An innovative chamber ensemble dedicated to producing bold, collaborative musical events, Agarita offers a new way to experience classical and contemporary music. Founded by Daniel Anastasio (piano), Marisa Bushman (viola), Ignacio Gallego (cello) and Sarah Silver Manzke (violin), Agarita nourishes the community through artistic collaborations, education, community engagement and free, adventurous programming. With concise, eclectic performances that are “splendid – unified, spirited [and] well prepared” (Greenberg, Incident Light), the young chamber group offers a new, open-armed experience for listeners.

Rooted in San Antonio, Texas, Agarita works intimately with artists of various genres to weave cross-artistic narratives for each concert, all accessible and free of charge to the community, in a bi-lingual format. Every program is unique: One concert with award-winning chef Elizabeth Johnson paired musical selections with dishes for the audience. Another with acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye interwove her poetry readings with musical works inspired by her poetry. Writers, photographers, dancers, sculptors, lighting artists, art museums and even a glassblower — Agarita is unafraid to pursue collaborations that challenge the concert medium to craft innovative, inspiring musical experiences. In terms of collaboration with other musicians, Agarita has performed with internationally acclaimed artists, including guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia, bass singer Cameron Beauchamp from the Grammy Award-winning group Roomful of Teeth, members of the Harlem, Parker, and Escher String Quartets and many more.

In its 6th year, Agarita continues to expand its scope, reach and impact. Between large-scale community concerts, outdoor shows with its mobile concert hall, the Humble Hall and its new educational program Agarita Inspires!, Agarita is giving 50+ concerts across the year, including 36 educational programs for more than 15,000 young students — all free of charge. Agarita is honored to be supported by local organizations that believe in its mission, including the San Antonio Area Foundation, the City of San Antonio, H-E-B, the Greehey Family Foundation, NuStar Energy, the Texas Commission for the Arts, Impact San Antonio and hundreds of individuals. As a nonprofit organization, Agarita believes that the arts should be accessible to everyone in its community. Follow Agarita’s upcoming projects and future performances at www.agarita.org or for any questions, email agaritachamberplayers@gmail.com.

Katherine Pukinskis (b. 1986) is a composer and scholar based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work explores storytelling and voice — tracking how words and ideas travel in music, across the world and over time. Pukinskis has had compositions premiered by eighth blackbird, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Akron Symphony Chorus, and the Spektral Quartet, and by members of Ensemble Dal Niente and the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Commissioning ensembles include the San Antonio Symphony, Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, Akropolis Reed Quintet, Heritage Chorale, the Esoterics Choir (POLYPHONOS winner, 2018-2019), Mägi Ensemble (ACDA National Conference 2023), Camerata Nova (50 for 50 commissioning grant winner, IDRS 2025) and Nuorten Kuoroliitto (Helsinki Finland). 

An advocate of under-represented voices in western classical music, Pukinskis’s work brings unlikely content into conversation in the concert hall. A project started by a 2019 commission from the Esoterics (“A Choice Informed”) sets dissents written by female Supreme Court Justices of the United States. In 2025, Agarita Chamber Players premiered “One in Four, One in Eight,” a concert-length work which calls attention to the intersection of clinical medicine and the highly individualized, embodied experiences of infertility and pregnancy loss. 

Dr. Pukinskis’s scholarly work centers cultural identity, diaspora and choral music in Latvia, with a secondary area in contemporary musical theater. Pukinskis co-edited Baltic Musics Beyond the Post Soviet (University of Tartu Press, 2024), a collection of essays and conversations bringing together different generations of scholars and artists to continue along critical new paths in Baltic cultural studies from the position of sound and music. Pukinskis is an Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining the faculty at CMU, Dr. Pukinskis held faculty positions at Amherst College, Harvard University, and the Longy School of Music at Bard College.

Morgan Overton is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work bridges art, cultural memory and social action. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she creates across mediums including graphite, watercolor, mixed media and embroidery to explore themes of Black identity, ancestral memory, Afrofuturism and women’s lived experiences. Her portraits often depict unsung figures in quiet strength, surrounded by symbolic motifs that honor heritage while imagining liberated futures.

