International Contemporary Ensemble Announces Summer 2023 Concerts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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International Contemporary Ensemble
Announces Summer 2023 Concerts

International Contemporary Ensemble and Luna Composition Lab Team Up with SONiC Festival for Concert of
World Premieres on June 10

The Ensemble Performs as part of TIME:SPANS Festival on August 25

www.iceorg.org

New York, NY (May 11, 2023) — International Contemporary Ensemble announces two festival concerts this summer. The Ensemble performs as part of the SONiC Festival on Saturday, June 10, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at Stiefel Hall at Mannes School of Music and at the TIME:SPANS Festival on Friday, August 25, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music.

In June the Ensemble teams up with Luna Composition Lab - a program founded by composers Missy Mazzoli and Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Reid to provide mentorship, education, and resources for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13-18 - to give performances of new works as part of the American Composers Orchestra’s citywide SONiC Festival. The program, titled New Moons: World Premieres by Luna Composition Lab Fellows, features new works by Hannah Chen, Lucy Chen, Lili Masoudi, Gabrielle Smith, Elaina Rae Stuppler, and Isabelle Tseng, along with Luna Lab mentors Wang Lu and Nina Shekhar. The program is curated by Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, as well as International Contemporary Ensemble artistic director George Lewis.

In August the TIME:SPANS Festival presents International Contemporary Ensemble in an evening that exemplifies its concept of Polyaspora, including two premieres: the US premiere of Invisible Self by Andile Khumalo, who has been named one of the top five South African composers by BBC Music Magazine and one of the top 23 composers and performers to watch in 2023 by The Washington Post; and the NY premiere of Gondwana: Earth, a Blue Sanctuary, Oceans, Seas, Lakes, Rivers, Springs and Lagoons; Paradise Gardens and Skies by American composer Wadada Leo Smith, “one of the most celebrated new music composers of this young century” (DownBeat). Also on this exciting and diversely creative program are works by internationally renowned contemporary Korean-German composer Younghi Pagh-Paan and emerging Iranian composer Aida Shirazi, whose work has been described as “affecting” by The New Yorker.

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, International Contemporary Ensemble performs works by Rome Prize winner and Guggenheim Fellow Suzanne Farrin, including the world premiere of her Their Hearts are Columns, as part of the acclaimed Composer Portraits series.

Concert Information:
NEW MOONS: WORLD PREMIERES BY LUNA COMPOSITION LAB FELLOWS
International Contemporary Ensemble
Saturday, June 10, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Stiefel Hall at Mannes School of Music | 55 West 13th Street | New York, NY, 10011
Tickets: $15
Link: https://iceorg.org/events/2023/6/10/sonic-festival-luna-lab-composer-showcase

Program to include:
Hannah Chen: Spiral (World Premiere)
Lucy Chen: Seventeen (World Premiere)
Wang Lu: From the Distant Plains II
Lili Masoudi: TBD (World Premiere)
Nina Shekhar: GLITCH
Gabrielle Smith: Stellar Evolution (World Premiere)
Elaina Rae Stuppler: Waluga (World Premiere)
Isabelle Tseng: Bumbershoot (World Premiere)

Performers:
International Contemporary Ensemble
     Alice Jones, flute
     Leah Asher, violin
     Meaghan Burke, cello
     Emmalie Tello, clarinet
     Erika Dohi, piano

TIME:SPANS 2023
International Contemporary Ensemble
Friday, August 25, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
DiMenna Center for Classical Music | 450 West 37th Street | New York, NY, 10018
Tickets: $20
Link: https://iceorg.org/events/2023/8/25/timespans-2023

Program:
Younghi Pagh-Paan: Wundgeträumt (2005)
Andile Khumalo: Invisible Self (2020) (US Premiere)
Aida Shirazi: Crystalline Trees (2020)
Wadada Leo Smith: Gondwana: Earth, a Blue Sanctuary, Oceans, Seas, Lakes, Rivers, Springs and Lagoons; Paradise Gardens and Skies (2022) (NY Premiere)

Performers:
International Contemporary Ensemble
     Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor
     Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
     Christa Robinson, oboe
     Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
     Rebekah Heller, bassoon
     Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
     David Byrd-Marrow, horn
     Clara Warnaar, percussion
     Nathan Davis, percussion
     Jacob Greenberg, piano
     Cory Smythe, piano
     Gabriela Díaz, violin
     Josh Modney, violin
     Yezu Woo, violin
     Marina Kifferstein, violin
     Pala Garcia, violin
     Wendy Richman, viola
     Kyle Armbrust, viola
     Ashley Walters, cello
     Katinka Kleijn, cello
     Randall Zigler, double bass

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 topics of equity, diversity, and inclusion 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.

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