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Press Releases
Mar. 24: Orchestra of St. Luke’s Presents Two World Premieres by Anna Clyne, Including New Film by Jyll Bradley
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
Orchestra of St. Luke’s Presents
Two World Premieres by Anna Clyne
Strange Loops for Clarinet Quintet, Inspired by Douglas
Hofstadter’s book I Am a Strange Loop
Woman Holding a Balance, New Music for String Quartet
Set to a Film by Artists Jyll Bradley and David Ward
Sounds & Stories: Anna Clyne and Jyll Bradley
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 6:30pm ET
Streaming Live at OSLmusic.org
"Entertaining, ingenious, and unpredictable. That’s Anna Clyne.” – BBC Record Review
New York, NY (February 16, 2021) – On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 6:30pm ET, Orchestra of St. Luke’s presents Sounds & Stories: Anna Clyne and Jyll Bradley, a live streamed performance that features two world premieres by composer Anna Clyne – Strange Loops for Clarinet Quintet and Woman Holding a Balance for String Quartet with a film by artists Jyll Bradley and David Ward. The program, curated by Clyne and narrated by Bradley and Clyne, also includes selections from J.S. Bach’s Three Part Inventions and Art of the Fugue and Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint.
Clyne’s 17 minute Strange Loops for Clarinet Quintet is based on a concept developed by cognitive science scholar Douglas Hofstadter in his book I am a Strange Loop, where he explores his own sense of “I.” Hofstadter writes, “In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference.” In Strange Loops, Clyne explores musical loops – motifs and gestures that repeat, morph, modulate, and recapitulate in various guises. At the heart of this piece is a sense of playfulness and yearning – inspired by the creative process in isolation.
The world premiere of artist Jyll Bradley’s seven minute film, Woman Holding a Balance, features new music for string quartet composed by Clyne. The film centers upon a performance work artist David Ward made in response to Bradley’s sculpture Dutch/Light. Ward revisited his first love as a young art student – the paintings of Dutch artist Joannes Vermeer (1632-1675), who is well known for his use of light as a framing device for ideas around time, human interiority, and space. In the film, shot over one sun-filled day, Ward loops in and out of the sculpture performing gestures from the subjects of Vermeer's paintings. This film brings together three artists from different generations and times whose work shares the languages of light and space.
In Orchestra of St. Luke’s Sounds & Stories series, chamber music is paired with words in performances curated by dynamic, modern writers working across multiple genres and hosted by Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce.
Program Information
Sounds & Stories: Anna Clyne and Jyll Bradley (Livestream)
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 6:30pm ET
Tickets: Pay what you can from $1-$100 ($40 suggested price)
Link: https://oslmusic.org/event/
Program:
J.S. Bach – Selected Three Part Inventions
Steve Reich – New York Counterpoint
J.S. Bach – Contrapunctus I-IV from Art of the Fugue
Anna Clyne – Strange Loops (World Premiere)
Jyll Bradley, David Ward, Anna Clyne – Woman Holding a Balance (World Premiere)
About Anna Clyne
London-born Anna Clyne is a GRAMMY-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a New York Times profile and as “fearless” by NPR, Clyne’s work often includes collaborations with cutting-edge choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians.
Clyne has been commissioned by a wide range of ensembles and institutions, including BBC Radio 3, BBC Scottish Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Houston Ballet, London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and the Southbank Centre. Her work has been championed by such world-renowned conductors as Pablo Heras-Casado, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Andre´ de Ridder, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Va¨nska¨, and Marin Alsop, who praised Clyne, stating: “Anna Clyne is someone I look to for great music. It’s always emotional and driven by her heart, but skillfully composed.
From 2010–2015, Clyne served as a Mead Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Music Director Riccardo Muti lauded Clyne as “an artist who writes from the heart, who defies categorization, and who reaches across all barriers and boundaries. Her compositions are meant to be played by great musicians and heard by enthusiastic audiences no matter what their background.” She has also been in residence with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre national d’I^le-de- France, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Berkeley Symphony, and National Sawdust. Clyne serves as the mentor composer for the Orchestra of St Luke's DeGaetano Composer Institute. Clyne is currently serving a three-year residency as Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, through the 2020-2021 season. The residency includes plans for a series of new works commissioned over three years.
