About Us
Composed of Adella Carlson, Julianna Pierdomenico, and Taylor Stirm, Chaos Incarné exists to collaborate with underrepresented composers, especially women, and make more contemporary trio repertoire available to the clarinet community. The group performs frequently in the Greensboro, NC area and has been invited to perform at the 2022 American Single Reed Summit, the inaugural HERo Conference, the inaugural ICA Low Clarinet Festival, and ICA Clarinetfest. The group's commissioning projects include #YESALLWOMEN (2022) by Julianna Pierdomenico, Chaos (2023) by Hannah Selin, and Entanglement (2024) by Roger Zare. The group was one of the first two ensembles selected for the ICA's Loren Kitt Memorial Scholarship, an award given to emerging groups demonstrating excellence in chamber music. Carlson holds positions in music administration and education; Pierdomenico is active in research and performance of works by late nineteenth and early twentieth century women musicians; Stirm specializes in twentieth century and contemporary solo performance. All hold Master of Music degrees from UNC Greensboro, where the trio was founded.
Adella Carlson
Adella Carlson is a performer and educator passionate about increasing the social relevance and accessibility of contemporary classical music. Actively involved in arts administration, education, and performance, Adella currently holds positions as the UNCG School of Music Administrative Assistant, the Ensemble Manager for the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra, in addition to teaching a private studio of clarinet and piano students. Equally at home in solo, chamber, and large ensemble contexts, Adella is a member of the Chaos Incarné Clarinet Trio and the Piedmont Wind Symphony, and plays regularly with orchestras throughout North Carolina. As a soloist, Adella most recently commissioned Trojaborg 2 (Ukrainian) (2024) by Svitlana Azarova to raise funds for music students in Ukraine, and premiered this piece at Clarinetfest 2024 in Dublin, Ireland. A 500-hour registered yoga teacher, Adella offers yoga classes for musicians as well as incorporating techniques for maintaining physical and mental wellness into her music pedagogy. Adella’s primary teachers include Christopher Howard, Andy Hudson, and Anthony Taylor.
Adella earned her MM in clarinet performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her BA in Music Performance from Eastern Connecticut State University, graduating summa cum laude from the University Honors Program. As a student at UNCG, Adella was principal clarinetist of the University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, a Student Manager in the Harold Schiffman Music Library, the Ensemble Manager for the School of Music, and an intern for the Raleigh-based ensemble earspace. During her time at Eastern, Adella won the New England Intercollegiate Band Festival Solo Competition as well as receiving multiple awards from the music department and university, including the 2019 Undergraduate Creative Activity Fellowship, and the 2020 Outstanding Honors Thesis Award for her project, “Leonard Bernstein and the Twentieth Century Crisis of Faith.”
Adella has spent summers at Brevard Music Center and the Philadelphia International Music Festival, studying with Steve Cohen and Ricardo Morales, and interning for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s Talcott Mountain Music Festival and the International Clarinet Association.
Julianna Pierdomenico
Julianna Pierdomenico is a performer, composer, and educator that has performed nationally and internationally from Belgium to Arizona. She was awarded a spot as an Instrumental Conducting Fellow for the University of Miami’s Frost Young Women Conductors’ Symposium in 2020, invited to play with the American Chamber Ensemble in 2019, and was the recipient of the Rhoda Pinsley Levin Endowed Award in Music Performance in 2018. She presented her research on Ethel Smyth at the 2022 International Alliance for Women in Music conference in Corvallis, Oregon. She has also performed with Chaos Incarné Trio at the 2022 American Single Reed Summit in Columbia, South Carolina, the 2023 inaugural Low ClarinetFest in Glendale, Arizona, the 2023 HERo Conference in Tallahassee, Florida, the 2023 ClarinetFest in Denver, Colorado, and the 2024 ClarinetFest in Dublin, Ireland. In addition, she is a board member for the 501(c)(3) non-profit Keep Music Alive.
Her academic interests include empowering and discovering the voices of minority groups who were erased from the history of Western art music from the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries. She received her MM in Clarinet Performance and PBC in Musicology at UNC Greensboro in 2023 and was a music theory GA during her time there. Julianna has also earned her M.Ed. in Music Education from Kutztown University and Bachelor’s degrees in Music Composition and Film Studies and Production from Hofstra University. Her clarinet teachers include Laurie Friedman-Adler, Aileen Razey, Andy Hudson, and Anthony Taylor. Her composition teachers include Paul Chihara and Adam Glaser.
Currently, Julianna is a middle school band director in the Greensboro area, teaches privately, and is a music director at a local church. Julianna is a founding member of Chaos Incarné Trio, and wrote #YESALLWOMEN (2022) for the group to premiere at the inaugural ICA Low Clarinet Conference. Her compositional style mixes impressionism with contemporary trends, exploring color, textures, and rhythmic interplay. She is a member of NAfMe, IAWM, and the ICA.
Taylor Stirm
Taylor Stirm is a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician in North Carolina. She has performed throughout the United States and internationally. Through her solo work and clarinet trio, Chaos Incarné, she aims to expand the clarinet repertoire through commissioning emerging composers from underrepresented communities. Recent solo commissions include Trial by Fire (2022) by Fransisco Javier de Alba, premiered at the 2022 International Clarinet Association “ClarinetFest” Conference in Reno, Nevada and Take Me All the Way (2023) by Susanna Hancock, premiered at the 2023 “ClarinetFest” Conference in Denver, Colorado. Stirm has performed at conferences such as the 2022 Single Reed Summit in Columbia, South Carolina, the 2023 Low Clarinet Conference in Glendale, Arizona, and the 2023 HERo Conference in Tallahassee, Florida with Chaos Incarné. Stirm has a large private studio in North Carolina of clarinet and piano students. Through her duties as a Teaching Assistant at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she has taught several undergraduate students, assists in leading studio classes, and fulfills administrative tasks for the studio. Stirm serves as the North Carolina Student Representative for the International Clarinet Association.
Stirm completed her BM in Performance and BME in Music Education at Arizona State University with Bob Spring and Josh Gardner, and studied conducting with Jason Caslor as part of her thesis “The Preparation, Rehearsal, and Performance of Recombobulation By Theresa Martin: One Conductor’s Perspective.” Stirm earned an MM in Clarinet performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she studied with Anthony Taylor and Andy Hudson. She is currently pursuing a DMA at UNC Greensboro with Anthony Taylor and Luke Ellard.