The Squid's Ear Magazine


Zorn, John: Les Maudits (Tzadik)

An outrageous interpretation of Alfred Jarry's fictional character Ubu performed with with the International Contemporary Ensemble and core Downtown New York performers Ikue Mori, Ches Smith and Zorn himself, using Zorn's quick cut approach to composition; presented along with a work inspired by French poet Charles Baudelaire and an elegy to painter Paul Gauguin.
 

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Personnel:



Ikue Mori-electronics

Ches Smith-drums, vibes, glockenspiel, haitian tango, percussion, vocals

John Zorn-saxophone, organ, piano, percussion, vocals

David Byrd-Marrow-horn

Kivie Cahn Lipman-cello

Erik Carlson-violin

Claire Chase-flute

Miranda Cuckson-viola

Nathan Davis-percussion

Simon Hanes-guitars, bass, piano, accordion, cello, percussion, toilet, jew's harp, whistling, vocals

Rebekah Heller-bassoon

Daniel Lippel-guitar

Michael Lormand-trombone

Andrew Madej-tuba

Joshua Rubin-clarinet

CORY SMYTHE-harpsichord

Alice Teyssier-flute


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UPC: 702397837329

Label: Tzadik
Catalog ID: CD-TZA-8373
Squidco Product Code: 29417

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Track 1 recorded at EastSide Sound, in NYC, January 23rd, 24th and 25th, 2020.

Track 2 at Abrons Art Center, in NYC, January 30th, 2015.

Track 3 at Abrons Art Center, in NYC, January 31th, 2015.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Demolishing all boundaries and pushing the artistic envelope beyond all expectations Ubu is one of Zorn's greatest and most outrageous creations'a bizarre musical portrait of the subversive writer Alfred Jarry and his powerful Pataphyisical figure Ubu. The Ubu plays were a powerful precursor to many of the European avantgarde experiments of the early 20th century (Dada, Surrealism, Theatre of the Absurd, Futurism, postmodernism) and Zorn captures the vulgar, rebellious, gluttonous, childish and revolutionary spirit of Ubu in this major new studio composition. Accompanying this work are two pieces performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble under the direction of David Fulmer. A concerto grosso in three movements inspired by the work of radical French poet Charles Baudelaire, and Oviri ('savage' in Tahitian) a touching elegy to Paul Gauguin, the influential and complex artist who helped redefine painting in the 20th century."-Tzadik


Artist Biographies

"Ikue Mori moved from her native city of Tokyo to New York in 1977. She started playing drums and soon formed the seminal NO WAVE band DNA, with fellow noise pioneers Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright. DNA enjoyed legendary cult status, while creating a new brand of radical rhythms and dissonant sounds; forever altering the face of rock music.

In the mid 80's Ikue started in employ drum machines in the unlikely context of improvised music. While limited to the standard technology provided by the drum machine, she has never the less forged her own highly sensitive signature style. Through out in 90's She has subsequently collaborated with numerous improvisors throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, while continuing to produce and record her own music. 1998, She was invited to perform with Ensemble Modern as the soloist along with Zeena Parkins, and composer Fred Frith, also "One hundred Aspects of the Moon" commissioned by Roulette/Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. Ikue won the Distinctive Award for Prix Ars Electronics Digital Music category in 99.

In 2000 Ikue started using the laptop computer to expand on her already signature sound, thus broadening her scope of musical expression. 2000 commissioned by the KITCHEN ensemble, wrote and premired the piece "Aphorism" also awarded Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship. 2003 commissioned by RELACHE Ensemble to write a piece for film In the Street and premired in Philadelphia. Started working with visual played by the music since 2004. In 2005 Awarded Alphert/Ucross Residency.

