Yarn/Wire and Baritone Jeffrey Gavett Premiere Three New Works at the Americas Society

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

Yarn/Wire and Baritone Jeffrey Gavett Premiere Three
New Works at the Americas Society, November 5

Concert Features the World Premieres of The Machine Stops by Taylor Brook
and Sunsets in Mars are Blue by DM R, Plus the Premiere of the New Version of
Como hilos de viento y luz by Andrés Guadarrama

“fascinating and exciting, with playing that is precise and full of purpose” – Brooklyn Rail

www.yarnwire.org

New York, NY (September 28, 2021) — On Friday, November 5, 2021 at 7:00pm, acclaimed percussion and piano quartet Yarn/Wire returns to the Music of the Americas Concert Series and Americas Society to present Hilos de viento. The program includes the world premieres of The Machine Stops by Taylor Brook and a new version of Como hilos de viento y luz by Andrés Guadarrama with baritone Jeffrey Gavett as well as the world premiere of DM R’s Sunsets in Mars are Blue. The video for this in-person concert will also be available for viewers to watch online on November 12, 2021 at 7pm EST on the Americas Society website and YouTube channel.

Taylor Brook’s The Machine Stops (2020) was written for baritone Jeffrey Gavett and Yarn/Wire. The title comes from E.M. Forster’s short story, an unusually prescient work of science-fiction describing life in the distant future where all of humanity lives beneath the Earth’s surface in a machine through which they have their every need met. Brook’s piece sets seven fragments of text from The Machine Stops, providing glimpses of the characters and world that Forster envisioned.

Sunsets in Mars are Blue was conceived by DM R as an electroacoustic-performance installation that reveals contradictions co-existing in parallel. The work uses recorded sounds on Mars from NASA, plus field recordings of protests, popular Rock en Español, explicit Salsa Choque, and Neo-Colombian Folk chants during Colombia’s unrest between 2019-2021. DM R says, “The use of these snippets emphasizes the vastness of disparity. While one country is wealthy and can explore space, the other condemns its youth to fly out or die fighting for a better future. The blue sunset consumes the red planet into darkness. One may interpret it as hope or as an apocalyptic nightmare. Sunsets in Mars are Blue is a tale of positionality, about an outsider looking in, placed between excesses, always longing to belong and come back home. Through the field recordings, Mars’s sonic world is dry, mechanical yet violent. The joyful chants convey anger, rebellion, and hope.”

Andrés Guadarrama’s new version of Como hilos de viento y luz “Like threads of wind and light” stems from the composer’s desire to develop a special sensibility to wind and light through collective composition, improvisation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Taking the place of a written score is an online folder named “Realization Materials” which contains photographs, videos, audio files, texts/quotes, instructions and exercises, musical notation, and more. Guadarrama suggests that, “anyone willing to realize this project, to engage individually with all of these materials and later, start a collective process for deciding aspects of the realization, such as: duration, form, instrumentation/inventory, number of players, etc.” The folder is available to those who wish to upload their own materials to enlarge the documentation of the project and is intended to remain that way in the future. Watch Yarn/Wire perform the virtual premiere of Como hilos de viento y luz.

Concert Information
Hilos de viento
Friday, November 5, 2021 at 7:00pm
Americas Society | 680 Park Avenue | New York, NY
Tickets: Free, RSVP required.
Link: https://www.as-coa.org/events/yarnwire-hilos-de-viento

ANDRÉS GUADARRAMA: Como hilos de viento y luz [World Premiere of New Version]
     Jeffrey Gavett, baritone
DM R: Sunsets in Mars are Blue [World Premiere]
TAYLOR BROOK: The Machine Stops (2020) [World Premiere]
     Jeffrey Gavett, baritone

Yarn/Wire
     Laura Barger, piano
     Russell Greenberg, percussion
     Sae Hashimoto, percussion
     Ning Yu, piano

Americas Society requires proof of vaccination upon entry and the use of masks indoors.

This performance is supported in part by funds from the NYSCA Restart NY program.

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation. The Fall 2021 Music program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional support for this concert comes from the Alice M. Ditson Fund.

About Yarn/Wire
Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg, percussion; Laura Barger and Ning Yu, pianos) dedicated to the promotion of creative, experimental new music. Pianist Julia Den Boer will join as guest artist for the 2021-2022 season. Described by The Brooklyn Rail as “fascinating and exciting, with playing that is precise and full of purpose,” the ensemble is admired globally for the energy and precision it brings to performances of today’s most adventurous compositions. Founded in 2005, the ensemble seeks to expand the representation of composers so that it might begin to better reflect our communities and experience new creative potential.

Yarn/Wire appears internationally at prominent festivals and venues including the Lincoln Center Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), Ultima Festival (Norway), Transit Festival (Belgium), Dublin SoundLab, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Contempuls Festival (Prague), Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York’s Miller Theatre at Columbia University, River-to-River Festival, La MaMa Theatre, Festival of New American Music, and London’s Barbican Centre. Their numerous commissions include works from composers such as Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Ann Cleare, Raphaël Cendo, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Tristan Murail, 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.

Through the Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival and other educational residencies and outreach programs, Yarn/Wire works to promote not only the present but also the future of new music in the United States. Their ongoing commissioning series, Yarn/Wire/Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music.

Yarn/Wire has recorded for the WERGO, Northern Spy, Distributed Objects, Black Truffle, Populist, and Carrier record labels in addition to maintaining their own imprint. For more information, please visit: www.yarnwire.org.

About Jeffrey Gavett
Jeffrey Gavett, called a “brilliantly agile singer” by The New York Times, performs a repertoire spanning from Gregorian chant to newly commissioned works and his own compositions. He has sung with a broad array of artists, ranging from indie rock group Clogs to new music groups Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, New Juilliard Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, SEM Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, Talea Ensemble; and his own groups, the new music vocal ensemble Ekmeles, and mixed ensemble loadbang (trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, baritone voice). He has worked with composers including Chaya Czernowin, Beat Furrer, David Lang, Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly, Terry Riley, Caroline Shaw, Steven Takasugi, and Charles Wuorinen.

He appears on a Kairos CD of the music of Chaya Czernowin, singing with International Contemporary Ensemble under Steve Schick, and a Bridge Records CD of the music of Charles Wuorinen, performing with loadbang. With loadbang, he has also recorded three full-length recordings of newly commissioned repertoire, an album with string orchestra, and a series of improvised EPs. He conducted and sang on Ekmeles’s 2020 debut album A Howl That Was Also A Prayer, which was praised as “absolutely astonishing” by Fanfare Magazine. He also conducted and music directed Roomful of Teeth for their 2016 release The Colorado.

His theatrical appearances include Rudolf Komorous’s Nonomiya and the world premiere of Petr Kotik’s Master-Pieces at New Opera Days Ostrava in the Czech Republic; Annie Dorsen’s Yesterday Tomorrow on the Holland Festival, with subsequent performances in Oslo, Arras, Zagreb, and New York; the world premiere of Matt Marks’ Mata Hari; and Hannah Lash’s The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, with the composer at the harp; and appearance on video in Judd Greenstein’s A Marvelous Order. Mr. Gavett holds degrees from Westminster Choir College and Manhattan School of Music. www.jeffreygavett.com.

About Taylor Brook
Taylor Brook writes music for the concert stage, electronic music, music for robotic instruments, as well as music for video, theatre, and dance.

Described as “gripping” and “engrossing” by The New York Times, Brook’s compositions have been performed around the world by ensembles and soloists such as the Ensemble Ascolta, JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Quatuor Bozzini, Talea Ensemble, and others.

Brook studied composition with Brian Cherney in Montreal, with Luc Brewaeys in Brussels, and with George Lewis and Georg Haas in New York. In 2008, he studied Hindustani music and performance with Debashish Bhattacharya in Kolkata. His music is often concerned with finely tuned microtonal sonorities.

In 2018 Brook completed a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in music composition at Columbia University with Fred Lerdahl and was a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow in music composition. Currently Brook is a Banting Fellow at the University and Victoria and the technical director of TAK ensemble. www.taylorbrook.info.

About DM R
DM R (Diana M. Rodriguez) was born and raised in Bogotá, and she is currently based in NYC. She is a composer of electroacoustic music, a concert series curator in Columbia Composers, C3, and CanvaSound, as well as a 90s anime aficionado. Having its footholds in pop culture, Colombian folk, and Rock en Español, her work has been presented by artists like ICE, Yarn Wire, ECCE Ensemble, Ludovico Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, Berrow Duo, Eric Drescher, and Josh Modney at the BANFF Centre for the Arts and Creativity, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, the Boston Conservatory, University of North Colorado, the Coral Gables Museum, and the New England Conservatory.

Currently, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, DM R holds a master’s degree from the Boston Conservatory and a bachelor’s degree from the New World School of the Arts at the University of Florida. Her ongoing projects include collaborations with TAK ensemble, Alarm will Sound, and Sound Icon.

About Andrés Guadarrama
Andrés Guadarrama (b. 1991) is a Mexico City-based composer, performer and sound artist. He explores sound as matter capable of generating the processes that originate living organisms and natural phenomena. Throughout his work, he designs physical networks of interaction and interdependence between people, objects, spaces, and natural forces that allow the emergence of fluctuating and, to some extent, uncontrollable sonic ecosystems. His music has been programmed on Donaueschinger Musiktage, Forum Wallis, Jornadas de Música Contemporánea CCMC, Foro Internacional de Música Nueva Manuel Enríquez, and the 63rd International Rostrum of Composers. Additionally, Andrés cofounded Vorágines, a collective platform for the production and divulgation of new music. He is also a member of the transdisciplinary ensemble Attica! Andrés holds a degree in Composition and Music Theory from the Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Música (CIEM). He later studied under composers Germán Romero and Samuel Cedillo.

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Photo Credit: (L) Yarn/Wire by Bobby Fisher, (R) Jeffrey Gavett by Jonathan Nesteruk