Photo by Seth Cluett
This event celebrates a new generation of Afrodiasporic composers and their diverse modes of sonic experimentalism. By presenting perspectives that have historically been missing from academic research, concert programs, and journalistic coverage, this program demonstrates 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. This program is a collaboration between International Contemporary Ensemble, the Columbia Paris Global Center, and the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, where ICE Artistic Director George Lewis is currently a Fellow.
PROGRAM
Alyssa Regent: Émergence (2024)
Andile Khumalo: Schaufe[r]nster II (2014)
Corie Rose Soumah: Limpidités IV (2022)
Hannah Kendall: when flesh is pressed against the dark (2024)
Jessie Cox: (Noisy) Black/blackness (Unbounded) (2024)
Levy Lorenzo: MODIFIED (2024)
PERFORMERS
International Contemporary Ensemble
Rebekah Heller, conductor
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Fay Victor, voice
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Levy Lorenzo, percussion
Jacob Greenberg, piano
in collaboration with L'Itinéraire
with guest artists
Damian Norfleet, voice
Weston Olencki, trombone
PARTICIPATING COMPOSERS
Alyssa Regent and Corie Rose Soumah
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
This evening is made possible through the generous support of the Columbia Global Paris Center, Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Cornelia G. Bronson Fund in the Department of Music at Columbia University, and the Edwin H. Case Chair in American Music, Columbia University.
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.