Still Here | Two

Celebrating classical women composers, with poet Sharon Mesmer and WildLine’s flute, viola and guitar trio.

WildLine “Still Here | Two” @ St Johns in the Village, NYC

Saturday, March 28, 2026

7:30 PM

FREE admission

A celebration of women composers, with electric performances by writer Sharon Mesmer, in collaboration with WildLine’s flute, viola, guitar trio, speaking to all the ways in which we are “still here”. The concert includes vibrant works by Carolyn Yarnell, Barbara Kolb, Elisenda Fabregas, Yu Hui Chang, Kirsten Volness, Lynn Bechtold and Jean Coulthard. Meet and greet the artists post-concert with home-made shortbread!

WildLine is a new project-based chamber music ensemble, initiated by flutist Tessa Brinckman, that imagines, nurtures and performs all kinds of sound worlds, ancestries and futures. Based in the wilds of northern Manhattan the ensemble has launched their first concert series season, Still Here | One, Two and Three in NYC.

Writer Sharon Mesmer’s most recent poetry collection is Greetings from My Girlie Leisure Place (Bloof Books, 2015). Other collections are Annoying Diabetic Bitch, The Virgin Formica, Half Angel/Half Lunch and Vertigo Seeks Affinities. Four poems appear in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (second edition). Her fiction collections are The Empty Quarter and In Ordinary Time from Hanging Loose Press, and Ma Vie à Yonago from Hachette (in French). Her essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Commonweal, and the Brooklyn Rail. She teaches creative writing at NYU.

Flutist and Artistic Director of WildLine, Tessa Brinckman has been praised for her “chameleon-like gifts” and “virtuoso elegance” (Gramophone), “an adroit creator of sound worlds” (Fanfare). Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, she has premiered and commissioned decades of new work with many prominent ensembles, composers and series internationally. Her bi-coastal duo, Caballito Negro, commissions significant works for flute and percussion. Two collaborative videos have won 22 awards for music scoring, animation and experimental film. Recent projects include critically acclaimed Take Wing, Roll Back (New Focus Recordings), commissions, collaborations in New Zealand, Mexico and NYC, with grants from CMA, LMCC, and NY Women Composers.

Neil Beckmann is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, teacher, instrument builder, and arts worker interested in creating an expansive life in music for himself and others. Encompassing performing, teaching, commissioning new works, exploring the diverse plucked string instrument family, and making his own instruments, he hopes to engender a spirit of curiosity for how music can be made, performed, and explored through many different lenses.Recent highlights include recording Dylan Mattingly’s Transmutation Notebooks with Contemporaneous for release on Nonesuch in 2026, performing seven shows as a part of Heartbeat Opera’s annual drag show, and being a semifinalist in the 2025 Naumburg Competition with FAN Trio.

Violist, violinist, cello da spallist, and conductor Artie Dibble enjoys a wonderful free-lance musician’s life in New York City. Diverse styles of music have taken him all over the world, from touring with Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, various chamber ensembles, and the St. Louis Symphony to right at home on major stages with orchestras, chamber groups and Broadway stars, while serving as the Music Programs Manager for the Bronx Arts Ensemble. Artie will often be in recording studios during the day, Broadway show pits in the evenings, feeding his espresso obsession, or chasing his son and daughter around the world.

This concert performance is made possible by a generous grant from the Recording Industries Music Performance Trust Fund, and the assistance of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians.