Presented every two years by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD), the Darmstadt Summer Course is an international platform for contemporary and experimental musical practices and composition: it is summer academy, festival and discourse platform at the same time and a meeting point of composers, interpreters, performers, sound artists and scholars. Since 1946, the Darmstadt Summer Course has been aiming at bringing together strong musical and aesthetic positions, providing a framework for high-level performance and discourse, a lively international network and an inspiring experience for our participants and guests. The International Contemporary Ensemble is thrilled to return for this year’s iteration of Darmstadt!

PROGRAM

Ashkan Behzadi: Carnivalesque (2014-16)
for conductor, flute (piccolo), bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello

Yaz Lancaster: ourselves in the other (2024, World Premiere)
Commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble

Elaine Mitchener: th/e s/ou/nd be/t/ween (2023)
for flute, electric guitar, electric bass, percussion, contralto

Corie Rose Soumah: Tossed Parachutes of Lilacs and Lungs (2025, World Premiere)
Co-commissioned by Darmstadt Summer Course and The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust
for conductor, flute, clarinet, percussion, electric guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, electronics 

Marcos Balter: Árvore (2025, World Premiere)
Co-commissioned by International Contemporary Ensemble, Darmstadt Summer Course and The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust
for conductor, flute, clarinet, percussion, guitar, double bass, piano, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, electronics

PERFORMERS

Rebekah Heller, conductor
Alice Teyssier, flute
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Daniel Lippel, electric guitar
Randy Zigler, electric bass
Erika Dohi, piano
Modney, violin
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello
Nathan Davis, percussion and electronics
Ross Karre, percussion and electronics

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Presented every two years by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD), the Darmstadt Summer Course is an international platform for contemporary and experimental musical practices and composition: it is summer academy, festival and discourse platform at the same time and a meeting point of composers, interpreters, performers, sound artists and scholars. Since 1946, the Darmstadt Summer Course has been aiming at bringing together strong musical and aesthetic positions, providing a framework for high-level performance and discourse, a lively international network and an inspiring experience for our participants and guests. The International Contemporary Ensemble is thrilled to return for this year’s iteration of Darmstadt!

Hans Thommala: Harmoniemusik (2020-21)

for flute (bass flute), clarinet (bass clarinet), percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello

Performers

Rebekah Heller, conductor
Alice Teyssier, flute
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Nathan Davis, percussion and electronics
Erika Dohi, piano
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Luna Composition Lab is “changing the playing field” (The New Yorker) by providing mentorship, performance opportunities, resources, and partnerships for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers. Founded in 2016 by composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, Luna Lab aims to achieve a broad, lasting, and positive impact in the field of music by empowering and emboldening the next generation of musicians and creative leaders.

The International Contemporary Ensemble is excited to participate as Luna Composition Lab’s 2024–25 Ensemble in Residence. Members of the International Contemporary Ensemble have worked with fellows throughout the year to workshop their new pieces. The world premieres of these works, alongside works by Luna Lab mentor composers Han Lash, Nkeiru Okoye, Angélica Negrón, and Mari Esabel Valverde, will be performed in the Resnick Education Wing at Carnegie Hall.

PROGRAM

Emilie Wolff: Why Dance (2025, World Premiere)
*Han Lash: Start (2018)
Danity Pike: just like the dolls (2025, World Premiere)
*Mari Esabel Valverde
Prélude en la bémol (2015) 
his eyes were in the stars (2009)   
Snøen (2009)
Zoe Verduin: Joshua Tree (2025, World Premiere)
Brannon Warn-Johnston: Stages of Inspiration (2025, World Premiere)
*Nkeiru Okoye: Breaking Bread (2022)
Sam Pichardo: Of it all (2025, World Premiere)
*Angélica Negron: Hush (2012)
Mia Turakhia: Beneath Dying Skies (2025, World Premiere)

* Luna Lab Mentor pieces, all other pieces Luna Lab 2025 Fellow pieces

PERFORMERS

Alice Teyssier, flute
Erika Dohi, piano
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Kal Sugatski, viola

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The Craftsmanship salon explores how artists across disciplines hone their craft to create breathtaking works of art. From performers to jewelry designers, artists transform raw materials—whether sound waves or unforged metal—into unrecognizable finished products. This intimate evening will feature performances by International Contemporary Ensemble percussionists Nathan Davis and Clara Warnaar, including the world premiere of a new work conceived especially for this event, as well as interactive activations featuring the work of master artisans, like Stradivarius violins.

Hors d’oeuvres and beverages will be provided.

Where: Van Cleef & Arpels’ new Madison Avenue location
              690 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10065

When: May 15, 2025, 7pm-9pm

For the chance to attend this intimate, extraordinary salon event, please enter our ticket raffle by April 21. Raffle winners will be notified by April 28.

This event is hosted by International Contemporary Ensemble, in collaboration with After Arts.

Instruments will be provided by Florian Leonhard Fine Violins and International Contemporary Ensemble.

PERSONNEL & PROGRAM

Nathan Davis and Clara Warnaar: Alliage
Nathan Davis: Talking to Vasudeva
Pauline Oliveros: Rock Piece
Nathan Davis and Clara Warnaar: Estuary

Ongoing interactive activations featuring:

• Instruments made, found and repurposed by International Contemporary Ensemble musicians.

• World-class heritage instruments provided by Florian Leonhard Fine Violins. 

• Unique pieces from the Van Cleef & Arpels 

PERFORMERS

International Contemporary Ensemble
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Nathan Davis, percussion

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

Cocktail attire is suggested 
Hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be provided 
Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

AFTER ARTS

After Arts Group is a vibrant community for professionals who see music as an integral part of their identity, whether they're active amateurs, former musicians, or those with a deep-seated artistic heritage. It's a place where those with an artistic sensibility and a musical background can find meaningful connections. Born from the belief that an artistic background enriches any professional path, we've created a platform where music and professionalism intersect and support personal, professional, and artistic growth through networking, performance, and cultural experiences.

Whether you aim to rekindle your musical passion, connect with peers who share your interests, or make a meaningful impact in the arts community, After Arts provides exclusive programming and experiences for integrating music into your professional narrative.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

International Contemporary Ensemble will be at University of California Irvine and University of California Riverside for a residency involving workshops, panels, and a performance at UC Irvine that will be open to the public. This program will celebrate the wide-ranging creative visions of Black composers, performed by virtuoso musicians from one of today's most renowned contemporary music ensembles, and including a pre-concert talk with the artists.

