International Contemporary Ensemble and Either/Or Present The Music of Talib Rasul Hakim at the New York Public Library on May 18

For Immediate Release
Contact: Leah Rankin | Morahan Arts & Media
leah@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646-378-9386

International Contemporary Ensemble and Either/Or 
Present The Music of Talib Rasul Hakim at the 
New York Public Library on May 18

Includes Panel Discussion with Co-directors of Either/Or 
Together with Three MacArthur Fellows: 
Courtney Bryan, Tyshawn Sorey, and George Lewis

ICE Announces Arlene and Larry Dunn 
Fund for Afrodiasporic Music

iceorg.org

New York, NY (April 9, 2024) — International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) joins Either/Or (EO) - two groups at the forefront of contemporary and experimental music over the past 20 years - to co-present a program of works by legendary Society of Black Composers co-founder Talib Rasul Hakim on Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Presented with the support of the Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, the Cheswatyr Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Fellows Program, the event includes a lecture immediately following the performance, focused on the history and ongoing impact of Hakim’s work, and moderated by the co-directors of Either/Or, Director Richard Carrick and Curator Chris McIntyre, together with three MacArthur Fellows: composer-performers Courtney Bryan and Tyshawn Sorey, and ICE Artistic Director George Lewis.

"The Library for the Performing Arts is excited to host these phenomenal musicians and thinkers as they celebrate the compositions of Talib Rasul Hakim. The Music and Recorded Sound Division recently discovered the composition of Scope-Seven in our archives, and this concert and lecture will further our understanding of the work in a whole new way," said Kevin Parks, Curator for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the Library.

In the 1978 book The Black Composer Speaks, Hakim said of his work, “it is hoped that whenever [my] music is performed, both performer and listener will experience some degree of inner stirring, that they will experience some philosophical, religious, political, emotional, intellectual experience.” In this program, the audience will experience five diverse aspects of Hakim’s artistry, including Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. (1978), an imposing trio work that features a searching articulation of faith, mysticism, and spirituality in sound and form. Other Hakim works being presented include Currents (1967), his masterful entry to the string quartet canon; Scope-Seven (1965), an enigmatic solo piano work recently discovered within the vast holdings of the Library for the Performing Arts; Four (1965) for quartet; and Music for Nine Players and Soprano Voice (1977), which features the combined forces of ICE and EO performers and was premiered on April 24, 1977 at PS 307 in Brooklyn during the opening season of the Brooklyn Community Concerts (BCC) series, conducted by the revered composer and Pulitzer Prize awardee, Tania León. The May 18 program builds on Either/Or’s November 21, 2021 portrait concert of Hakim’s music, curated by Chris McIntyre, which brought Talib Rasul Hakim’s music back into the limelight. 

Alongside this event, International Contemporary Ensemble is pleased to announce the formation of the Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, thanks to a generous multi-year gift from Arlene and Larry, who are longtime supporters of the International Contemporary Ensemble. The purpose of the fund is to support the Ensemble’s commitment to champion music by Afrodiasporic composers and performers, with a dual focus on newly created works and other recent and exciting compositions.  

“We are extremely excited about the direction George Lewis has set for Ensemble programming during his tenure,” said Arlene Dunn. “George has long been an inspiration and a mentor for us in developing a keener understanding of how the racial inequities and erasures that plague our society in general have specific deleterious effects on Afrodiasporic artists. For us, that evolved into a call for action, giving rise to this new fund.”

“What I want our work to accomplish,” said George Lewis, “is to understand how Afrodiasporic new music is not just about confronting inequities, but about changing and expanding the voice, meaning, and impact of classical music—a new identity, a new complexity.”

