NOKUTHULA NGWENYAMA
Composer and Violist
Winter / Spring 2026 Concert Calendar

COMPOSITIONS BEING PERFORMED
Flow — Joy Steppin’ — Primal Message — Cars Talk —
Elegy – Arizona Duets

VIOLA PERFORMANCES 

Feb 23 in Los Angeles, CA
with the New Hollywood String Quartet and cellist Eric Byers

Feb 28 in Phoenix, AZ
with violinist Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Trio 

May 19 in Miami, FL
with clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein and pianist Michael Stephen Brown 

Rarely does it happen that a new string quartet finds itself in the company of similar works by Franz Josef Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven and emerges unscathed. Yet Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s Flow did just that…
Boston Classical Review

New York, NY: January 13, 2026  –The music of composer and violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama (No-goo-TOO-lah En-gwen-YAH-ma), known familiarly as “Thula” (TOO-lah), can be heard in a variety of settings during the winter and spring of 2026. 

Ngwenyama’s Flow (2023) continues to be performed by the award-winning Takács Quartet, who performed the premiere at Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA in 2023 and released the piece on Hyperion in 2024. Boston Classical Review called it “immediate, ingratiating, and accessible a musical argument as they come… gloriously, radiantly sincere and affecting.” 

Chinese-American conductor Xian Zhang, who is currently in her first season as music director of the Seattle Symphony, brings an orchestral version of Ngwenyama’s Primal Message to Seattle in February, following a performance with Yale Philharmonia in January; Primal Message is also performed by the Northwest Sinfonietta in January. In March, Ngwenyama’s Cars Talk is part of a program at the Pforzheim City Museum in Germany conceived by violist Cheryl Swoboda and featuring works by female composers in honor of United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace. The program also features works by Dobrinka Tabakova and Louise Farrenc.  

In April, the piano quartet Espressivo! performs Joy Steppin’, a piece they commissioned from Ngwenyama, and premiered in 2024. The work is Ngwenyama’s response to cellist Sharon Robinson’s prompt, “Embrace the joy that is all around us!” In her program note, the composer notes, “’Happiness’ skirts around the edges, while ‘joy’ settles deep and carries us beyond the abyss. Joy – on both a personal and universal level – draws from the same deep wellspring as grief, celebrating our capacity for love, compassion and generosity.” 

Ngwenyama joins the New Hollywood String Quartet and cellist Eric Byers for Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht for The Music Guild in Los Angeles, CA.  As composer-in-residence with the Phoenix Chamber Music Society, Ngwenyama also plays viola, performing and recording Arizona Duets for Violin and Viola with Margaret Batjer and Elegy with the Los Angeles Piano Trio.  Elegy is a 12-minute work mourning the souls lost to systemic racism.  Rather than suffering in unsatisfying despair, it aims to honor human triumph through recognition of our painful history while commemorating how far we have come in this collective societal struggle. 

…[Elegy] proved to be no funeral dirge, rather a complex and deeply touching celebration of humanity that recognizes its tragedy and celebrates its triumph….Employing largely traditional harmonic language, though very imaginatively, this expressive work proved substantial and compelling.
--Rutland (VT) Herald

About Nokuthula Ngwenyama

Ngwenyama gained international prominence as a violist when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition at age 16, the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and an Avery Fisher Career Grant.   She has performed as a soloist and in recital around the world, including at the Louvre, Suntory Hall and the White House.  She is active as both a violist and composer. Ngwenyama’s music for orchestra has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Detroit, London, Chicago, Phoenix, New Jersey, San Francisco and Toronto Symphonies; KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic in South Africa; and the Orquesta Nacional de Madrid, among others.  Full bio available HERE.

Winter / Spring 2026 Calendar

Tuesday, January 20 at 7:30 pm
COMPOSITION: Flow 
Lawrence, KS / Lied Center of Kansas
Takács Quartet
Ticket & Program Info

Friday, January 23 at 7:30 pm
COMPOSITION: Primal Message 
New Haven, CT / Yale Philharmonia
Xian Zhang, Conductor
Tickets & Program Info

Friday, January 23 at 7:00 pm
COMPOSITION: Flow 
Los Olivos, CA / Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series
Takács Quartet
Tickets & Program Info

Saturday, January 24 at 7:30 pm
COMPOSITION: Primal Message 
Tacoma, WA / Northwest Sinfonietta 
Jeffery Meyer, Conductor
Tickets & Program Info

Thursday, Friday & Saturday, February 19-21 
COMPOSITION: Primal Message 
Seattle, WA / Seattle Symphony
Xian Zhang, Conductor and Music Director
Tickets & Program Info

Friday, February 20 at 7:30 pm
COMPOSITION: Flow
Phoenix, AZ / Phoenix Chamber Music Society
Takács Quartet
Tickets & Program Info

Monday, February 23 at 7:30 p.m.
PERFORMANCE: Ngwenyama joins the New Hollywood String Quartet and cellist Eric Byers to perform Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht
Los Angeles, CA / The Music Guild
Additional Repertoire TBA
Tickets & Program Info

Saturday, February 28 at 2:00 p.m.
PERFORMANCE: Ngwenyama joins violinist Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Piano Trio to perform and record her Arizona Duets for violin and viola and Elegy on a program also featuring works by Fanny Mendelssohn-Heschel and Joaquin Turina. 
Phoenix, AZ / Phoenix Chamber Music Society: “Composer’s Choice”
Additional Repertoire TBA
Tickets & Program Info

Sunday & Monday, March 8-9
COMPOSITION: Cars Talk 
Pforzheim, Germany / Pforzheim City Museum
Chamber Music Ensemble of the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra 
Program conceived by violist Cheryl Swoboda, featuring works by female composers in honor of United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace (with works by Dobrinka Tabakova and Louise Farrenc). 
Tickets & Program Info

Wednesday, April 8 at 7:30 pm
COMPOSITION: Joy Steppin’
Seattle, WA / Seattle Chamber Music Society
Espressivo! Piano Quartet
Ticket & Program Info

Sunday, April 12 at 3:00 pm
COMPOSITION: Joy Steppin’
College Park, MD / The Clarice
Espressivo! Piano Quartet
Tickets & Program Info

Tuesday, May 19
PERFORMANCE: Ngwenyama joins clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein and pianist Michael Stephen Brown for an evening of Mozart, Bruch and the musicians’ own compositions.
Miami, FL / Friends of Chamber Music of Miami / Knight Center for Music Innovation
Tickets & Program Info TK