Ikue received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2006. In 2007 the Tate Modern commissioned Ikue to create a live sound track for screenings of Maya Deren's silent films. In 2008 Ikue celebrated her 30th year in NY and performed at the Japan Society. Recent commissioners include the Montalvo Arts Center and SWR German radio program and Shajah Art foundation in UAE. Current working groups include MEPHISTA with Sylvie Courvoisier and Susie Ibarra, PHANTOM ORCHARD with Zeena Parkins, project with Koichi Makigami and various ensembles of John Zorn. New duo Twindrums project with YoshimiO  workshop/lecture in various schools include University of Gothenburg, Dartmouth Collage, New England Conservatory, Mills Collage, Stanford University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago"

-Ikue Mori Website (http://www.ikuemori.com/bio.html)
11/29/2024

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"Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure bands and intensive study with drummer / educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. One of Winant's first "assignments" for Ches was to sub in his touring gig at the time, Mr. Bungle (here he met bassist / composer Trevor Dunn who would later hire him for the second incarnation of his Trio-Convulsant). During his time at Mills, Ches co-founded two bands: Theory of Ruin (with Fudgetunnel / Nailbomb frontman Alex Newport), and Good for Cows (w/ Nels Cline Singers' Devin Hoff). He currently performs and records with Xiu Xiu, and Secret Chiefs 3. He has also performed with Ben Goldberg, Annie Gosfield, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, and Trevor Dunn. In addition to Ceramic Dog, he also leads his two of his own projects, Congs for Brums and These Arches. He currently spends his time between Los Angeles, San Francisco and Brooklyn."

-Ches Smith Website (http://www.chessmith.com/)
11/29/2024

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"John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, arranger, producer, saxophonist, and multi-instrumentalist with hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, and producer across a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, surf, metal, klezmer, soundtrack, ambient, and improvised music. He incorporates diverse styles in his compositions which he identifies as avant-garde or experimental. Zorn was described by Down Beat as "one of our most important composers".

Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid-1970s performing with musicians across the sonic spectrum and developing experimental methods of composing new music. After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and received wide acclaim with the release of The Big Gundown, an album reworking the compositions of Ennio Morricone. He attracted further attention worldwide with the release of Spillane in 1987, and Naked City in 1989. After spending almost a decade travelling between Japan and the US he made New York his permanent base and established his own record label, Tzadik, in the mid-1990s.

Tzadik enabled Zorn to maintain independence from the mainstream music industry and ensured the continued availability of his growing catalog of recordings, allowing him to prolifically record and release new material, issuing several new albums each year, as well as promoting the work of many other musicians. Zorn has led the hardcore bands Naked City and Painkiller, the klezmer/free jazz-influenced quartet Masada, composed over 600 pieces as part of the Masada Songbooks that have been performed by an array of groups, composed concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, and produced music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with many other musicians and ensembles that perform his diverse output.

Zorn's compositions cross many genres and he has stated "All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person-the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there." For Zorn "Composing is more than just imagining music-it's knowing how to communicate it to musicians. And you don't give an improviser music that's completely written out, or ask a classical musician to improvise. I'm interested in speaking to musicians in their own languages, on their own terms, and in bringing out the best in what they do. To challenge them and excite them." "

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn)
11/29/2024

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"Atlanta native David Byrd-Marrow is the Solo hornist of the International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as The Knights. Working with a uniquely wide range of performers, he has premiered works by Matthias Pintscher, Arthur Kampela, George Lewis, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Du Yun, Marcos Balter, Wang Lu, Kate Soper, Miguel Zenón, and Chick Corea. He has performed at festivals including the Ojai Music Festival, the Spoleto Music Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, Summerfest at the La Jolla Music Society and as faculty at the Festival Napa Valley. Formerly a member of Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect, he has also made appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Decoda, the Atlanta and Tokyo symphony orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Washington National Opera and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has recorded on many labels including Tundra, More Is More, Nonesuch, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, and Naxos. Mr. Byrd-Marrow received his Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School and Master of Music from Stony Brook University.

David is the Assistant Professor of Horn at the Lamont School of Music, of The University of Denver."