PROGRAM

Nicole Mitchell: Birdsongs for Equitable Togetherness (2020)
Wendy Richman: Cave Point (2019)
Elaine Mitchener: th/e s/ou/nd be/t/ween (2024)
John Coltrane:Countdown (1959)
Anthony Braxton: Falling River Music + Diamond Curtain Wall Music (FRM + DCWM)
Fay Victor & Wendy Richman: Improvisation (2025)
Fay Victor: Factions (2023)

PERFORMERS

Fay Victor, voice
Wendy Richman, viola
Cory Smythe, piano
Josh Rubin, clarinet

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The International Contemporary Ensemble will be featured in this year’s Northwestern University New Music Conference. One of the leading conferences for new music in the world, the Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC!) brings together composers, performing musicians, scholars, and other new music advocates for a series of workshops, panel discussions, and concerts.

PROGRAM

Carlos Bandera, Spirare IV 
Luis Miguel Delgado Grande, Remains of a portrait 
Bahar Royaee, a hair on the skin of the water on the lake 
Jee Won Kim, Whisperweave 
George Lewis: Hexis

PERFORMERS

International Contemporary Ensemble
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Modney, violin
Chris Wild, cello

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

NUNC! is made possible in part by the Sorensen Jacobson Fund for New Music. ​​

The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The International Contemporary Ensemble will be featured in this year’s Northwestern University New Music Conference. One of the leading conferences for new music in the world, the Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC!) brings together composers, performing musicians, scholars, and other new music advocates for a series of workshops, panel discussions, and concerts.

PROGRAM

Bec Plexus, Letter to a Tardigrade
Bec Plexus, Whose arm is that?
Bec Plexus (arr. Pascal Le Boeuf and Alan Pierson), Mirror Image
George Lewis, The Deformation of Mastery
Anthony Braxton, Ghost Trance Music

PERFORMERS

International Contemporary Ensemble
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Modney, violin
Chris Wild, cello

Alan Pierson and Ben Bolter, conductors
Bec Plexus
Bienen Jazz Studies Students
Special Guest Performeres

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

NUNC! is made possible in part by the Sorensen Jacobson Fund for New Music. ​​

The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The settlement of Manhattan Island embodies a complicated legacy marked by the colonization, clash of cultures, displacement of Indigenous and Black communities, and the continuation of this land as a hub for commerce, art, and connection. 

On April 8th, Voices of Ascension will present Voices of Mannahatta at The Church of the Ascension, exploring the history of the land on which the concert hall stands, on the unceded lands of the Munsee Lenape, Mannahatta Island. As part of this program, International Contemporary Ensemble will be performing Raven Chacon's 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning composition Voiceless Mass.

In collaboration with The Eagle Project—NYC's only Lenape-led performing arts organization—this concert will feature the multimedia world premiere by composer Danielle Olana Jagelski (Oneida/Ojibwe). Written for five Indigenous classical singers from the Mvskogee, Acoma Pueblo, Cherokee, Anishinaabe, and Taíno Nations, the composition Holy Ground is accompanied by a five-octave marimba and vibraphone, with video imagery created by visual artist Sage Ahebah Addington (Navajo).

The program will also include Andrew Balfour's Vision Chant, juxtaposed with early Western Renaissance music sung by a 16-voice ensemble and featuring the Church’s Manton Memorial Organ, and Cris Derksen’s Triumph of the Euro-Christ (a United States premiere).

PERSONNEL & PROGRAM

Danielle Jagelski, Artistic Director and Conductor
Hai-Ting Chinn, Curator, Voices of The New
Sage Ahebah Addington, Projection Designer

featuring
the International Contemporary Ensemble
Alice Teyssier, flute
Yezu Woo, violin
Pala Garcia, violin
Kal Sugatski, viola
John Popham, cello
Kebra-Seyoun Charles, bass
Yu-Ting Cheng, clarinet
Kristina Teuschler, bass clarinet
Clara Warnaar, percusison
Colleen Berstein, percussion
The Eagle Project

Works by Raven Chacon and Andrew Balfour
World Premiere by Danielle Jagelski

VOICES OF ASCENSION

Voices of Ascension Chorus & Orchestra, founded in 1990 and directed by conductor Dennis Keene, presents exceptional performances of great works of music for chorus and orchestra. Over the course of its 35-year history, Voices of Ascension has produced an annual concert series, released Grammy-nominated recordings, and engaged in artistic collaborations with the San Francisco Symphony, Mostly Mozart Festival, José Limón Dance, the Mark Morris Dance Group, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and others. Recent performances have been described as 'richly colored, impressive, and beautifully balanced' (Wall Street Journal) and 'inspired' (NY Times).

Dennis Keene, Artistic Director and Conductor of Voices of Ascension, is an internationally renowned conductor. Through his concerts and Grammy-nominated recordings with Voices of Ascension, regular guest appearances as conductor and teacher, and his work as Artistic Director of the Dennis Keene Choral Festival and Voices of Ascension Conductor Academy, he has become one of the preeminent figures in choral music today. Recipient of awards for exceptional artistry from The Juilliard School and Chorus America, Dr. Keene has also served on grants panels for the NEA and NYSCA as well as the board of Chorus America.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The International Contemporary Ensemble performs work by and with four composer-performers from the renowned experimental music collective, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).  Composer-performers from both collectives will work together to create exciting, all-new hybrid compositional-improvisative works. 

Referred to as a “musical power couple” in The New York Times (2017), the music of composer-pianist Adegoke Steve Colson and composer-vocalist Iqua Colson focuses on many facets of the human experience.  Their critically acclaimed performances and recordings illuminate social issues, and have featured such innovators as Reggie Workman, Tyshawn Sorey, Joseph Jarman, David Murray, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Davis and Henry Threadgill, as well as master artists of other disciplines including dancer/choreographer Savion Glover, writer/activist Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and dancer/actress Carmen de Lavallade.  Iqua regularly consults and produces arts based projects. She worked with a team and acclaimed actress Cicely Tyson to design and build the Cicely L. Tyson School of Performing & Fine Arts Campus in New Jersey. She has received awards for initiatives that use the arts as catalyst for educational and/or social change. Iqua worked with tenor saxophone titan Fred Anderson for several years in her early career which contributed to her decision to join the AACM. Her compositions usually center around vocal performance. Adegoke is a decorated composer who has written for large and small ensembles and received several honors and commissions supporting his work in music composition. His commission from Fromm Music Foundation led to his first collaboration with ICE when they premiered his piece Mirrors, for baritone voice and ensemble in New York during their 2023 season. His works for small ensembles have been recorded by such greats as bassist Richard Davis, composer and trumpeter Hannibal and most recently by Andrew Cyrille on his ECM Release, “The News.” Adegoke was honored by his home town November 2018 when he was inducted into The East Orange Hall of Fame, joining several other distinguished E.O. natives in all fields including Althea Gibson, Dionne Warwick, Naughty by Nature, John Amos, and Whitney Houston. Adegoke Steve Colson is a Steinway Artist.