Overton’s artistic practice is deeply informed by her background in advocacy, politics and psychology. Holding a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh, she has served in leadership roles advancing policy, equity and human rights. This intersection of art and activism fuels her belief that visual storytelling can disrupt systems, ignite dialogue and inspire collective healing.

Her work has been heavily exhibited in group shows throughout Pittsburgh and featured in spaces that champion underrepresented voices nationally and internationally — including a solo exhibition at the United States Capitol Building in 2023 and the London Art Biennale in 2025. Morgan has curated the regional call-for-art Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh — showcasing the works of 100 artists at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and the August Wilson Center.

From 2023–2025 she was the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pittsburgh Frederick Honors College, and in summer 2025 she was a painting and mixed media resident artist at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. In 2024, she received the Carnegie Museums’ Community ARTivist Award for her contributions to the city’s cultural landscape. Overton is a member of Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and Women of Visions, a collective of contemporary African-American women artists.

Her vision is to create art that not only preserves stories of the past but reimagines them for future generations, affirming that Black and women artists have an undeniable, rightful place in shaping the cultural narrative.

Founded in 1994 by Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope as a collaboration between two dancers and a city, Attack Theatre fuses modern dance, original live music and interdisciplinary art forms to create engaging dance performances. They create work at the intersection of art and community, resulting in productions that are personal, authentic, welcoming and fearless. Attack Theatre has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe and Asia, choreographing and performing works for the Avignon Festival (France), Indonesia Arts Festival (Jakarta), Monaco Danses Forum (Monaco), Spoleto Festival USA, the 7th Next Wave Dance Festival (Japan) and the Broadway production of Squonk. Collaboration is at the core of Attack Theatre’s creative process, and the company has worked with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Museum of Art, Quantum Theatre, Andy Warhol Museum, Chamber Music Pittsburgh and Chatham Baroque, among many others.

Attack Theatre’s home in the heart of Lawrenceville offers performances, classes and community events, serving as a hub for dance, learning and creative community partnerships. With a uniquely integrated approach to art and education, Attack Theatre conducts hundreds of dance and kinesthetic learning programs in school and community settings annually.

Attack Theatre is the dance company in residence for Carnegie Mellon University's School of Music, where Peter and Michele are Teaching Professors of Dance.

The concert lasts one hour. There are optional pre- and post-concert events which you may attend. The times for those events are posted on the event page.

Yes! Please be sure to reserve a ticket to hold your place and so we know how many people to expect. If it turns out you are not able to attend, please also release/cancel your ticket so others can use that spot.

Stay tuned! We'll update the page with links.

Yes, free childcare is available for a limited number of kids age 0–16 for the 10/22 and 10/23 concerts via Pittsburgh Event Childcare. PEC is licensed and bonded. You can sign up via the Eventbrite link when you reserve tickets. If you have already reserved a ticket and would like to add on childcare, please check your email inbox for a follow-up message from Eventbrite.

Anyone who attends the main concert can attend the pre- and post-concert events. No need to RSVP separately.

The content material of the concert may not be very interesting for young people, and we would appreciate limiting the extra-musical sounds from the audience wherever possible. However, we know it is a financial and logistical hurdle to find childcare, so each concert will offer childcare for a limited number of children, free of cost. Childcare is provided, and there will be an option to sign up when you reserve your ticket.

There is no dress code; please wear something that you feel comfortable sitting in for an hour. Generally an outfit around “smart casual” or maybe “business casual” is plenty.

Please hold your applause until the end of the concert, which is once the music stops at the end of the fourth movement.

You may take still photos without flash, but please refrain from taking video or holding up an illuminated screen for too long. The concert is being professionally documented (audio and video).

Parking information is specific to each location and details are provided on that concert’s event page.

Please plan to walk in the door at least 10 minutes before the start of the concert or the pre-concert talk. This gives you time to get checked in, find a seat, use the restroom, etc.

There is no intermission, but there will be breaks between the pre-concert talk and the concert, as well as the concert and the post-concert events in order to provide time to reset, stretch legs, use the restroom, etc.

Anywhere you would like! If you think you might need to leave the concert during the performance (if you have a tickle in your throat, need to check on someone/something at home, don’t feel comfortable sitting for an hour, need some time/space on your own), we encourage you to sit in an aisle seat so you don’t disrupt other audience members when you leave.