Born in Ukraine and based in New York, Yuriy Lehki is a composer and audio engineer whose work spans the concert stage, contemporary dance, and screen media. His music has been performed in New York and Tokyo, and he has been commissioned by the Les Femmes tap dance ensemble, The Nathaniel Hunt Project, and independent filmmakers.

He is especially passionate about early music and Ukrainian folk music (sometimes both at once, as in the Baroque works of Dmytro Tuptalo), and has performed throughout Ukraine, Poland, and the United States since childhood. Most recently, he performed with Ukrainian Village Voices at Lincoln Center.

He received his Bachelor’s in Music Composition from the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, where he studied with George Brunner and Wang Jie, and his Master's in Media Scoring from the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, where he studied with Pat Irwin.

Ethan D’Ver, Off the Chamber co-founder and co-artistic director, has composed numerous orchestral, chamber, and vocal works. He received his training at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. His music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the South Shore Symphony Orchestra, and several prominent young musicians of his generation, including violist Linda Numagami and baritone Zach Crowle. During the day, he is a music librarian specializing in cataloging manuscripts. A born and raised New Yorker, he is overjoyed to be presenting Off the Chamber's fourth concert in his hometown!

The work of Ukrainian composer Alexander Rodin spans a wide range of classical music genres: chamber, symphonic, operatic, and ballet music, as well as works for ensembles, choirs, and soloists. In his creative work, the composer seeks to expand the conceptual horizons of musical art, infusing it with the dramatic language of a new era. His music is performed on leading stages in Ukraine, across Europe, and in America, Canada, and Japan — by many different ensembles and soloists.

One of the composer’s most important goals is the promotion of contemporary Ukrainian musical art throughout the world.

For the first time in world history, musical productions written by a Ukrainian composer appeared in the repertoires of European opera houses: Ballet Aladdin (Kaunas State Musical Theater — Lithuania), and Ballet Viy (Latvian National Opera and Ballet).

On October 4, 2024, in Canada (the Canadian Ballet “Shumka”), the world premiere of Rodin’s ballet Lesya Ukrainka took place.

On September 14, 2024, at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music (New York, USA), the world premiere of Diary of Loneliness, commissioned by the ensemble “Off the Chamber,” took place.

On July 14, 2024, in Berlin, the world premiere of Missa Stabat Helena, written on a special commission, took place.

In 2022, for its production of Oleksandr Rodin’s opera Kateryna, the Odesa National Opera received one of the most prestigious international opera awards: the International Opera Awards. A television version of this opera is broadcast in Europe on the renowned channel ARTE.

Among the composer’s best-known works:

Stabat Mater for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and string orchestra, 2014.

Requiem for symphony orchestra, choir, and soloists, 2015.

Opera Kateryna, based on the works of Taras Shevchenko (author of music and libretto), 2019. The production was premiered on the stage of the Odessa National Opera on September 17, 2022.

Ballet Viy, based on the novel of the same name by Mykola Gogol, 2019. Choreographer Radu Poklitaru. Premiered at the KYIV MODERN BALLET Theater (2019), and at the Latvian National Opera and Ballet (April 21, 2023).

After Reading Lovecraft for string orchestra, 2020.

Ballet Aladdin, 2020. Premiered on the stage of the Kyiv Opera on October 8, 2021. Premiered on the stage of the Kaunas State Musical Theater (Lithuania) on October 29, 2022. Choreography by Serhii Kon.

Ballet Solaris, based on the novel of the same name by the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem (author of music and libretto), 2022. Premiered on the stage of Lviv National Opera and Ballet (2025). Choreography by Kateryna Kurman.

Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra, 2021.

Holy God for symphony orchestra, 2022.

Ballet Lesya Ukrainka, 2022. Premiered in Canada in 2024. Canadian Ballet “Shumka.”

Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra, 2023.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, 2023.

Concerto for Organ and Orchestra, 2025.

Brooklyn-based violinist Adam von Housen  regularly performs as an orchestral musician, chamber musician, and soloist in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Radio City Music Hall. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Chelsea Symphony, New Westchester Symphony, New York Session Symphony, Richmond County Orchestra, the Kennesaw State University (KSU) Symphony, and the KSU Philharmonic. He is also a core member of the contemporary ensemble The Curiosity Cabinet and can frequently be found in many NYC recording studios. He holds a Master of Music and Artist Diploma from Brooklyn College, where he studied with Masao Kawasaki.

Violist Ezra Costanza (明聖）(b. 1996) believes that classical music has a long and robust future in the hands of multidisciplinary art. As a graduate of the New England Conservatory and the Glenn Gould School, where they received the coveted Temerty Award, Ezra found home in the avant garde. In 2019, they had the privilege of performing Ligeti’s Violin Concerto as soloist with the New England Conservatory Contemporary Ensemble, and the following year, as part of the Glenn Gould School Quartet, gave the Canadian premiere of Laurie Anderson’s “Shutter Island”. 

