Nice Work

The New Music Ensemble Doesn't Fret

By Alex Chambers

Published January 30, 2026 at 2:41 PM EST

a man sitting on a chair on a porch, playing a new-looking mandolin and gazing off camera — Composer Gabriel Jenks' new piece, *On the Run*, isn't exactly a mandolin concerto, but it does feature the instrument

The oldest pieces that IU Jacobs’ New Music Ensemble plays are from the latter half of the twentieth century, but they focus on premiering new work. Their upcoming concert features three premiers, including a piece by guest conductor Texu Kim, and a piece by Jacobs’ composition professor Gabriel Jenks. Gabriel brought his mandolin to the studio to talk about On the Run, his new piece that features the mandolin.

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Alex Chambers

Alex Chambers runs WFIU’s arts desk, and produces and hosts WFIU’s Inner States, a weekly podcast and radio show about arts, culture, and ideas from southern Indiana and beyond. He’s the co-creator of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about the present, produced in partnership with Indiana Humanities. He has a PhD in American Studies, with a dissertation called Climate Violence and the Poetics of Refuge, and a book of poems called Bindings: A Preparation, about domestic life and empire. In his spare time, he teaches audio storytelling at the IU Media School. When he’s not in the woods gathering sound, you might see him out for a run on the streets of Bloomington.

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