-David Byrd-Marrow Website (http://davidbyrdmarrow.com/about)
11/29/2024

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"While all the other kids were learning addition in first grade, Kivie Cahn-Lipman was running around the classroom singing that he was a yeti. His kindly teacher said he was very musical, so Kivie was allowed his choice of instruments along with the therapy. He told his parents he wanted to play the drums, so they asked him what instrument he REALLY wanted to play. "The tuba," he replied, and they handed him a violin. The violin teacher was all "you can't touch the violin until you've learned to respect the violin," but Kivie picked his nose and wiped it on the violin, and then that teacher went away and Kivie's parents handed him a cello. And when he picked his nose and wiped it on the cello, the new teacher was like "ewww gross don't do that, here's a tissue, clean that up and let's play music," and that seemed like a good idea.

Eventually Kivie went to Oberlin and then Juilliard, and after awhile each school gave him a fancy document written in Latin, which hopefully indicates that he graduated. He finished up his education at the University of Cincinnati, and he's a doctor now. Not that kind of doctor. Kivie is the founding cellist of the International Contemporary Ensemble (and please don't abbreviate it to "ICE" anymore), and he still tours all over the world performing with them. He served on the faculties of Smith College and Mount Holyoke College from 2005-2012 and The College of New Jersey from 2015-2017, and he's now an Assistant Professor of Cello at Youngstown State University.

Kivie also plays the viola da gamba for some reason, and he co-founded and performs/records with viol consorts LeStrange and Science Ficta, as well as Scottish early-music ensemble Makaris. He founded the baroque string band ACRONYM because he found a bunch of seventeenth-century music in old manuscripts and wanted to play it with his friends; they've got ten CDs of modern premieres released and more on the way. Kivie's 2014 solo recording of J.S. Bach's cello suites got a nice blurb in a trade publication called The Strad, but he's way more proud of the warm personal letter praising the disc which he received from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Kivie's mom also claims to like the recording, although she constantly opines that some of the tempos are too fast. You can find it on sale wherever you can still find music on sale, and the discs make great coasters."

-International Contemporary Ensemble (https://iceorg.org/kivie-cahnlipman)
11/29/2024

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"Erik Carlson has performed as a soloist and with many chamber and orchestral ensembles throughout Europe and the Americas. He is a highly active performer of contemporary music and has had works written for him by numerous composers, including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tom Johnson, Jürg Frey, and Georges Aperghis. Mr. Carlson is an enthusiastic proponent of interdisciplinary collaboration, and performs frequently with poets, dancers, actors, and film.

He is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble and the Talea Ensemble and is the founder of the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. He has been featured on over a dozen recordings, including his own two recent albums of music for violin. Also a composer, he has had his musical compositions performed in a wide variety of venues. He studied violin with Jorja Fleezanis, Ronald Copes, and Robert Mann, and holds a Master's degree from The Juilliard School. Mr. Carlson enjoys expensive bourbon and long walks on the beach.:

-International Contemporary Ensemble website (http://iceorg.org/about/artist/carlson)
11/29/2024

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"Claire Chase is a soloist, collaborative artist, educator, curator and advocate for new and experimental music. Over the past decade she has given the world premieres of more than a thousand new works in performances on six continents, and she has championed new music throughout the world by building community organizations, forming intersectional alliances, pioneering commissioning initiatives and supporting educational programs that reach new audiences. She was the first flutist to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012, and in 2017 was the first flutist to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Chase holds Honorary Doctorates from The Curtis Institute of Music and The Cleveland Institute of Music.

In 2013 Chase launched Density 2036, a 24-year commissioning project to create an entirely new body of repertory for flute between 2013 and 2036, the centenary of Edgard Varèse's groundbreaking 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. Each season as part of the project, Chase premieres a new program of commissioned music, with seven hours of new repertory created to date. In 2036, she will play a 24-hour marathon of all of the repertory created in the project. Chase will release world premiere recordings the first five years of the Density cycle in collaboration with the producer Matias Tarnopolsky at Meyer Sound Laboratories in Berkeley, CA in December 2020.