Percussionist-composer Thurman Barker is a recipient of a 2022 NYSCA award for composition and is a Professor Emeritus of Bard College in music and jazz studies. An original member of the AACM, Barker has collaborated closely with other AACM members, including Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill, as well as Sam Rivers and Cecil Taylor. Barker composes music for ensembles large and small, moving beyond genre to reflect the human experience itself.

A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1979, percussionist-composer Reggie Nicholson has twice been nominated for the Alpert Award in the Arts, and his compositions exhibit a keen aware of sound, space, and timbre.  He has performed at many venues around the world, and has released recordings for solo percussion, percussion ensemble, percussion with electronics, and chamber forces. 

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) has, since 1965,  exercised an internationally renowned influence on the development of experimental music. Now in its sixtieth year, with chapters in Chicago and New York, the composite output of AACM members has explored new and influential ideas about timbre, sound, collectivity, extended technique, instrumentation, intermedia, computer music technologies, installations, and kinetic sculptures. 

This performance is made possible through lead support from the Arlene & Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music.

PROGRAM

Adegoke Steve Colson, Counterpoints 1&2 (2017)
Adegoke Steve Colson, Instant Death of the City (1974)
Iqua Colson, Days Go By (2015)
Iqua Colson, Atrocities (2022)
Reggie Nicholson, Variations of a Thought (2024)
Thurman Barker, South Side Suite (2017)
Thurman Barker, Pandemic Fever (2019)

PERFORMERS

Featuring
Adegoke Steve Colson, piano
Iqua Colson, voice
Reggie Nicholson, percussion
Thurman Barker, percussion

with International Contemporary Ensemble
Alice Teyssier, flute
Toyin Spellman-Díaz, oboe
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Daniel Lippel, electric guitar
Jacqueline Kerrod, harp
Leah Asher, violin
Dara Hankins, cello

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The United States Artist, Guggenheim and Rome Prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist Miya Masaoka creates and shares new sounds, sometimes from her own recording inside an object, a plant, or the human body. This Portrait showcases her exploration of the natural world and the bodily perception of vibration, movement, and time, with a world-premiere commission for International Contemporary Ensemble, alongside three recent works that illuminate her consistently innovative artistic practice.

PROGRAM

Miya Masaoka: The Dust and the Noise (2013, rev 2021)
for piano, violin, cello, and percussion
Miya Masaoka: The Horizon Leans Forward (2023)
for string quartet
Miya Masaoka: Into the Landscape of the Shaking Inner Chôra (2025, World Premiere)
for flute, clarinet, french horn, piano, string quintet, percussion, and electronics
Miya Masaoka: Mapping a Joyful Path (2022)
for violin solo and electronics

PERFORMERS

Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Emmalie Tello, flute
Nicolee Kuester, horn
Erika Dohi, piano
Nathan Davis, percussion
Modney, violin
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Clare Monfredo, cello
Randall Zigler, bass

Nicholas Houfek, lighting

Miya Masaoka is a Guggenheim and Rome Prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist. Her work explores the natural world, bodily perception of vibration, movement and time while foregrounding complex timbre relationships. In 2018 she joined the Columbia University Visual Arts Department as an Associate Professor, where she is the director of the Sound Art Program, a joint program with the Computer Music Center. A 2019 Studio Artist for the Park Avenue Armory, Masaoka has also received the Doris Duke Artist Award in 2013, a Fulbright, and an Alpert Award. Her work has been presented at the Venice Biennale, MoMA PS1, Kunstmuseum Bonn, and the Park Avenue Armory. She has been commissioned by and collaborated with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Glasgow Choir, International Contemporary Ensemble (Ensemble Evolution), Bang on a Can, Jack Quartet, Del Sol, MIVOS, Momenta and the S.E.M. Ensemble, and an outdoor installation at the Caramoor, Katonah, New York and at Governors Island. She is a polyglot, and speaks six languages.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

International Contemporary Ensemble: Boulez Rebooted

This cutting-edge concert is a vital part of Carnegie Hall’s Pierre Boulez centennial celebration. The program includes works by Boulez and leading composers inspired by his legacy, including visionary composers Philippe Manoury and the late Kaija Saariaho, as well as 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tyshawn Sorey.  A world premiere will combine the creative forces of the International Contemporary Ensemble with Somax2, the latest breakthrough in responsive AI music technology, developed at IRCAM, Boulez’s world-renowned institute for computer and electro-acoustic music and innovation.

PROGRAM

Kaija Saariaho: Sombre (2012)
      for bass flute, baritone, harp, percussion, and bass
Philippe Manoury: Hypothèse du Sextuor (2011)
      for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, cello, percussion
Tyshawn Sorey: Sentimental Shards (2014)
      for string quartet, two vibraphones, glockenspiel, and piano
Pierre Boulez: Anthèmes II (1997)
      for violin and electronics
PIiages, hommage à Pierre Boulez (2025)
      for ensemble and Somax2 AI electronics
Concept: Gérard Assayag, Levy Lorenzo, International Contemporary Ensemble

PERFORMERS

Will Liverman, voice
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Alice Teyssier, voice and flute
Emmalie Tello, clarinet
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Modney, violin
Wendy Richman, viola
Michael Nicolas, cello
Erika Dohi, piano
Nuiko Wadden, harp
Randy Zigler, bass
Nathan Davis, percussion
Ross Karre, percussion
Levy Lorenzo: Somax2 interactive AI and percussion
Levy Lorenzo & Marco Fiorini: computer music design

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The International Contemporary Ensemble returns to Fridman Gallery with an exciting Ensemble-curated program, featuring works by Yaz Lancaster, Dan Tacke, Mario Diaz De Leon, and ICE members Erin Rogers, Modney, and Isabel Lepanto Gleicher. Join us for our final concert of the calendar year! This event is co-presented with New Ear Inc.

