International Contemporary Ensemble Performs Anna Thorvaldsdottir In New Release, AEQUA, On Sono Luminus

On Friday, November 16, 2018, Sono Luminus Records releases AEQUA, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)'s highly anticipated second portrait album of the music of composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir. AEQUA features a varied constellation of recent chamber pieces including large ensemble works Aequilibria (2014) and Illumine (2016) led by conductor and longtime ICE collaborator Steven Schick; small chamber works Spectra (2017), Sequences (2016), Reflections (2016), and Fields (2016); and Scape (2011) for solo piano performed by champion of Anna's music, Cory Smythe. Physical package includes both CD and Pure Audio Blu- ray with 9.1 Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos 5.1.4, and 5.1 Surround Sound versions, as well as the mShuttle application containing FLAC, WAV, and MP3 audio files.

AEQUA takes the listener on a journey through Anna Thorvaldsdottir's distinctive sound world, where coloristic nuance becomes the music's lyricism, harmony, and structure. Anna says, "My music is often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, but I do not strive to describe or literally incorporate elements from nature in my music. To me, the qualities of the music are first and foremost musical - so when I am inspired by a particular element that I perceive in nature, it is because I perceive it as musically interesting. The qualities I tend to be inspired by are often structural, like proportion and flow, as well as relationships of balance between details within a larger structure, and how to move in perspective between the two - the details and the unity of the whole."

The International Contemporary Ensemble has performed Anna's music at Lincoln Center and at venues and festivals around the world. Sono Luminus released Anna Thorvaldsdottir's portrait album In the Light of Air in August 2015, performed by ICE, to great acclaim. In the Light of Air appeared on a number of year-end lists including those of The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, NPR Classical, and The Chicago Reader. The Chicago Tribune wrote, "Not everyday does an extended introduction to a composer prove as unusual and immediately gratifying."

Anna Thorvaldsdottir frequently works with large sonic structures that tend to reveal the presence of a vast variety of sustained sound materials, reflecting her sense of imaginative listening to landscapes and nature. Her music tends to portray a flowing world of sounds with an enigmatic lyrical atmosphere.

Anna's music is frequently performed internationally, and has been featured at several major venues and music festivals such as Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, the Composer Portraits Series at NYC's Miller Theatre, the Leading International Composers series at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Big Ears Festival, Spitalfields Music Festival, ISCM World Music Days, Nordic Music Days, Ultima Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Tectonics, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Her works have been nominated and awarded on many occasions - most notably, Anna is the recipient of the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize 2012 for her work Dreaming, the New York Philharmonic's Kravis Emerging Composer Award in 2015, and Lincoln Center's 2018 Emerging Artist Award and 2018 Martin E. Segal Award.

Some of the orchestras and ensembles that have performed Anna's work include International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Yarn/Wire, The Crossing, Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, CAPUT Ensemble, Oslo Philharmonic, and Either/Or Ensemble. In April 2018, Esa-Pekka Salonen lead the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of Anna's work Metacosmos, which was commissioned by the orchestra. The work will receive its European premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic in January 2019, conducted by Alan Gilbert. Anna is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Anna's debut portrait album, Rhíz?ma, was released in October 2011 through Innova Recordings and was very well received and appeared on a number of "Best of 2011" lists. Her portrait album, Aerial, was released by Deutsche Grammophon in November 2014. Anna is currently composer-in-residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She holds a PhD from the University of California in San Diego.

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. The ensemble's 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored ICE's programming since its founding in 2001, and the group's recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music's present.

A recipient of the American Music Center's Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, ICE was also named the 2014 Musical America Ensemble of the Year. The group currently serves as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' Mostly Mozart Festival, and previously led a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. ICE was featured at the Ojai Music Festival from 2015 to 2017, and at recent festivals abroad such as gmem-CNCM-marseille and Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Mexico City. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland's Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.

New initiatives include OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which offers free concerts and related programming wherever ICE performs, and enables a working process with composers to unfold in public settings. DigitICE, a free online library of over 350 streaming videos, catalogues the ensemble's performances. ICE's First Page program is a commissioning consortium that fosters close collaborations between performers, composers, and listeners as new music is developed. EntICE, a side-by-side education program, places ICE musicians within youth orchestras as they premiere new commissioned works together; inaugural EntICE partners include Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and The People's Music School in Chicago. Summer activities include Ensemble Evolution at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, in which young professionals perform with ICE and attend workshops on topics from interpretation to concert production. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE. Read more at iceorg.org.

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