Who We Are
We are a contemporary chamber music duo for the 21st Century located in Brooklyn, NY. Made up of soprano vocalist Anna Elder and flutist Sarah Steranka, we perform and commission contemporary chamber music at the highest level. We often push the boundaries of modern techniques while honoring traditional performance practices that would be common in any era of classical music and most importantly make our mother’s happy. We’ve been playing together since 2015, but formed SydeBoob officially in 2020. Our name is a term for soft-bodied women that has been taken back by modern feminists about ownership of what society deems to be “unsightly body fat.” In taking the term back, we are declaring that we own our bodies, our decisions, our minds, and our musical practice.
Mission Statement: SydeBoob Duo is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of contemporary performance, amplifying the voices of female artists, and using alternative performance mediums to invite listeners into a more unique and challenging listening space.
Vision Statement: SydeBoob Duo aspires to redefine the landscape of contemporary performance by continually pushing artistic boundaries, elevating the voices of female, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC artists, and exploring innovative performance mediums through commissioning, composing, and mentoring young composers. We aim to connect with marginalized communities and create immersive, provocative experiences that challenge and engage audiences, fostering a more inclusive and dynamic space for diverse expressions of art.
Our current repertoire includes music by composers Rebecca Saunders, Beat Furrer, Kaija Saariaho, Kate Soper, Anthony Braxton, Ellen Ruth Harrison, Arnold Schoenberg, Ursula Mamlok, Luciano Berio, and others. We have commissioned and premiered works by composers Anthony R. Green, Hannah Selin, Ramin Akhavijou, Eric Moe, Max Johnson, Michael Genese, Anthony R. Green, Nathan Hall, Curtis Rumrill, Liz Gre, Anna Elder, and Neva Derewetzky. In 2026, we will be premiering works by James Budinich, Ryan McMasters, Kevin Ramsay, Brittany J. Green, Kerrith Livengood, Anna Elder, Alex Temple, and Bahar Royaee.
In 2025, we are releasing our debut record Au Naturel, featuring commissioned works by Ramin Akhavijou, Eric Moe, and Max Johnson. The existing works are Anthony Braxton’s Composition no.304, Beat Furrer’s Invocation VI, and Rebecca Saunders’s o yes, and i. We are the second ensemble to record the Braxton and the first American ensemble to record the Furrer and Saunders. Our record was recorded mixed and mastered by Kevin Ramsay at Harvest Works Studios and completely funded by Chamber Music America. We look forward to releasing and continuing to tour these tracks. Other recordings include our commissioned Evil Trees on Hannah Selin’s record Dream Journal & the Apocalypse on Gold Bolus Recordings.
In addition to our regular season, we produce our annual project Operator with co-producers ChamberQUEER. Operator is a radically expansive rethinking of the chamber duet for the modern audience. The project is an evening-length showcase of sex-positive New Music, explicit art, and exciting stunts featuring guest artists Heather Michele Meyer and Hot Fix Sideshow, and Infrasound as well as 6 new compositions by queer composers. The two day event also includes local vendors and a stand alone interactive exhibit of audio erotica by writers from Deviance Magazine (including Lux Pyre, Vincent Lechery and Helen Juliet), oral interviews from Decriminalize Sex Work, Deviance Magazine, Bluestockings Cooperative, Helen Juliet, and 7 Days ofDomination on vintage telephones. The project raises money for Decriminalize Sex Work, Red Canary Song, and G.L.I.T.S. and promotes normalizing consensual sex work; bringing together the sex work and art communities. Anna Elder the soprano for SydeBoob, created this program to help her fellow sex workers. Anna works as an online cam and phone domme and is an in-person dominatrix. She payed off all of her music conservatory debt with sex work and remains forever grateful to her community.
Beginning in our 2025-2026 season, we will start our first composition residency, SydeBoob Clinic. We will invite 10 Emerging Composers to attend a 5 day immersive experience either in person or virtually where we will lecture them on such topics as Writing for the Voice and Flute, The Performing Composer, Connecting Communities, Maintaining Inspiration and Creative Funding in 2025, Music Business, Improvisation, Extended Techniques Lab, and Professional Development. We will then read, record, and perform their new works written for this opportunity. Participants will receive both a studio recording, a performance recording, and video of their piece, as well as the opportunity to work with a professional ensemble for 3 months. SydeBoob Duo and our Guest Lecturer, composer Brian Riordan will lead lecturers and lessons on MaxMSP, Jitter, Abelton, Improving with Electronics, and writing for electronics. Brian Riordan will give private lessons. Other guest faculty will be announced in October of 2025. In addition to the music, other activities include an NYC Soundwalk, Group Dinners, Movie Night, and Concerts. 10 participants will be chosen by December 15, 2025 and the workshop will be held in Brooklyn, May 14-18, 2026. Applications open November 15, 2025 and close December 1, 2025.
