Wet Ink Ensemble Presents a Mini-Festival of Adventurous Music at Dixon Place on December 14

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leah Rankin | Morahan Arts and Media
leah@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646-378-9386

Wet Ink Ensemble Presents a Mini-Festival of
Adventurous Music at Dixon Place on December 14

Celebrating the Work of Artists-In-Residence 
Carolyn Chen, Gelsey Bell, and Ben LaMar Gay, 
and the Release of Kate Soper's Album 
The Romance of the Rose

www.wetink.org 

New York, NY (December 4, 2024) — New York City-based new music collective Wet Ink Ensemble presents a mini-festival of adventurous music celebrating works by this season’s artists-in-residence (AIR), plus a new album release by ensemble member Kate Soper, on Saturday, December 14, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. at Dixon Place.

The program will be presented in two sets. The first set at 6:00 p.m. features two works by AIR Caroline Chen, Birria and Introducing Object, which highlight the breadth of her artistry from chamber music to text and movement. Chen’s works intermingle with Kate Soper performing excerpts from her newest album The Romance of the Rose (New Focus Recordings). With an original libretto inspired by the medieval poem of the same name, The Romance of the Rose is an opera that blends medieval and contemporary allegory to dramatize how love, sex, and music wreak havoc on our sense of self. The recording features Wet Ink Ensemble with Eric Wubbles conducting. 

The second set at 8:00 p.m. includes solo performances by AIRs Gelsey Bell (vocals) and Ben LaMar Gay (cornet), Raven Chacon’s shimmering chamber work Biyan I, and Sam Pluta’s Systems of Interaction I, which will feature the Wet Ink band performing alongside Bell and LaMar Gay. The audience is invited to mingle with the performers in between sets and following the program at the Dixon Place Lounge.

Performance Details:
Wet Ink Ensemble Mini-festival: Artists-In-Residence, Soper Album Release
Saturday, December 14, 2024 - Sets at 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Dixon Place | 161A Chrystie Street | New York, NY 10002
Tickets: $20 suggested / pay what you can [reserve online or purchase at door] - Get a bundled Festival
Pass for $30
Ticket Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wet-ink-ensemble-mini-festival-artists-in-residence-soper-album-release-tickets-1089355915869?aff=oddtdtcreator 

Program:

First Set (6:00 p.m.)
Kate Soper - Lady Reason Suite (2023)
     for voice, piano, vocoder keyboard, and electronics
Carolyn Chen - Birria (2021) 
     for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano
Kate Soper - Shame (2023)
     for voice and electric guitar
Carolyn Chen - Introducing Object (2018)
     for speaker and object
Kate Soper - Rondeau (2023)
     for soprano and violin

Second Set (8:00 p.m.)
Ben LaMar Gay - Solo (2024)
     for cornet
Raven Chacon - Biyan I (2011)
     for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and percussion
Gelsey Bell - The Psithurists (2024) 
     for ensemble
Sam Pluta - Systems of Interaction I (2021)
     for flute, saxophone, percussion, piano, violin, voice, and cornet

Performers:

2024-25 Artists-In-Residence:
Gelsey Bell
Carolyn Chen
Ben LaMar Gay

Guest Performers:
Bill Kalinkos, clarinet
Clare Monfredo, cello
James Moore, electric guitar

Wet Ink Ensemble:
Erin Lesser, flute
Alex Mincek, saxophone
Ian Antonio, percussion
Eric Wubbels, piano
Modney, violin
Kate Soper, voice
Sam Pluta, electronics

About Wet Ink Ensemble
The Wet Ink Ensemble is a collective of composers, performers, and improvisers dedicated to adventurous music-making. Named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times, Wet Ink’s work is rooted in an ethos of innovation through collaboration, extending from the music and the unique performance practice developed in the “band” atmosphere of Wet Ink’s core ensemble of composer-performers, to projects with a broad range of renowned creators, from Evan Parker to George Lewis to Peter Ablinger, and committed performances of music by young and underrepresented composers, from today’s most promising emerging voices to the next generation of artists.

Hailed for “sublimely exploratory” (The Chicago Reader) and “dense, wild, yet artfully controlled” (The New York Times) performances and “uncompromisingly original music by its members, and unflagging belief in the power of collaboration” (The New Yorker), Wet Ink has been presenting concerts of new music at the highest level in New York City and around the world for over 20 years. Wet Ink’s programming celebrates the nexus of composition, improvisation and interpretation, from early collaborations with Christian Wolff and ZS to pioneering portrait concerts of Peter Ablinger, Mathias Spahlinger, Anthony Braxton, and the AACM composers, work with renowned creative musicians such as Ingrid Laubrock, Peter Evans, Darius Jones, and Katherine Young, and long-term collaborative projects with Wet Ink’s four acclaimed composer-members (Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper, and Eric Wubbels). In May 2020, the ensemble launched Wet Ink Archive, an online journal of adventurous music featuring writings and recordings by a wide range of artists (please visit at archive.wetink.org).

Wet Ink has been in residence at institutions including Duke University, EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center), Columbia University, the Royal Academy of Music (UK), and The Walden School, among many others, and has been featured on numerous recordings. Highlights include Katharina Rosenberger’s TEXTUREN, which was awarded a German Record Critics Prize, and solo records by Alex Mincek (Torrent), Kate Soper (IPSA DIXIT), Sam Pluta (Broken Symmetries), Eric Wubbels (Duos with Piano, Book 1), and Josh Modney (Engage), all of which were celebrated on various “Best of” lists by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bandcamp Daily, Sequenza 21, and The Nation. Wet Ink has released four acclaimed solo albums (Wet Ink Ensemble; Relay; Wet Ink: 20, which features the Wet Ink Large Ensemble; and Glossolalia/Lines on Black).

Wet Ink is co-directed by an octet of world class composers, improvisers, and interpreters that collaborate in band-like fashion, writing, improvising, preparing, and touring pieces together over long stretches of time. These directors are Erin Lesser (flutes), Alex Mincek (saxophone), Ian Antonio (percussion), Eric Wubbels (piano), Josh Modney (violin), Mariel Roberts (cello), Kate Soper (voice), and Sam Pluta (electronics). The Wet Ink Large Ensemble is a group of extraordinary New York City musicians that come together to play the world's most exciting and innovative music. Learn more at www.wetink.org.

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