International Contemporary Ensemble showcases the works of composer and newly named ICEensemble Artistic Director George Lewis at the 2022 TIME:SPANS Festival at Mary Flagler Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music on Saturday, August 20, 2022 at 7:30pm. The program includes the world premiere performance of Lewis’ Melodies for Miles along with his Thistledown and Creative Construction SetTM. Additional works on the program include Black as a Hack for Cyborgification by Jessie Cox, Cult of Electromagnetic Connectivity by Nicole Mitchell, and Delta Blues by Wadada Leo Smith.
The TIME:SPANS Festival was established in 2015 by the The Earle Brown Music Foundation and is dedicated to the presentation of primarily twenty-first century music.
Program:
George Lewis - Melodies for Miles (2022)
Jessie Cox - Black as a Hack for Cyborgification (2020)
Nicole Mitchell - Cult of Electromagnetic Connectivity (2021)
George Lewis - Thistledown (2012)
Wadada Leo Smith - Delta Blues (1999)
George Lewis - Creative Construction SetTM (2015)
Artists:
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Josh Modney, violin
eddy kwon, violin and voice
Chris Gross, cello
Michael Nicolas, cello
Nicole Mitchell, flute
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Ross Karre, percussion
Levy Lorenzo, percussion
Lesley Mok, percussion
Dan Lippel, guitar
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Fay Victor, voice
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS:
GEORGE LEWIS
George Lewis, Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University, is an American composer, musicologist, computer-installation artist, and trombonist. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Lewis is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. Other honors include the Doris Duke Artist Award (2019), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), and a MacArthur Fellowship (2002). His music is performed worldwide, and he is widely regarded as a pioneer in the creation of improvising computer programs. He is the author of A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press) and co-editor of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies. Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, New College of Florida, and Harvard University.
JESSIE COX
One of the world’s most brazenly experimental composers, Swiss artist Jessie Cox makes music about the universe - and our future in it. Through avant-garde classical, experimental jazz, and sound art, he has devised his own strand of musical science fiction, one that asks where we go next. For the last decade, his music has been marked by its freeness; his embrace of otherness has led to a body of work described by the LA Times as ‘some of the most experimental music, not just of the day, but the season’.
NICOLE MITCHELL
Nicole M. Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator. She is perhaps best known for her work as a flutist, having developed a unique improvisational language and having been repeatedly awarded “Top Flutist of the Year” by Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association (2010-2017). Mitchell initially emerged from Chicago’s innovative music scene in the late 90s, and her music celebrates contemporary African American culture. She is the founder of Black Earth Ensemble, Black Earth Strings, Sonic Projections and Ice Crystal, and she composes for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size, while incorporating improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression.
WADADA LEO SMITH
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser is one of the most acclaimed creative artists of his times, both for his music and his writings. For the last five decades, Mr. Smith has been a member of the historical and legendary AACM collective. He distinctly defines his music as “Creative Music.” Mr. Smith’s diverse discography reveals a recorded history centered around important issues that have impacted his world.
INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE
With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored the Ensemble’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present.
Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), the Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble’s composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble’s founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.
CREDITS
The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2022-23 concert season are made possible by the generous support of many individuals as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., MAP Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, New Music USA’s New Music Organizational Development Fund, 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. The International Contemporary Ensemble was the Ensemble in Residence of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology from 2018-2021. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.