Due to restrictions placed on gathering, The Month of Moderns 2020 is canceled.
Artwork designed by Christopher St. John
www.christophermichaelstjohn.com
Insta - @christopherst.john
pre-concert talk with Donald and Daniel at 6pm in the Burleigh Cruikshank Memorial Chapel
“A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness.”
A world premiere from Daniel Felsenfeld on texts of Edward Gibbon, Susan Sontag, Thomas Paine, Saul Alinsky, James Baldwin, Cleve Jones, William T. Vollman, and Christopher Hitchens with The Crossing.
Blunt Movements: Rising Down is a new kind of mass: it takes the vivid text of Edward Gibbon’s epoch-making (and epoch-explaining) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as the “Ordinary” of this unconventional setting. To this, Daniel Felsenfeld adds tropes: texts of radical 20th- and 21st-century thinkers — from the early rationalism of Thomas Paine, through the queer activism of Cleve Jones and James Baldwin, to the riotous skepticism of Christopher Hitchens.
Performers
International Contemporary Ensemble
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Nick Masterson, oboe
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
David Byrd-Marrow, horn
Gareth Flowers, trumpet
Michael Lormand, trombone
Nathan Davis, percussion
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Jennifer Curtis, violin
Michele Ross, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Mariel Roberts, cello
TBA, bass
Performances and commissioning activities during the 2019-20 concert season are made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Pacific Harmony Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, mediaThe foundation inc., The Casement Fund, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the 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 Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency. The International Contemporary Ensemble is the Ensemble in Residence of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.