Program

Dan Tacke: Abend (2012)

Yaz Lancaster: Articulated Objects

II. Dibujo sin papel

III. O dentro é o fora (The Inside is the Outside)

Artist Talk: Yaz Lancaster

Isabel Lepanto Gleicher: The Circle (2024, World Premiere)

Modney: Never, never… (2024, World Premiere)

Erin Rogers: The Lone Tenement

Mario Diaz de Leon: Mysterium (2016)

Yaz Lancaster: Prime (2022)

Personnel

Dan Lippel, guitar
Modney, violin
Yaz Lancaster, violin
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Alice Teyssier, flute and voice
Emmalie Tello, clarinet
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Nathan Davis, percussion

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and percussionist and conductor Steven Schick present the world premiere of TOUCH : TRACE, a new work by Zosha Di Castri. TOUCH : TRACE explores the importance of intimacy and human contact in an increasingly isolated world. In musical terms, touch exists in the space between a conductor’s gesture and the sounds the ensemble procures; in the physical contact between the artist and the materiality of their instrument; in the communication between performers; and in the connection between performers and the audience. In this new work, Di Castri investigates the organic and theatrical space of tactile engagement that is at the core of the creation of music.

The remainder of the program has been curated by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble.

PROGRAM

Nyokabi Kariūki: The Colour of Home (2021)
for solo percussion and fixed media
Liza Lim: Inguz (1996)
for clarinet and cello
Nicole Mitchell: Inner Secrets for Cello (2023)
for solo cello
Ellen Reid: Ground to Steel Dust - Uneaten (2018)
for percussion and cello
Michele Abondano: No Construction is Whole (2022)
for bass clarinet, cello, piano, and electronics
Zosha Di Castri: TOUCH : TRACE (2024, World Premiere)
for percussion soloist, clarinet, percussion, keyboard, cello, and electronics

PERFORMERS

Steven Schick, conductor, percussion soloist
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Katinka Kleijn, cello
Erika Dohi, piano
Nathan Davis, percussion

Zosha Di Castri, a Canadian “composer of riotously inventive works” (The New Yorker), currently lives in New York. Her music has been performed across Canada, the United States, South America, Asia, and Europe and extends beyond purely concert music, including projects with electronics, sound arts, and collaborations with video and dance that encourage audiences to feel “compelled to return for repeated doses” (The Arts Desk). She is currently the Francis Goelet Associate Professor of Music at Columbia University and a 2023 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson fellow. Di Castri is a recipient of the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship and was an inaugural fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris in 2018-19.

Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick was born in Iowa and raised in a farming family. For the past thirty years he has championed contemporary percussion music as a performer and teacher, by commissioning and premiering more than one hundred new works for percussion. He was the percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars of New York City from 1992-2002, and from 2000 to 2004 served as Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève in Geneva, Switzerland. Schick is founder and Artistic Director of the percussion group, red fish blue fish. In 2007 he was named Music Director and conductor of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus. Schick founded and is currently artistic director of “Roots and Rhizomes,” an annual summer course on contemporary percussion music held at the Banff Centre for the Arts. In 2011 he was named the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Recent publications include a book on solo percussion music, “The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams, a 3 CD set of the complete percussion music of Iannis Xenakis (Mode) and a 2012 DVD release of the early percussion music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Steven Schick is Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. In 2012 he became the first ever Artist in Residence with the International Contemporary Ensemble.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

This event is a unique international collaboration between ICE and the Paris-based ensemble L'Itineraire, one of the world’s finest ensembles for contemporary music. The concert celebrates a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers from around the world. By presenting perspectives that have historically been missing from academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, this program demonstrates the important role that Afrodiasporic new music is playing as an intercultural, multigenerational space of innovation that offers new subjects, histories, and identities.

There will be a pre-concert discussion with composers Alyssa Regent and Corie Rose Soumah, moderated by Dr. Harald Kisiedu, co-editor, Composing While Black: Afrodiasporic New Music Today. Following the concert, there wll be a reception and book-signing.

This program is a collaboration between International Contemporary Ensemble, the Columbia Paris Global Center, and the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, where ICE Artistic Director George Lewis is currently a Fellow.

This performance is made possible through lead support from the Arlene & Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music.

PROGRAM

Alyssa Regent: Émergence (2024)
Andile Khumalo: Schaufe[r]nster II (2014)
Corie Rose Soumah: Limpidités IV (2022)
Hannah Kendall: when flesh is pressed against the dark (2024)
Levy Lorenzo and Fay Victor: MODIFIED (2024)
Jessie Cox: (Noisy) Black/blackness (Unbounded) (2024)

PERFORMERS

International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, conductor
Joshua Rubin, clarinets
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Levy Lorenzo, percussion and electronics
Jacob Greenberg, piano

in collaboration with L'Itinéraire
Yua Souverbie, flute
Mathilde Lauridon, violin

with guest artists
Damian Norfleet, voice
Weston Olencki, trombone

PARTICIPATING COMPOSERS

Alyssa Regent, Corie Rose Soumah, and Dr. Harald Kisiedu

BIOGRAPHIES

Alyssa Regent is a New York based composer originally from the islands of Guadeloupe. Her works have been performed at thethe Lucerne Music Festival (Switzerland), 77th Composer’s Conference, String Quartet Evolution at the Banff Center (Canada), and New Music on the Point. In 2023, she was awarded the Ascap Morton Gould Young Composer Award.  Regent is inspired by what she calls “the unseen”, seeking to evoke passions and sensations that are deeply rooted in introspection. She harvests from the ethereal, the enigmatic intersections between music and spirituality. She loves to think about music as an exploration of the spiritual and emotional dimensions of the human experience. Her compositions urge listeners to reflect and embrace their emotions; connect with each other during a shared listening experience. Regent studied composition with Suzanne Farrin, David Fulmer, Marcos Balter and George Lewis and is currently pursuing a DMA at Columbia University.   

Corie Rose Soumah is a Canadian composer based in New York, originally from Quebec. She specializes in creating fragmented and reconstructed sounds through hyper-collages and physical gestures, often incorporating Afro-diasporic perspectives. Her work blends various acoustic, electronic, and analog technologies. Soumah’s compositions have been performed by numerous ensembles, including Longleash and Hypercube, and featured at festivals like MATA and Domaine Forget. She has recent collaborations involving saxophones, electronics, and a commission for Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne for the 2025 Forum. Currently pursuing a DMA in composition at Columbia University, Soumah holds a BMus from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, with mentorship from notable composers such as George Lewis and Zosha Di Castri.

Dr. Harald Kisiedu (moderator)is a historical musicologist and saxophonist who received his PhD in historical musicology from Columbia University. His research interests include Afrodiasporic classical and experimental composers, jazz as a global phenomenon, improvisation, music and politics, and Wagner. His writings have appeared in the WIRE, Grove Dictionary of American Music, Critical Studies in Improvisation, and Journal der Künste a. o. He has taught at the University of Music and Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig and the University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück’s Institute of Music. He is the co-editor of Composing While Black:  Afrodiasporic New Music Today (Wolke-Verlag, 2023), and the author of European Echoes: Jazz Experimentalism in Germany, 1950-1975 (Wolke-Verlag, 2020). 

