Program Notes for Jlin: n! = 3! (Permutation of Three)
Jlin
n! = 3! (Permutation of Three)
October 2, 2025
McGuire Theater
Jlin: n! = 3! (Permutation of Three)
Jlin: composer & electronics
Daniel Bernard Roumain: violin
Leonardo Sandoval: dance
Members of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra:
Eunice Kim, violin 1
Cameron Alan-Lee, violin 2
Daniel Orsen, viola
Richard Belcher, cello
Notes on the Program
Tonight’s program features select works by Jlin, unless otherwise noted.
Little Black Book (2018)
Composed by Jlin.
Performed by members of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
This piece was commissioned for Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future, a project of the Kronos Performing Arts Association. The score and parts are available for free at kronosquartet.org.
Presented in partnership with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Precision of Infinity
By Philip Glass and Jlin.
Commissioned by Pomegranate Arts on the occasion of Philip Glass’ 85th Birthday.
© Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc. Used by Permission.
Artist Production Credits
Worldwide Representation for Jlin: Pomegranate Arts
Booking & Management for Daniel Bernard Roumain: SOZO Artists, Inc.
Music Publishing for Jlin: Decca Publishing
All rights reserved.
Special thank you to Ichun Yeh and the team at SOZO, Janet Cowperthwaite, and Anne-Camille Hersh/En Pointe Management.
Tonight’s performance will run approximately 80 minutes with no intermission.
Please join us before and after the performance in the Walker’s Cityview Bar.
Artist Statement
In mathematics, n represents the number of possible elements in a set. For this program I wanted to bring this equation to life with the collaboration of three distinct voices of representation. Leonardo Sandoval who brings the brilliance and fire of tap-dance, Daniel Bernard Roumain who is a genre-defying composer/violinist, and the exhilarating vibrancy of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Rather than a straightforward formula of n = 3! that would normally be considered as a mathematical presentation of combination and permutation, I want to display the endless ways sound, rhythm and motion can intersect. This is why I named the program n! = 3! Each entity is an experiment, sometimes precise, sometimes wildly improvised all while destroying boundaries and restrictions.
The result being a concert that celebrates variation and possibility. No performance will be similar but still unified under creative free expression, vulnerability, and unpredictability. We invite the audience to experience not just a collaboration, but a continual act of creation, and proof that when three distinct artistic languages converge, the outcome is infinite.
– Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton)
Accessibility Notes
For more information about accessibility, visit our Access page.
For questions on accessibility, content and sensory notes or to request additional accommodations, call 612-253-3556 or email access@walkerart.org.
About the Artists
Jlin (composer & electronics)
A math lover, former steel factory worker, and proud resident of Gary, Indiana, Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) has quickly become one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most influential women in electronic music. Jlin’s thrilling, emotional, and multidimensional compositions have earned her praise as “one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre” (Pitchfork).
Jlin was a 2023 Pulitzer Prize nominee for Perspectives – originally commissioned and performed by Third Coast Percussion – and her mini-album Perspective, featuring the original electronic versions of the suite, was released to critical acclaim on Planet Mu in 2023. Her much-lauded albums Dark Energy (2015) and Black Origami (2017) have been featured in “Best of” lists in The New York Times, The Wire, LA Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Vogue.
Jlin has collaborated with contemporary artists including William Basinski, Dope Saint Jude, Holly Herndon, Zora Jones, and the late, iconic SOPHIE. She has remixed works for major artists including Björk, Max Richter, Martin Gore (of Depeche Mode), Galya Bisengalieva, Marie Davidson, Nina Kraviz, and Ben Frost. In the last decade, Jlin has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, the Pathos Quartet, legendary choreographers Wayne McGregor & Kyle Abraham, and fashion designer Rick Owens.
Recently, Wesleyan University commissioned two pieces from Jlin using sounds of Javanese Gamelan, performed live by the Javanese Gamelan Ensemble and Paula Matthusen’s Toneburst Laptop Orchestra. In May 2025, Jlin composed and premiered the first ever piece of electronic music commissioned by the US Library of Congress. jlintheinnovator.com IG @jlin_p
Daniel Bernard Roumain (violin)
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who sees composing as collaboration with artists, organizations and communities within the farming and framing of ideas. He is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator, and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (New York Times), Roumain has worked with artists from J’Nai Bridges, Lady Gaga and Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones, Marin Alsop and Anna Deavere Smith. Known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic and African-American music influences, Roumain takes his genre-bending music beyond the proscenium. He is a composer of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, and has composed an array of film, theater, and dance scores. He has composed music for the acclaimed film Ailey (Sundance official selection); was the first Music Director and Principal Composer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; released and appeared on 30 album recordings; and has published over 300 works. He has appeared on CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC, NPR, and PBS; and has collaborated with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Sydney Opera House. He was Artist-in-Residence and Creative Chair at the Flynn in Burlington, Vermont.
