Wet Ink Ensemble Presents: The Sam Pluta Big Band on February 12

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

Wet Ink Ensemble Presents: 
The Sam Pluta Big Band on February 12

Celebrating the Launch of Pluta’s New Album Slays Well with Others,
Featuring the World Premiere of Oracle Machines

With Wet Ink Ensemble plus Special Guests:
Ben Lamar Gay, Peter Evans, Bonnie Lander
Madison Greenstone, John Dierker, and Ingrid Laubrock

www.wetink.org 

January 14, 2026 (New York, NY) — New York City-based new music collective Wet Ink Ensemble presents The Sam Pluta Big Band, a unique grouping of the Wet Ink Ensemble plus an all-star cast of guest performers/improvisers on Thursday, February 12, 2026 at 8:00 p.m. at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. 

The focus of the evening will be a new composition Oracle Machines by Wet Ink member Sam Pluta featuring materials ranging from orchestrated instrumental soundscapes to aggressive electronic noise walls. This new work merges Pluta’s practices of composition, improvisation, and electronics, focusing on the many talents of his co-conspirators to create an hour-long immersive musical experience.

Centered on performer-driven interplay and sonic exploration, The Sam Pluta Big Band highlights an extraordinary roster in duo/trio configurations designed for dialogue, counterpoint, and gesture. The ensemble’s flexible setup allows the music to shift rapidly between meticulously scored environments and imaginative improvisations, with Pluta’s electronics amplifying and refracting the acoustic sound world in real time.

Highlights of the duos/trios configuration:

• Peter Evans and Ben Lamar Gay on trumpet and cornet
• Madison Greenstone and John Dierker on bass and contrabass clarinets
• Ingrid Laubrock, Alex Mincek, and John Dierker on tenor saxophones
• Mariel Roberts Musa and Modney on strings

This unique doubles and triples configuration gives Pluta a substantial playground for his blend of noise, gesture, drones, and tumult.

The Event Celebrates the Release of Pluta’s New Album, Slays Well with Others

Pluta’s new album, Slays Well with Others, will be released at the concert by Carrier Records (www.carrierrecords.com). Slays presents Pluta in his element, performing duos and trios with a cast of like-minded sonic explorers. The album features duos with vocalists Bonnie Lander and Damian Norfleet, an assault-on-the-senses trio with Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey, collaborations with Modney and Mariel Roberts Musa in various formations, a live performance with Peter Evans, a live quartet with Laura Cocks, Dana Jessen, and George Lewis’s Voyager, and studio tracks with reed specialists Anna Webber and John Dierker. This album summarizes Pluta’s practice as an improvising electronic musician in concert with acoustic masters of their craft.

Performance Details:
Wet Ink Presents The Sam Pluta Big Band
Thursday, February 12, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. 
Mary Flagler Cary Hall, DiMenna Center for Classical Music | 450 W 37th St | New York, NY 10018
Tickets: $20 suggested/pay what you can [reserve online or purchase at the door]
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sam-pluta-big-band-slays-well-with-others-release-show-tickets-1979746102887?aff=oddtdtcreator 

Program:
Sam Pluta - Oracle Machines (2025, World Premiere)

Artists:
Ingrid Laubrock, saxophone
Bonnie Lander, vocals
John Dierker, saxophone and bass clarinet
Madison Greenstone, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet
Peter Evans, trumpet
Ben LaMar Gay, cornet
Erin Lesser, flute
Alex Mincek, saxophone
Ian Antonio, percussion
Eric Wubbels, piano
Josh Modney, violin
Mariel Roberts Musa, cello
Sam Pluta, electronics

About Sam Pluta
Sam Pluta is a composer, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the computer as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating musical systems of shared agency, Pluta’s vibrant sonic universe focuses on the visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds. He is a composer/performer co-director of Wet Ink Ensemble, has received commissions from organizations such as the Lucerne Festival, the New York Philharmonic, and the Warsaw Autumn Festival, and has performed with Peter Evans Ensemble, Rocket Science, and PANG!, amongst other world-class new music and improvisation-based groups.

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.

Image of Wet Ink by Alexander Perrelli

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