A deeply committed educator, Chase is Professor of the Practice in the Department of Music at Harvard University. From 2016-2019, she served as co-artistic director, with her longtime collaborator Steven Schick, of Ensemble Evolution, a three-week intensive workshop for emerging musicians at Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity in Canada. From 2014-2018, Chase was a Fellow at Project&, a Chicago-based social justice organization founded by Jane M. Saks. Chase collaborated with Project&, the composer Marcos Balter and the director Douglas Fitch on the creation of "Pan," an opera for solo flute and an all-ages ensemble of community members, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker called "art as grassroots action."

Chase co-founded the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2001, described as the United States' "foremost new-music ensemble" (The New Yorker), and served as its artistic director until 2017 and as an ensemble member on performance and education projects on five continents. The Ensemble has premiered more than 800 works since its inception and has spearheaded an artist-driven organizational model that earned the ensemble the Trailblazer Award from the American Music Center in 2010 and the Ensemble of the Year Award in 2014 from Musical America Worldwide. The ensemble can be heard in dozens of recordings on the Tzadik, Mode, Naxos, Bridge, New Amsterdam, New Focus, Samadhi Sound and Nonesuch labels, as well as on its own online, streaming video library of live performances, DigitiCE.

Upcoming projects in the 2020-21 season include the world premiere of a new duo concerto by Felipe Lara for Chase and Esperanza Spalding, to be premiered by the Helsinki and Los Angeles Philharmonics and conducted by Susanna Mälkki; the release of Density 2036 (2013-2018) world premiere recordings; a collaboration with the Swiss director Julie Beauvais and the Ecuadorian anthropologist Eduardo Kohn on Pauline Oliveros' "The Witness"; and the world premiere of an evening-length work by Liza Lim called "Sex Magic" for contrabass flute and kinetic percussion.

Chase grew up in Leucadia, CA with the childhood dream of becoming a professional baseball player before she discovered the flute. She received her B.M. from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in the studio of Michel Debost. She lives in Brooklyn."

-Claire Chase Website (http://www.clairechase.net/about)
11/29/2024

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"Miranda Cuckson delights listeners with her playing of a remarkably wide range of music and styles, from older eras to the newest creations. Known for her organic expressivity, dexterous virtuosity, musical insight, brilliant programming, and love for music, she is acclaimed internationally as a soloist and collaborator. A violinist and violist, she performs at venues large and small, concert halls, and informal spaces.

As soloist these have included the Berlin Philharmonie, Suntory Hall, Casa da Musica Porto, Teatro Colón, Cleveland Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Strathmore, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music series, National Sawdust, and the Bard, Marlboro, Portland, Music Mountain, Ojai, West Cork (Ireland), SinusTon (Germany), Wien Modern (Austria), and LeGuessWho and Soundsofmusic (Netherlands) festivals. Miranda made her Carnegie Hall debut playing Piston's Concerto No. 1 with the American Symphony Orchestra. She recently premiered concertos written for her by Georg Friedrich Haas in Tokyo, Stuttgart and Porto, and by Marcela Rodriguez in Mexico City. Her upcoming solo performances include the Grafenegg Festival and San Francisco Performances.

While remaining very dedicated to the Western classical repertoire, Miranda has played countless concerts and premieres of new works and has played a far-reaching inspirational role bringing new creations more to the center of concert life. Reflecting her deeply felt perspective as a multiethnic American, Miranda works with an array of artists from many backgrounds. Composers who have written major works for her also include Jason Eckardt, Reiko Füting, Michael Hersch, George Lewis, Wang Lu, Jeffrey Mumford, Aida Shirazi, Steve Lehman, Rand Steiger, Harold Meltzer, Dongryul Lee, and Stewart Goodyear. In addition to collaborating with many of today's emerging artists, she has worked with celebrated composers including Dutilleux, Adams, Carter, Sciarrino, Boulez, Crumb, Iyer, Glass, Saariaho, Davidovsky, Ran, and Murail. She is a member of the interdisciplinary collective AMOC, and founder/director of non-profit Nunc.