In 2025, we were featured artists with Mosaic Composers Collective, Fire Museum Presents, The Johnstone Foundation, 2640 Space, Music On The Edge and we toured the east coast with Ligament Duo. We have been resident artists at Pennsylvania State University, Binghamton University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
SydeBoob Duo is 501c3 nonprofit in the great state of New York. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation. Your support goes directly to touring fees, artist stipends, production costs, composer stipends and the sustainability of our project. We are available for concerts, composer readings, residencies, and workshops. For all booking and general inquiries please send us an email here.
Soprano Anna Elder
Soprano Anna Elder’s voice has been described as being, “ethereal” or “a voice that has blues, reds and purples in it” by The New York Times , having a “take no-prisoners energy” SEAMUS for New Focus Recordings or “a voice that could match, pitch for pitch, the grumble of a truck’s engine or squeak of a scooter’s horn.”- Wilmington Star News. Born and raised in the steel city of Pittsburgh, PA and based in Brooklyn, NY, Anna specializes in interpreting and performing contemporary classical music that expands the traditional vocal performance practice and virtuosity. She performs with the new music ensembles SydeBoob Duo and Kamratōn. She premiered roles in the following new operas: Eric Moe’s We Crossed the River, Roger Zahab’s Hegemony, Curtis Rumrill’s Her Holiness the Winter Dog, and Julia Werntz’s The Strange Child. She was a guest artist at The Tanglewood Music Center for their Festival of Contemporary Music, where she sang Andrew Hamilton’s “Music For People Who Like Art” with The New Fromm Players. She appeared in the Corningworks’ production of “with a shadow of...” as a stand-in vocalist for an ill cast member. “While an unanticipated addition, Elder’s superb voice and inclusion on stage was seamless and enriching. Her sequence with Brenner, in which they perfectly mirrored each other while performing a particularly tasking and complex choreography, is so unspeakably scintillating that one could scarcely imagine it hadn’t been planned from inception.” -Pittsburgh in the Round.
Anna was the lead vocalist with Squonk Opera for three years and premiered Go Roadshow and sang in the Off-Broadway version of Mayhem and Majesty, where she was described as creating “a sort of persona that becomes tangible which takes shape and begins to define what unfolds on stage.” -Broadway World. Other engagements have included performing with New Music Detroit, appearing as a guest vocalist with Quince Ensemble, Carnegie Mellon’s Contemporary Ensemble, and Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio. She has appeared on Splice Festival V, Festival Cultural de Mayo, Eastman School of Music’s Guest Artist Series, Music on the Edge’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, New Music Gathering, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music (SEAMUS), The International Federation for Electro-acoustic Music (CIME) The Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, Detroit’s Strange and Beautiful Music, Oh My Ears Festival, and The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound festival. She has been in residence with the composition department at The University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Pennsylvania State University, Duke University, Society of Composers Inc, and Lawrence University.
This 2024-2025 season Anna will perform concerts and residencies with her ensembles Kamratōn and SydeBoob Duo. She will be releasing the record, Arnold Schoenberg’s Op.21 Pierrot Lunaire–Atonal Adventures in Stereo Sound with composer and arranger Aaron Wyanski on Speculative Records. In 2025 with SydeBoob Duo, she will be releasing their debut record Au Naturel, with support from Chamber Music America. She will tour with SydeBoob duo to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Maryland this season.
Ms. Elder describes herself as a full service musician, often pushing the limits of the human voice and enjoys composing, improvising, and commissioning new music. Anna can be heard and seen anywhere from a basement to a concert hall.
Flutist Sarah Steranka
Splitting her time between Pittsburgh and Brooklyn, flutist Sarah Steranka enjoys a multifaceted career as a recitalist, chamber musician, and advocate for new and experimental music. Since making her solo debut with the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic at the age of nineteen, she has dedicated her career to exploring the innovative work of living composers and pushing the boundaries of her instruments. Ms. Steranka has premiered works by Ramin Akhavijou, Hannah Selin, Brittany J. Green, Marilyn Shrude, Elizabeth Brown, Erin Rogers, Nicole Mitchell, Nancy Galbraith, Lauren Siess, and countless others.
Ms. Steranka has presented programs of new and experimental music at the SCI National Student Conference, the Mid-Atlantic Flute Festival, Music on the Edge’s Beyond Microtonal Music Festival, the New Jersey Flute Fair, The Pittsburgh Festival of New Music, and The Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Re:Sound festival. Her recordings of solo and chamber works have been published by Sound Silence Thought, Albany Records, and Naxos, and have in addition been self-published by countless composers.
