International Contemporary Ensemble Introduces Vision for a Musical Polyaspora at TIME:SPANS 2023
on August 31, 2023 at 6:00 am
As the new artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble, George Lewis aspires for the ensemble to be “nothing less than a new consciousness for new music” that embraces the concept of “polyaspora” through “gender, ethnicity, race, musical directions, aesthetics, and geography.” Lewis succeeds co-artistic directors Rebekah Heller, Ross Karre, and Joshua Rubin, who led the ensemble following the departure of Claire Chase, the ensemble’s co-founder and flutist of more than two decades. He was unable to attend the ensemble’s Aug. 25 performance at the 2023 TIME:SPANS festival, but his remarks were read from the stage at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music by the ensemble’s executive director, Jennifer Kessler. During his tenure with the ensemble, Lewis is proposing an intercultural and multigenerational approach to new music, regenerated by “new subjects, histories, and identities.”
Read the entire article here