FEEDBACK SONATA: A STRING TRIO CONCERT WITH MELANIE DYER, LORI GOLDSTON + GWEN LASTER

Saturday, September 27, 7 PM
$45 General Admission
$25 Students with ID
60 minutes
Meadow Stage (outdoors)

Lori Goldston, Melanie Dyer, and Gwen Laster

Feedback Sonata is the newest work by composer/cellist Lori Goldston for string trio, written to be performed with violist Melanie Dyer and violinist Gwen Laster. Performing together for the first time for this bespoke concert, these three powerhouse musicians combine to embody the essential convergence of jazz, classical, folk, and experimental music. Their collective histories include performing with and recording credits spanning Sun Ra Arkestra, Aretha Franklin, Nirvana, Harlem Arts Ensemble, David Byrne, Rihanna, Tyler the Creator, Earth, Jon Batiste, and so so so many more.

Lori Goldston plays written, traditional, and spontaneous work on cello, and works as a composer, sound artist, and widely varied collaborator. Goldston was the touring cellist for Nirvana from 1993–1994 and appears on their live album MTV Unplugged in New York. Her voice as a cellist is singular, deeply textured and original, investigating thresholds, instability, and connections between far-flung modes of thought.

Melanie Dyer is a violist/composer who finds freedom in multiple artistic disciplines as means of exploring sonic language and possibility, reflecting and responding to lived experience in the 21st-century zeitgeist. Her body of work includes viola performance, music composition, theater, poetry/prose, and visual arts.

Gwen Laster is an adventurous composer, arranger, and orchestrator, and was just awarded a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship. Laster is a classically-trained artist/violinist with a deep appreciation for America’s musical history and a scholar of African-American musical heritage, plus a socially conscious activist and educator who understands the power of music to reach and touch everyday people. Her playing is poignant, descriptive, and always relevant.

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