She has released eleven albums, all to much praise. They include the Ligeti, Korngold, and Ponce concertos; music by American composers Finney, Shapey, Martino, Sessions, Carter, Eckardt, Glass, Hersch; her ECM Records album of Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski sonatas; Melting the Darkness, an album of microtonal and electronics pieces; and Nono's La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, which was named a Best Recording of the Year by the New York Times.

Miranda teaches violin and chamber music at the Mannes School of Music at New School University. She is an alumna of The Juilliard School, having studied there from Pre-College through her doctorate. She won Juilliard's Presser Award and Richard French Prize."

-Miranda Cuckson Website (https://www.mirandacuckson.com/about/)
11/29/2024

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"Percussionist and composer Nathan Davis "writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority" (NYTimes). He has premiered hundreds of works by luminaries and by emerging composers, and has appeared as a concerto soloist on hammered dulcimer with the Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Nagoya Philharmonic. The BAM Next Wave Festival and American Opera Projects presented the world premiere of Davis's "Hagoromo", a chamber dance-opera featuring the International Contemporary Ensemble, soloists Katalin Karolyi and Peter Tantsits, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and featuring dancers Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto. Lincoln Center presented the premiere of "Bells" and other works written for ICEensemble. He has also received commissions from Donaueschinger Musiktage, GMEM and Ensemble CBarré, Claire Chase, Steven Schick, Miller Theatre, the Calder Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, and Yarn/Wire, with premieres at Tanglewood, Park Avenue Armory, and Carnegie Hall. The 2018 Aaron Copland Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, Davis received awards from Camargo, PEW, Fromm, and Jerome Foundations, MATA, and ASCAP. Recordings of his music include "On the Nature of Thingness" on Starkland, and others on New Focus, and Bridge, and he can be heard as a percussionist on dozens of albums. Davis holds degrees in composition and in percussion from Rice, Yale, and the Rotterdams Conservatorium on a Fulbright Fellowship.He taught percussion at Dartmouth College for eight years and currently teaches composition and electronic music at The New School."

-Nathan Davis Website, International Contemporary Ensemble (https://www.nathandavis.com/about)
11/29/2024

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Simon Hanes is a bassist, a graduate from New England Conservatory and has played in the then-Boston-based No(ise) Wave unit Guerilla Toss, adopting the "Luxardo" persona as an arranger, composer, conductor, and guitarist, and went on to assemble the band Tredici Bacci. He also is a member of the Zorn influenced band Trigger.

-Squidco 11/29/2024

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"Rebekah Heller is a multi-hyphenate artist: a bassoonist of both highly notated and improvised music, a conductor, composer, educator, curator, arts leader, organizer, and thought partner.

With a conservatory education and early career focused on western classical orchestral traditions, and over a decade of experience in the fields of new music, non-profit organizing, and performing arts education, Heller is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between classical and experimental music practices. She is committed to centering conversations about anti-racism, decolonization, and uprooting patriarchal and white supremacist structures and mindsets across the music industry.

As a solo artist, Heller is known for creating immersive environments - using custom lights, commissioned clothing, and playing from memory - to facilitate electric connections with her audiences.

Called "an impressive solo bassoonist" by The New Yorker, Heller made her solo debut with the New York Philharmonic in September 2018, and has been a soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the Nagoya Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony. She has been a featured soloist at the TIME:SPANS Festival, on Miller Theater's Portrait Concert Series, at the experimental music hub, The Stone, and she will make her solo debut at the Born Creative Festival in Tokyo in July of 2023.