Several upcoming projects explore Clyne’s fascination with visual arts, including Color Field for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, inspired by the artwork of Mark Rothko; and Between the Rooms, a film with choreographer Kim Brandstrup and LA Opera. Other upcoming premieres include A Thousand Mornings for the Fidelio Trio; Fractured Time for the Kaleidoscope Ensemble; and Overflow for wind ensemble, inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson, composed for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Clyne is the recipient of the 2016 Hindemith Prize; a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation; and prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS. She was nominated for the 2014 Times Breakthrough Award (UK).
Clyne’s music is represented on AVIE Records, Cantaloupe Music, Cedille, MajorWho Media, New Amsterdam, Resound, Tzadik, and VIA labels. In October 2020, AVIE Records released Clyne's Mythologies, a portrait album featuring the works Masquerade, This Midnight Hour, The Seamstress, Night Ferry, and <<rewind<<, recorded live by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with soloists Jennifer Koh and Irene Buckley and conductors Marin Alsop, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton, and Andre´ de Ridder. Recent releases include DANCE featuring Inbal Segev, Marin Alsop, and the London Philharmonic; The Violin, an album of her works for multi-tracked violins with animations by artist Josh Dorman; Blue Moth, an album of her instrumental music for ensemble and tape; Night Ferry with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti; and Prince of Clouds featuring Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra on Cedille Records. Prince of Clouds was nominated for a 2015 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Composition and Night Ferry was nominated the same year for Best Engineered Album (Classical).
Clyne's music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. boosey.com/clyne. Learn more at www.annaclyne.com.
About Jyll Bradley
Jyll Bradley’s installations, films, drawings and sculptures bring together the formal vigour of Minimalism with a highly personal exploration of identity and place. Light is an important protagonist in her practice, and she talks of using it to “bring things into the present.” Her work combines craftsperson-ship with industrial fabrication through dynamic pairings of materials from different art histories or traditions – for instance fluorescent Edge-Lit Plexiglas with repurposed timber.
Bradley’s work often engages with site and the creation of new spaces. Her acclaimed public realm commissions – including Green/Light (for M.R.) for The Folkestone Triennial and Dutch/Light for Turner Contemporary – reference generative structures such as hop gardens and glasshouses, expressing what she sees as the practical, spiritual and emotional work involved in growing a sense of self, place or community. Bradley’s works have increasingly become sites of activity such as performance and, over 2021, this is further developed through the creation of a new suite of films which explore their world and ecology. These innovations reflect Bradley’s interest in sculpture as a potent gathering place of people and ideas.
Jyll Bradley studied at Goldsmiths College (1985–88) and The Slade (1991–3). Since the early 1990s she has exhibited in the UK and internationally including: The British Art Show, Hayward Gallery, London (1990); Museo De Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia (2004); Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, China (2004); Arnolfini, Bristol, (2005); the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2008); Newlyn Art Gallery (The Exchange), Penzance (2010); the Bluecoat, Liverpool (2011); The National Library of Australia (2013); The Drawing Room, London (2015, 2017, 2019, 2021); New Art Centre, Roche Court (2017); Sculpture in the City, London (2018, 2019, 2020). Her forthcoming exhibitions include a solo presentation at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh in 2021.
Bradley’s work is held in numerous national and international private and public collections including the Government Art Collection, UK; Folkestone Art Works, UK, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the National Library of Australia and Canberra Museum and Art Gallery. Learn more at http://jyllbradley.com/
About St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, OSL & the DiMenna Center for Classical Music
St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble was founded in 1974, when a group of virtuoso musicians began performing chamber concerts at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields. Today, the 24 ensemble musicians make up the artistic core of Orchestra of St. Luke’s, pairing beloved chamber works with lesser-known gems in OSL’s Chamber Music Series and anchoring almost every program presented by the orchestra. Regular seasons also see OSL perform in diverse musical genres at New York’s major concert venues, drawing on an expanded roster for large-scale works, and collaborating with artists ranging from Joshua Bell and Renée Fleming to Bono and Metallica. The orchestra has commissioned more than 50 new works and has given more than 175 world, U.S., and New York City premieres, as well as participating in 118 recordings, four of which have been recognized with Grammy Awards. Internationally celebrated for his expertise in 18th-century music, Bernard Labadie was appointed as OSL’s Principal Conductor in 2018, continuing the orchestra’s long tradition of working with proponents of historical performance practice. Built and operated by OSL, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music opened in 2011. New York City’s only rehearsal, recording, education and performance space expressly dedicated to classical music, it serves more than 500 ensembles and 30,000 musicians each year. Learn more at www.oslmusic.org.
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