Miller Theatre to Open 2016 Composer Portraits Series with Ashley Fure

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts opens its 2016 series of Composer Portraits with Ashley Fure, featuring the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and David Fulmer, conductor, on Thursday, February 4, 2016, 8:00 p.m. at Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street).

Tickets: $20-$30; Students with valid ID: $7-$18. Visit www.millertheatre.com/events/ashley-fure for more information.

A cornerstone of Miller's programming, these "endlessly important" (The New York Times) and "indispensable" (The New Yorker) evening-length musical profiles explore the work of a single composer in depth, offering contemporary artists a space to explore, experiment, and make significant contributions to the field. This season, all seven composers will participate in onstage discussions as part of their Portrait concert, offering the audience unique insight into their inspiration behind the notes.

From Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey: "I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this season's Composer Portraits series, and I couldn't think of a more vibrant composer with which to lead off. Ashley Fure's innovative techniques and passion for her craft shine brilliantly through her music, and her unique perspective is refreshing and emboldening. She will set a marvelous tone for the year to come."

Young American composer Ashley Fure is attracting international attention-and for good reason. Growing up in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula, Fure starting writing early. "I was composing out of a renegade spirit," she says, "wildly, and without rules." Since then, she has studied with Helmut Lachenmann, Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyhough, and others, but she has retained her independent voice and energetic style. The winner of the coveted top prize at the 2014 Darmstadt festival, Fure is working on a multimedia opera, excerpts of which will have their first hearing in this Portrait.

Thursday, February 4, 2016, 8:00 p.m.

Ashley Fure

Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street)

PROGRAM:
Etudes from the Anthropocene (2015) world premiere
Albatross (2014)
Something to Hunt (2014)
Soma (2012)
Wire and Wool (2009)

ARTISTS:
Ashley Fure, composer
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
David Fulmer, conductor

About Ashley Fure (www.ashleyfure.net) - Ashley Fure (b. 1982) is an American composer of acoustic and electroacoustic concert music as well as multimedia installation art. Her work explores the kinetic source of sound, bringing focus to the muscular act of music making and the chaotic behaviors of raw acoustic matter. She holds a PhD in Music Composition from Harvard University and further degrees from IRCAM (Cursus 1 and 2), Oberlin Conservatory and the Interlochen Arts Academy. Fure was a Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow at Columbia University in 2014 and joined the Dartmouth College Department of Music as an Assistant Professor of Sonic Arts in September 2015.

Fure is currently composing The Force of Things: An Opera for Objects, an immersive intermedia opera created with architect Adam Fure that will be premiered by the International Contemporary Ensemble at the 2016 Darmstadt New Music Festival. 2016 will also welcome world premieres of a new work for orchestra and electronics commissioned for the Interlochen Orchestra by the New York Philharmonic Biennial, and Etudes from the Anthropocene, a septet that will premiere on February 4, 2016 at a Miller Theater Composer Portrait devoted to Fure's work.

Notable recent projects include Ply, a 55-minute electroacoustic ballet commissioned by IRCAM for the 2014 Manifeste Festival; Feed Forward, a sinfonietta commissioned by Klangforum Wien for the 2015 Impuls Festival; Albatross, for large ensemble and electronics, commissioned by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players for the 2014 Sweet Thunder Festival; and Something to Hunt, a septet commissioned for the 2014 Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkursen für Neue Musik. Her kinetic installation Tripwire, created with visual artist Jean-Michel Albert, premiered at the 2012 Agora Festival in Paris and has since toured to BOZAR (Belgium), the International Digital Arts Biennale/Elektra (Montreal), Seconde Nature (Aix-en-Provence), Stereolux (Nantes), Nemo (Paris), l'Ososphère (Strasbourg), and Panorama (Tourcoing).

The winner of the 2014 Kranichsteiner Music Prize at Darmstadt, Fure also received the 2014 Busoni Prize from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, a 2013 Fulbright Fellowship to France, a 2013 Impuls International Composition Prize, a 2012 Darmstadt Stipendienpreis, a 2012 Staubach Honorarium, a 2011 Jezek Prize, and a 2011 10-month residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude.

About International Contemporary Ensemble - The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), described by The New York Times as "one of the most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music," is dedicated to reshaping the way music is created and experienced. With a modular makeup of 35 leading instrumentalists, performing in forces ranging from solos to large ensembles, ICE functions as performer, presenter, and educator, advancing the music of our time by developing innovative new works and new strategies for audience engagement. ICE redefines concert music as it brings together new work and new listeners in the 21st century.

Since its founding in 2001, ICE has premiered over 500 compositions-the majority of these new works by emerging composers-in venues spanning from alternative spaces to concert halls around the world. The ensemble has received the American Music Center's Trailblazer Award for its contributions to the field, the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming, and was most recently named Musical America Worldwide's Ensemble of the Year in 2013. From 2008 to 2013 ICE was Ensemble-in-Residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. In 2014 ICE began a partnership with the Illinois Humanities Council, the Hideout in Chicago, and the Abrons Art Center in New York to support the OpenICE initiative.

ICE has released acclaimed albums on the Nonesuch, Kairos, Bridge, Naxos, Tzadik, New Focus, New Amsterdam and Mode labels. ICE has worked closely with conductors Ludovic Morlot, Matthias Pintscher, John Adams and Susanna Mälkki. Since 2012, conductor and percussion soloist Steven Schick has served as ICE's Artist-in-Residence.

In 2011, with lead support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ICE created the ICElab program to place teams of ICE musicians in close collaboration with emerging composers to develop works that push the boundaries of musical exploration.

About David Fulmer - David Fulmer has garnered numerous international accolades for his bold compositional aesthetic and thrilling performances as composer, violinist, and conductor.

Fulmer recently led the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Elision Ensemble, Sydney Conservatorium Modern Music Ensemble, and numerous ensembles and orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. He was the recipient of both the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Carlos Surinach Commissioning Award from BMI in 2013. He is the first American recipient of the Grand Prize at the International Edvard Grieg Competition for Composers. Fulmer graduated from The Juilliard School where he received his doctorate. In 2009, he was appointed to the faculty of Columbia University.

Fulmer appears regularly and records often with the premiere new music ensembles including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento New Music Project, Speculum Musicae, the Group for Contemporary Music, and the New York New Music Ensemble. He has appeared recently on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts, and the Center's annual festivals. His large-scale, hour-long cycle for saxophone and ensemble was released last season on the Tzadik label, featuring Eliot Gattegno, and the Argento Ensemble with the composer as conductor.

Directions and information is available online at www.millertheatre.com or via the Miller Theatre Box Office, at 212.854.7799.