Dec. 1: Wet Ink Ensemble and Being & Becoming Perform New Music by Peter Evans & Alex Mincek Plus Sam Pluta’s Delay Line Feat. Erin Lesser

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

WET INK ENSEMBLE AND BEING & BECOMING PERFORM
AT ST. PETER’S CHURCH, DEC. 1

New Music by Peter Evans and Alex Mincek
Plus Sam Pluta’s Delay Line Featuring Erin Lesser
 

New York, NY (November 14, 2018) — The "sublimely exploratory” (The Chicago Reader) Wet Ink Ensemble teams up with renowned trumpeter/composer and longtime collaborator Peter Evans for an evening of sonic adventure on Saturday, December 1, 2018 at 8:00pm at St. Peter's Church in Chelsea.

The concert features a new set of music by Peter Evans with a lineup that Evans describes as “an unholy amalgam of current and closest collaborators in a holiday season blow-out.” Performers include 12 musicians from Wet Ink and Being & Becoming (Joel Ross, vibes; Nick Jozwiack, bass and cello; Savannah Grace Harris, drums; Peter Evans, trumpet), with special guests Mazz Swift (violin) and Levy Lorenzo (percussion). Evans writes, “this evening will represent an ongoing process of discovery and collaborative creativity with these players - it is not a culmination of anything. Old and new compositions will be combined together with the improvisational talents of all the musicians, creating an hour-long work tailored specifically for this concert.”

The evening also features Wet Ink flutist Erin Lesser in two intricately virtuosic works: Sam Pluta's Delay Line for solo flute and electronics, and Bryn Jacobs’ Dis Un Il Im Ir, for flute, piano, and midi keyboard. Wet Ink will also perform sextet works including the premiere of the sextet version of Alex Mincek’s Thread and a new work by Danish-American saxophonist, vocalist, and composer Louise D.E. Jensen.

Program Information
Wet Ink Being & Becoming
Saturday, December 1, 2018 at 8:00pm
St. Peter's Church Chelsea | 346 W 20th St. | New York, NY
Tickets: $10 general admission, Students Free. No pre-orders, cash only at the door.
Link: www.wetink.org

Program:
Sam Pluta: Delay Line (2016), for flute and electronics (feat. Erin Lesser)
Bryan Jacobs: Dis Un Il Im Ir (2013), for flute, piano, and midi keyboard (feat. Erin Lesser)
Louise D.E. Jensen: New work for sextet (2018) [World Premiere]
Alex Mincek: Thread (2018) [Premiere of sextet version]
Peter Evans: New Collaboration with Wet Ink and Being & Becoming [World Premiere]

Performers:
Being & Becoming
Peter Evans, trumpet
Joel Ross, vibes and marimba
Nick Jozwiack, bass and cello
Savannah Grace Harris, drums
Wet Ink Ensemble
Erin Lesser, flutes
Alex Mincek, saxophone
Ian Antonio, percussion
Eric Wubbels, piano
Josh Modney, violin
Sam Pluta, electronics
Mazz Swift, violin
Levy Lorenzo, percussion

About Peter Evans
Peter Evans is a trumpet player and improviser/composer based in New York City since 2003. Evans is part of a broad, hybridized scene of musical experimentation and his work cuts across a wide range of modern musical practices and traditions. Peter is committed to the simultaneously self-determining and collaborative nature of musical improvisation as a compositional tool, and works with an ever-expanding group of musicians and composers in the creation of new music. His primary groups as a leader are the Peter Evans Ensemble and Being & Becoming. Evans has been exploring solo trumpet music since 2002 and is widely recognized as a leading voice in the field, having released several recordings over the past decade. He is a member of the cooperative groups Pulverize the Sound (with Mike Pride and Tim Dahl) and Rocket Science (with Evan Parker, Craig Taborn and Sam Pluta) and is constantly experimenting and forming new configurations with like minded players.  As a composer, he has been commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Yarn/Wire, the Donaueschingen Musiktage Festival, the Jerome Foundation's Emerging Artist Program, and the Doris Duke Foundation. Evans has presented and/or performed his works at major festivals worldwide and tours his own groups extensively. He has worked with some of the leading figures in new music: John Zorn, Ingrid Laubrock, Jim Black, Weasel Walter, Ambrose Akinmusere, Matana Roberts, Tyshawn Sorey, Levy Lorenzo, Nate Wooley, Steve Schick, Mary Halvorson, Joe McPhee and performs with both ICE and the Wet Ink Ensemble. He has been releasing recordings on his own label, More is More, since 2011. 2018 will see the release of a new solo album, the first duo album with Levy Lorenzo, a new record by Pulverize the Sound, and the new album by the Peter Evans Ensemble.

