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