Feb. 13: Wet Ink Ensemble Presents Premieres by Eric Wubbels and Mariel Roberts, Plus New Collaborative Work

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

Wet Ink Ensemble Presents Collaborative Premieres: Wubbels,
Roberts, Wet Ink with Vocalist Charmaine Lee, February 13

Featuring World Premieres by Eric Wubbels and Mariel Roberts, 
Plus a New Collaboratively Developed Work for Wet Ink

www.wetink.org
 

New York, NY (January 16, 2020) — On Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 7:30 and 9:30 P.M. at Scholes Street Studio, the "sublimely exploratory” (The Chicago Reader) Wet Ink Ensemble presents two performances featuring the world premiere of Eric Wubbels’ new work for voice and piano, Field of Action (2020), written for and featuring Charmaine Lee, the debut of Mariel Roberts' Duo (2020) for cello and violin, and a new work developed collaboratively by Wet Ink, Performance Practice (2020).

Wubbels's new work features the singular vocalist Charmaine Lee, a rising star of New York's improvised music community. Field of Action is the first culmination of a collaborative project that Wubbels and Lee have developed together since 2018, working to find new balances of freedom and structure, and shared spaces and meeting points between their individual creative practices of composition, performance, and improvisation.

Mariel Roberts's Duo is the first in a series of new works that places Roberts' cello in dialogue with an improvising partner – in this case, Wet Ink violinist Josh Modney.

This concert also marks the debut of Performance Practice, a set of music developed collectively by Wet Ink. More like an ongoing project than a fixed piece, Performance Practice represents a distinctive approach to organizing the sounds, language, and unique musical style forged over Wet Ink's two-plus-decades of close-knit artistic collaboration. Moving freely along the continuum of structured and open music, Performance Practice incorporates music determined cooperatively in rehearsal, notated materials and forms composed by Wet Ink members (in this performance, by Alex Mincek and Josh Modney), and improvisation. 

Performance Details
Collaborative Premieres: Wubbels, Roberts, Wet Ink
Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 7:30 P.M. and 9:30 P.M.
Scholes Street Studio | 375 Lorimer Street | Brooklyn, NY
Tickets: $10 general admission, free for students (no pre-order, cash only at the door)
Link: www.wetink.org/pages/events.html

Repertoire:
Eric Wubbels: Field of Action [2020], for voice/microphones and piano/synth [World Premiere]
(Duos with Piano VII)
     1. screen
     2. signal
     3. index
     4-5. soli
     6. tether
     7. resistor

Mariel Roberts: Duo [2020], for cello and violin [World Premiere]

Wet Ink Ensemble: Performance Practice [2020], for sextet [World Premiere]

Performers:
Alex Mincek, tenor saxophone
Ian Antonio, percussion
Eric Wubbels, piano
Josh Modney, violin
Mariel Roberts, cello
Charmaine Lee, voice
Sam Pluta, electronics

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 octet 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).

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 three acclaimed solo albums (Wet Ink Ensemble, Relay, and Wet Ink: 20, which features the Wet Ink Large Ensemble), and will release another in April 2020 featuring large-scale works written for the Wet Ink band by Sam Pluta and Alex Mincek.

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. 

# # #