Whitney George is a composer and conductor who specializes in the use of mixed media to blur the distinctions between concert performance, installation art, and theater. Her affinity for the macabre, the fantastic, and the bizarre frequently gives rise to musical programs that evoke the traditions of phantasmagoria and melodrama, challenging musicians to experiment liberally with their stage personae, and audiences to widen the scope of their attention. George holds an undergraduate degree from the CalArts and a master’s degree from the Brooklyn College Conservatory, and is currently pursuing her DMA in composition at the CUNY Graduate Center.

The Curiosity Cabinet: Founded in 2009 by composer and conductor Whitney George, and co-directed by composer Daniel Felsenfeld, The Curiosity Cabinet is a chamber music collective dedicated to performing works of the 20th and 21st centuries, including standard repertoire, new works by living composers, and interdisciplinary collaborations. The Cabinet’s drawers are filled with the musical curiosities and talents of 20 instrumentalists and 6 singers, each as unique as any wildlife oddity. Among the ensemble’s accolades include  (2010) and the CUNY Graduate Center’s prestigious Robert Starer Award for George’s 13-movement work The Anatomy of the Curiosity Cabinet (2011). Other performance highlights include New York City’s “Composer NOW” festival (since 2011), the premiere of selections of a new opera by David Bridges (2011), and performing as the ensemble-in-residence at the annual Hartford Women Composers’ Festival (2011).  Its recent interdisciplinary collaborations include the Satie-inspired theatrical installation Un Lieu de Vie (2014) and politically-themed 4 Wars (2015) with artist collective Concrete Timbre (2014), The Curious Tale of Ed Leeskalnin (2015/16) with marionette and shadow puppeteer Daniel Patrick Fay at Standard Toykraft Theater in Brooklyn, The Wild Called Maxx(2016)with visual artist Sammy Lopez and guest artists Russ Zokaites and Emily Iaquinta at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, andThe Yellow Wallpaper (2016) with NY-based opera company Fresh Squeezed Opera.