Photo by Molly Miles
Members of International Contemporary Ensemble and Douglas R. Ewart will join Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra for their annual festival, GIOfest. The program includes improvisations as well as works by composer and interdisciplinary artist Douglas R. Ewart, whose wide-ranging practice has always been inextricably associated with Jamaican culture, history, politics, and the land itself.
PROGRAM
November 28, 2024
Hybrid Piece
improvised performance with live musicians as well as musicians from GIO's global community via Zoom
George Lewis: High Road, Low Road
Jessica Argo: Short Film
Maggie Nicols: New Work (2024)
Free Piece (20 mins)
fully-improvised piece in collaboration with GIO.
November 29, 2024
Mario & Gerry Rossi: Road Movie
film by GIO members Mario and Gerry Rossi that will be paired with musical improvisation.
Fay Victor: Flow to the Next
Jessica Argo: Short Film
Douglas R. Ewart: Concentric
Surbhi Mittal: New Work (2024)
Free Piece
November 30, 2024
Raymond MacDonald & Christian Ferliano: This is Our Thing
Small Group Improvisations
Jessica Argo: Short Film
Small Group Improvisations
Free Piece
PERFORMERS
International Contemporary Ensemble
Fay Victor, voice
Jonathan Finalyson, trumpet
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Kyle Armbrust, viola
in collaboration with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra
with featured artist Douglas R. Ewart
DOUGLAS R. EWART
The polymath Douglas R. Ewart has been honored for his work as a composer, musician, improvising multi-instrumentalist, conceptual artist, sculptor, mask and instrument designer, builder, philosopher and more. As an educator, Ewart bridges his kaleidoscopic activities with a vision that opposes today’s divided world by culture-fusing works that aim to restore the wholeness of communities and their members, and to emphasize the reality of the world’s interdependence. From Kingston Jamaica, Ewart immigrated to Chicago and connected with Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians—he later served as chairman from 1979-1987 and into the millennium.
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.
GLASGOW IMPROVISERS ORCHESTRA
Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra is a large improvising ensemble of around 20 musicians from diverse artistic backgrounds ranging from free improvisation, jazz, classical, folk, pop and experimental musics to performance art. Since its inaugural project in 2002, the Orchestra has established an international reputation and garnered critical acclaim for its innovative projects and its exploration of improvised music. A host of collaborations with world-renowned improvisers and other ensembles have expanded the band’s artistic horizons and given rise to musical connections throughout the world.
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.