From the Blog

• Steven Schick on George Lewis’s “North Star Boogaloo”

  September 20, 2011

  

  Steven Schick has been performing often with ICE recently—perhaps you caught him last week, conducting & playing in Nine Rivers at Miller Theatre—and we're looking forward to further collaborations with the master percussionist in the season ahead. It's always a treat to work with Steve, but we're especially anticipating his solo performance of George Lewis's North Star Boogaloo in November, also at Miller Theatre. digitICE is pleased to present an excerpt from Schick's book, The Percussionist's Art, about the genesis and performance of this incredible piece written for him by Lewis.

• Preview: George Lewis at Miller Theatre

  November 7, 2011

  

  MacArthur “genius” George Lewis is, simply put, one of the most important and influential figures in American music today. He has performed alongside luminaries such as Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, and helped to shape both the future of music (as a pioneer of computer music) and the understanding of its practitioners (as a professor and scholar at Columbia University, and author of A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music). We are truly honored to be presenting his work this Saturday, November 12th as a part of Miller Theatre at Columbia University's Composer Portraits series. Check out this video preview video, courtesy of our good friends at Miller Theatre:

• ImprovICEing: Words from The New York City Jazz Record

  November 28, 2011

  

  A review of our recent Composer Portrait of George Lewis by Kurt Gottschalk appears in this month's edition of The New York City Jazz Record. On the subject of our performance of Lewis' improv-incorporating work, Artificial Life: "'Artificial Life' (2007) was a structured improvisation with perimeters given to the players. Peter Evans seized the situation, finding a five-note phrase and repeating it to exhaustion on pocket trumpet, but the performance was about group communication...'Artificial Life' was a wonderful setting for improvisers but this was Lewis’ achievement as a composer" On Lewis' new work for ICE, Will To Adorn: "Bold orchestral sections and percussive passages were interspersed with soft, exquisite refrains in an easy flow of disparate elements."

• Icicles On George Lewis

  November 10, 2011

  

  We're now into our third continuous day of rehearsals at Miller Theatre for the George Lewis Composer Portrait on Saturday. Icicles Ross Karre (percussion) and Cory Smythe (piano) share their experiences, thoughts, and questions about the music:

• Guest Post: Lewis on Lewis

  November 11, 2011

  

  We are thrilled to be presenting a Composer Portrait of the brilliant composer, improviser, performer, historian, and scholar George Lewis tomorrow night at Miller Theatre. Below, read about each of the pieces we'll be performing in the composers' own words: (If you are dying for more, here's a preview, an interview, an entry on these works from the perspective of two Icicles, and a tour of an installation featuring giant, green, pyramidal, sound producing, movement sensitive structures. Or, just buy your ticket here.)

• Experiencing “Ikons”

  November 9, 2011

  

  We're excited to perform George Lewis' Ikons for octet (2010) this Saturday night at Miller Theatre at Columbia Univeristy. Here is footage from a different version of the piece, which was experienced by visitors at last year's Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver:

• “The Story’s Being Told”: George Lewis Interview with NewMusicBox

  November 8, 2011

  

  As we gear up to present a Composer Portrait of George Lewis this Saturday at Miller Theatre, we thought we'd share this insightful interview from the good people at NewMusicBox: In the arts, you’ll come across a lot of multi-talented people, but not many who can boast the depth of accomplishment in as many areas as George E. Lewis. Since the beginning of his involvement with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) at the young age of 19, Lewis has engaged in a dizzying number of projects with an impressive array of collaborators. As an improvising trombonist, he has worked with not only AACM luminaries Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Roscoe Mitchell, to name just a few, but also with the likes of John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and Miya Masaoka (who is also Lewis’s wife). And that’s only a very small sampling... Read the full interview with NewMusicBox here.

• “Prodigious Imagination and Persuasive Skill”: The NYTimes Reviews GL Portrait

  November 14, 2011

  

  We had a blast performing the music of George Lewis with special guests Steven Schick and Quincy Troupe at Miller Theatre on Saturday night! Click here to read an insightful review from Steve Smith of The New York Times.