Currently, he is the first Artistic Ambassador with Firstworks; the first Artist Activist-in-Residence at Longy School of Music; and the first Resident Artistic Catalyst with the New Jersey Symphony. Roumain is an Atlantic Center Master Artist, a Creative Capital Grantee, and a Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. He has won the American Academy in Rome Goddard Lieberson Fellowship; a Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship Award; an Emmy Award for The New Look of Classical Music; National Sawdust Disruptor Award; and the Sphinx Organization Arthur L. Johnson Award. He has lectured at Yale and Princeton University and was a Roth Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College. He is currently a tenured Associate and Institute Professor at Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
Leonardo Sandoval (dance)
Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval is renowned for blending America’s tap tradition with Brazil’s rich musical and rhythmic heritage. A true dancer-musician, he helped bring tap to a wider audience in Brazil via numerous TV and stage appearances, and by co-founding the Companhia Carioca de Sapateado in Rio de Janeiro. In 2012, he won global recognition when he was a finalist in pop superstars Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony’s talent show Q’Viva – The Chosen. One of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch for 2021, he is the recipient of a 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise in Dance, a 2022 NYSCA/ NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, and the winner of a 2024 Princess Grace Award in Choreography.
Now based in New York, Sandoval is a core member of Michelle Dorrance’s acclaimed company, Dorrance Dance, performing across the world at venues like the Joyce Theater, the Guggenheim Museum, NY City Center, BAM, London’s Sadler’s Wells, Canada’s National Arts Center, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, and many more. Together with composer Gregory Richardson, he directs Music From The Sole, a NYC-based tap dance and live music company that explores tap dance’s Afro-diasporic roots and lineage to a wide range of Black dance and music from jazz to samba, house, and passinho (Brazilian funk). The company has appeared at Lincoln Center, the Joyce Theater, New York City Center, the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, The Yard, Chicago Human Rhythm Project, Vail Dance Festival, Harlem Stage, Boston’s Celebrity Series, and White Bird, among others. The company has received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts (National Dance Project), New York State Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Dance/ NYC, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, the 92NY, and held residencies at Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard, Kaatsbaan, American Tap Dance Foundation, Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, and Catskill Mountain Foundation; in 2019-20, Sandoval was the National Dance Institute’s inaugural artist in residence. Other recent projects include new choreography commissioned by Pomegranate Arts, as part of composer Philip Glass’ 85th birthday celebrations, described in the New York Times as “a choreographic revelation.”
As a solo artist, Sandoval has appeared at venues including the Caramoor Jazz Festival (presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center) and at the National Folk Festival, a rare honor for a tap dancer in the storied festival’s 87-year history and has worked with musicians including Michael Mwenso and the Shakes, Ben Sollee, and the Quebe Sisters. He has continued bringing tap to global audiences through his performances, as well as TV features and interviews on PBS, BBC, MSNBC, the CW channel, and Fox. Leo is a passionate advocate of arts education and engagement, leading workshops, classes, and lecture-demonstrations, centered on tap, body percussion, Afro-Brazilian rhythms and more, to diverse audiences around the globe, including through partnerships with the National Dance Institute and Lincoln Center Education in New York, Symphony Space’s Global Arts program, and the Meninos de Luz project in Rio de Janeiro.
Eunice Kim (violin 1)
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, violinist Eunice Kim made her solo debut at the age of seven with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. Called “just superb” (The New York Times), she recently made her solo debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Louisville Symphony, and performed George Tsontakis’ Unforgettable with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Also recently, she performed at the Library of Congress on the “Ward” Antonio Stradivari violin, and she toured Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany and South Korea with Curtis On Tour.
A winner of Astral’s 2012 National Auditions, Kim is the recipient of awards and honors from the California International Violin Competition, the Pacific Music Society Competition, the Korea Times String Competition and the Youth Excellence Scholarship for the Arts. She also represented the Curtis Institute of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the Millennium Stage Series Conservatory Project at the Kennedy Center.
An enthusiastic advocate for community engagement, she has partnered with The Philadelphia Orchestra Department of Education to perform an outreach series, and she regularly participates in Astral’s Community Engagement & Education programs. She has taught at numerous international music festivals, most recently at the Teatro Del Lago Festival in Chile and the Valdres Music Academy in Norway. Kim has participated in the Music from Angel Fire and Marlboro Music festivals.