Concert Information
The Music of Talib Rasul Hakim
Concert & Panel Discussion
International Contemporary Ensemble
Either/Or 
Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts | 111 Amsterdam Ave | New York, NY 10023
Tickets: Free, registration is requested
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ice-and-eitheror-perform-music-by-talib-rasul-hakim-tickets-775842284157  

Program: 
Talib Rasul Hakim - Currents (1967)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Four (1965)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Music for Nine Players and Soprano Voice (1977)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. (1978)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Scope-Seven (1965)

Panel discussion to immediately follow performance

Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
    Fay Victor, mezzo-soprano
    Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
    Nicolee Kuester, horn
    Cory Smythe, piano 
    Clara Warnaar, percussion
Either/Or
    Richard Carrick, conductor
    Jennifer Choi, violin
    Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
    Pala Garcia, violin
    Madison Greenstone, clarinet
    Chris McIntyre, trombone
    John Popham, cello
    Kal Sugatski, viola
Panelists
    Courtney Bryan, composer
    Tyshawn Sorey, composer
    Richard Carrick, Director, Either/Or 
    Chris McIntyre, Curator, Either/Or
    George Lewis, Artistic Director, ICE

About Talib Rasul Hakim
Talib Rasul Hakim (1940-88) was an integral member of a community of Black composers in New York City striving to create pathways into the overwhelmingly White world of “classical music” in the 1960s and ‘70s. Known as Stephen A. Chambers until converting to Sufism in 1973, Hakim was a deeply intellectual and spiritual man who ensconced himself in compositional study in the early ‘60s at institutions including Manhattan School of Music and The New School for Social Research, and with private teachers such as Margaret Bonds, Morton Feldman, Hall Overton, Chou Wen-Chung, and Ornette Coleman. His work gradually gained traction within the local avant garde community, with the performance of his Duo (1963) for flute and clarinet on the influential Music Of Our Time series at Town Hall as a crucial turning point. His compositional output during this period was prolific, writing for idiosyncratic groupings and standard ensembles alike. Simultaneously, Hakim joined forces with fellow African-American composers including Carman Moore, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Benjamin Patterson, and numerous others to co-found the Society of Black Composers (1968-1973). Building on his experiences with the Society, Hakim collaborated with colleagues Tania León and Julius Eastman (1940-1990) in 1976 to collaboratively curate the Brooklyn Community Concerts series for Lukas Foss’ Brooklyn Philharmonia. Throughout this period he taught at numerous institutions including Pace University, Nassau Community College, and Adelphi University. Part of a musical family, Hakim’s younger brother is influential jazz drummer Joe Chambers. 

Hakim’s work gained greater recognition after a series of recordings were released in the early 70’s. Natalie Hinderas recorded his most performed work, Sound-Gone (1967) for solo piano in 1971 for Desto Records (later re-issued by CRI). Placements (1970) for piano and multiple percussionists was included in the important Folkways Records series New American Music in 1975. His chamber orchestra work Shapes (1965) was recorded by the Oakland Youth Orchestra (Desto Records) and the Baltimore Symphony recorded Visions of Ishwara (1970) for the Black Composers Series produced by Columbia Records in 1974 (now reissued as a CD boxed set).

About the Library for the Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is dedicated to enhancing access to its rich archives of dance, theater, music, and recorded sound—to amplify all voices and support the creative process. As one of The New York Public Library’s renowned research centers—and one of the world’s largest collections solely focused on the performing arts—the Library’s materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, film screenings and performances. The collection at the Library for the Performing Arts includes upwards of 8 million items, notable for their extraordinary range and diversity—from 11th-century music, to 20th-century manuscripts, to contemporary hip-hop dance.

About Either/Or 
Winner of the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, Either/Or is a flexible chamber ensemble based in New York City that presents a repertoire of new and recent chamber music informed equally by American Experimentalism and European avant-garde practices, with special emphasis on artists outside the institutional mainstream and on works exploring nontraditional ensemble formations.  Director Richard Carrick and Curator Christopher McIntyre draw on a broader collective of 17 regular soloists (and guests) to realize the unique requirements of each project.  Since its founding in 2004, Either/Or has premiered more than 300 works, toured throughout the US and Sweden, and recorded for labels such as New Focus, New World Records, Starkland, and Sterling Classics.

