Yarn/Wire Featured in Composer Portraits: Øyvind Torvund at Miller Theatre on March 2

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

Yarn/Wire Featured in
Composer Portraits: Øyvind Torvund
at Miller Theatre on March 2

Yarn/Wire Gives World Premiere Performance of
Two New Works by Norwegian Composer

www.yarnwire.org

New York, NY (January 25, 2023) — New York percussion and piano quartet Yarn/Wire gives their first NYC concert of 2023 presenting the world premieres of two new works by Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund as part of the Composer Portraits series at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. The world premieres include Plans for Future Ensemble Pieces and a new work, written for Yarn/Wire and JACK Quartet.

In addition to the two world premieres, Yarn/Wire performs Torvund’s Untitled School, a groundbreaking piece that pairs music with a collection of still images that include examples of the abstract and psychedelic patterns in traditional Norwegian folk art, a color field painting by Gerhard Richter, Jungle Paintings by Henri Rousseau, and drawings by Ida Madsen Følling. The program showcases the composer’s expansive sonic language influenced by his experience as a guitarist in rock and improvising groups. In his work, Torvund seamlessly uses quirky, humorous, serious, frenetic, and shimmering textures, incredible orchestration, and the juxtapositions of the expected and unexpected. Joining Yarn/Wire and JACK Quartet are Laura Cocks (flute), Rane Moore (clarinet), and Giacomo Baldelli (guitar).

Yarn/Wire’s season continues with a tour to Knoxville, TN to perform the music of Annea Lockwood, Alvin Lucier, and Andrew McIntosh at Big Ears Festival on March 30 and 31st.

Performance Details

Composer Portraits: Øyvind Torvund
Yarn/Wire
Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 8:00 p.m.
Miller Theatre | 2960 Broadway (at 116th Street) | New York, NY 10027
Tickets: $10-$30
Link: https://www.millertheatre.com/events/øyvind-torvund

Program:
Øyvind Torvund - new work (2023) WORLD PREMIERE for Yarn/Wire and JACK Quartet
Øyvind Torvund - Plans for Future Ensemble Pieces (2020, rev. 2023) WORLD PREMIERE version for flute, clarinet, electric guitar, 2 keyboards, 2 percussion, and string quartet
Øyvind Torvund - Untitled School/Mud Jam/Campfire Tunes (2014) for piano/percussion quartet, projected images, and electronic sound

Artists:
Yarn/Wire
Laura Barger, piano
Julia Den Boer, piano
Russell Greenberg, percussion
Sae Hashimoto, percussion
Laura Cocks, flute
Rane Moore, clarinet
Giacomo Baldelli, guitar
JACK Quartet

About Øyvind Torvund
Alongside regular musical studies in Oslo and Berlin, the Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund played guitar in rock and improvising groups, and his music assembles disparate materials, inconsistent attitude: sounds from rock or from everyday life (or nature) occurring in chamber music, simplicity in a complex context, improvisation coexisting with exact notation, music combined with film or projections, seriousness in counterpoint with humor. Raw melodic schemes may come from Purcell, the infill from the detritus of electronic distortion or street noise. Categories are split open or blurred, habits unbent. To quote Iggy Pop: “The neon forest is my home.”

About Yarn/Wire
Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg, percussion; Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianos) dedicated to the promotion of creative, experimental new music. According to New York Classical Review, “Yarn/Wire may well be the most important new music ensemble on the classical scene today.” Founded in 2005, and admired for the energy and care it brings to today’s most adventurous compositions, the ensemble seeks to expand the representation of composers including but not limited to those who identify as women, LGBTQIA , Black, African, Indigenous, Latina(o)(x), Asian, or Arab so that it might begin to better reflect our communities and experience new creative potential.

Yarn/Wire’s expansive and international 2022-23 season includes festival performances at Tzlil Meudcan (Israel), Wien Modern (Austria), and Northwestern University New Music Conference (Illinois); returns to the TIME:SPANS (NYC), Festival 20/21 (Belgium), and Rainy Days (Luxembourg) Festivals; a Composer Portrait of Øyvind Torvund presented by Miller Theatre (NYC), which continues the ensemble’s long-running relationship with Torvund; plus appearances at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn and The Stone. Recent performance highlights include a residency at Pioneer Works featuring Katherine Young’s Biomes; premieres by Taylor Brook and Diana Rodriguez at the America’s Society in NYC; a video event and Composer Portrait of Thomas Meadowcroft at Miller Theatre; a concert of solo works at Indexical in Santa Cruz; and the continuation of the Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival, a summer festival for composers and performers interested in exploring the collaborative side of contemporary music. Their ongoing commissioning series, Yarn/Wire/Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music in partnership with Brooklyn-based arts organization Blank Forms.

The ensemble additionally will be in residence at Northwestern University and Adelphi University, and will return for residency activities at Duke University in the 22-23 season. In the previous season, Yarn/Wire was in residence at Cornell, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, Brandeis University, and University of Pennsylvania.

In Fall 2022, Yarn/Wire continues their multi-year residency at Girard College in Philadelphia developing a new multidisciplinary performance work, Be Holding, using poet Ross Gay’s book-length poem inspired by Philadelphia basketball champion Julius Erving (a.k.a. “Dr. J”) as its libretto. The commission will explore themes of Black genius and beauty in the face of racial violence and inequities, and the school will host Gay, composer Tyshawn Sorey, director Brooke O’Harra, and Yarn/Wire, with the world premiere scheduled for Spring 2023.

Yarn/Wire’s numerous commissions include works from composers such as Annea Lockwood, Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Ann Cleare, Catherine Lamb, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Sam Pluta, Tyondai Braxton, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. The ensemble enjoys collaborations with genre-bending artists such as Tristan Perich, Ben Vida, Mark Fell, Sufjan Stevens, and Pete Swanson.

The quartet has performed at festivals all over the world including the Lincoln Center, Edinburgh International, Rainy Days (Luxembourg), Ultima (Norway), Transit (Belgium), Contemplus (Prague), and Wien Modern (Austria) Festivals, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, Dublin SoundLab, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Brooklyn Academy of Music, and New York’s Miller Theatre.

Yarn/Wire has recorded for the WERGO, Kairos, Northern Spy, Distributed Objects, Black Truffle, Shelter Press, Populist, and Carrier record labels in addition to maintaining their own imprint. Recent and upcoming releases include Tonband, featuring works by Enno Poppe and Wolfgang Heiniger, on the WERGO label; Annea Lockwood’s Becoming Air and Into the Vanishing with trumpeter Nate Wooley on Black Truffle Records; Yarn/Wire Currents 7 featuring works by Victoria Cheah, Zeno Baldi, and Diana Rodriguez; Marcel Zaes’ Parallel Prints; the piano and percussion works of Andrew McIntosh; and many more. For more information, please visit www.yarnwire.org.

Photo of Yarn/Wire: Mark Sommerfeld; Photo of Øyvind Torvund: Morten Wanvik

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