Wet Ink Ensemble to Present Third Annual Mini-Festival

New York City-based new music collective Wet Ink Ensemble will present its third annual Mini-Festival featuring performances and new works by the Ensemble's Artists-in-Residence Aurora Nealand (saxophone/voice) and Ben LaMar Gay (cornet) on Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. & 8:00 p.m. at Benzaquen Hall in the DiMenna Center for Classical Music.

Alongside works and performances by Wet Ink's Artists-in-Residence, the festival includes the world premiere of Eric Wubbels's ne owiht (2025), the newest part of Wubbels's ongoing cycle Second Nature, featuring Erin Lesser (flutes) and Ian Antonio (vibraphone), alongside the composer on keyboards, and the NYC premiere of Mariel Roberts Musa's Jalan Mentari for septet, as well as Peter Ablinger's Black Series.

Ben LaMar Gay's Lie #4: Emcee melodies / Maroon messaging systems was commissioned by Wet Ink through the ensemble's AIR program. The work is part of a new chapter of an ongoing series of improvisations and fibs, The Manipulations of Lines and Breff. The composer will join the ensemble on cornet for this 20-minute octet.

Artist-In-Residence Aurora Nealand will also join the program for a solo performance of her work. Wet Ink will premiere her newly commissioned septet in June 2026.

Ablinger's Black Series from "Augmented Studies" for rock band is an open instrumentation modular work that creates dramatic ensemble juxtapositions using a "graphic audio score". Ablinger, who recently passed away, has been a major artistic influence on Wet Ink's work, and the ensemble would like to honor his memory through this performance.

Written during Roberts Musa's time living in Borneo, East Malaysia, Jalan Mentari draws from field recordings made along the coastal barriers of Kota Kinabalu - structures built to prevent the massive flow of ocean plastic from entering the city's canals. The piece weaves these recordings of plastic waves colliding with metal into a soundscape that reflects on environmental precarity and human entanglement with waste. The opening fragments borrow from a poem by Omar Musa, whose words trace parallel concerns of ecology, loss, and persistence.

In the new year, Wet Ink performs the world premiere of a new work for big band by Sam Pluta on Thursday, February 12, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. at Cary Hall at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Featuring Wet Ink Ensemble and an all-star cast of soloists, with materials ranging from orchestrated instrumental soundscapes to aggressive AI-driven noise walls, this new work merges Pluta's practices of composition, improvisation, and electronics, focusing on the many talents of his co-conspirators to create an hour-long immersive musical experience.

Performance Details:

Wet Ink Mini-Festival 2025
Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. & 8:00 p.m.
Benzaquen Hall, DiMenna Center for Classical Music | 450 W 37th St | New York, NY 10018
Tickets: $20 suggested/pay what you can [reserve online or purchase at the door]
Link: https://www.wetink.org/events/season-27/wet-ink-mini-festival-2025

Program:
Set 1 (6:00 p.m.)
Aurora Nealand - Solo (NYC Premiere, 2025)
Eric Wubbels - ne owiht [2025], from Second Nature (World Premiere, 2025)

Set 2 (8:00 p.m.)
Ben LaMar Gay - Lie #4: Emcee melodies / Maroon messaging systems (World Premiere, 2025)
Mariel Roberts Musa - Jalan Mentari (NYC Premiere, 2025)
Peter Ablinger - Black Series (2010-12)