Exponential Ensemble

Founded in 2011 by clarinetist Pascal Archer, Exponential Ensemble is a mixed chamber music collective that comprises New York City’s top-notch performers and teaching artists. Each season, the ensemble presents compelling programs that include both classic and contemporary masterpieces to a variety of audiences. 

Exponential Ensemble’s mission includes commissioning and premiering works by living composers that are inspired by math, science, and literacy. Since 2013, they have commissioned more than 50 new works by composers such as Amy Brandon, Robert Paterson, and Gilad Cohen. They collaborate regularly with the Fordham Composers Program at Lincoln Center’s Fordham University. Other collaborations include new music residencies with the Composers Collective and the Mostly Modern Festival, during which they premiered a variety of works by emerging composers from across the USA. 

Additionally, Exponential Ensemble curates interactive educational programs that use music as a way to connect with school curricula. These programs have been delivered to organizations such as Music for Autism and the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts as well as in New York City public schools. 

Past commissions have been made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, the Composers Guild of New Jersey, the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning program, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Hailed by the New York Times as “outstanding clarinetist”, Pascal Archer leads an active career as a performer and teacher. Since 2006, Archer has been the Principal Clarinetist of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic (NEPP). Over the course of his tenure with the orchestra, he has served as a board member and chamber music coordinator, and founded the NEPP Mentoring Program. He is also the Principal Clarinetist of the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Princeton Symphony Orchestra. 

A former member of the New World Symphony, he has served as Acting Principal Clarinet of the New Jersey Symphony for three seasons, as guest clarinetist for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and was heard in several New York City Broadway productions such as Sweeney Todd, Mary Poppins, South Pacific, On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof, and My Fair Lady. He has also performed at renowned music festival such as Mostly Mozart, Verbier, Spoleto USA, Marlboro, and Sun Valley Summer Symphony. 

As a chamber musician, he is the founder of Exponential Ensemble. He has collaborated with the JACK and St. Lawrence String Quartets, the North Country Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Camerata Pacifica, and toured with musicians from Marlboro. 

Archer is on faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege, Fordham University, and Hunter College. Additionally, he coaches chamber music at the Chamber Music Center of New York and the Alaria Chamber Ensemble.

Originally from Québec, Archer holds music performance degrees from the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, Université de Montréal, Indiana University, and the Manhattan School of Music.