The Poné Ensemble for New Music is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization governed by
an eight-member Board of Directors:

Eric Roth, President
Bob Lukomski, Vice President
Shirley Hoffman Warren, Secretary
Alan Stout, Treasurer
Barbara Petersen, President Emerita, Archivist
Susan Seligman, Musicians' Representative
Peter Cody
Gary Patrik

The Performers

The Poné Ensemble for New Music has long consisted of a core of musicians playing violin, viola, cello, piano, flute and piccolo, clarinet, oboe and English horn. Other instrumentalists or voices are invited as needed for particular repertory. Recent concerts have included voice, harp, bassoon, saxophone, French horn, trombone, string bass, and marimba!

Composers are often guests in concert programs, giving the audience insight into their creativity and providing introductions to the sound world of their featured compositions. Many of these conversations continue in the ever-popular post-concert receptions. In addition, composer-performers sometimes participate in performances of their works.

In the 1970's and 1980's, featured guest composers included New Yorkers Victor Landau, Otto Luening, David Leisner, Meyer Kupferman, and Robert Middleton, as well as Minnesotans Libby Larsen and Eric Stokes. Continuing into the 1990's and beyond, several composers have made repeat visits, and composers new to the Ensemble have included Jacob Druckman, Brian Fennelly, Herbert Haufrecht, Katherine Hoover, Shafer Mahoney, Ursula Mamlok, and Robert Palmer.

Since the turn of the millennium, while retaining its legal name, The Poné Ensemble for New Music, the group has added "Music for the 21st Century", with emphasis on increasing its audiences' experience of recent and new works. Chamber music by composers with ties to New York's Hudson Valley continue to be a special focus; for instance, in May 2009 SUNY graduate Michael Siletti was a featured guest composer, and the Ensemble is investigating opportunities for more collaboration with SUNY-New Paltz faculty and student composers.

Presenting music by local or regional composers has been an important aspect of all Poné Ensemble seasons, throughout its history. Concerts have featured works by Hudson Valley residents David Chaitkin, Anthony Holland, Gundaris Poné, Alan Shulman, Robert Starer, Hilary Tann, Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, Shirley Hoffman Warren, Richard Wilson.

As active performers in orchestras and other ensembles throughout New York State and the entire Northeast, the Poné Ensemble players often discover new works of many composers from the U.S. and other countries, and sometimes have had the advantage of working directly with composers whose works have subsequently been included in the's concerts; among these have been Elliott Carter, James Fitzwilliam, Karel Husa, Henry Martin, and Walter Skolnik.

Each year's series also provides Ensemble audiences with the opportunity to hear works by more familiar international masters, mostly in works written in the last 100 years. Concerts have included works of Malcolm Arnold, Samuel Barber, Arnold Bax, Robert Russell Bennett, Ernst Bloch, Frank Bridge, John Corigliano, George Enescu, Paul Hindemith, Leos Janácek, Lowell Liebermann, Bohuslav Martinu, Gian Carlo Menotti, Darius Milhaud, Vincent Persichetti, Francis Poulenc, Nino Rota, Albert Roussel, Peter Schickele, William Grant Still, Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Less familiar composers the Poné Ensemble has introduced to its audiences include: Christopher Ball, Lennox Berkeley, Rebecca Clarke, Michael Colgrass, Ingolf Dahl, Emma Lou Diemer, Madeleine Dring, Marc Eychenne, David Froom, Adolphus Hailstork, John Hawkins, Michael Kimber,Joseph Landers, Max Raimi, Marga Richter, Halsey Stevens, Mark Summer, Otar Taktakishvili, Stanley Walden, and Frank Wigglesworth.

Occasionally Ensemble musicians have given their audiences the rare opportunity to hear the world premiere of a piece; O Harlequin, for solo flute by Meyer Kupferman; Henry Martin's Sonata for Solo Cello, Stanley Walden's String Quartet, and a commissioned work, Three Pieces for Paul, for 2 cellos by Shirley Hoffman Warren.

As Ensemble member Joël Evans has said, it is "a very important task to continue presenting new/recent music of the 20th and 21st century. It's always a provocative and stimulating learning experience!"