Ensemble Pi functions as a New York City contemporary music ensemble whose explicit purpose centers on harnessing performances to spark incisive dialogue and drive social transformation. Its programs frequently blend disciplines through partnerships with activists and creators who confront present-day societal concerns.
Pianist Idith Korman founded the ensemble in 2002. Now identified as Idith Meshulam, she continues in her roles as pianist and artistic director. Additional members comprise clarinetist Moran Katz, cellist Alexis Gerlach, violinist Airi Yoshioka, percussionist Bill Trigg, and narrator Damian Norfleet, with Jasna Radonjic serving as artistic advisor and producer. The name sometimes appears rendered as Ensemble π.
The ensemble curates thematic programs that examine a chosen social topic or spotlight an individual living composer. Starting in 2006, it mounted an annual Peace Concert—occasionally billed as Concert for Peace and Civil Rights—at Cooper Union in New York. Its inaugural recording, Keep Going: The Music of Elias Tanenbaum, emerged in 2010 on Ravello Records. Multiple concerts have explored the output of composer Laura Kaminsky, resulting in the live album Music by Laura Kaminsky issued by Albany in 2013. Several times each year the group appears at assorted New York venues, with many programs highlighting women composers.
Certain presentations occur jointly with the Association for the Promotion of New Music, among them the 2018 concert Saving the Earth staged at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. On October 29, 2020, at the Center at West Park, the ensemble delivered Reparations Now!, drawing inspiration from writings and speeches on reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans by Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates. A recording drawn from that event appeared on Bright Shiny Things in 2023.
