International Contemporary Ensemble Celebrates 20th Anniversary with POLYASPORA Gala

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INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE CELEBRATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY
WITH POLYASPORA GALA
AT CHELSEA FACTORY ON JANUARY 23

20th Anniversary Gala Honors
International Contemporary Ensemble Founder Claire Chase
and Artistic Director George Lewis

Gala Includes Special Performances of Works by Pauline Oliveros,
Fay Victor, and George Lewis by Members of the Ensemble

www.iceorg.org

New York, NY (December 6, 2022) — International Contemporary Ensemble celebrates its 20th anniversary with POLYASPORA, a gala honoring the Ensemble’s founder Claire Chase and Artistic Director George Lewis on Monday, January 23, 2023 at 6:30pm at Chelsea Factory. Proceeds support the Ensemble’s commissioning work in the future along with opportunities to invest in collaborations with new artists. The evening includes dinner and performances of three works by Pauline Oliveros, Fay Victor and George Lewis, featuring International Contemporary Ensemble members.

International Contemporary Ensemble Founder Claire Chase said, “As I reflect on the last 20 years and look toward the next 20, what I celebrate most about this community of artists and listeners is its steadfast and courageous commitment to constant regeneration. With George now at the helm of an electrifying new era for the group, we are all in for tectonic shifts in our field. I’m so excited to support his vision, and to be a part of the joyous polyaspora that our world has become.”

The idea of “polyaspora” comes from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2021 novel Shards of Earth, which describes a future condition of human dispersal throughout our galaxy. Under such a condition, there is no “home,” only flows, from everywhere and in all directions: not a diaspora, but what Tchaikovsky calls a “polyaspora.” Looking ahead toward International Contemporary Ensemble’s future, George Lewis envisions polyaspora as a New Consciousness for New Music.

“In the 21st Century,” Lewis said, “as our Ensemble enters its 21st year as a forward-thinking collective of musicians, composers, media artists, producers, and educators, what we seek is a new consciousness, a new identity for new music, creating a new world of what composer Courtney Bryan calls the ‘yet unheard’ through a never-ending process of investigation and discovery that offers not just diversity, but a new complexity. As philosopher Arnold I. Davidson has said, ‘multiplication of perspectives means multiplication of possibilities.’ This is our polyaspora.”

This season International Contemporary Ensemble has continued to champion new works and composers, including a collaboration with the Iranian Female Composers Association, new works by Henry Threadgill, Douglas R. Ewart, Suzanne Farrin, Josh Modney, and Nicole Mitchell, explorations of African contemporary music, and an upcoming performance in Amsterdam in March as part of the new production of Tyshawn Sorey's Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine with the Dutch National Opera featuring soprano Julia Bullock.

Event Information
POLYASPORA 20th Anniversary Gala
International Contemporary Ensemble
Monday, January 23, 2023 at 6:30pm
Chelsea Factory | 547 W 26th St. | New York, NY 10001
Ticket Link: https://iceorg.org/polyaspora

Featuring performances of works by George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, and Fay Victor, performed by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble.

International Contemporary Ensemble
Ross Karre, percussion
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Wendy Richman, viola
Fay C Victor, voice
Josh Modney, violin
Isabel Gleicher, flute
Joshua Rubin, clarinets
Nathan Davis, percussion
Dan Lippel, guitar (amplified)
Alice Teyssier, voice, flute
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Jacob Greenberg, keyboard

About International Contemporary Ensemble
With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble’s 39 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored the Ensemble’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present.

Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), the Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble’s composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble’s founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.

A recipient of the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, the International Contemporary Ensemble was also named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year in 2014. The group has served as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival (2008-2020), Ojai Music Festival (2015-17), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2010-2015). In addition, the Ensemble has presented and performed at festivals in the U.S. such as Big Ears Festival and Opera Omaha’s ONE Festival, as well as abroad, including GMEM-Centre National de Création Musicale (CNCM) de Marseille, Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Warsaw Autumn, International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, and Cité de la Musique in Paris. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, Brooklyn warehouses, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and boats on the Amazon River.

The International Contemporary Ensemble advances music technology and digital communications as an empowering tool for artists from all backgrounds. Digitice provides high-quality video documentation for artist-collaborators and provides access to an in-depth archive of composers’ workshops and performances. The Ensemble regularly engages new listeners through free concerts and interactive, educational programming with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Curricular activities include a partnership at The New School’s College of Performing Arts (CoPA), along with a summer intensive program, called Ensemble Evolution, where musical creation combines with the pursuit of equity, diversity, and inclusion to build new bridges and pathways for the future of creative sound practices. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org and watch over 350 videos of live performances and documentaries at www.digitice.org.

The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2022-23 concert season are made possible by the generous support of many individuals as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., MAP Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, The Cheswatyr Foundation, Amphion Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, New Music USA’s Organizational Development Fund, 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. The International Contemporary Ensemble was the Ensemble in Residence of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology from 2018-2021. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Photo by Carrie Schneider (Claire Chase) | Photo by Maurice Weiss (George Lewis)

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