Cameron Alan-Lee (violin 2)
With a refreshing blend of thoughtfulness and spontaneity, Cameron Alan-Lee’s unique music making has captivated audiences around the world. At the heart of his praxis lies a dedication to music’s unique capacity for connection—to oneself, to musical colleagues, and to the public. Cameron spent many formative years performing in varied locations across the globe, from senior care facilities in California, to regional orchestras in Michigan, to the street markets of Paris and Florence. While attending the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles from 2009-2016, he studied privately with Chan Ho Yun and Aimee Kreston and was a founding member of the award winning Chimera Quartet. In 2016, Cameron and his quartet were awarded top prizes at the St. Paul String Quartet Competition, the WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition, and the inaugural MPrize Chamber Music Competition.
In addition to competing and performing nationally and globally, Cameron has also participated at summer festivals such as the Montecito Summer Music Festival, Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, Aspen Music Festival, Encore Chamber Music, Banff Evolution Chamber and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar. In 2020, Cameron earned a Bachelor’s of Music in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Jaime Laredo, Stephen Rose, and Jinjoo Cho. He furthered his studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston under the guidance of Ayano Ninomiya from 2020 to 2024, during which he received his Masters of Music. Outside of music, Cameron loves cooking, plant care, cycling, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with family and friends. Cameron performs on a 1911 Giuseppe Fiorini violin with a bow crafted by Eugene Sartory.
Daniel Orsen (viola)
Violist Daniel Orsen joined The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in the 2022-23 season. He began his tenure with the SPCO performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in September. During six years in Boston, Orsen performed with A Far Cry, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Fermata Chamber Soloists, and the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, and he ran Jamaica Plain Chamber Music from 2019-2022. Additionally, he was Guest Solo Violist with the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway during the 2018-19 season. Festival credits include Krzyzowa, Ravinia, Verbier, Prussia Cove, Oak Hill and the Perlman Music Program.
Orsen has a keen interest in culture and intellectual history, which is manifested in Wagner’s Nightmare: a tongue-in-cheek exploration of Richard Wagner’s life, work, and legacy, which will culminate in an album of music Wagner would not have liked. Wagner’s Nightmare is Orsen’s second collaboration with pianist Pierre Nicolas Colombat, after their debut recording of Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. The Wagner’s Nightmare album was released in February 2023, via CD and NFT only. His writing has also been published in The Anglican Way and The Journal of the American Viola Society. Orsen is a native of Pittsburgh, PA. He was taught and mentored by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Credo, and the Perlman Music Program before his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory with Peter Slowik and the New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian. He plays on a 2013 Philip Injeian viola and a 2014 Benoit Rolland bow, both specially made for him.
Richard Belcher (cello)
New Zealand cellist Richard Belcher joined the SPCO in 2019 after a twenty year career as founding cellist of the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet. With the quartet he earned highly critical accolades from recording and concertizing in many of the world’s major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Kennedy Center in the United States, as well as abroad in Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Richard is the Artistic Director of Music on the Hill in Mankato, Minnesota, and since 2008 has been Principal Cellist of River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, Texas. He has taught and performed at many festivals including St. Bart’s, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Prussia Cove, Madeline Island, Campos do Jordao International Winter Festival, SummerFest La Jolla, and the San Miguel de Allende International Chamber Music Festival. In demand as a teacher and chamber music coach, Richard has previously served as Adjunct Faculty at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and has given numerous masterclasses around the world. Richard moved to the United States in 1998 to study with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, and it was while there that he founded the Enso String Quartet. Richard’s other principal teachers include Norman Fischer, Marc Johnson, and Alexander Ivashkin. He plays an N.F. Vuillaume cello made in 1856, and is married to Cecilia Belcher, Assistant Principal 2nd Violin of the Minnesota Orchestra.
About Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a renowned multidisciplinary arts institution that presents, collects, and supports the creation of groundbreaking work across the visual and performing arts, moving image, and design. Guided by the belief that art has the power to bring joy and solace and the ability to unite people through dialogue and shared experiences, the Walker engages communities through a dynamic array of exhibitions, performances, events, and initiatives. Its multiacre campus includes 65,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, the state-of-the-art McGuire Theater and Walker Cinema, and ample green space that connects with the adjoining Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The Garden, a partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, is one of the first urban sculpture parks of its kind in the United States and home to the beloved Twin Cities landmark Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Recognized for its ambitious program and growing collection of more than 16,000 works, the Walker embraces emerging art forms and amplifies the work of artists from the Twin Cities and from across the country and the globe. Its broad spectrum of offerings makes it a lively and welcoming hub for artistic expression, creative innovation, and community connection.