About Richard Carrick
Composer, conductor and pianist Richard Carrick is a Guggenheim Fellow who writes music of spatial depth and robust stasis, characterized by the evocation of profound human experiences. Described as "organic and restless" by The New York Times, Carrick's music has been presented internationally at festivals including NYPHIL Biennial, ISCM World Music Days, and Enescu Festival, released on numerous critically acclaimed CDs, and published by PSNY. His music spans solo, chamber and orchestral compositions as well as works incorporating dance, graphic scores, electronics, video projection, and conducted group improvisation.Carrick has presented concerts, master classes and lectures throughout the US, Europe, Israel, Rwanda, Japan, and South Korea, where he was a Korean Gugak Fellow in 2015. He currently serves as Chair of Composition at Berklee College and co-founder of Either/Or, with former faculty appointments at Columbia and New York Universities and as New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist. Born in Paris of French-Algerian and British descent, Carrick received his BA from Columbia University and his PhD from the University of California-San Diego, and pursued further studies at IRCAM and the Koninklijk Conservatorium (bio by Brad Balliett).

About Christopher McIntyre
Christopher McIntyre is a Brooklyn-based trombonist, curator, composer, band leader, and educator. Known for his involvement with Julius Eastman’s music, Chris serves as Director of TILT Brass (co-founder in 2003) and as Curator and trombonist for Either/Or. He specializes in ensemble work meshing improvisative & interpretive material as a player and as a composer and music director. He regularly performs in groups such as TILT, Either/Or, SEM and Talea Ensembles, and American Composers Orchestra, among many others. McIntyre leads an active career as an independent concert programmer in New York (The Kitchen, MATA Festival, Ne(x)tworks, and ISSUE Project Room) and currently teaches at Mannes School of Music at The New School and in the ACO’s Teaching Artist program. cmcintyre.com

About International Contemporary Ensemble
Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists in “a mission worth following” (I Care If You Listen). 

Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works and is the recipient of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, as well as Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year Award. Past artistic leadership includes co-founder Claire Chase and Ensemble members Joshua Rubin, Rebekah Heller, and Ross Karre. Notable presenting partners have included Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, TIME:SPANS Festival, Roulette, and Miller Theatre. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Park Avenue Armory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Carnegie Hall, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Through trailblazing initiatives such as the Call for ____ Commission Program and Ensemble Evolution (in partnership with The New School’s College of Performing Arts), the Ensemble has had a major impact on the contemporary performance ecosystem in New York City, nationally, and internationally, by supporting the creativity of their composer-collaborators, as well as presenting workshops and performances for hundreds of student composers. Many of the Ensemble’s composer-collaborators have developed highly influential careers, such as Du Yun, who won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for the opera Angel’s Bone, which the Ensemble developed and premiered, and MacArthur Fellows Tyshawn Sorey and Courtney Bryan. 

The Ensemble’s Digitice platform provides high-quality video documentation for artist-collaborators, as well as public access to an archive of composers’ workshops and performances. In addition, the Ensemble continues to build space for dialogue on equity, and has facilitated New Music Virtual Town Hall meetings for peer organizations and individual musicians to share resources, processes, and initiatives around equity and inclusion.

Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org 

About George Lewis
George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, and trombonist.  He is Professor of American Music at Columbia University and Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. Further honors include the Doris Duke Artist Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015). Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and others.

About Courtney Bryan
Courtney Bryan, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is “a pianist and composer of panoramic interests” (The New York Times). She is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, and currently serves as composer-in-residence with Opera Philadelphia. Recent awards include the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2018), Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition (2019–2020), United States Artists Fellowship (2020), and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship (2020–2021). She is the Albert and Linda Mintz Professor of Music at Newcomb College in the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University.

About Tyshawn Sorey
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey, a 2017 MacArthur Fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, is celebrated for his extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. A finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Sorey's other accolades include a Fromm Foundation Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, and the Koussevitzky Prize. His music has been performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Park Avenue Armory, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lucerne Festival, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, and many others.  He is the Presidential Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania

The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2023-24 concert season are made possible by the generous support of the Ensemble’s board, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, The Cheswatyr Foundation, Amphion Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, New Music USA’s Organizational Development Fund, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The International Contemporary Ensemble was the Ensemble in Residence of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology from 2018-2021. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Photo at top of release:  Image from the William A. Brown Collection, courtesy of the Archives & Special Collections at Columbia College Chicago

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