L’ITINERAIRE

L’Itinéraire est l’un des principaux ensembles de musique de création en Europe. Depuis sa fondation en 1973, l’Itinéraire a contribué à l’émergence de la musique spectrale, basée sur l’écoute du son et représentée par les compositeurs Gérard Grisey, Michael Lévinas, Tristan Murail et Hugues Dufourt. Aujourd’hui dirigé par Lucia Peralta, l’Itinéraire s’appuie sur des solistes de très haut niveau dont les talents divers mixent les générations et les pratiques pour oser toutes les limites du son: saturation acoustique, électrification, espaces inouïs de l’électronique, mais aussi improvisation, concerts en plein-air, expérimentations sociétales. Ensemble de renommée internationale, il collabore régulièrement avec l’IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Radio France, les CNCM, et s’est produit aux États-Unis, au Mexique, en Amérique du Sud, en Israël, au Japon et dans la plupart des pays d’Europe.  Largement reconnu comme un lieu d’exploration et de création musicale, L’Itinéraire s’engage à travers trois axes principaux : la création et la diffusion des musiques d’aujourd’hui, la transmission des savoirs au travers d’actions culturelles et de programmes d’insertion professionnelle, ainsi que l’exploration de formats innovants tels que des performances en plein air et des projets in situ, en s’emparant de sujets de société essentiels, comme l’écologie.  

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

This evening is made possible through the generous support of the Columbia Global Paris Center, Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Cornelia G. Bronson Fund in the Department of Music at Columbia University, and the Edwin H. Case Chair in American Music, Columbia University.

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany (HKW, House of World Cultures) is sponsoring the residency “Always, Already There:  An Incubator for Afrodiasporic New Music,” from November 4-10, 2024. The project includes public rehearsals and concerts, workshops, lectures and panel discussions, with the goal of collectively nurturing and developing new modes of expertise on contemporary Afrodiasporic sonic experimentalism, as well as presenting perspectives that have been largely ignored in academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, especially in Europe.  The residency offers professionals, students and the interested public an insight into the work of a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers, and is intended to demonstrate the important role that new music from the African diaspora can play as an intercultural and cross-generational incubator for new themes, stories and identities. 

George Lewis, Professor of American music at Columbia University and artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) from New York, will serve as guest curator for this project. Eight musicians from ICE and twenty composers and sound artists from around the Afrodiasporic world of new music will be participating.

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

November 7, 8:30pm
Decolonial Electronics
International Contemporary Ensemble with Cedrik Fermont, Christina Wheeler, Satch Hoyt, and Corie Rose Soumah

November 8, 8:30pm
Composing While Black, Berlin Edition
International Contemporary Ensemble

November 9, 8:30pm
ICE & Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks         
International Contemporary Ensemble with Elaine Mitchener

November 10, 8:30pm
The Wide-Open Mouth
Com Chor Berlin, directed by Shelly Phillips, and International Contemporary Ensemble

PANELS INCLUDE:

November 4, 6:30pm
Always, Already There: Introduction

November 5, 6:30pm
The Society of Black Composers

November 6, 6:30pm
Decolonizing Electronics

November 7, 6:30pm
African Art Music Today

November 8, 6:30pm
Interdiscipline

November 9, 4:00pm
New Modes of Curation

November 9, 6:30pm
Composing While Black I

November 10, 6:30pm
Composing While Black II

THE WIDE-OPEN MOUTH PROGRAM

Jessica Ekomane: nye (2024, World Premiere)

Anthony R. Green: Connections (2021)

Elaine Mitchener: BloodCircleEarWhistles (2021)

Elaine Mitchener: the/e so/ou/nd be/t/ween (2024, World Premiere)

Fay Victor: Overlap/Seam (2024)

Monthali Masebe: Manzini (2024, World Premiere)

Shelly Phillips: G(r)ain (2024, World Premiere)

Njabulo Phungula: Playground Postcard (2020)

Performers

International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, conductor & bassoon
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Levy Lorenzo, percussion

in collaboration with Com Chor Berlin

with guest performers
Damian Norfleet, voice
Caitlin Edwards, violin

PARTICIPATING COMPOSERS

Leila Adu-Gilmore, Jessie Cox, Daniele Daude, Jessica Ekomane, Douglas R. Ewart, Cedrik Fermont, Anthony R. Green, Satch Hoyt, Nyokabi Kariũki, Hannah Kendall, Andile Khumalo, Harald Kisiedu, George Lewis, Monthati Masebe, Elaine Mitchener, Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, Shelly Phillips, Njabulo Phungula, Alyssa Regent, Corie Rose Soumah, Charles Uzor, Christina Wheeler

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany (HKW, House of World Cultures) is sponsoring the residency “Always, Already There:  An Incubator for Afrodiasporic New Music,” from November 4-10, 2024. The project includes public rehearsals and concerts, workshops, lectures and panel discussions, with the goal of collectively nurturing and developing new modes of expertise on contemporary Afrodiasporic sonic experimentalism, as well as presenting perspectives that have been largely ignored in academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, especially in Europe.  The residency offers professionals, students and the interested public an insight into the work of a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers, and is intended to demonstrate the important role that new music from the African diaspora can play as an intercultural and cross-generational incubator for new themes, stories and identities. 

George Lewis, Professor of American music at Columbia University and artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) from New York, will serve as guest curator for this project. Eight musicians from ICE and twenty composers and sound artists from around the Afrodiasporic world of new music will be participating.

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

November 7, 8:30pm
Decolonial Electronics
International Contemporary Ensemble with Cedrik Fermont, Christina Wheeler, Satch Hoyt, and Corie Rose Soumah

November 8, 8:30pm
Composing While Black, Berlin Edition
International Contemporary Ensemble

November 9, 8:30pm
ICE & Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks         
International Contemporary Ensemble with Elaine Mitchener

November 10, 8:30pm
The Wide-Open Mouth
Com Chor Berlin, directed by Shelly Phillips, and International Contemporary Ensemble

PANELS INCLUDE:

November 4, 6:30pm
Always, Already There: Introduction

November 5, 6:30pm
The Society of Black Composers

November 6, 6:30pm
Decolonizing Electronics

November 7, 6:30pm
African Art Music Today

November 8, 6:30pm
Interdiscipline

November 9, 4:00pm
New Modes of Curation

November 9, 6:30pm
Composing While Black I

November 10, 6:30pm
Composing While Black II

ICE & DOUGLAS R. EWART PROGRAM

Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks (2024, World Premiere)

Performers

Douglas R. Ewart, composer, multi-instrumentalist
Elaine Mitchener, voice

International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Levy Lorenzo, percussion

with guest performer
Damian Norfleet, voice

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany (HKW, House of World Cultures) is sponsoring the residency “Always, Already There:  An Incubator for Afrodiasporic New Music,” from November 4-10, 2024. The project includes public rehearsals and concerts, workshops, lectures and panel discussions, with the goal of collectively nurturing and developing new modes of expertise on contemporary Afrodiasporic sonic experimentalism, as well as presenting perspectives that have been largely ignored in academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, especially in Europe.  The residency offers professionals, students and the interested public an insight into the work of a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers, and is intended to demonstrate the important role that new music from the African diaspora can play as an intercultural and cross-generational incubator for new themes, stories and identities. 

