The International Contemporary Ensemble announced today that at the end of March, after serving for five years as its Executive Director, Jennifer Kessler will leave the Ensemble for a new position in arts philanthropy.
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 us all to to reimagine how we experience contemporary music and sound.
“Working with ICE has been the privilege of my professional life, and it is with great emotion that I’m moving on from this role,” said Ms. Kessler. “The International Contemporary Ensemble will continue to be the gold standard for nonprofit excellence. There are very few places that not only welcome change and innovation but demand it.”
ICE’s Artistic Director, the renowned composer, trombonist, musicologist, and Columbia Professor of Music George Lewis, said: “Jennifer Kessler is a figure of leadership, vision, and tenacity with whom I developed an extraordinary synergy. Her commitment to the evolving, complex, creolized landscape of new music has had few peers. I will miss her, and we all wish her the very best in her new endeavor.”
George Lewis, Arlene Dunn, Larry Dunn, Courtney Bryan, and Jennifer Kessler after the Composing While Black performance, 2023, photo by Digitice
During Ms. Kessler’s tenure, ICE produced groundbreaking commissions and performances from an extraordinary roster of composers and artists, including Du Yun, Tyshawn Sorey, Julia Bullock, Marcos Balter, Felipe Lara, Courtney Bryan, Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Henry Threadgill, the Iranian Female Composer’s Association, Adegoke Steve Colson, and many others. She also oversaw improvements to ICE’s programs for early career composers, including doubling the applicant pool for the Call For____ sound creator commissioning program, bringing ICE’s weeklong intensive Ensemble Evolution for emerging sound artists in person to the New School’s College of Performing Arts, and deepening a partnership with the BMI Foundation to premiere commissions from recipients of their Composer’s Awards.
Ms. Kessler oversaw ICE’s Artistic Director transition from instrumentalists Ross Karre and Rebekah Heller to George Lewis, and fully supported his vision for ICE as an essential agent to amplify the presence of Afrodiasporic composers on the world’s stages. She spearheaded transformational initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic, forming a change-minded Curation Task Force of artists, convening an influential series of New Music Town Halls, and securing a $1 million grant, over five years, from the Mellon Foundation for “A Strategy for Post-Pandemic Recovery: to support ICEensemble collaborations and mentorship of creators and artists.”
Ensemble Member and former Co-Artistic Director Rebekah Heller added: “For the last half decade Jennifer Kessler has led the International Contemporary Ensemble not only with brilliant ideas, but with her heart—knitting together our community of artists, listeners, and change-makers with kindness, curiosity, and extraordinary faith in the work that we do.”
The International Contemporary Ensemble wishes Ms. Kessler the very best in her new position. The Ensemble expects to announce the appointment of a new Executive Director during Spring 2025.
Further questions may be directed to:
icicle@iceorg.org