Seth Parker Woods Releases New Single & Will Perform With Roderick George At The Harris Theater

On Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 6:00pm, the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater in Chicago will present cellist Seth Parker Woods in his multimedia concert tour-de-force, Difficult Grace, part of their Mix at Six series. Difficult Grace features film, spoken text, original choreography and dance by Roderick George; visual artwork; and new musical commissions.

Difficult Grace is a semi-autobiographical exploration of identity; past/present histories and personal growth that draws inspiration from the Great Migration; the historic newspaper, The Chicago Defender; immigration; and the poetry of Kemi Alabi and Dudley Randall. An evocative, theatrical, and genre-bending collaboration with choreographer/dancer George, Difficult Grace features Woods in the triple role of cellist, narrator/guide, and movement artist, performing music written for and with him by Freida Abtan, Monty Adkins, Fredrick Gifford, Ted Hearne, Nathalie Joachim and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay with visual artwork by Jacob Lawrence, Barbara Earl Thomas, Zoë McLean, and Freida Abtan. The production features sound design by Christopher Botta and lighting and visual design by Thomas Dunn.

On Friday, April 14, 2023, Woods releases the world premiere recording of Difficult Grace on Chicago-based Cedille Records. Watch the music video for the album's first single, Ted Hearne's A Wedding, or What We Unlearned from Descartes featuring footage from the world premiere of Difficult Grace at 92NY in November 2022.

Out today, the second single is the title track, Fredrick Gifford's Difficult Grace.

Seth Parker Woods was nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance as the featured soloist in Wild Up's recording, Julius Eastman Vol. 2: Joy Boy on New Amsterdam Records (2022).

Difficult Grace was co-commissioned for Seth Parker Woods by the 92nd Street Y, with the generous support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting; the Harris Theater; UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance; and The Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth. The New York and Los Angeles' world premiere of Difficult Grace in November 2022 garnered rave reviews from the media. The New York Times described Woods as "a cellist of prodigious technical gifts and sharp intellect." I Care If You Listen also praised the program for bridging "multiple artistic disciplines, styles, and artists, while bringing meaningful historical narratives to the audience." The world premiere of Difficult Grace without dance was presented by the Seattle Symphony at Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center at Benaroya Hall in February 2020.

Performance Details:

Seth Parker Woods' Difficult Grace
Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 6:00pm
Harris Theater | Chicago, IL
Tickets: $15 (General Admission)
Link: www.harristheaterchicago.org/performance/difficult-grace

About Seth Parker Woods

GRAMMY-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. His projects delve deep into our cultural fabric, reimagining traditional works and commissioning new ones to propel classical music into the future. Woods is a recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award.

In the 2022-2023 season, Woods premieres a new version of his evening-length, multimedia tour de force Difficult Grace at 92Y, UCLA, and Chicago's Harris Theater; curates and performs a program honoring the centennial of composer George Walker at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; premieres Freida Abtan's My Heart is a River, commissioned by the Seattle Symphony; and performs a world premiere by Anna Thorvaldsdottir at Carnegie Hall as part of Claire Chase's Density Series. The Great Northern Festival in Minneapolis will present Woods in his critically acclaimed performance installation, Iced Bodies, in which Woods, in a wetsuit, plays an obsidian ice cello.

Recital appearances this season include concerts with pianist Andrew Rosenblum at Dumbarton Oaks in D.C., Boston's Isabella Gardner Museum, and The Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills, and a return to his former home, Brussels, for a solo recital at Das Haus. He also tours to Washington Performing Arts, Krannert Center, Stanford Live, California Center for the Arts, Count Basie Center for the Arts, Auburn University, and Emory University with the Chad Lawson Trio. In addition, Woods will hold residencies at Montclair State University and Oberlin Conservatory. The season will also see the release of a new solo album on Cedille Records and the soundtrack of the PBS documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust - a film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein - to which Woods contributed.

In addition to solo performances, he has appeared with the ICTUS Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L'Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH), Basel Sinfonietta (CH), Ensemble LPR, Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Atlanta and Seattle Symphonies, and in chamber music with violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Andreas Haefliger. A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, Woods has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the likes of Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang, and Peter Eötvos to Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey, and Rachael Yamagata to such visual artists as Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton, and Aldo Tambellini. In the 2021-2022 season, he premiered concertos by Rebecca Saunders and Tyshawn Sorey.

His debut solo album, asinglewordisnotenough (Confront Recordings-London), has garnered great acclaim since its release in November 2016 and has been profiled in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, The Guardian, 5against4, I Care If You Listen, Musical America, Seattle Times, and Strings Magazine, amongst others.

Woods recently joined the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at The University of Southern California as Assistant Professor of Practice - Cello and Chamber Music. He previously served on the faculties of the University at Buffalo, University of Chicago, Dartmouth College, and the Chicago Academy of the Arts and as Artist in Residence at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and Northwestern University - Center for New Music. Woods holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, and a PhD from theof Huddersfield. In the 2020-21 season, he was an Artist in Residence with the Kaufman Music Center, and from 2018-2020 he served as Artist in Residence with Seattle Symphony and Creative Consultant for the interactive concert hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center.

Seth Parker Woods is a Pirastro Artist and endorses Pirastro Perpetual Strings worldwide. Learn more at www.sethparkerwoods.com.

About Roderick George

Roderick George, born in Houston, Texas, studied dance at Ben Stevenson's Houston Ballet Academy. Roderick continued to develop his skill by exploring other techniques at The Alvin Ailey School, Miami City Ballet, LINES Professional Program and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, TX. Before starting his professional career, he was a bronze winner of the Youth American Grand Prix in New York City in 2005 and was elected as a Presidential Scholar under the YoungArts Foundation in 2003, where he performed for the US President.

Roderick joined Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in 2005 and also danced with Sidra Bell Dance NY, and the Kevin Wynn Collection, until he decided to move abroad to Switzerland where he joined the Basel Ballet/ Theater Basel and was later a guest with the Goteborg Operan DansKompani. In 2014, Roderick joined The Forsythe Company in Frankfurt, Germany where he learnt and shared his greatest moments with William Forsythe and the artists of TFC. His career has embraced the collaborations of his work and other great choreographers such as Peeping Tom, Jorma Elo, Jerome Bel, Jacopo Godani, William Forsythe, Johan Inger, Jiří Kylian, Sharon Eyal, Ohan Naharin, Benoit Swan-Pouffer, Richard Wherlock, Tino Seghal and many others.

In addition, Roderick has created works for Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company (LACDC), Ballett Basel, Springboard Danse Montreal, the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre (CCDT), MOVE NYC, University of Utah, SUNY Purchase, Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Choreographic Intensive.

His teachings have been explored in institutions such as Codarts Rotterdam, Ballet Prejlocaj, Marameo in Berlin, SUNY Purchase, Gibney Dance and Company, Abraham In Motion, LACDC, CCDT, MOVE NYC, HSPVA, the DAF Program in Rome, University of Houston, LINES Trainee Program, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, SALT Dance Company, The Juilliard School, NYU Tisch, Marymount Manhattan Dance Department, Hollins University, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Photo Credit: Bailey Holiver

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