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Press Releases
International Contemporary Ensemble Announces 2025-2026 Season
For Immediate Release
Contact: Leah Rankin | Morahan Arts & Media
leah@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646-378-9386
International Contemporary Ensemble
Announces 2025-2026 Season
ICE’s 23rd Season Highlights Include World Premieres and
Interdisciplinary Events at The Met, MoMA, Miller Theatre, and more;
the Return of the Call for ____ Commission Program;
Plus International Performances in Vienna and
Residencies with Chicago Civic Fellows and
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
July 29, 2025 (New York, NY) — International Contemporary Ensemble celebrates its 23rd season in 2025-2026, fortifying the group’s reputation in New York as a trailblazer for new music that catalyzes innovative music-making worldwide. As a leading force shaping the future of new music, ICE curates each season with a spirit of adventure, exploration, and freedom by cultivating deep relationships with artists to develop groundbreaking new works. This season invites a creative collision of artists and audiences with interdisciplinary performances at The Met and MoMA, residencies and performances as part of ICE’s Composing While Black series, the return of the Call for ____ Commission Program, and collaborations with composers that are redefining the possibilities of contemporary music.
“I am most excited about our upcoming season,” ICE Artistic Director George Lewis said. “With our Ensemble, artists and audience embark on a collaborative adventure to produce new ways of seeing and knowing the world. We do so in full pursuit of our fundamental mission—the practice of freedom, a message that is needed now more than ever.”
For the 2024–2025 season, the Ensemble welcomed nine phenomenal musicians into its collective. Continuing its commitment to evolution, growth, and the exchange of new perspectives and practices, the Ensemble proudly introduces: Alexander Davis, bassoon; Erika Dohi, violin; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Darius Jones, Erin Rogers, saxophone; Nicolee Kuester, horn; Mariel Roberts Musa, cello; Emmalie Tello, clarinets; and Lizzie Burns, double bass.
On Friday, August 22, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. at Mary Flagler Cary Hall, ICE returns to the TIME:SPANS festival with a program including the US premiere of Árvore by Marcos Balter (co-commissioned by International Contemporary Ensemble, Darmstadt Summer Course, and The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust), and the US premiere of Tossed Parachutes of Lilacs and Lungs by Corie Rose Soumah (co-commissioned by Darmstadt Summer Course and The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust). Also featuring works by Ashkan Behzadi, Tebogo Monnakgotla, and Thierry Pécou, the concert will be conducted by Rebekah Heller and will feature cellist Mariel Roberts Musa as a soloist.
The season officially begins on Sunday, October 5, 2025 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, showcasing a collaboration with interdisciplinary artist Jennie C. Jones, whose outdoor sculptural commission for The Met’s Roof Garden, Ensemble, is currently on display until Sunday, October 19, 2025. While Jones has long created graphic scores as part of her visual practice, this marks the first time they will be interpreted through live performance. This concert explores the entanglement of visual art and sound, revealing how Jones’ minimalist works resonate when performed by musicians.
In another interdisciplinary collaboration on Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, November 8, 2025 at 8:00 p.m., as part of The Museum of Modern Art's major retrospective, Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise, ICE and Ensemble Either/Or bring to life the world premiere of American artist, musician and composer Stephen Prina's newest work, A Lick and A Promise. These concerts at MoMA are part of the first in-depth survey to focus on Prina’s performances, drawing out a central theme in his work: time, and the way it shifts cultural values. MoMA’s survey offers an opportunity to celebrate Prina’s innovative approach to appropriation—one uniquely focused on sound and music—and the rare warmth and intellectualism that mark him as a prescient and still-evolving artist. Both at the forefront of contemporary and experimental music over the past twenty years, ICE and Ensemble Either/Or have enjoyed many successful collaborations in recent years, including presenting the work of Society of Black Composers co-founder Talib-Rasúl Hakím together with three MacArthur Fellows at the New York Public Library last season.
ICE’s ongoing and highly influential Composing While Black initiative is presented both internationally and at home this season. As Artistic Director of the Ensemble, George Lewis continues to spotlight an international and intergenerational cohort of Afrodiasporic experimentalist composers while affirming Afrodiasporic new music as an intercultural space of innovation that offers new subjects, histories, identities, and aesthetics to the field.