About Liquid Music
Liquid Music is a leading producer of special projects in contemporary music, an internationally recognized laboratory for artists from across genre and disciplinary spectrums. This creative institution nurtures and realizes bold ideas from performers and composers, inspiring audiences to discover, learn and be transformed. Founded at The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2012, Liquid Music became independent in 2020, owned and operated by artistic director Kate Nordstrum who has been widely praised for her programmatic vision, panoramic tastes and “storied matchmaking” (Minneapolis Star Tribune).
About Northrop
Situated at the heart of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus and a state historic landmark, Northrop has served as the University’s primary gathering place for the performing arts, world-renowned dance performances, concerts, academic ceremonies, and major civic events for nearly 100 years. From touring international and favorite local dance companies, musicians, and film screenings to the hottest comedy acts, renowned speakers, celebrated authors, and prestigious UMN lectures, Northrop offers opportunities for all ages to explore, learn, and engage.
About Pomegranate Arts
Since 1998, Pomegranate Arts has worked in close collaboration with a small group of contemporary artists and arts institutions to bring bold and ambitious artistic ideas to fruition. Creative and executive producers Linda Brumbach and Alisa E. Regas, along with their committed team at Pomegranate Arts, have produced the Olivier Award-winning revival of Einstein on the Beach; Taylor Mac’s epic A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, Holiday Sauce, and now – their third collaboration together, along with composer Matt Ray – a rock opera meditation on queerness called Bark of Millions; the touring production of Ambrose Akinmusire and Aszure Barton’s A a | a B : B E N D; live shows for electronic musician and composer Jlin; Available Light by John Adams, Lucinda Childs and Frank Gehry; Robin Frohardt’s The Plastic Bag Store and Shopping Center of the Universe; Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch’s Shockheaded Peter; and the Drama Desk Award-winning production of Charlie Victor Romeo. In recent years, Linda and Alisa have expanded the vision of the company by producing in non-performative mediums, including their first feature documentary film Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music (HBO Original Doc), the film short Taylor Mac’s Whitman in the Woods (ALL ARTS), and museum installations for Machine Dazzle. Their first book, a special box set edition of Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Complete Folios 1-20 with Essays by Fellow Artists, was published by Artisan Books in October 2023. In addition to their own productions, Pomegranate Arts is proud to support worldwide touring for kNoname Artist | Roderick George and North American touring for Sankai Juku. www.pomegranatearts.com
Creative & Executive Producer: Linda Brumbach; Creative & Executive Producer: Alisa E. Regas; Senior Producer: Rachel Katwan; Operations Consultant: Kaleb Kilkenny; Administrative Assistant: Elena Messinger
About The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Founded in 1959, the Grammy Award-winning Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) is renowned for its artistic excellence, remarkable versatility of musical styles and adventurous programming. SPCO concerts are primarily musician-led and include a broad range of repertoire, from Baroque works to new music, in close collaboration with a dynamic roster of internationally acclaimed Artistic Partners. Through a distinctive musician-led artistic model, SPCO musicians lead and develop the orchestra’s programming, determine members and choose artistic collaborators.
Living Land Acknowledgment
The McGuire Theater and Walker Art Center are located on the contemporary, traditional, and ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. Situated near Bde Maka Ska and Wíta Tópa Bde, or Lake of the Isles, on what was once an expanse of marshland and meadow, this site holds meaning for Dakota, Ojibwe, and Indigenous people from other Native nations, who still live in the community today.
We acknowledge the discrimination and violence inflicted on Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and the Americas, including forced removal from ancestral lands, the deliberate destruction of communities and culture, deceptive treaties, war, and genocide. We recognize that, as a museum in the United States, we have a colonial history and are beneficiaries of this land and its resources. We acknowledge the history of Native displacement that allowed for the founding of the Walker. By remembering this dark past, we recognize its continuing harm in the present and resolve to work toward reconciliation, systemic change, and healing in support of Dakota people and the land itself.
We honor Native people and their relatives, past, present, and future. As a cultural organization, the Walker works toward building relationships with Native communities through artistic and educational programs, curatorial and community partnerships, and the presentation of new work.
Acknowledgments
To learn more about upcoming performances, visit 2025/26 Walker Performing Arts Season.