George Lewis, Professor of American music at Columbia University and artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) from New York, will serve as guest curator for this project. Eight musicians from ICE and twenty composers and sound artists from around the Afrodiasporic world of new music will be participating.

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

November 7, 8:30pm
Decolonial Electronics
International Contemporary Ensemble with Cedrik Fermont, Christina Wheeler, Satch Hoyt, and Corie Rose Soumah

November 8, 8:30pm
Composing While Black, Berlin Edition
International Contemporary Ensemble

November 9, 8:30pm
ICE & Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks         
International Contemporary Ensemble with Elaine Mitchener

November 10, 8:30pm
The Wide-Open Mouth
Com Chor Berlin, directed by Shelly Phillips, and International Contemporary Ensemble

PANELS INCLUDE:

November 4, 6:30pm
Always, Already There: Introduction

November 5, 6:30pm
The Society of Black Composers

November 6, 6:30pm
Decolonizing Electronics

November 7, 6:30pm
African Art Music Today

November 8, 6:30pm
Interdiscipline

November 9, 4:00pm
New Modes of Curation

November 9, 6:30pm
Composing While Black I

November 10, 6:30pm
Composing While Black II

Composing while black PROGRAM

Alyssa Regent: Émergence (2024, World Premiere)

Nyokabi Kariũki: The Colour of Home (2021)

Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson: Rotations III (2021)

Leila Adu-Gilmore: Freedom Suite (2024, World Premiere)

Corie Rose Soumah: Limpidités IV (2022)

Hannah Kendall: when flesh is pressed against the dark (2024, World Premiere)

Andile Khumalo: Schaufe[r]nster II (2024, World Premiere)

Charles Uzor: Elegy for Marianne Schatz (2024, World Premiere)

Jessie Cox: (Noisy) Black/blackness (Unbounded) (2024, World Premiere)

Performers

International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, conductor & bassoon
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Levy Lorenzo, percussion

with guest performers
Damian Norfleet, voice
Weston Olencki, trombone
Caitlin Edwards, violin
Rebecca Lane, flute
Leila Adu-Gilmore, piano

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

The Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany (HKW, House of World Cultures) is sponsoring the residency “Always, Already There:  An Incubator for Afrodiasporic New Music,” from November 4-10, 2024. The project includes public rehearsals and concerts, workshops, lectures and panel discussions, with the goal of collectively nurturing and developing new modes of expertise on contemporary Afrodiasporic sonic experimentalism, as well as presenting perspectives that have been largely ignored in academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, especially in Europe.  The residency offers professionals, students and the interested public an insight into the work of a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers, and is intended to demonstrate the important role that new music from the African diaspora can play as an intercultural and cross-generational incubator for new themes, stories and identities. 

George Lewis, Professor of American music at Columbia University and artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) from New York, will serve as guest curator for this project. Eight musicians from ICE and twenty composers and sound artists from around the Afrodiasporic world of new music will be participating.

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

November 7, 8:30pm
Decolonial Electronics
International Contemporary Ensemble with Cedrik Fermont, Christina Wheeler, Satch Hoyt, and Corie Rose Soumah

November 8, 8:30pm
Composing While Black, Berlin Edition
International Contemporary Ensemble

November 9, 8:30pm
ICE & Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks         
International Contemporary Ensemble with Elaine Mitchener

November 10, 8:30pm
The Wide-Open Mouth
Com Chor Berlin, directed by Shelly Phillips, and International Contemporary Ensemble

PANELS INCLUDE:

November 4, 6:30pm
Always, Already There: Introduction

November 5, 6:30pm
The Society of Black Composers

November 6, 6:30pm
Decolonizing Electronics

November 7, 6:30pm
African Art Music Today

November 8, 6:30pm
Interdiscipline

November 9, 4:00pm
New Modes of Curation

November 9, 6:30pm
Composing While Black I

November 10, 6:30pm
Composing While Black II

DECOLONIAL ELECTRONICS PROGRAM

Corie Rose Soumah: States of Intermeshing: Smoke (2024, World Premiere)

Satch Hoyt: Oblation Un-Muted (2024, World Premiere)

Levy Lorenzo & Fay Victor: MODIFIED (2024, World Premiere)

Cedrik Fermont: Point of Convergence (2024, World Premiere)

Christina Wheeler: From the Quarter to the (W)Hole: A Prelude (2024, World Premiere)

Performers

Corie Rose Soumah, electronics
Satch Hoyt, electronics & video
Cedrik Fermont, electronics
Chistina Wheeler, kora, Array mbira, balafon, electronics

International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Levy Lorenzo, percussion

with guest performer
Caitlin Edwards, violin

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

This concert presents unique and exciting new perspectives on the work of Afrodiasporic experimental composers that academic inquiry, concert programming, and journalistic accounts have often ignored. This concert includes works by composers from Nigeria, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Sweden, and the USA, revealing Afrodiasporic new music as an intercultural, multigenerational, and cosmopolitan space of innovation that offers new subjects, histories, and identities.

Grammy-nominated performer and composer Nathalie Joachim will moderate a conversation with George Lewis and select composers.

This performance is made possible through lead support from the Arlene & Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music.

