International Contemporary Ensemble & The New School's College Of Performing Arts to Present ENSEMBLE EVOLUTION

This summer, International Contemporary Ensemble, in partnership with The New School's College of Performing Arts, will presentd Ensemble Evolution—a summer intensive designed to foster a holistic understanding of the artist as a global citizen—fully in-person for the first time from Monday, June 26 - Thursday, June 29, 2023 at Arnhold Hall. Originally conceived by Ensemble co-founder Claire Chase and percussionist Steven Schick, Ensemble Evolution is now co-Directed by International Contemporary Ensemble Artists and CoPA Faculty Members Fay Victor and Rebekah Heller. Now in its seventh year, Ensemble Evolution brings together participants and faculty through music making, community building, and creative producing to explore and transform the ways that music is created and experienced. 

Ensemble Evolution features an Opening Night concert on Monday, June 26, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at Ernst C. Stiefel Hall with world premiere performances of Cleo Reed's Reeding Room: The Early Oeuvre and Sandra Kluge's Anything is Everything, commissioned by International Contemporary Ensemble as part of the “Call for ____” program and performed by members of the Ensemble, in addition to more works to be announced.

There will also be a Closing Night concert on Thursday, June 29, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at Ernst C. Stiefel Hall featuring a program of works led and curated in collaboration with faculty, participants, and Ensemble Evolution Directors Fay Victor and Rebekah Heller, including works by George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Brittany J. Green, alongside three pieces by participant composers. In alignment with the ethos of Ensemble Evolution—which allows participants to take the lead in programming and producing—the concert program will be announced the morning of the show. Both programs are free and open to the public. 

At the tail end of International Contemporary Ensemble's 20th anniversary season, Ensemble Evolution brings together a roster of renowned faculty and guest presenters, encompassing a wide range of musical expertise and creative artistry allowing for boundary-pushing collaborations with participants. Ensemble Evolution encourages its participants to take an increasing role in shaping their intensive experience alongside faculty and guest artists, fostering an environment of community building that has become a hallmark of the program. Follow this link for the full list of this year's faculty and guest presenters.

During the program, participants will work alongside the Ensemble, CoPA faculty, guest artists, and community partners to take ownership over programming, rehearsing, and producing concerts with the opportunity to run their own 30 minute workshop, with both faculty and participants as performers. This will be a chance for artists to hear their own compositions, run their own group improvisation sessions, or be a leader in exploring a pre-written piece by a living composer of their choice within a collaborative environment that fosters social consciousness and new modes of community-building through music.

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Event Information

Ensemble Evolution Fest: Opening Night
Monday, June 26, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
The New School's College of Performing Arts, Ernst C. Stiefel Hall | 55 W 13th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: Free
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ensemble-evolution-fest-opening-night-tickets-659528245737 

Program:
Cleo Reed - Reeding Room: The Early Oeuvre (World Premiere)*
Sandra Kluge - Anything is Everything (World Premiere)*
More works to be announced

*commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble's “Call for ____” program

Artists:
Alice Teyssier, voice & flute
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
Nathan Davis, percussion
Sandra Kluge, tap percussion
Fay Victor, voice
Lesley Mok, drumset & percussion 
Shara Lunon, voice
Dan Lippel, guitar
eddy kwon, violin
Wendy Richman, viola 
Lester St. Louis, cello

Ensemble Evolution Fest: Closing Night
Thursday, June 29, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
The New School's College of Performing Arts, Ernst C. Stiefel Hall | 55 W 13th St | New York, NY 10011
Tickets: Free
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ensemble-evolution-fest-closing-night-tickets-659624904847 

Program:
Works by George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Brittany J. Green, alongside three pieces by participant composers

Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Ensemble Evolution 2023 Participants 

