International Contemporary Ensemble gives the world premiere performance of two new works by Lesley Mok and Chris Ryan Williams at Joe’s Pub alongside a solo set by Lesley Mok, and Fay Victor’s Flow to the Next on Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 7:00pm. Commissioned by ICEensemble as part of their 2021-2022 “Call for __” Commissions Program, the new works include Mok’s Stilled leaf-chatter and Williams’s Odu: vibration 1.
Lesley Mok’s stilled leaf-chatter emerges from the improvisational sensibilities of violinist edi kwon, pianist Cory Smythe, and guitarist Dan Lippel. The piece is an attempt to find a poetic resonance in the simultaneity of individual expressions. Her solo set, Hologram: becoming visible to myself, creates an environment in which various sonic artifacts from my life are presented in relationship to one another. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage theory that describes how infants learn to identify emerging perceptions of selfhood, the artifacts create a hologram of my life and project a self to whom this image is recognizable. Hologram is a refusal to accept feelings of fragmentation and alienation within myself and attempts to create unity between the self that I see and my mirror image.
Chris Ryan Williams’ Odu: vibration 1 brings together vocalist Fay Victor, bassoonist Rebekah Heller, and Lester St. Louis on electronics. The piece creates a sense of intimacy (telling stories by a fire pit, gathering around a grandmother's kitchen) focusing on Rebekah Heller and Fay Victor as a duo. The setting and pre-recorded materials focus on their memories and create an intimate setting at Joe’s Pub, accompanied by a light sculpture created by Chris Ryan Williams and Josephine Wang.
Fay Victor’s FLOW TO THE NEXT (2020) is an interdisciplinary performance work for mixed ensembles - large or small. Players are asked to bring in text for this work and create an individual path through the score using melody, text and improvisation. The player aims to create a seamless fluidity through their chosen path all the while listening and interacting with the wider ensemble to feel the application of their specific approaches. Because the players have agency in the ‘Flow’ and the choice of text materials, performances of FLOW TO THE NEXT will never be the same.
PROGRAM
Fay Victor: FLOW TO THE NEXT (2020)
Lesley Mok: stilled leaf-chatter (2022)
Lesley Mok: Hologram: becoming visible to myself (2022)
Chris Williams: Odu: Vibration 1 (2022)
PERFORMERS
Fay Victor, voice
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Chris Williams, trumpet
Lesley Mok, drum set
Cory Smythe, piano
Dan Lippel, guitar
edi kwon, violin
Lester St. Louis, cello, electronics, sound design
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.