Parker Ramsay (harp), Miranda Cuckson (violin), and Jay Campbell (cello)

Groundtone’s third afternoon opens with a free program featuring three of today’s most virtuosic musicians:

• Parker Ramsay — the “remarkably special” harpist (Gramophone)
• Miranda Cuckson — who “fuses precision and elegance with passionate risk-taking” with her violin playing (Berkshire Edge)
• Jay Campbell — the “electrifying” cellist (The New York Times)

Ramsay and Cuckson each return to PS21 after thrilling performances in 2025. Here, they’ll perform in our special, intimate configuration with all seating on the stage.

The program features pieces by Georg Friedrich Haas (whose “microtones result in opulent and otherworldly harmonies that at times seem impossible to have been produced by acoustic instruments” — The New York Times) and New Orleans–born Chris Trapani (“a latter-day, postmodernist Bartók, repurposing his sources to creative and imaginative ends” — Gramophone). The performance promises a transfixing menu of contemporary flavors in an up-close and immersive setting.

About Groundtone

Groundtone is PS21’s annual weekend-long celebration of adventurous music by an eclectic selection of today’s most original voices. Performances and immersive experiences take place across the PS21 grounds, with concerts in the theater, fields, installations, and barns.

This year’s Groundtone features Sō Percussion in collaboration with Grammy-nominated songwriter Becca Stevens, harpist Parker Ramsay, and a full slate of artists who defy categorization. On June 21, PS21 will bring Make Music Day to Chatham for the first time, with a sunrise musical procession created by Phil Kline; and Annea Lockwood’s Home Ground, a new site-specific work spanning the PS21 terrain.

Groundtone is four days of audacious music, unexpected collaboration, sound, and community in the PS21 landscape.

About the artists

Parker Ramsay has forged a career that defies classification. He expands the harp’s repertoire through premieres, rediscoveries, and transcriptions, and has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Miller Theatre at Columbia University, The 92nd Street Y, the Phillips Collection, Cal Performances, IRCAM, King’s College Cambridge, the Spoleto Festival USA, and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA. He has collaborated with Mark Morris Dance Group, Apollo’s Fire, the Van Kuijk Quartet, and others, and held residencies at UC San Diego, Princeton, and IRCAM.

Ramsay’s 2020 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations earned praise as “remarkably special” (Gramophone) and other accolades. His October 2022 album features The Street, a concert-length work for solo harp and text by Nico Muhly and Alice Goodman. In May 2025 he debuted at New York City’s 92nd Street Y with new works written in his name, including world premieres and commissions. He has made debuts at Utrecht’s Gaudeamus Festival, in Dublin, Montreal’s Salle Bourgie, and Paris with works developed during an IRCAM residency. Ramsay co-directs the period-instrument ensemble A Golden Wire and has presented talks and lectures at institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Music. Raised in Tennessee, he began harp studies with his mother, served as organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, pursued graduate work at Oberlin and Juilliard, and lives in New York City while pursuing a Ph.D. in historical musicology at Columbia University.

Miranda Cuckson delights audiences with music ranging from older eras to the newest creations. Internationally active as soloist and collaborator on violin and viola, she performs in venues large and small and has been praised for “a rare style that fuse[s] precision and elegance with passionate intensity and successful risk-taking” (Berkshire Edge). Her interests include the playing of stringed instruments in various musical cultures and the porousness of interpretation and composition.

In recent years Cuckson premiered Georg Friedrich Haas’ Violin Concerto No. 2 in four countries and made her solo debut at the Vienna Musikverein with this piece in 2023; the live recording was released in November 2025 on the Urlicht AV label. She has recorded the Ligeti Violin Concerto with the UC Davis Orchestra (released on Centaur Records) and appears on many acclaimed recordings across modern and contemporary repertoire. She has been featured at festivals including Wien Modern, Grafenegg, Lincoln Center, Ojai, Le Guess Who, Bard, and others, and presented by organizations such as 92NY, Miller Theatre, Suntory Hall, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Teatro Colón, the Library of Congress, and the Cleveland Museum. She is a core member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), founder/director of the nonprofit Nunc, and on faculty at the Mannes School of Music at New School University.

Jay Campbell is a cellist known for exploring a wide range of creative music. His performances have been called “electrifying” by The New York Times and “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving” by The Washington Post. He is the only musician to receive two Avery Fisher Career Grants (2016 as a soloist; 2019 as a member of the JACK Quartet). He made his concerto debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and served as artistic director for Ligeti Forward with the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2016.

In 2017 he was Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival, where he premiered Luca Francesconi’s cello concerto Das Ding Singt. In 2018 he appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has recorded concertos by George Perle and Marc-André Dalbavie with the Seattle Symphony. In 2023/2024 he premiered Reverdecer by Andreia Pinto-Correia with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal and in Brazil with the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo. Campbell’s collaborations include Catherine Lamb, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, Tyshawn Sorey, and John Zorn; his discography with Zorn includes Hen to Pan (2015) and Azoth (2020). He is cellist of the JACK Quartet, a member of the Junction Trio with Stefan Jackiw and Conrad Tao, and part of the multidisciplinary collective AMOC.