady Gaga and Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones, Marin Alsop and Anna Deavere Smith. Known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic and African-American music influences, Roumain takes his genre-bending music beyond the proscenium. He is a composer of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, and has composed an array of film, theater, and dance scores. He has composed music for the acclaimed film Ailey (Sundance official selection); was the first Music Director and Principal Composer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; released and appeared on 30 album recordings; and has published over 300 works. He has appeared on CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC, NPR, and PBS; and has collaborated with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Sydney Opera House. He was Artist-in-Residence and Creative Chair at the Flynn in Burlington, Vermont. Currently, he is the first Artistic Ambassador with Firstworks; the first Artist Activist-in-Residence at Longy School of Music; and the first Resident Artistic Catalyst with the New Jersey Symphony. Roumain is an Atlantic Center Master Artist, a Creative Capital Grantee, and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. He has won the American Academy in Rome Goddard Lieberson Fellowship; a Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship Award; an Emmy Award for The New Look of Classical Music; National Sawdust Disruptor Award; and the Sphinx Organization Arthur L. Johnson Award.  He has lectured at Yale and Princeton University and was a Roth Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College. He is currently a tenured Associate and Institute Professor at Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval is celebrated for blending America's tap tradition with Brazil's rich musical and rhythmic heritage. A true dancer-musician, he helped bring tap to a wider audience in Brazil through numerous TV and stage appearances, and by co-founding the Companhia Carioca de Sapateado. In 2012, he gained global recognition as a finalist in Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's talent show, Q'Viva! The Chosen. Sandoval was named one of Dance Magazine's 25 to Watch in 2021 and is the recipient of a 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise in Dance, a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, and a 2024 Princess Grace Award in Choreography.

Now based in New York, Leonardo is a core member of Michelle Dorrance’s acclaimed company, Dorrance Dance, performing worldwide at venues like the Joyce Theater, the Guggenheim Museum, New York City Center, BAM, Canada’s National Arts Center, Hong Kong Arts Festival, and London’s Sadler’s Wells. Alongside composer Gregory Richardson, he directs Music From The Sole, a NYC-based tap dance and live music company that explores tap dance's Afro-diasporic roots and its lineage to a wide range of Black dance and music, from jazz to samba, house, and passinho (Brazilian funk). The company has appeared at Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, New York City Center, and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, among others. Music From The Sole has received support from organizations like the New England Foundation for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, and has held residencies at Jacob's Pillow and The Yard. In 2019-2020, Leonardo was the National Dance Institute's inaugural artist in residence. His recent choreography, commissioned for Philip Glass' 85th birthday celebrations, was described by the New York Times as "a choreographic revelation."

As a solo artist, Leonardo has appeared at the Caramoor Jazz Festival (presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center) and the National Folk Festival. He has collaborated with musicians including Michael Mwenso and the Shakes, Ben Sollee, and the Quebe Sisters, and has been featured on PBS, BBC, MSNBC, and Fox.

Leonardo is a passionate advocate for arts education, leading workshops, classes, and lecture-demonstrations on tap, body percussion, and Afro-Brazilian rhythms to diverse audiences globally, including through partnerships with the National Dance Institute and Lincoln Center Education.

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, violinist Eunice Kim made her solo debut at the age of seven with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. Called “just superb” (The New York Times), she recently made her solo debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Louisville Symphony, and performed George Tsontakis’ Unforgettable with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Also recently, she performed at the Library of Congress on the “Ward” Antonio Stradivari violin, and she toured Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany and South Korea with “Curtis On Tour.”

A winner of Astral’s 2012 National Auditions, Kim is the recipient of awards and honors from the California International Violin Competition, the Pacific Music Society Competition, the Korea Times String Competition and the Youth Excellence Scholarship for the Arts. She also represented the Curtis Institute of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the Millennium Stage Series Conservatory Project at the Kennedy Center.

An enthusiastic advocate for community engagement, she has partnered with The Philadelphia Orchestra Department of Education to perform an outreach series, and she regularly participates in Astral’s Community Engagement & Education programs. She has taught at numerous international music festivals, most recently at the Teatro Del Lago Festival in Chile and the Valdres Music Academy in Norway. Kim has participated in the Music from Angel Fire and Marlboro Music festivals.

