LOOK + LISTEN FESTIVAL Announces Dates and Programming for 16th Anniversary Season

Each year, the Look + Listen Festival presents the best of new music in New York City art spaces in an effort to expand the audience for both art forms. The New Yorker has said, "This series...builds on the spirit of the postwar New York School by placing vibrant concerts of new music into forward-looking art galleries." Time Out NY has described Look + Listen as "an ambitious grassroots music and visual art series that grows more impressive with each passing year." This year's festival takes place May 18-21, bringing performances to contemporary art venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan: Pratt Manhattan Gallery in Chelsea, BRIC House in Fort Greene, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Showcasing solo works and chamber pieces, each concert will include a line-up of musicians, ensembles, and composers revealing the depth and breadth of 20th and 21st century new classical music. Due to the success of last year's festival,all events are once again free and open to public.

The festival begins on Thursday, May 18 at 8pm at Pratt Manhattan Gallery (144 W. 14th Street) with a program featuring acclaimed ensemble yMusic performing selections from their latest album, First, composed by Son Lux and produced by Thomas Bartlett. Battle Trance performs excerpts from their album, Blade of Love, and Miranda Cuckson will perform works by composers Salvatore Sciarrino, Gabriela Lena Frank and Louis Karchin. To begin the evening, the audience is lead in Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening meditation "The Heart Chant" by Deep Listening Institute's Artistic Director Ione. Please note that this event has moved from the Hauser + Wirth location due to a scheduling conflict. This opening concert will be hosted by NPR's Bill McGlaughlin.

The festival continues on Friday, May 19 at 8pm at BRIC House (647 Fulton Street) with a program featuring So Percussion performing the New York premiere of Paul Lansky's "Springs," as well as excerpts of Michael Gordon's "Timber," with Yarn/ Wire percussionists accompanying. Yarn/Wire takes the stage to perform the world premiere of Žibuokl? Martinaityte's Look + Listen sponsored commission, "Unique forms of continuity in space." Jen Shyu presents excerpts from her newest solo work, "Nine" (Working Title) to premiere at National Sawdust in June. Look + Listen's Composer's Competition winner Nina C. Young's "Spero Lucem" will also be performed by Ensemble Échappé. To begin the evening, Jason Treuting leads the audience in a chant of Pauline Oliveros' "The Tuning Mediation." This evening's concert will be hosted by journalist and broadcaster Lara Pellegrinelli.

Look & Listen concludes on Sunday, May 21, 3pm at The Studio Museum in Harlem's specially commissioned public sculpture inHarlem: Kevin Beasley in Morningside Park (114th St and Morningside Dr), with an evening curated and hosted by Look + Listen Advisory Board member, WQXR's Terrance McKnight. The program features Craig Harris and The Saints and Aints Brass Choir performing selections along with Carman Moore's Skymusic Ensemble performing several of his own works, including the gospel themed "Think In An New Way." Phyllis Chen starts the afternoon by leading a chant of "The Tuning Meditation."

Look & Listen is supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, New Music USA's NYC New Music Impact Fund, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Amphion Foundation, BMI Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, and the festival piano sponsor is Yamaha/Faust Harrison Pianos.

About Look & Listen

Founded in 2002, Look + Listen is an annual New York City festival presenting new music in art galleries. The goal is to expand audiences for both art forms. The festival showcases a mix of emerging and established musicians and a diverse range of 20th and 21st-century concert music. This includes commissions, premieres, the winning work from the yearly L+L Composers' Competition and pre-concert ambient music by members of the L+L Composers Collective. Concerts are hosted by prominent members of the industry who introduce and interview composers, visual artists and performers. These informal and informative Q&As explore the creative process and increase concert-goers' understanding and enjoyment of the arts.

Look + Listen's Board of Directors includes Sean Carson, Phyllis Chen, Amanda Cooper (President), Suzanne Farrin, Amy Roberts Frawley, Olivia Georgia, David Gordon (Chair), Jessica Hadler (Vice President), Laurel Marx, Bill Seigmund, Valerie Soll (Treasurer), Emily Wong (Secretary), Sebastián Zubieta. The Director of Administration is Sara Heaton. Past Presidents are David Gordon (Founder) and Amy Roberts Frawley.

www.lookandlisten.org

About Pratt Manhattan Gallery

Pratt Manhattan Gallery is a public art gallery affiliated with Pratt Institute. The goals of the gallery are to present significant innovative and intellectually challenging work in the fields of art, architecture, fashion, and design from an international perspective and to provide a range of educational initiatives to help viewers relate contemporary art to their lives in a meaningful way. It is located on 144 West 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Chelsea and gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. (Thursdays until 8 p.m.).

www.pratt.edu

About BRIC

BRIC is the leading presenter of free cultural programming in Brooklyn, and one of the largest in New York City. The organization presents and incubates fresh work by artists and media-makers that reflects the diversity of New York. BRIC programs reach hundreds of thousands of people each year.

BRIC's main venue, BRIC Arts | Media House, offers a public media center, a major contemporary art exhibition space, two performance spaces, a glass-walled TV studio, and artist work spaces.

Some of BRIC's most acclaimed programs include the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in Prospect Park, several path-breaking public access media initiatives, including the BRIC TV, and a renowned contemporary art exhibition series. BRIC also offers education and other vital programs at BRIC House and throughout Brooklyn.

In addition to making cultural programming genuinely accessible, BRIC is dedicated to providing substantial support to artists and media makers in their efforts to develop work and reach new audiences.

BRIC is unusual in both presenting exceptional cultural experiences and nurturing individual expression. This dual commitment enables BRIC to most effectively reflect New York City's innate cultural richness and diversity.

Learn more at BRICartsmedia.org.

About The Studio Museum in Harlem

The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture.

The Studio Museum was founded in 1968 by a diverse group of artists, community activists and philanthropists who envisioned a new kind of museum that not only displays artwork but also supports artists and arts education. The Artist-in-Residence program was one of the Museum's founding initiatives, and gives the Museum the "Studio" in its name.

The Studio Museum's most recent initiative, in Harlem, is an expanded way of thinking about the Museum's relationship to the surrounding community. An exciting new chapter in the Museum's nearly fifty-year history, inHarlem is a set of projects designed to encompass a wide range of artistic ventures-from site-specific artists' projects to events in historic parks, libraries, schools and partner organizations in the Harlem neighborhood. inHarlem: Kevin Beasley, Simone Leigh, Kori Newkirk, Rudy Shepherd is the inaugural curatorial project from the Studio Museum. Four specially commissioned, site-specific sculptural works were created by the artists in Morningside Park, Marcus Garvey Park, St. Nicholas Park and Jackie Robinson Park, respectfully. The artworks are on view to the public through July 25, 2017.

www.studiomuseum.org