Praised by The Strad magazine for their "effervescent" playing, Parhelion—Sarah Carrier (flute), Ashleé Miller (clarinet), and Andrea Christie (piano)—is a New York City based ensemble dedicated to bringing virtuosic, robust, and impactful contemporary music to diverse audiences. Parhelion is a recent recipient of a 2018 New Music USA grant for their upcoming project Dark Matter: A Tribute to Vera Rubin. The project commissions Angélica Negrón, Danielle Eva Schwob, and Alexandra du Bois to create works in tribute to the late astrophysicist.

In August, Parhelion will travel to Denmark and Iceland to perform and give workshops alongside Friction Quartet as featured Ensembles in Residence for New Music for Strings Festival 2018. As part of the residency, Parhelion and Friction Quartet will combine to premiere a new work by Danish composer Nikolaj Busk. Parhelion’s upcoming 2018-19 season in New York City includes premieres of new compositions written for Parhelion by Daniel Weymouth and Daniel Felsenfeld.  

In 2016, Parhelion was a semi-finalist in the inaugural M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition, the largest chamber competition in the world, and was offered a one-year management prize. The trio has collaborated in concert with and alongside members of Eighth Blackbird; violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer of the Emerson String Quartet; composer and singer-songwriter Shara Nova; Danish cellist Henrik Brendstrup; Friction Quartet; and the ensembles Trumpetcello, Unheard-of, and Lydenskab.  Parhelion has worked with iconic American composers Jennifer Higdon, Paul Schoenfield, Derek Bermel and Nico Muhly along with one of Australia’s leading choreographers, Ros Warby. The trio was also featured in a June 2016 interview with Dan Dunford on Episode 44 on his music podcast “Divergent Paths,” which can be downloaded on iTunes.

Highlights from past concert seasons include performances at Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “ETHEL and Friends” Series, Minneapolis Convention Center, Hilton Hotel Chicago, Cornelia Street Café, Southampton Cultural Center, CUNY Graduate Center, and Stony Brook University among many others.  Parhelion has held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Adelphi University’s “New Music XII”, and New Music For Strings Festival, along with an ensemble fellowship at the 2018 Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab.

As strong advocates for contemporary music, Parhelion has presented workshops and performances for young composers of the New York Philharmonic’s “The Composer’s Bridge” program. Parhelion has presented lecture-recitals and masterclasses for students at Adelphi University and St. Joseph’s College. In the past three seasons, Parhelion has premiered over 20 new works dedicated to or written by the trio.  Composers who have written works for Parhelion include: Annika Socolofsky, Daniel Weymouth, Sidney Boquiren, Pierre Jalbert, Daniel Felsenfeld, Sunny Knable, Whitney George, David Loeb, Sean O’Boyle, Pierce Gradone and Nikolaj Busk.

The Parhelion Trio was formed in 2010 at the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance at Mannes College The New School for Music.