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International Contemporary Ensemble &
The New School’s College of Performing Arts Present
Ensemble Evolution

Hybrid Summer Intensive Designed to Foster Artists as Global Citizens

Virtual & In Person at The New School from June 25 to July 2, 2022 

www.iceorg.org/ensemble-evolution

New York, NY (June 21, 2022) — This summer, the International Contemporary Ensemble, in partnership with The New School’s College of Performing Arts, presents Ensemble Evolution—a hybrid summer intensive designed to foster a holistic understanding of the artist as a global citizen—from Saturday, June 25 to Saturday, July 2. Now in its sixth year, Ensemble Evolution brings together participants and faculty through music making, community building, and creative producing to explore and transform the ways that music is created and experienced. This summer, the weeklong intensive is offered both online and in-person at The New School’s Arnold Hall in New York City, and culminates in a large-scale online digital festival on Saturday, July 2 at 7:00pm ET featuring Ensemble Evolution participants alongside faculty members and special guests.

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary season, the Ensemble brings together a roster of renowned faculty and guest presenters for Ensemble Evolution, encompassing a wide range of musical expertise and creative artistry allowing for boundary-pushing collaborations with participants. Ensemble Evolution encourages its participants to take an increasing role in shaping their intensive experience alongside faculty and guest artists, from programming, to producing concerts, fostering an environment of community building that has become a hallmark of the program. Follow this link for the full list of this year’s faculty and guest presenters.

This year, Ensemble Evolution welcomes close to 50 participants joining the summer intensive from across the US, Australia, Germany, Mexico, Poland, and the UK, with a variety of artistic backgrounds including composer/performers, instrumentalists, improvisers, multimedia artists, and electronics/sound practitioners.

Event Information
Ensemble Evolution
Saturday, June 25 - Saturday, July 2, 2022
June 25 - June 29: online virtual activities
June 30 - July 2: in-person activities at The New School, Arnold Hall
Saturday, July 2 at 7:00pm ET: Ensemble Evolution 2022 Showcase (online, details TBA)

View the July 2 Virtual Showcase here: https://www.youtube.com/internationalcontemporaryensemble

About the 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 musicali 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.

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The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2021-22 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors and many individuals as well as The Andrew W. 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 Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, The Casement Fund, 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.