At Wien Modern, Vienna’s highly influential festival of new music, ICE and the Webern Ensemble Neue Musik of the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (MDW) combine forces to present two concerts on Saturday, November 22, 2025 and Sunday, November 23, 2025. The first concert, "Composing While Black, Vienna Edition," features works by Nyokabi Kariuki, Andile Khumalo, Njabulo Phungula, Anthony Braxton, and Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, while the second, "Polyaspora," includes large-scale works by Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, and Hannah Kendall.
In April 2026, ICE returns to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music for the second year of their two-year residency program with “Composing While Black, Volume II.” The highly successful “Composing While Black, Volume I” took place in March 2025, and this second residency includes rehearsals, workshops, and panel discussions for Oberlin students. The residency culminates in a concert featuring members of ICE in collaboration with members of Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble in a program of large-scale works conducted by Tim Weiss. A pre-residency introductory series of lectures by George Lewis takes place in February 2026. This collaboration celebrates Oberlin & ICE’s shared history as well as the rich musical connections fostered at Oberlin. The residency culminates in a final public performance on Friday, April 10, 2026 at 7:30 p.m. at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
The International Contemporary Ensemble also returns as an artistic advisor for the Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in January 2026. Civic Fellows are selected through a competitive process that seeks artistically excellent, civically engaged, collaborative, and entrepreneurial musicians. The program culminates in a contemporary chamber music concert on Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. at Epiphany Hall at Epiphany Center for the Arts curated and performed by ICE and Civic Fellows.
ICE also announces the next concert as part of its Call for____ Commission Program on Thursday, March 12, 2026 at Roulette Intermedium. Each year, two early-career artists are commissioned for a new work to be premiered at one of ICE’s events during an upcoming concert season. The selected artists receive workshop and rehearsal opportunities with the Ensemble’s musicians throughout the process, as well as mentorship and support for documentation. This year’s composers are Lester St. Louis and Camila Agosto, whose works will be debuted alongside Paul Novak’s seven dreams about my body, one of the works that received a 2025 BMI Composer Award.
ICE returns to perform as part of the Composer Portraits series at Miller Theatre at Columbia University on Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 7:30 p.m., presenting works by British composer Hannah Kendall, including a world premiere Miller Theatre commission. Known for her immersive sonic world-building, Kendall’s extraordinary blend of depiction and abstraction engages human, animal, vegetal, and posthuman worlds, offering intense, introspective meditations on the sound of decolonization that propose new subjects and identities for classical music.
Concert Information
TIME:SPANS
Friday, August 22, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Mary Flagler Cary Hall | 450 West 37th Street | New York, NY 10018
Tickets: $20
Link: https://timespans.org/concert/international-contemporary-ensemble-3/
Program:
Ashkan Behzadi - Carnivalesque (2014-2016)
Tebogo Monnakgotla - Wooden Bodies (2020)
Corie Rose Soumah - Tossed Parachutes of Lilacs and Lungs (*US Premiere)
Co-commissioned by Internationales MusikInstitut Darmstadt and The Earle Brown Music Foundation
Charitable Trust
Marcos Balter - Árvore (*US Premiere)
Co-commissioned by International Contemporary Ensemble, Internationales MusikInstitut Darmstadt, and
The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust
Thierry Pécou - Méditation sur la fin de l'espèce (2021)
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Alice Teyssier, flute
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Daniel Lippel, electric guitar
Randy Zigler, electric bass
Erika Dohi, piano
Josh Modney, violin
Gabriela Diaz, violin
Wendy Richman, viola
Mariel Roberts Musa, cello
Levy Lorenzo, percussion and electronics
Rebekah Heller, conductor
____________________________________________
ICE & Jennie C. Jones
Sunday, October 5, 2025
The Metropolitan Museum of Art | 1000 Fifth Avenue | New York, NY 10028
Link: https://iceorg.org/events
Program:
The Graphic Music of Jennie C. Jones
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
____________________________________________
ICE & Ensemble Either/Or perform the World Premiere of Stephen Prina’s A Lick and a Promise
Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 8:00pm
Saturday, November 8, 2025 at 8:00pm
The Museum of Modern Art (Kravis Studio) | 11 West 53 Street | New York, NY 10019
Link: https://iceorg.org/events
Program:
Stephen Prima - A Lick and a Promise (*World Premiere)
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Ensemble Either/Or
____________________________________________
ICE at Wien Modern
Saturday, November 22, 2025 & Sunday, November 23, 2025
Musikverein: Gläserner Saal | Vienna, Austria
Link: https://iceorg.org/events
Saturday Program:
ICE and Webern Ensemble Neue Musik present "Composing While Black, Vienna Edition"
Sunday Program:
ICE and Webern Ensemble Neue Musik present “Polyaspora”
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Webern Ensemble Neue Musik
____________________________________________
ICE & Chicago Civic Fellows
Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 6:30 p.m.