Finding a calling to broader forms of expression, especially as they grew into their queer identity, Costanza found similar virtuosic expression as their subversive drag alter ego, OBSIDIENNE OBSURD - marrying queer performance art with classical music, and using one to amplify the other interchangeably, Costanza has been lauded for their groundbreaking, genre-bending, immersive performance pieces. They have won numerous awards for their work in San Francisco, and have been uplifted as an artist-in-residence by CounterPulse, Oaklash, and are currently a Fellow as part of the Emerge Program at the Paul Longmore Institute of Disability Studies at SFSU.  As OBSIDIENNE, Costanza has shown work at SF MoMA, The Palm Springs Art Museum, The Los Angeles Public Library, SF Asian Art Museum, and St. Joseph’s Art Society. In 2023, Costanza was the recipient of the Gerbode Foundation Special Award in Music, a grant that allowed them the opportunity to produce a full-length solo show (“THE LAST SEVEN DAYS of OBSIDIENNE OBSURD”) as part of the 1400-seat Calvin Simmons Theater’s inaugural year of programming. That project evolved into a multi-disciplinary evening-length, staged concert featuring a melange of contemporary classical works, magnified drag performance, and a world premiere of a new work by cellist Paul Wiancko of the KRONOS Quartet. The work, “Elegy in the Static”, was presented as the emotional apex of the show, and was written for the Fong-Costanza Trio, an ensemble that, to Costanza, is their most meaningful musical endeavor, as the group consists of themself & their parents. It is their greatest honor to create together in this way.

When not onstage or on tour, Ezra can be found in Joshua Tree, where they make their home with their wife, Jill. They love laughing, exploring new non-alcoholic cocktail flavor profiles, hiking, and Wheely Dan, their Ford E150 camper van that accompanies them on all their adventures.

Violist Elijah Spies (he/him) likes exploring sounds, both classical and new. A former academist of Ensemble Modern and the Basel Sinfonietta, Elijah performs as the violist of the Swiss contemporary music group, latenz ensemble, and has premiered works at festivals including the BBC Proms, the Lucerne Festival, MATA Festival, Wittener Kammermusiktage, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, New Music on the Point, Gaudeamus Musiekwiek in Utrecht, Netherlands and Time of Music in Viitasaari, Finland.

Passionate about chamber music, Elijah is a member of Track3, and recently undertook intensive string quartet lessons with György Kurtág at the Budapest Music Centre. Track3 recently received the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Prize. For their debut performance at the Konzerthaus Berlin, they were praised by the Tagesspiegel for their "expressiveness and sonic sensitivity."

Elijah is a Britten Pears Young Artist for the 2026-27, and this season will perform with Glass Clouds Ensemble, Ensemble Fantasque, Wa Sinfonietta, InfraSound, and ensemble eeek. Recent concert highlights include performances at Into the Open Festival in Vilnius, Lithuania, Acht Brücken in Cologne, Germany, and the Bach Virtuosi Festival in Portland, Maine as well as Artist Residencies at Snape Maltings in the UK, impuls Festival in Austria, the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina, and Casa di Rosa in Switzerland.

Elijah has performed with Concerts in Motion since 2019, playing at hospital wards, retirement communities, and for isolated, homebound residents in New York. He was the featured soloist at the Queens COVID Memorial Ceremony.

Elijah began learning the viola in group lessons at school, then at the junior department of the Royal College of Music in London. He holds degrees from Juilliard and Musik-Akademie Basel, and is grateful to his past mentors Geneviève Strosser, Molly Gebrian, and Carol Rodland. 

In his free time, Elijah enjoys meeting cats and going down Wikipedia rabbit-holes.

Ruth Stokes is a New York City-based performing and teaching artist with a distinct passion for chamber music and inspiring connection through musical communication. She is invested in creative programming and working with living composers, interested in exploring interdisciplinary artistic connections, and committed to fostering connection and community building through chamber music.

Ruth is currently based in New York City, performing widely as a solo and chamber musician and working on various artistic projects and collaborations. She recently accepted a principal cello position with the Brooklyn symphony orchestra for their 2026-2027 season, and will also be performing the Schumann cello concerto with them next June. One of her other current projects is organizing and curating a biweekly Coffee Shop Chamber Music series offering free Saturday morning concerts at Plowshares Coffee Roastery in West Harlem. Ruth performs regularly around NYC in a variety of chamber, solo, and orchestral settings.

This year, Ruth is completing a Performance Diploma at the Mannes College of Music with cellist Jeffrey Zeigler in New York City. She completed her M.M. in instrumental performance in 2024 at Penn State University studying with cellist Kim Cook as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and received her B.M. in 2022 from Frost School of Music at the University of Miami studying with Ross Harbaugh, where she performed as a Stamps Distinguished Ensemble Scholar with the Stamps String Quartet from 2018-2022.

Drew Truskowski is a freelance French hornist active in the New York City metro area. He regularly performs as a guest musician with many of the area’s leading ensembles, including the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, the New Jersey Symphony, the American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet, and the American Symphony Orchestra, among others. In addition to his work as an orchestral musician, Truskowski is a regular in the commercial music scene, having performed in over a dozen Broadway productions, as a member of the Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular orchestra, and in various recording sessions spanning genres. A graduate of Northwestern University and New England Conservatory, Truskowski is indebted to his mentors Gail Williams, Jon Boen, Jamie Sommerville, RJ Kelley, and countless others for their inspiration and guidance.