A curious and unceasing advocate for the bassoon as a solo instrument, Heller has worked side-by-side with composers over the last decade to forge an exciting new repertoire of works for solo bassoon and bassoon with electronics. Many of these compositions can be found on her solo albums: 100 names, which was called "pensive and potent" by The New York Times, and METAFAGOTE, which ArtMusicLounge insists is "here to explode...any preconceived notions you may have had about bassoon music."

As a conductor, Heller is thrilled to share her decades' worth of experience interpreting contemporary music, and her gift of translating a composer's vision into clear and emotionally charged performances.

In response to her 2022 New World Symphony conducting debut, the South Florida Classical Review wrote, "Heller's crisp direction, sans baton, guided the players through the score's intricacies, marshaling their energetic reading."

As bassoonist (since 2008) and former Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Heller has collaborated with hundreds of composers worldwide to make countless groundbreaking new chamber pieces come to life. Through her many roles in the ensemble, she has been deeply involved in the act of collaborative curation for over a decade. Recognizing that conscientious curation cannot happen in a vacuum, she and her colleagues have always curated with racial, gender, and social justice at the core.

Inspired by groundbreaking artists and close collaborators George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros, and Matana Roberts (among others), Heller has taken her musical practice off the page - becoming an exciting force in the improvised music community. As a composer, she has written for herself, her duo with vocalist and composer Fay Victor, and has several new chamber music commissions on the way.

A passionate and committed educator, Heller is invited to give classes, lectures, and workshops across the globe.

She gives lectures on topics as wide-ranging as collaborative practices, conscientious curation, contemporary bassoon techniques, and composing for the bassoon, as well as intensive seminars on non-traditional career paths and how to create and sustain community-centered spaces in music. She has given classes at The Juilliard School, The Manhattan School of Music, the Oberlin Conservatory, The Peabody Institute, Ensemble Connect, the Chicago Civic Orchestra and The New World Symphony, among many others. Heller often participates in mentorship programs for female-identifying, trans, and non-binary composers and performers, most recently serving as a mentor in the Blueprint Program - a partnership between The Juilliard School and National Sawdust for young composers.

Heller joined the faculty of the College of Performing Arts (CoPA) and The Mannes School of Music at The New School in the fall of 2019. She leads a bassoon studio, co-chairs the wind department, and teaches classes in contemporary repertoire and experimental music practices. She recently led a week-long intensive online program for young artists called "Finding Your Path" and served as part of the team that developed a new cross-disciplinary and holistic core curriculum for The New School's CoPA.

A graduate of the Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music and the University of Texas at Austin, Heller was also a member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra and The New World Symphony. She served a one-year appointment as Principal Bassoonist of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra before moving to New York City to join the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Heller lives in Manhattan."

