The Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany (HKW, House of World Cultures) is sponsoring the residency “Always, Already There: An Incubator for Afrodiasporic New Music,” from November 4-10, 2024. The project includes public rehearsals and concerts, workshops, lectures and panel discussions, with the goal of collectively nurturing and developing new modes of expertise on contemporary Afrodiasporic sonic experimentalism, as well as presenting perspectives that have been largely ignored in academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, especially in Europe. The residency offers professionals, students and the interested public an insight into the work of a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers, and is intended to demonstrate the important role that new music from the African diaspora can play as an intercultural and cross-generational incubator for new themes, stories and identities.
George Lewis, Professor of American music at Columbia University and artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) from New York, will serve as guest curator for this project. Eight musicians from ICE and twenty composers and sound artists from around the Afrodiasporic world of new music will be participating.
PROGRAMS INCLUDE:
November 7, 8:30pm
Decolonial Electronics
International Contemporary Ensemble with Cedrik Fermont, Christina Wheeler, Satch Hoyt, and Corie Rose Soumah
November 8, 8:30pm
Composing While Black, Berlin Edition
International Contemporary Ensemble
November 9, 8:30pm
ICE & Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks
International Contemporary Ensemble with Elaine Mitchener
November 10, 8:30pm
The Wide-Open Mouth
Com Chor Berlin, directed by Shelly Phillips, and International Contemporary Ensemble
PANELS INCLUDE:
November 4, 6:30pm
Always, Already There: Introduction
November 5, 6:30pm
The Society of Black Composers
November 6, 6:30pm
Decolonizing Electronics
November 7, 6:30pm
African Art Music Today
November 8, 6:30pm
Interdiscipline
November 9, 4:00pm
New Modes of Curation
November 9, 6:30pm
Composing While Black I
November 10, 6:30pm
Composing While Black II
ICE & DOUGLAS R. EWART PROGRAM
Douglas R. Ewart: Sonic Networks (2024, World Premiere)
Performers
Douglas R. Ewart, composer, multi-instrumentalist
Elaine Mitchener, voice
International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Levy Lorenzo, percussion
with guest performer
Damian Norfleet, voice
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.