PROGRAM

Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson: Prelude #1 (2020)
for solo cello
Daniel Kidane: Foreign Tongues (2015)
for string quartet
Hannah Kendall: Tuxedo: Diving Bell 2. (2021)
for solo harp
Tebogo Monnakgotla: Wooden Bodies (2020)
for string quartet
Joshua Uzoigwe: Talking Drums: II. Ukom VI. Egwu Amala (1990)
for solo piano
Leila Adu-Gilmore: Alyssum (2014)
for harp and string quartet

PERFORMERS

Nuiko Wadden, harp
Cory Smythe, piano
Modney, violin
Yezu Woo, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Michael Nicolas, cello

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

With the support of a generous grant from the Nexus Awards, Dr. Felipe Lara, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for 2024 and Associate Professor and Chair of Composition at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, will lead Polyaspora, a five-day contemporary music festival, at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. in fall 2024. Hosted by the Peabody Institute and curated by Professor Lara and George Lewis of Columbia University, Polyaspora centers Black and Brazilian perspectives in contemporary music alongside a showcase of new musical works by Peabody Conservatory students. The globally renowned and New York City-based International Contemporary Ensemble will serve as guest performers and educators for the festival. The festival includes three concerts with pre-concert talks at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s state-of-the-art Theatre, and one concert on the Peabody Institute’s Baltimore campus. All four concerts will be free and open to the public. Additional workshops and open rehearsals at Peabody will be open to JHU and Peabody students to attend and participate in. 

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

THE FUTURE IS NOW I & II / September 24, 25
Each of these programs features seven newly composed premieres by Peabody Conservatory students, scored for solo instruments and chamber ensembles.

COMPOSING WHILE BLACK – Afrodiasporic New Music Today / September 26
In tandem with the publication of the bilingual English/German edited volume bearing the same name, edited by Harald Kisiedu and George E. Lewis, this program presents sonically audacious new music by Nicole Mitchell, Jeffrey Mumford, Allison Loggins-Hull, Andile Khumalo, Leila Adu-Gilmore, and Tebogo Monnakgotla.

ANTROPOFAGIA – Brazilian Perspectives / September 27
This program features today’s leading musical voices of the Brazilian diaspora and explores the complexities and intersections of identity, race, history and cultural ethos from within a Brazilian framing. Includes works by Felipe Lara, Jocy de Oliveira, Igor Santos, Marcos Balter, Arthur Kampela, and Michelle Agnes. Pre-Concert Talk with Dr. Alejandro L. Madrid from Harvard University. 

Additional activities include two workshops on open scores led by ICE members and open rehearsals for Peabody students.

Antropofagia PROGRAM

Pre-concert talk with Dr. Alejandro L. Madrid and Felipe Lara

Igor Santos: Carve (2023, rev 2024)
for percussion, piano
Jocy de Oliveira: Nherana (2017)
for oboe, clarinet, percussion, electric guitar, cello, electronics
Marcos Balter: Violin Concerto (2016)
for solo violin, flute, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, percussion, guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello
Arthur Kampela: Percussion Study I (1989-1990)
for solo guitar
Michelle Agnes: Lighter than air (2020)
for violin, viola, cello
Felipe Lara: Mosaic Maze (2024)
for flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, horn, percussion I, percussion II, harp, piano, violin I, violin II, viola, cello

PERFORMERS

David Fulmer, conductor
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Nick Masterson, oboe
Erin Rogers, saxophone
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Kyra Sims, horn
Josh Modney, violin
Pala Garcia, violin
Wendy Richman, viola
John Popham, cello
Nuiko Wadden, harp
Daniel Lippel, guitar
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Dennis Sullivan, percussion
Clara Warnaar, percussion

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

With the support of a generous grant from the Nexus Awards, Dr. Felipe Lara, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for 2024 and Associate Professor and Chair of Composition at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, will lead Polyaspora, a five-day contemporary music festival, at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. in fall 2024. Hosted by the Peabody Institute and curated by Professor Lara and George Lewis of Columbia University, Polyaspora centers Black and Brazilian perspectives in contemporary music alongside a showcase of new musical works by Peabody Conservatory students. The globally renowned and New York City-based International Contemporary Ensemble will serve as guest performers and educators for the festival. The festival includes three concerts with pre-concert talks at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s state-of-the-art Theatre, and one concert on the Peabody Institute’s Baltimore campus. All four concerts will be free and open to the public. Additional workshops and open rehearsals at Peabody will be open to JHU and Peabody students to attend and participate in. 

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

THE FUTURE IS NOW I & II / September 24, 25
Each of these programs features seven newly composed premieres by Peabody Conservatory students, scored for solo instruments and chamber ensembles.

COMPOSING WHILE BLACK – Afrodiasporic New Music Today / September 26
In tandem with the publication of the bilingual English/German edited volume bearing the same name, edited by Harald Kisiedu and George E. Lewis, this program presents sonically audacious new music by Nicole Mitchell, Jeffrey Mumford, Allison Loggins-Hull, Andile Khumalo, Leila Adu-Gilmore, and Tebogo Monnakgotla.

ANTROPOFAGIA – Brazilian Perspectives / September 27
This program features today’s leading musical voices of the Brazilian diaspora and explores the complexities and intersections of identity, race, history and cultural ethos from within a Brazilian framing. Includes works by Felipe Lara, Jocy de Oliveira, Igor Santos, Marcos Balter, Arthur Kampela, and Michelle Agnes. Pre-Concert Talk with Dr. Alejandro L. Madrid from Harvard University. 

Additional activities include two workshops on open scores led by ICE members and open rehearsals for Peabody students.

Composing While Black PROGRAM

Pre-concert talk with Leila Adu-Gilmore

Leila Adu-Gilmore: Alyssum (2014)
for harp and string quartet
Tebogo Monnakgotla: Wooden Bodies (2020)
for string quartet
Jeffrey Mumford: a garden of flourishing paths I (2008)
for flute, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
Allison Loggins-Hull: The Pattern (2020)
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion
Nicole Mitchell: Cult of Electromagnetic Connectivity (2021)
for flue, clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion
Andile Khumalo: Cry Out (2009)
for viola, oboe, piano, and marimba

PERFORMERS

Rebekah Heller, conductor
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Josh Modney, violin
Pala Garcia, violin
Wendy Richman, viola
John Popham, cello
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Dennis Sullivan, percussion
Clara Warnaar, percussion

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

With the support of a generous grant from the Nexus Awards, Dr. Felipe Lara, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for 2024 and Associate Professor and Chair of Composition at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, will lead Polyaspora, a five-day contemporary music festival, at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. in fall 2024. Hosted by the Peabody Institute and curated by Professor Lara and George Lewis of Columbia University, Polyaspora centers Black and Brazilian perspectives in contemporary music alongside a showcase of new musical works by Peabody Conservatory students. The globally renowned and New York City-based International Contemporary Ensemble will serve as guest performers and educators for the festival. The festival includes three concerts with pre-concert talks at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s state-of-the-art Theatre, and one concert on the Peabody Institute’s Baltimore campus. All four concerts will be free and open to the public. Additional workshops and open rehearsals at Peabody will be open to JHU and Peabody students to attend and participate in. 