With a refreshing blend of thoughtfulness and spontaneity, Cameron Alan-Lee’s unique music making has captivated audiences around the world. At the heart of his praxis lies a dedication to music’s unique capacity for connection—to oneself, to musical colleagues, and to the public. Cameron spent many formative years performing in varied locations across the globe, from senior care facilities in California, to regional orchestras in Michigan, to the street markets of Paris and Florence. While attending the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles from 2009-2016, he studied privately with Chan Ho Yun and Aimee Kreston and was a founding member of the award winning Chimera Quartet. In 2016, Cameron and his quartet were awarded top prizes at the St. Paul String Quartet Competition, the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition, and the inaugural MPrize Chamber Music Competition. In addition to competing and performing nationally and globally, Cameron has also participated at summer festivals such as the Montecito Summer Music Festival, Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, Aspen Music Festival, Encore Chamber Music, Banff Evolution Chamber and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar. In 2020, Cameron earned a Bachelors of Music in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Jaime Laredo, Stephen Rose, and Jinjoo Cho. He furthered his studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston under the guidance of Ayano Ninomiya from 2020 to 2024, during which he received his Masters of Music. Outside of music, Cameron loves cooking, plant care, cycling, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with family and friends. Cameron performs on a 1911 Giuseppe Fiorini violin with a bow crafted by Eugene Sartory.

Violist Daniel Orsen joined The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in the 2022.23 season. He began his tenure with the SPCO performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in September. During six years in Boston, Orsen performed with A Far Cry, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Fermata Chamber Soloists, and the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, and he ran Jamaica Plain Chamber Music from 2019-2022. Additionally, he was Guest Solo Violist with the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway during the 2018.19 season. Festival credits include Krzyzowa, Ravinia, Verbier, Prussia Cove, Oak Hill and the Perlman Music Program.

Orsen has a keen interest in culture and intellectual history, which is currently manifesting itself in Wagner’s Nightmare: a tongue-in-cheek exploration of Richard Wagner’s life, work, and legacy, which will culminate in an album of music Wagner would not like. Wagner’s Nightmare is Orsen’s second collaboration with pianist Pierre Nicolas Colombat, after their debut recording of Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. The Wagner’s Nightmare album will be released in February 2023, via CD and NFT only. His writing has also been published in The Anglican Way and The Journal of the American Viola Society. Orsen is a native of Pittsburgh, PA. He was taught and mentored by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Credo, and the Perlman Music Program before his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory with Peter Slowik and the New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian. He plays on a 2013 Philip Injeian viola and a 2014 Benoit Rolland bow, both specially made for him.

New Zealand cellist Richard Belcher joined the SPCO in 2019 after a twenty year career as founding cellist of the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet. With the quartet he earned highly critical accolades from recording and concertizing in many of the world’s major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Kennedy Center in the United States, as well as abroad in Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand.

Richard is the Artistic Director of Music on the Hill in Mankato, Minnesota, and since 2008 has been Principal Cellist of River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, Texas. He has taught and performed at many festivals including St. Bart’s, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Prussia Cove, Madeline Island, Campos do Jordao International Winter Festival, SummerFest La Jolla, and the San Miguel de Allende International Chamber Music Festival.

In demand as a teacher and chamber music coach, Richard has previously served as Adjunct Faculty at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and has given numerous masterclasses around the world.

Richard moved to the United States in 1998 to study with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, and it was while there that he founded the Enso String Quartet. Richard’s other principal teachers include Norman Fischer, Marc Johnson, and Alexander Ivashkin. He plays an N.F. Vuillaume cello made in 1856, and is married to Cecilia Belcher, Assistant Principal 2nd Violin of the Minnesota Orchestra.

ABOUT THE SAINT PAUL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 

Founded in 1959, the Grammy Award-winning Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is renowned for its  artistic excellence, remarkable versatility of musical styles and adventurous programming. SPCO concerts are primarily musician-led and include a broad range of repertoire, from Baroque works to new music, in close collaboration with a dynamic roster of internationally acclaimed Artistic Partners. Through a distinctive musician-led artistic model, SPCO musicians lead and develop the orchestra’s programming, determine members and choose artistic collaborators.