Performer: Carla Kihlstedt

I was fortunate to hear one of the best hours of new music in recent memory from ICElab, a collaboration between the International Contemporary Ensemble and a select group of young composers, currently hosted at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart festival.

“It’s a contra-alto clarinet,” explained Ben Goldberg to an audience puzzled at the first sight of this long, coiled silver instrument. “But it can be used to clean your sink in an emergency.