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About Cleo Reed

Cleo Reed is a sound composer, performer, and multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Recently, they developed software instruments for Jon Batiste's “American Symphony” at Carnegie Hall. Their debut album project, “Root Cause,” is out now and has received support from Bandcamp, Vinyl Me Please, Pitchfork, and OkayPlayer, amongst others. In addition to the release, Cleo presented “Root Cause” as a self-directed performance art piece titled “Black American Circus” as a part of BRIC's Artist-In-Residence program. Cleo is also a recipient of the 2022 NYC Women's Fund for Media Music and Theatre, a fellow as a part of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem's Jazz is NOW: Curatorial Fellowship, and a selected composer as a part of the International Contemporary Ensemble's “Call For ____” Commission Program. Cleo is an alumni of Harlem School of The Arts and a graduate of Berklee College of Music. At 19, Cleo Reed named themselves after Cleophus, their great-grandmother and a fellow Aquarius. Whether underground or academic, experimental or popular, they express musicianship guided by their radiance, femininity, and cyclical traumas.

About Sandra Kluge

Sandra Kluge is a Tap Percussionist born in Bremen (Germany), based in Brooklyn (NY), and performing and teaching internationally.

She writes, records, and performs her own original music, in which Tap is the exclusive percussive instrument, both solo and with a band. Sandra is deconstructing the classic Tap vocabulary in order to be a full band member, rather than just the cherry on top.

Her performance highlights include Thomas Marek's show NOLA, the tap ahead festival, Swiss Tap Days, Düsseldorf Photo Weekend, Symphony Space, LaGuardia PAC, Judson Church, Piano's, The Duke on 42nd St, Basilica Hudson, and many more.

Sandra has been invited to teach at renowned facilities such as tanzhaus nrw, tap club Cologne, and Soundspace Philadelphia, and to be a teaching artist in residence at Thomas Marek's Studio Footprints. She is currently on faculty at the American Tap Dance Foundation and Mark Morris Dance Center. In addition, Sandra teaches private lessons in person and virtually, working with students from around the world.

Her work has been featured on the Tap Love Tour Podcast, German Tap Magazine, Dance Advantage, Dance Writer Australia, and Vocalo Radio.

Sandra is the only Tap Percussionist to be an alumna of the Art Omi Music Fellowship Program and has received a commission from the International Contemporary Ensemble to create a new collaborative work in 2022/23.

She was first introduced to Tap at the age of 10 by her Mom. In the following years, she studied with greats such as Barbara Duffy, Sebastian Weber, Pia Neises, Derick Grant, and Heather Cornell, to only name a few, as well as forming a deep relationship with the art form through endless hours of historic video footage and daily self-study. She has been part of Tap City's Pre-Professional Program twice, once with Michelle Dorrance, and once with Sarah Petronio, and graduated from Daniel Luka's tap apprenticeship S.O.N.T.I. with magna cum laude.

About International Contemporary Ensemble

With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble's 39 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored the Ensemble's programming since its founding in 2001, and the group's recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music's present.

Described as “America's foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), the Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble's composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble's founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.

A recipient of the American Music Center's Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, the International Contemporary Ensemble was also named Musical America's Ensemble of the Year in 2014. The group has served as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival (2008-2020), Ojai Music Festival (2015-17), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2010-2015). In addition, the Ensemble has presented and performed at festivals in the U.S. such as Big Ears Festival and Opera Omaha's ONE Festival, as well as abroad, including GMEM-Centre National de Création Musicale (CNCM) de Marseille, Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Warsaw Autumn, International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, and Cité de la Musique in Paris. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, ice floes at Greenland's Diskotek Sessions, Brooklyn warehouses, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and boats on the Amazon River.

The International Contemporary Ensemble advances music technology and digital communications as an empowering tool for artists from all backgrounds. Digitice provides high-quality video documentation for artist-collaborators and provides access to an in-depth archive of composers' workshops and performances.

Curricular activities include a partnership at The New School's College of Performing Arts (CoPA), along with a summer intensive program, called Ensemble Evolution, designed to engage musicians in a holistic approach to creative practice, building community, and imagining pathways forward for the future of collective music making. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org and watch over 350 videos of live performances and documentaries at www.digitice.org.

The International Contemporary Ensemble's performances and commissioning activities during the 2022-23 concert season are made possible by the generous support of the Ensemble's Board of Directors, 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., MAP Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts, 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.

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