Oct. 18, 19: International Contemporary Ensemble Performs George Lewis' Soundlines at NYU Skirball

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

 
INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE RETURNS NYU SKIRBALL
FOR GEORGE LEWIS’ SOUNDLINES, OCTOBER 18 & 19

MacArthur Fellow George Lewis’ Musical Interpretation of Steven Schick’s 700-Mile 
Walk from the US-Mexico Border to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006 

“One of the most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music.” — The New York Times
 

New York, NY (September 17, 2019) — The pioneering International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) returns to NYU Skirball for two performances of George Lewis’ Soundlines on Friday, October 18, 2019 and Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 7:30pm. Following the group’s critically acclaimed, sold-out run of David Lang’s the whisper opera in 2018, Soundlines features two premieres by composer and MacArthur Fellow George Lewis: the NYC premiere of Lewis’ Soundlines: A Dreaming Track and the New York premiere of P. Multitudinis. Building on a decade of collaborative work, the International Contemporary Ensemble, George Lewis, Steven Schick, and Jim Findlay’s Soundlines is a monodrama in the style of a radio play that explores and confronts the relationships between self, identity, and personal journeys within complex social constructs. 

As a musical interpretation of percussionist Steven Schick’s journal documenting his 700-mile walk from the US-Mexico border to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, Soundlines: A Dreaming Track traverses space in order to transmit an introspective narrative. Schick’s diary, written during the many months of this trip, has been adapted as the text for a speaker, accompanied by a percussionist; a chamber ensemble of seven instruments; and an array of digitally spatialized multichannel electronics. Reminiscent of Alexis de Tocqueville and Henry David Thoreau, the text describes his inner moods, doubts, meditations, aesthetics, his personal musical practice, and social commentary.  

P. Multitudinis is a musical epic that relies on intricate and wordless forms of group communication to reveal the “personal” within the power of the collective. The work's title, text, ethics, movement trajectories, and musical methodologies all derive from Spinoza’s notion of potentia multitudinis, presented in his 1677 Tractatus Politicus, published posthumously and later banned: “The right of a commonwealth is determined by the power of a people that is guided as though by a single mind. But this union of minds could in no way be conceived unless the chief aim of the commonwealth is identical with that which sound reason teaches us is for the good of all men.”

Joining the International Contemporary Contemporary Ensemble in the New York Premiere of P. Multitudinis is a group of alumni from the Ensemble Evolution Program at the Banff Centre, ICE’s intensive 3-week festival where P. Multitudinis was premiered in 2018. All musicians who have studied and collaborated with ICE at Ensemble Evolution within the last three years, these promising, young, professional instrumentalists bring further insight to P. Multituidinis – a work inherently shaped and driven by the communication and perspectives of its performers. This hybrid ensemble comes together under the theatrical direction of Jim Findlay and the musical direction of Vimbayi Kaziboni, George Lewis, and Steven Schick. 

Program Information
George Lewis’ Soundlines
Friday, October 18, 2019 at 7:30pm
Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 7:30pm
NYU Skirball | 566 LaGuardia Pl | NYC
Tickets: $35-45
Link: https://nyuskirball.org/events/ice-soundlines/#tickets 

Performers:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Alumni of the Ensemble Evolution Program
Steven Schick, solo performer
Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor
George Lewis, electronic sound design
Jim Findlay, director
Nick Houfek, lighting design

Program:
George Lewis – Soundlines: A Dreaming Track
George Lewis – P. Multitudinis 

About the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
The International Contemporary Ensemble is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, the Ensemble explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. The Ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical 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.

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 the 2014 Musical America Ensemble of the Year. The group currently serves as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Mostly Mozart Festival, and previously led a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The International Contemporary Ensemble was featured at the Ojai Music Festival from 2015 to 2017, and at recent festivals abroad such as gmem-CNCM-marseille and Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Mexico City. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.

New initiatives include OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which offers free concerts and related programming wherever the Ensemble performs, and enables a working process with composers to unfold in public settings. DigitICE, a free online library of over 350 streaming videos, catalogues the Ensemble’s performances. The International Contemporary Ensemble’s First Page program is a commissioning consortium that fosters close collaborations between performers, composers, and listeners as new music is developed. EntICE, a side-by-side education program, places Ensemble musicians within youth orchestras as they premiere new commissioned works together; inaugural EntICE partners include Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and The People's Music School in Chicago. Summer activities include Ensemble Evolution at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, in which young professionals perform with the Ensemble and attend workshops on topics from interpretation to concert production. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org.   

About NYU Skirball
NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City’s major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 860-seat state-of-the art theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovators and thinkers. NYU Skirball hosts over 300 events annually, from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance arts to comedy, music and film.  

NYU Skirball’s unique place as a non-profit cultural center within New York University enables it to draw on the University’s intellectual riches and resources to enhance its programming with dialogues, public forums and conversations with artists, philosophers, scientists, Nobel Laureates, and journalists.  

Jay Wegman is responsible for the direction and leadership of Skirball’s artistic programming. He previously served as director of the Abrons Art Center at Henry Street Settlement from 2006-2016, where he curated a balance of local, international, emerging and established multidisciplinary artists. During his tenure, Abrons was awarded a 2014 OBIE Award for Innovative Excellence and a 2015 Bessie Award for Best Production. He also served as Canon for Liturgy and the Arts at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine for over a decade and was a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. from 2004-2005. Wegman is a graduate of Yale University.

*Photo at the top of release by DigitICE Media Team

# # #