As a symphony musician, Ms. Steranka is second flute of the Westmoreland Symphony and has also appeared as a guest with the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh, the Erie Philharmonic, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. In addition, she is a core member of the nationally recognized new music collective Kamratōn, where she plays flute and piccolo as well as alto and bass flutes. She also makes up one half of the acclaimed Brooklyn-based group SydeBoob Duo, a group dedicated to commissioning new works for flute & voice and amplifying the voices of women in the arts.
In addition to maintaining a private studio of 30+ students through the Steranka Flute Studio, LLC, Ms. Steranka maintains faculty positions at Mercyhurst University and Carnegie Mellon. She has also appeared as a guest artist and lecturer at Lawrence University, Penn State University, Duke University, West Virginia University’s International Flute Symposium, and Columbus State University. Ms. Steranka’s instructional work has also included teaching actors to play the flute for film roles. She is passionate about teaching music to students of all ages and abilities, and finds joy and inspiration in the power music has to strengthen a community, topics she discussed as a panelist on the NFA 2021 National Convention discussion panel “Community-Minded Musicianship.”
Ms. Steranka holds a master's degree from Duquesne University where she studied with Jennifer Steele and performed with the Triano Woodwind Quintet under the artistic guidance of James Gorton. She earned a BFA at Carnegie Mellon University where her principal teachers were Alberto Almarza and Jeanne Baxtresser.
SydeBoob Duo – Repertoire List
Updated September 2024
Flute & voice
Invocation VI by Beat Furrer (soprano & bass flute)
Altra voce by Luciano Berio (voice, alto flute & live electronics)
O, Yes & I by Rebecca Saunders (soprano & bass flute)
Robin Redbreast by Eve Beglarian (voice, piccolo & electronics)
Changing Light by Kaija Saariaho (soprano & flute)
Only The Words Themselves Mean What They Say by Kate Soper (soprano & flutes)
“Amendment IV” from Dona Nobis Veritatem by Anthony Green (soprano & flute)
Between Magic and Possibility by Ellen Ruth Harrison (soprano & flute)
Ursula Mamlok, Haiku Settings (soprano & flutes)
Inti Figgis-Vizueta, New Cosmologies (soprano and flute)
Hannah Selin, Evil Trees (soprano, alto flute, and electronics)
Max Johnson, Translucent Yawn (soprano and flute)
Adrian Mocanu, este amoroso tormento (soprano and bass flute)
Anthony R. Green, Due Tiranni (soprano and flute)
Ramin Akhavijou, she is there (soprano and flute)
Katherine Pukinskis, Drift (soprano and flute)
Eric Moe, The Frontierswomen (soprano, flute, and spoons)
Alex Temple, Dragonflies (soprano, electronics, and flute)
Georges Aperghis Recitations 8, 9, & 10 (soprano, electronics, and flute)
Anthon Braxton, composition no. 304 (soprano and flute)
Giacinto Scelsi, Three Latin Prayers (soprano and flute)
Chaya Czernowin, Manoalchadia (bass flute & 2 sopranos)
Evan Williams, The Conference of Birds (soprano and flute)
John Cage, Songbooks (voice, flute, electronics, video, and various props)
Arnold Schoenberg, Der Kranke Mond
Voice alone
Giacinto Scelsi, Lilitu
Riot in the Charm Factory by Max Johnson
Succubus by Brian Riordan (soprano & electronics)
Sequenza iii for voice by Luciano Berio
O’ROURKE by Andrew Hamilton
The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc by Julius Eastman
Andrew Hamilton, O’ROURKE
Jean-Patrick Besingrand, En roulant les Image des Cieux
Lembit Beecher, A Paradoxical Thing from Looking at Spring
Flute alone
Anahita Abbasi, No I am not roaming aimlessly (amplified flute)
Jessie Cox, Spiritus
Erin Rogers, Hello World (amplified flute and electronics)
Jessie Cox, Wereds
Luciano Berio, Sequenza i
Brittany J. Green, there is only you and i (amplified flute & live processing)
Brittany J. Green, Sonatina for flute and optional electronics (amplified flute)
Marcos Balter, Descent from Parnassus (amplified flute with reverb)
Sungji Hong, Soaring
Ann Cleare, eyam iii (if it’s living somewhere outside of you)
Cristóbal Halffter, Debla VI
Amy Beth Kirsten, Pirouette on a Moon Sliver
Adolphus Hailstork, Yuhwa
Ramin Akhavijou, X to the Power of 4
Allison Loggins-Hull, Homeland
Kaija Saariaho, Laconisme de l’aile for solo flute & optional electronics