Photo by Taylor Hunter
A 2023 MacArthur Fellow, Courtney Bryan is a brilliant pianist and groundbreaking composer who received her doctorate in composition at Columbia University in 2014. Her music is layered with musical genres including jazz, gospel, and experimental music. We’ll be joined by Quince Ensemble to perform a program of recent works, including Requiem, a powerful five-movement work bridging end-of-life rituals from a spectrum of traditions.
PROGRAM
Courtney Bryan: Requiem (2019)
for four sopranos and chamber ensemble
Courtney Bryan: Blessed (2020)
for voice and piano with a film by Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Courtney Bryan: DREAMING (Freedom Sounds) (2023)
for large ensemble and two voices
PERFORMERS
Rebekah Heller, conductor
Alice Teyssier, voice
Damian Norfleet, voice
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Gareth Flowers, trumpet
T. J. Robinson, trombone
Kyle Turner, tuba
Josh Modney, violin
Yezu Woo, violin
Kyle Armbrust, viola
Clare Monfredo, cello
Courtney Bryan, piano
Kebra-Seyoun Charles, acoustic bass
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Nicholas Houfek, lighting
Courtney Bryan, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is “a pianist and
composer of panoramic interests” (New York Times). She is a 2023
MacArthur Fellow, and currently serves as composer-in-residence with
Opera Philadelphia. Recent awards include the Herb Alpert Award in the
Arts (2018), Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition (2019
2020), United States Artists Fellowship (2020), and the Civitella Ranieri
Foundation Fellowship (2020–2021). She is the Albert and Linda Mintz
Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts at
Tulane University.
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, 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.