Ensemble for These Times Announces the Fourth Interview in its 2021 #MeetTheArtist Interview Series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 25, 2021

Ensemble for These Times

Announces the Fourth Interview in its

2021 #MeetTheArtist Interview Series

with
Month-long Spotlights on BIPOC Artists:

April 2021, with inti figgis-vizueta

San Francisco, CA—San Francisco contemporary music chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) is proud to continue its greatly expanded, ambitious second season of its “#MeetTheArtist” interview series, which started on January 4, 2021, and focuses on BIPOC composers and musicians.  Each month, E4TT’s 2021 “#MeetTheArtist” interview series spotlights a single composer or musician, who will be featured every Monday of their respective month with posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) introducing them on the series and then providing  information about their website, upcoming projects, specific works we’re currently listening to, link(s) to their music channels, etc. The highlight of the month will be the full interview (audio, video, or pdf, depending on the artist’s preference) on YouTube, Instagram,  and E4TT’s website on the third Monday of the month, followed by a recap to bring the artist’s month to a close.

After inaugurating the series in January with Pamela Z (full interview posted on January 18), and following up in February with Jonathan Bailey Holland (full interview posted on February 15) and in March with Anthony R. Green (full interview posted on March 15), E4TT is honored to continue the series in April with queer Andinx composer and social justice advocate inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993).

Why Focus E4TT’s 2021 Interviews on BIPOC Artists?
Historically, privilege, power, and access have been granted unequally in our nation, particularly in the arts. As an artist-led group, Ensemble for These Times acknowledges that racial equity is essential for keeping contemporary classical chamber music connected to the 21st century. With a history of giving voice to the voiceless and championing less-heard creative artists, particularly women, E4TT is committed to an inclusive, equitable, and diverse practice, and to ensuring that all communities—including those that have been historically underrepresented based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other factor—are represented in our artistic decisions and programming.

About E4TT’s 2021 “#MeetTheArtist” Interview Series
Following the Summer 2020 success of a smaller set of curated interviews focusing on women creative artists—composer Elinor Armer, visual artist Corinne Whitaker, and soprano Chelsea Hollow—E4TT will expand its “#Meet the Artist” interview series in 2021 with month-long spotlights on individual BIPOC composers and musicians.  Beginning on Monday, January 4, 2021, #MeetTheArtist will feature a different BIPOC creative artist each month, with each featured every Monday of their respective month via posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), first introducing the artist into the series and then featuring information about their website, upcoming projects, specific works we’re currently listening to, and/or link(s) to their music channels, etc. The highlight of the month will be the full interview (audio, video, or pdf, depending on the artist’s preference) on YouTube, Instagram and E4TT’s website  on the third Monday, followed by a recap to bring the month to the close.

“#MeetTheArtist” began in January with composer and performer Pamela Z (b. 1956), continuing in February and March with composer and educator Jonathan Bailey Holland (b. 1974) and composer, performer and social justice advocate Anthony R. Green (b. 1984), respectively, with composer and social justice advocate inti figgis vizueta (b. 1993) in April. Subsequent artists scheduled are Sakari Dixon Vanderveer (b. 1992), Nicolas Lell Benavides (b. 1987), Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1978), Marcus Norris (b. 1991), Shannon Sea, and Brice Smith. (Schedule subject to change.)

#MeetTheArtist in April: inti figgis-vizueta
Composer and social justice advocate inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993) focuses in her music on combinations of various notational schemata, disparate and overlaid sonic plans, and collaborative unlearning of dominant vernaculars. Based in Brooklyn, she often writes magically real music through the lens of personal identities, braiding a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools—in Chocolate City (DC)—with Andean heritage and a deep connection to the land. Reviewers say her music constantly toes the line between "all turbulence" and "quietly focused" (National Sawdust Log). inti has been commissioned by JACK Quartet, Crash Ensemble, National Sawdust, Music from Copland House, Amanda Gookin’s Forward Music Project, and cellist Andrew Yee, among others. Her music has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Ecstatic Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, Seattle Symphony’s Contemporary Music Marathon, and the New Latin Wave Festival. She has collaborated with artists such as Spektral Quartet, Face the Music, Alarm Will Sound, and clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich as well as been featured by organizations such as American Composer’s Orchestra, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Mizzou New Music, and Montpelier Chamber Orchestra.  Her advocacy on access and education includes work with Luna Lab, Boulanger Initiative, New Music Gathering, and the International Contemporary Ensemble as well as articles for publications like American Composer’s Forum and Sound American. She curates for Score Follower, an online archive championing universal access to contemporary music, with a focus on finding and featuring queer and POC artists. She gives regular lectures on her music, most recently at the Peabody Institute, Columbia University, and Clark University.

ABOUT ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES
Awarded second place in 2019 for Chamber Music Performance by The American Prize and 2019 Finalists for the Ernest Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music, E4TT consists of award-winning soprano and Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Anne Lerner, season guest pianist Margaret Halbig, and Artistic Advisor and 2015 American Prize-winning composer David Garner. The group focuses on 20th and 21st century music that is relevant, engaging, original and compelling—music that resonates with today and speaks to tomorrow, that harnesses the power of artistic beauty, intelligence, wit, lyricism, and irony to create a deep understanding of our times and the human condition. E4TT performed at the 2016 Krakow Culture Festival, at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017, was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest in 2014 for a four-city tour in Hungary, and made its international debut in Berlin. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues, and has commissioned 25 works and two arrangements. 

E4TT’s critically acclaimed debut CD, Surviving: Women’s Words (Centaur, 2016) won a Silver Medal in the 2016 Global Music Award. Its second CD, The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus (Centaur, 2018) won a Gold Medal in the 2018 Global Music Awards in three categories: chamber music, ensemble, and album. The group released its third CD, Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan, in June 2020; it was awarded a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards and was chosen as the Center for New Music’s Album of the Week for July 17. Writes curator Kurt Rohde, “The members of Ensemble For These Times are longstanding, expert champions of forgotten work by those nearly lost to history, as well as bringing up new voices who have meaningful new work to share. Their newest recording, “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan,” released in June 2020 in honor of this seminal poet’s centennial, is further evidence of this mission.

For more information about E4TT’s 2020/21 Bay Area Home Season, please visit our website.
High resolution jpgs are available for download http://www.e4tt.org/presskit.html.

###