About Erin Lesser
As a soloist, and chamber musician Erin has been described as “superb”, “excellent”, “brilliant” and “elegant." She has performed at prestigious venues around the world including Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall where she performed the American premiere of Morton Feldman’s For Flute and Orchestra with the Janacek Philharmonic. She has worked with some of the most prominent classical and popular artists today including Steve Reich, Helmut Lachenmann, Pierre Boulez, and John Luther Adams, and experimental groups like Medeski Martin and Wood, and the Dirty Projectors. Erin can be heard on labels such as Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Carrier, hat[now]ART, New Focus, Aeon, New Amsterdam, Albany and Capstone Record.

In addition to her work with Wet Ink, Erin is a member of Alarm Will Sound, a group that has been called “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene.” She won the 2008 National Flute Association chamber music competition with her flute and percussion duo, Due East and is a founding member of the Argento New Music Project. She is also a member of Decoda, an affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall, whose work often takes them beyond the concert hall and into the broader community.

A graduate of the University of Ottawa (BM) and the Manhattan School of Music (MM, DMA), Erin is proud to have serve on the faculty at Lawrence University. Through a partnership between Lawrence University and Decoda, Erin is co-founder of Music for All, a program which brings music into new and/or underserved venues throughout the Fox Valley community in Wisconsin. Ms. Lesser is a Pearl Flute Performing Artist.

About Wet Ink Ensemble
The Wet Ink Ensemble, a “sublimely exploratory” (The Chicago Reader) collective of composers, improvisers and interpreters hailed for “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” (Steve Smith, The New Yorker), is proud to celebrate 20 years of adventurous music-making in NYC and around the world with the 2018-19 concert season. The 20th Anniversary Season highlights the ethos of innovation through collaboration that has guided the work of Wet Ink throughout the ensemble’s history, celebrating the music and the unique performance practice developed in the “band” atmosphere of Wet Ink’s core septet of composer-performers, and presenting exciting new projects with emerging and underrepresented artists and longtime collaborators.

Since the group’s first concerts in 1998, Wet Ink has moved fluently along a continuum of composition, improvisation, and interpretation, from early collaborations with Christian Wolff, George Lewis, and ZS to pioneering portrait concerts of Peter Ablinger, Mathias Spahlinger, Anthony Braxton, and the AACM composers, and deep, long-term creative work by members of Wet Ink.

In that same spirit, Season 20 showcases the many facets of the group’s work - highlights include a retrospective look at “classics” of Wet Ink’s repertoire and new projects by Sky Macklay, Rick Burkhardt, Catherine Lamb, and Wet Ink’s four acclaimed composer-members (Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper, and Eric Wubbels); the release of Wet Ink: 20 on Carrier Records, the debut album featuring the 28 musicians of the Wet Ink Large Ensemble; the release of Josh Modney’s Engage on New Focus Recordings, “one of the most intriguing programs of the year” (The New York Times); the release of Kate Soper’s IPSA DIXIT on New World Records; and new collaborations with renowned creative musicians Darius Jones, Peter Evans (Being & Becoming), Charmaine Lee, Cory Smythe, and many others.

Wet Ink is co-directed by a core septet 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), 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 http://www.wetink.org/.

# # #