-Rebekah Heller Website (http://www.rebekahheller.com/about)
11/29/2024

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"Guitarist Daniel Lippel, called an "exciting soloist" (New York Times) and "precise and sensitive" (Boston Globe) has carved out a unique and diverse career that ranges through solo and chamber music performances, innovative commissioning and recording projects, and performances in diverse contexts. He has premiered more than fifty new solo and chamber works, many written for him, recording several on the independent label he co-founded and directs, New Focus Recordings. Recent performance highlights include recitals at Le Poisson Rouge in New York, Sinus Ton Festival (Germany), National University of Colombia in Bogota, Lawrence University (Wisconsin), and the New York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland Classical Guitar Societies, featured solo performances at the ZKM in Karlsruhe Germany with the SWR Experimental Studio Freiburg, MATA Festival, and WNYC's Greene Space, and chamber performances on the Macau Music Festival (China), Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Ojai Festival, Ottawa Chamber Festival, Aspekte Festival (Salzburg), Kunst Universitaet Graz (Austria), Alpenglow and Newburyport Chamber Music Festivals, and at Teatro Amazonas (Manaus, Brasil), Sibelius Academy (Finland), and Zankel and Weill Halls at Carnegie Hall. Lippel has been a member of the new music ensemble counter)induction since 2019, FretX duo with Mak Grgic since 2015, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) since 2006, Con Vivo Music since 2004, and new music quartet Flexible Music from 2003, as well as a guest with many other ensembles including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New York New Music Ensemble, New York City Opera, Wet Ink Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Either/Or Ensemble, Cantata Profana, Wavefield Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Axiom Ensemble, Classical Cafe, Cygnus Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Pink Noise Ensemble, in addition to performing with many chamber collaborators in smaller ensemble formations. Lippel has worked closely with many eminent composers including Mario Davidovsky, Ursula Mamlok, Nils Vigeland, and John Zorn, and collaborated on new works with several of the community's most active composers, including Dai Fujikura, Tyshawn Sorey, Reiko Fueting, Douglas Boyce, John Aylward, Christopher Trapani, Marcos Balter, Kyle Bartlett, Wang Lu, Peter Gilbert, Mikel Kuehn, Ken Ueno, John Link, Ryan Streber, Nathan Davis, and Du Yun. He has had the opportunity to perform chamber and ensemble music by Elliott Carter, Steve Reich, Olga Neuwirth, Charles Wuorinen, Kaija Saariaho, George Lewis, Louis Andriessen, and George Crumb with the composers in attendance. Lippel's recordings have garnered him critical acclaim from several publications including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Gramophone, American Record Guide, Chicago Reader, New Music Box, and Sequenza21. His work encompasses repertoire for both classical and electric guitars. In addition to the thirteen recordings he has released as a primary artist on New Focus, he appears on over forty recordings across many genres on several labels including Kairos, Bridge, SONY MUSIC/Minabel Records, Innova, Sono Luminus, Albany, Tzadik, Wergo, New Amsterdam, and New World, and as a producer and co-producer on several New Focus releases. Other collaborations on the improvised to through composed continuum have included Collage Project with bassist Aidan Plank and guitarist Dan Bruce, performances and recordings of pianist/composer Cory Smythe's music, a duo of original and improvised music with guitarist/composer Alejandro Florez, and Will Mason's Happy Place, several years as a member of Adam Tully's Zvi Migdal Tango Ensemble, and multiple recordings and international tours with eclectic indie group Mice Parade. In commercial recording, Lippel was featured on the Elliot Goldenthal score for Netflix's "Our Souls at Night" and the film "The Longest Week."

As an educator, Lippel is particularly interested in demystifying the contemporary repertoire for guitarists, and the guitar for composers. He has given guitar masterclasses and presentations at many institutions including the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin, Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, National University of Colombia in Bogota, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Australia), San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Syracuse University and guest lecture presentations to composition departments at the Peabody Institute of Music, University of Texas at Austin, DePaul University, New York University, University of California at Davis, as well as a presentation to the 2016 Guitar Foundation of America conference on guitar and electronics repertoire. He was on faculty at Bowling Green State University in Ohio teaching classical guitar from 1999-2001 and received the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, writing his dissertation on the guitar works of Mario Davidovsky. He was the winner of the Senior Guitar Division in the 2000 ASTA National Competition. His primary teachers have included David Starobin at Manhattan School of Music, Jason Vieaux and John Holmquist as part of his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Steve Aron as an undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory, and David Leisner and Nicholas Goluses prior to college."

-Daniel Lippel Website (https://danlippel.com/about/)
11/29/2024

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"New York City-based trombonist, Mike Lormand is a performer of eclectic contemporary and classical music. He is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Deviant Septet, IRIS Orchestra, Riverside Symphony, and Weather Vest. He also plays frequently with groups such as Talea Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, NOVUS NY, and Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. Mike's love for the orchestral repertoire has led to performances with the Metropolitan Opera, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, The Knights, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera, American Ballet Theater, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, Mike has commissioned numerous new works, with notable premiere performances at Ojai Music Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, and the International Trombone Festival. He recently performed the long-delayed U.S. premiere of Marius Constant's 1977 trombone concerto, Gli Elementi, with the Riverside Symphony at Alice Tully Hall.