Epiphany Hall at Epiphany Center for the Arts | 201 S Ashland Avenue | Chicago, IL 60607
Link: https://iceorg.org/events
Program:
The International Contemporary Ensemble returns as an artistic advisor for the Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Fellows of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
____________________________________________
Call for ______ Commissions Concert
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Roulette Intermedium | 509 Atlantic Ave | Brooklyn, NY 11217
Link: https://iceorg.org/events
Program:
Lester St. Louis - new work
Camila Agosto - new work
Will also perform Paul Novak’s seven dreams about my body, one of the works that received a 2025 BMI
Composer Award.
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
____________________________________________
Composing While Black, Vol. II
Friday, April 10, 2026 at 7:30 p.m.
Oberlin Conservatory of Music | 77 W College Street | Oberlin, OH 44074
Tickets: FREE
Link: https://iceorg.org/events
Program:
ICE returns to Oberlin for the second part of a two-year residency program curated by George Lewis that includes rehearsals, workshops, and panel discussions for Oberlin students.
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
This performance is made possible through lead support from the Arlene & Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music.
____________________________________________
Composer Portrait: Hannah Kendall
Thursday, April 23, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
Miller Theatre | 2960 Broadway | New York, NY 10027
Tickets: $20 - $140
Link: https://www.millertheatre.com/events/hannah-kendall
Program:
Hannah Kendall - new work (2025) (*World Premiere)
Commissioned by Miller Theatre
Hannah Kendall - when flesh is pressed against the dark (2024)
Hannah Kendall - Even sweetness can scratch the throat (2023)
Hannah Kendall - Tuxedo: Diving Bell 2 (2021)
Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
About International Contemporary Ensemble
Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is dedicated to supporting living composers through commissioning, developing, and premiering new works. Now in its third decade, ICE has premiered over 1,000 works and plays a pivotal role in launching and shaping the careers of today’s most influential composers. Through its bold programming and innovative curation, ICE continues to redefine the possibilities of contemporary music.
ICE has brought its vision of a mosaic musical ecosystem to festivals and venues all over the world including Carnegie Hall, Maerzmusik/Berliner Festspiele, Warsaw Autumn, Miller Theatre Composer Portraits, Museum of Modern Art New York, Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, NYU Skirball, Pioneer Works, Oberlin College, House of World Cultures, Ojai Music Festival, Peabody Conservatory, TIME:SPANS Festival, Big Ears Festival, Adelaide Festival, the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Walt Disney Concert Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Japan Society.
Through trailblazing initiatives such as the Call for ____ Commission Program and Ensemble Evolution (in partnership with The New School’s College of Performing Arts), the Ensemble has had a major impact on the contemporary performance ecosystem in New York City, nationally, and internationally, supporting the creativity of its composer-collaborators and presenting workshops and performances for hundreds of student composers. Many of the Ensemble’s composer-collaborators have developed highly influential careers, such as Du Yun, who won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for the opera Angel’s Bone, which the Ensemble developed and premiered, and MacArthur Fellows Courtney Bryan and Tyshawn Sorey, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize.
The Ensemble’s Digitice platform provides high-quality video documentation for artist-collaborators, as well as public access to an archive of composers’ workshops and performances. In addition, the Ensemble continues to build space for dialogue on equity, and has facilitated New Music Virtual Town Hall meetings for peer organizations and individual musicians to share resources, processes, and initiatives around equity and inclusion.
Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org
??The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2025-26 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, 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., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Fromm Music Foundation, Amphion Foundation, The Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and New York State Legislature. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Photo credit: Fadi Kheir
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