Contemporaneous Ensemble to present 'Sounds Fun!' at Roulette, August 28

CONTEMPORANEOUS PRESENTS: SOUNDS FUN!

BROOKLYN, NY – On August 28, 2025, NYC-based new music ensemble Contemporaneous will kick off their 2025-2026 season with Sounds Fun!, a concert celebration of the wildest and most energetic collection of music being written for today’s world. The performance will be held at Roulette Intermedium at 8 PM (doors at 7 PM). 

The 75-minute evening performance offers a crucial space for communal and artistic joy, allowing for a focus on the experiences we treasure most in life. The program includes a mix of styles and genres: from John Adams’s pulsing “Coast” (arranged from his electronic album Hoodoo Zephyr) and Alex Paxton’s maximalist “shrimp BIT babyface” to arrangements of songs by some of the ensemble’s favorite artists from Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Louis Cole, to Les Filles de Illighadad. 

This FREE performance is a continuation of Contemporaneous’s 15th anniversary celebration and the organization’s steadfast mission since its inception at Bard College in March of 2010: to present the most meaningful music by living composers, center new voices in classical music, and empower composers to take wild risks. The 26-musician band has doubled down on its commitment to a radically accessible community-based vision of the experience and creation of new art, ensuring free tickets for all presentations, commissioning “dream projects” via the next round of the “Contemporaneous IMAGINATION” open call, a new OPEN MIC series for communal performances/recording opportunities, and much more.

PROGRAM

shrimp BIT babyface – Alex Paxton

Coast (from Hoodoo Zephyr) – John Adams, arr. Caleb Burhans

My Buick – Louis Cole, arr. Vicki Leona Nguyen*

– INTERMISSION –

Jori – Les Filles de Illighadad, arr. Zachary James Ritter*

Machaut-a-Go-Go – Eve Beglarian

Winter Astral – Beverly Glenn-Copeland, arr. David Bloom*

Music for People Who Like Art – Andrew Hamilton

*denotes world premiere arrangement

RELEVANT LINKS

• EVENT PAGE [HERE]
• WEBSITE [HERE]
• PRESS PACKET [HERE]
  (includes bio, ensemble/performance photos, project highlights, etc.)

ABOUT CONTEMPORANEOUS

Contemporaneous is an ensemble of 26 musicians whose mission is to bring to life the most transformative music by living composers through performances, commissions, recordings, and educational programs. Described as "exact and detailed, but also lively and openly dancing" (The New York Times) and "leading new music towards its better self" (I Care If You Listen), Contemporaneous particularly champions the creation of large-scale works and “dream projects,” which composers might not otherwise have opportunities to realize due to scale.

Based in New York City and active throughout the United States, Contemporaneous has premiered over 200 new works, and has been presented by such institutions as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall, PROTOTYPE Festival, Merkin Concert Hall, MATA Festival, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and Bang on a Can and has worked with such artists as David Byrne, Donnacha Dennehy, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Dawn Upshaw, and Julia Wolfe. Contemporaneous' programming has also received acclaim from community members, artists, and press of all kinds, with the ensemble’s recent performance of Stranger Love being listed as one of 2023’s “best classical music performances” by the New York Times.

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