OpenICE 2016, presented in collaboration with Illinois Humanities, is a program designed to bring every aspect of ICE's artist-curated and ensemble-commissioned music-making—performances, commissions, videos, workshops, hands-on educational activities, blogs, and community gatherings, as well as ICE’s work behind the scenes—out into the open for the benefit of new audiences, and all for free. 

This performance of the threshing floor — a 20-minute work for amplified tenor saxophone, amplified percussion, and electronics completed in 2014 — marks ICE’s first Chicago presentation of music by UK-based Costa Rican composer Mauricio Pauly. The work is Pauly’s statement piece—ambient and linear at the same time, embracing the listener in an utterly beautiful sound world with distant sightings of noise, trash, and drones. The sounds of two familiar instruments are amplified and sent though guitar pedals, nearly unrecognizable by the time they reach audience ears. The saxophonist brings on amplification feedback through the placement of a microphone aimed at instrument’s bell and, as the percussionist controls the ebb and flow of feedback by bringing the microphone close to different areas of a drum’s skin, the listeners—completely enveloped within a ring a speakers—can almost feel the embrace of the sound on their own skin.  ICE dream team Claire Chase (flute), Ryan Muncy (saxophone), Ross Karre (percussion), and Levy Lorenzo (electronics) bring the work to life. 

Mauricio Pauly: the threshing floor (2015) for percussion, tenor sax and electronics

Erin Gee: Mouthpiece XXIV (2015) for percussion, tenor sax and amplification CHICAGO PREMIERE

Natacha Diels: An Economy of Means (2015) for miniature drumset and electronics

Marcos Balter: Strohbass (2012) for baritone sax and bass flute

Marcos Balter: Pessoa (2013) for bass flute and electronics

Marcos Balter: Alone (2014) for solo flute

ICE’s 2015-16 Chicago performances are made possible by generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Foundation, The Irving Harris Foundation, The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, New Music USA, The Amphion Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the BMI Foundation, the Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research at the Eastman School of Music, the National Endowment for the Arts, and through a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.