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

THE FUTURE IS NOW I & II / September 24, 25
Each of these programs features seven newly composed premieres by Peabody Conservatory students, scored for solo instruments and chamber ensembles.

COMPOSING WHILE BLACK – Afrodiasporic New Music Today / September 26
In tandem with the publication of the bilingual English/German edited volume bearing the same name, edited by Harald Kisiedu and George E. Lewis, this program presents sonically audacious new music by Nicole Mitchell, Jeffrey Mumford, Allison Loggins-Hull, Andile Khumalo, Leila Adu-Gilmore, and Tebogo Monnakgotla.

ANTROPOFAGIA – Brazilian Perspectives / September 27
This program features today’s leading musical voices of the Brazilian diaspora and explores the complexities and intersections of identity, race, history and cultural ethos from within a Brazilian framing. Includes works by Felipe Lara, Jocy de Oliveira, Igor Santos, Marcos Balter, Arthur Kampela, and Michelle Agnes. Pre-Concert Talk with Dr. Alejandro L. Madrid from Harvard University. 

Additional activities include two workshops on open scores led by ICE members and open rehearsals for Peabody students.

THE FUTURE IS NOW II (STUDENT WORKS) PROGRAM

Xinglan Deng: That’s the end of winter (2024)
for oboe, alto saxophone, bassoon, harp, piano, and violin
Christopher Thompson: Precipice (2024)
for soprano saxophone, bassoon, horn, piano, and violin
Rodrigo Valente Pascale: escritura (2024)
for oboe, alto saxophone, bassoon, harp, electric guitar, and violin
Alexander Wu: Measure of the wound (2024)
for oboe, alto saxophone, bassoon, horn, and electric guitar
Elena Winell: Avec la Gomme (2024)
for alto saxophone, bassoon, piano, harp, electric guitar, and violin
Jia Yi Lee: Rotations (2024)
for oboe, soprano saxophone, bassoon, horn, electric guitar, and harp
Emma Tucker: Crudely Gilded, Brutally Adorned (2024)
for conductor, oboe, alto saxophone, bassoon, harp, electric guitar, and violin

PERFORMERS

Rebekah Heller, conductor
Nick Masterson, oboe
Erin Rogers, saxophone
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Kyra Sims, horn
Josh Modney, violin
Nuiko Wadden, harp
Daniel Lippel, guitar
Jacob Greenberg, piano

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

With the support of a generous grant from the Nexus Awards, Dr. Felipe Lara, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for 2024 and Associate Professor and Chair of Composition at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, will lead Polyaspora, a five-day contemporary music festival, at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. in fall 2024. Hosted by the Peabody Institute and curated by Professor Lara and George Lewis of Columbia University, Polyaspora centers Black and Brazilian perspectives in contemporary music alongside a showcase of new musical works by Peabody Conservatory students. The globally renowned and New York City-based International Contemporary Ensemble will serve as guest performers and educators for the festival. The festival includes three concerts with pre-concert talks at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s state-of-the-art Theatre, and one concert on the Peabody Institute’s Baltimore campus. All four concerts will be free and open to the public. Additional workshops and open rehearsals at Peabody will be open to JHU and Peabody students to attend and participate in. 

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:

THE FUTURE IS NOW I & II / September 24, 25
Each of these programs features seven newly composed premieres by Peabody Conservatory students, scored for solo instruments and chamber ensembles.

COMPOSING WHILE BLACK – Afrodiasporic New Music Today / September 26
In tandem with the publication of the bilingual English/German edited volume bearing the same name, edited by Harald Kisiedu and George E. Lewis, this program presents sonically audacious new music by Nicole Mitchell, Jeffrey Mumford, Allison Loggins-Hull, Andile Khumalo, Leila Adu-Gilmore, and Tebogo Monnakgotla.

ANTROPOFAGIA – Brazilian Perspectives / September 27
This program features today’s leading musical voices of the Brazilian diaspora and explores the complexities and intersections of identity, race, history and cultural ethos from within a Brazilian framing. Includes works by Felipe Lara, Jocy de Oliveira, Igor Santos, Marcos Balter, Arthur Kampela, and Michelle Agnes. Pre-Concert Talk with Dr. Alejandro L. Madrid from Harvard University. 

Additional activities include two workshops on open scores led by ICE members and open rehearsals for Peabody students.

The Future is now i (student works) PROGRAM

Zac Fick-Cambria: Res ipsa loquitur (2024)
for solo harp
Jaze Matteo Wharton: Lacky (2024)
for solo electric guitar
Zhishu Chang: Rosonantia Circuli (2024)
for solo bassoon
Zixuan Chen: Fractures (2024)
for solo viola
Antonio Sanz Escallón: Etchings (2024)
for solo oboe
Caleb J Abner: History and No Lies (2024)
for solo horn

PERFORMERS

Nick Masterson, oboe
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Kyra Sims, horn
Wendy Richman, viola
Nuiko Wadden, harp
Daniel Lippel, guitar

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

A 2023 MacArthur Fellow, Courtney Bryan is a brilliant pianist and groundbreaking composer who received her doctorate in composition at Columbia University in 2014. Her music is layered with musical genres including jazz, gospel, and experimental music. We’ll be joined by Quince Ensemble to perform a program of recent works, including Requiem, a powerful five-movement work bridging end-of-life rituals from a spectrum of traditions.

PROGRAM

Courtney Bryan: Requiem (2019)
for four sopranos and chamber ensemble
Courtney Bryan: Blessed (2020)
for voice and piano with a film by Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Courtney Bryan: DREAMING (Freedom Sounds) (2023)
for large ensemble and two voices

PERFORMERS

Rebekah Heller, conductor
Alice Teyssier, voice
Damian Norfleet, voice
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Gareth Flowers, trumpet
T. J. Robinson, trombone
Kyle Turner, tuba
Josh Modney, violin
Yezu Woo, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Clare Monfredo, cello
Courtney Bryan, piano
Kebra-Seyoun Charles, acoustic bass
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Nicholas Houfek, lighting

Courtney Bryan, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is “a pianist and
composer of panoramic interests” (New York Times). She is a 2023
MacArthur Fellow, and currently serves as composer-in-residence with
Opera Philadelphia. Recent awards include the Herb Alpert Award in the
Arts (2018), Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition (2019
2020), United States Artists Fellowship (2020), and the Civitella Ranieri
Foundation Fellowship (2020–2021). She is the Albert and Linda Mintz
Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts at
Tulane University.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE

Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists.  Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

CREDITS

​​The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.