Yarn/Wire Announces Schedule For 2023 International Institute And Festival

Yarn/Wire hosts its eighth annual International Institute, an incubator for sonic collaborations between performers, ensembles, composers, and creators, serving as an ecosystem for emerging and world-class artists to collectively push the boundaries of music, performance and sound. Over the duration of the two week program, participants from around the world, including both instrumentalists and composers, collaborate on new and existing works, participating in performances, collaborations, exhibitions, talks, and workshops.

This year's faculty members include Yarn/Wire-Russell Greenberg and Sae Hashimoto, percussion; Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianos-in addition to Wang Lu, Catherine Lamb, and Klaus Lang.

Alongside the Institute, Yarn/Wire has programmed a series of seven free concerts featuring renowned musicians from a variety of musical practices. These artists were programmed because of past, present or future collaborations with Yarn/Wire. Concerts take place at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University from June 14 to 22 and culminate in an all-day Institute Festival at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music on June 24. View a playlist from the 2022 Institute here.

The free concert line-up is below:

-Wednesday, June 15 at 7:00 p.m.: Opening concert featuring Yarn/Wire at the Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University

-Thursday, June 15 at 7:00 p.m.: Ingrid Laubrock solo concert at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University

-Friday, June 16 at 7:00 p.m.: Vicky Chow solo concert at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University

-Saturday, June 17 at 7:30 p.m.: New work by Klaus Lang at Setauket Presbyterian Church

-Tuesday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m.: Popebama concert at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University

-Thursday, June 23 at 7:00 p.m.: Peter Evans concert at Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University

-Friday, June 24 12:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.: Performances by Tyshawn Sorey, Mary Halvorson/Marc Ribot duo, TAK Ensemble with Brandon Lopez, Travis Laplante/Eduardo Leandro/Charles Overton Trio, and performances with and by Institute Participants at the DiMenna Center

Over the course of the Institute, performers/ensembles will rehearse pre-existing and newly composed repertoire alongside Yarn/Wire members and work with composer/creator participants to create new collaborative projects, which will be presented as part of Institute Festival concerts. They will also participate in private lessons and coaching sessions with Institute faculty, as well as masterclasses, workshops, and discussions led by guest artists.

Performers of any instrument or voice type, ages 18 and up, were invited to apply; pre-formed chamber ensembles (unconducted up to 8 players) were also encouraged to apply to work on existing or new repertoire.

Over the application process, the following 23 individuals were chosen to participate in the 2022 Yarn/Wire International Institute:

Barret Allen, composition
Jessie Lausé, composition
Xuanqi Liu, composition
Foo Jeng Wong, composition
Tianfang Jia, composition
Bianca Quigley, composition
OGA, composition
Bahar Royaee, composition
Tobias Fandel, composition
Itzá Angélica García Ordóñez, composition
Julian Day, composition

Madeline Hildebrand, piano
Katherine Miller, piano
Olly Bangia, percussion
Thomas Gauthier-Lang, saxophone
Matthew LeVeque, percussion
David Lopez Cortez, saxophone
Anita Chandavarkar, flute
Esteban Ganem, percussion
Kai Frueh, piano
Joel Ferst, saxophone
Elizabeth Hall-Keough, cello
Orson Aron Abram, percussion

The Yarn/Wire Institute is made possible with support from the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, and Augustine Foundation.

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About Yarn/Wire
Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg, percussion; Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer, pianos) dedicated to the promotion of creative, experimental new music. According to New York Classical Review, "Yarn/Wire may well be the most important new music ensemble on the classical scene today." Founded in 2005, and admired for the energy and care it brings to today's most adventurous compositions, the ensemble seeks to expand the representation of composers including but not limited to those who identify as women, LGBTQIA+, Black, African, Indigenous, Latina(o)(x), Asian, or Arab so that it might begin to better reflect our communities and experience new creative potential.

Yarn/Wire's expansive and international 2022-23 season includes festival performances at Tzlil Meudcan (Israel), Wien Modern (Austria), and Northwestern University New Music Conference (Illinois); returns to the TIME:SPANS (NYC), Festival 20/21 (Belgium), and Rainy Days (Luxembourg) Festivals; a Composer Portrait of Øyvind Torvund presented by Miller Theatre (NYC), which continues the ensemble's long-running relationship with Torvund; plus appearances at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn and The Stone. Recent performance highlights include a residency at Pioneer Works featuring Katherine Young's Biomes; premieres by Taylor Brook and Diana Rodriguez at the America's Society in NYC; a video event and Composer Portrait of Thomas Meadowcroft at Miller Theatre; a concert of solo works at Indexical in Santa Cruz; and the continuation of the Yarn/Wire International Institute and Festival, a summer festival for composers and performers interested in exploring the collaborative side of contemporary music. Their ongoing commissioning series, Yarn/Wire/Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music in partnership with Brooklyn-based arts organization Blank Forms.

The ensemble additionally will be in residence at Northwestern University and Adelphi University, and will return for residency activities at Duke University in the 22-23 season. In the previous season, Yarn/Wire was in residence at Cornell, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, Brandeis University, and University of Pennsylvania.

In Fall 2022, Yarn/Wire continues their multi-year residency at Girard College in Philadelphia developing a new multidisciplinary performance work, Be Holding, using poet Ross Gay's book-length poem inspired by Philadelphia basketball champion Julius Erving (a.k.a. "Dr. J") as its libretto. The commission will explore themes of Black genius and beauty in the face of racial violence and inequities, and the school will host Gay, composer Tyshawn Sorey, director Brooke O'Harra, and Yarn/Wire, with the world premiere scheduled for Spring 2023.

Yarn/Wire's numerous commissions include works from composers such as Annea Lockwood, Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Ann Cleare, Catherine Lamb, Tyshawn Sorey, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Sam Pluta, Tyondai Braxton, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. The ensemble enjoys collaborations with genre-bending artists such as Tristan Perich, Ben Vida, Mark Fell, Sufjan Stevens, and Pete Swanson.

The quartet has performed at festivals all over the world including the Lincoln Center, Edinburgh International, Rainy Days (Luxembourg), Ultima (Norway), Transit (Belgium), Contemplus (Prague), and Wien Modern (Austria) Festivals, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, Dublin SoundLab, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Brooklyn Academy of Music, and New York's Miller Theatre.

Yarn/Wire has recorded for the WERGO, Kairos, Northern Spy, Distributed Objects, Black Truffle, Shelter Press, Populist, and Carrier record labels in addition to maintaining their own imprint. Recent and upcoming releases include Tonband, featuring works by Enno Poppe and Wolfgang Heiniger, on the WERGO label; Annea Lockwood's Becoming Air and Into the Vanishing with trumpeter Nate Wooley on Black Truffle Records; Yarn/Wire Currents 7 featuring works by Victoria Cheah, Zeno Baldi, and Diana Rodriguez; Marcel Zaes' Parallel Prints; the piano and percussion works of Andrew McIntosh; and many more. For more information, please visit www.yarnwire.org.