Impressions from Row G
by Arlene and Larry Dunn (@ICEfansArleneLD)
photos and collages by Larry Dunn

Three straight evenings of ICE assaying 45 years of Alvin Lucier’s music, with Alvin present and performing, was like diving in crystalline Caribbean waters with the kaleidoscope of colors and textures a feast of sound for the ears, rather than a rainbow riot of fish and coral reef to delight the eyes. This total immersion into Lucier’s sound sea overwhelmed our senses in the fourth floor gallery and atrium at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago on March 21, 22, and 23, 2014.

Presenting a three day portrait of Alvin Lucier's music in the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art (with Lucier's presence and support!!) is a dream project, even when compared to all of the dream projects that I get to work on everyday with ICE.  Alvin's music is packed with an infectious imagination. Many of Lucier's scores are text descriptions of a simple musical process. That these descriptions leap to life as engaging music is an orchestrational feat, akin to a composer writing a rich orchestral score at the piano.

ICE’s residency at Roulette in December was not just about the launch of OpenICE! Education Director Jacob Greenberg and Production Director Ross Karre teamed up with video artist and ICElab collaborator Monica Duncan to expand ICE’s signature education program, The Listening Room, for a piano-centric event.  Called “Hit, Pluck, and Strum,” the hour-long show for four-to-eight-year-olds explored the inside of the piano and how wacky musical notation can bring the sounds of the piano’s inner organs to life.

Impressions from Row G
by Arlene and Larry Dunn (@ICEfansArleneLD)

“Fortunately we live on the basis of vital illusion, on the basis of an absence, an unreality, a non-immediacy of things.” With that thought from Jean Baudrillard’s The Perfect Crime in mind, ICE gave the world concert premiere of Dan Dehaan’s Trompe l’Corps at an OpenICE event at Roulette in Brooklyn on December 17, 2013. Dan’s work was paired in this concert with the equally impressive ICElab compositions of Felipe Lara.

Impressions from Row G
by Arlene and Larry Dunn (@ICEfansArleneLD)

ICE came to Chicago to present a “John Zorn Retrospective” that might better have been titled “A 21st Century Portrait.” The concert Saturday, October 26, 2013, at MCA Chicago featured all recent work, save Zorn’s Canon for Stravinsky in memoriam, a work of less than a minute in length, written in 1972. ICE musicians Claire Chase, Joshua Rubin, Rebekah Heller, Erik Carlson, Kyle Armbrust, Michael Nicolas, Cory Smythe, Dan Lippel, and Tyshawn Sorey, in various combinations, attacked six Zorn compositions with joyous vigor, heightened by the presence of the man himself.

Impressions from Row G
by Arlene and Larry Dunn (@ICEfansArleneLD)

For many years after Oberlin College was founded in 1833, students were required to attend chapel services. Flash forward to October 16, 2013, and chapel attendance was mandatory for a very different reason. ICE violinist (and Oberlin professor) David Bowlin spun quietly compelling webs of sound in Fairchild Chapel with his exquisite performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Six Caprices for solo violin.

Impressions from Row G
by Arlene and Larry Dunn (@ICEfansArleneLD)

Two-thousand-thirteen twenty-nine September's twenty-six shiny metal tubes relentless Chase Claire shining Constellation star. Seventy-five undaunted quest minutes tornado of notes blown from deep inside on brain on paper on tape. Hundreds awe in silent stunned anticipate bottomless air dance sinewy muscles never touch down.

Impressions from Row G
by Arlene and Larry Dunn (@ICEfansArleneLD)

Just ten days after moving to Oberlin, we retraced the steps of Claire Chase’s momentous origin-of-ICE journey to Chicago to attend the launch event for Rebekah Heller’s new CD 100 Names on June 30, 2013.