As an instructor at Brooklyn College and St. Ann's School, Mike encourages the development of lasting personal relationships with music, sharing the insights of his teachers, Per Brevig, Dave Taylor, Marta Hofacre, and Bob Schmalz. Mike is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music (MM) and the University of Southern Mississippi (BM)."

-International Contemporary Ensemble (https://iceorg.org/mike-lormand)
11/29/2024

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"A native of Detroit, Andrew Madej obtained a bachelor of music from Oberlin College and a master of music from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with renowned performers and pedagogues Wesley Jacobs, James DeSano, Ronald Bishop and Mike Roylance.

He has performed with The Hot Tamales Brass Band at Fenway Park, The Underground Horns, Fireworks Ensemble, Patriot Brass Ensemble, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Naples Philharmonic, and the New England Symphonic Ensemble as well as multiple regional orchestras and chamber ensembles.

He frequently performs at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Miller Theater and other major New York area venues. On film, he can be heard on the soundtrack of Don Jon and has also performed on HBO's Boardwalk Empire. He has toured extensively in the United States and has performed as a soloist in China."

-CUNY at Brooklyn (http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/schools/mediaarts/departments/music/faculty/andrewmadej.php)
11/29/2024

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"Joshua Nathan Rubin is a founding clarinetist, board member, and served as the co-Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICEensemble) from 2014-2018, where he oversaw the creative direction of more than one hundred concerts per season in the United States and abroad. As a clarinetist, the New York Times has praised him as, "incapable of playing an inexpressive note."

Joshua has worked closely with many of the prominent composers of our time, including George Crumb, Matana Roberts, Alvin Lucier, David Lang, Chaya Czernowin, Du Yun, Christian Wolff, George Lewis, Steven Schick, Kaija Saariaho, Craig Taborn, Pauline Oliveros, Okkyung Lee, Nathan Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, John Zorn, and Mario Davidovsky. His interest in electronic music throughout his career has led him work on making these technologies easier to use for both composers and performers. Joshua can be heard on recordings from the Nonesuch, Kairos, New Focus, Mode, Cedille, Naxos, Bridge, New Amsterdam, and Tzadik labels. His album There Never is No Light, available on the Tundra label, highlights music that uses technology to capture the human engagement of the performer and the listener.

[...]

His clarinet studies were mentored by Lawrence McDonald, Mark Nuccio, and Steven Cohen. He served on the faculty of the Banff Music Centre's Ensemble Evolution summer program from 2016-2019. Rubin is on the faculty of soundSCAPE Festival and Ensemble Evolution. He is also on the faculty of the College of the Performing Arts at The New School.

Joshua holds degrees in Biology and Clarinet from Oberlin College and Conservatory, and a Master's degree from the Mannes School of Music.

His passion for technology in arts led Joshua to develop LUIGI, management software that is available to ensembles and other arts organizations who value transparency and collective management, as well as his ongoing work to make electronic music technologies easier to use for performers and composers. He maintains an artistic presence in New York and Los Angeles."

-International Contemporary Ensemble (https://iceorg.org/joshua-rubin)
11/29/2024

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"Pianist Cory Smythe works actively in new, classical, and improvised music. He has performed widely, making appearances as soloist and chamber musician at the Darmstadt International Festival for New Music, the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City, the Green Mill jazz club in Chicago, and the Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center. In recent seasons, Smythe has played alongside violinist Hilary Hahn in concerts throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. A Washington Post review of the duo's performance at the Kennedy Center praised Smythe for "...the ferocity and finesse of his technique." Their Grammy-winning album, In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores, documents Hahn's diverse collection of newly commissioned encores for violin and piano.

As a core member of the new music group the International Contemporary Ensemble, Smythe has given numerous premieres, collaborated in the development of new pieces, and worked closely with composers John Zorn, Philippe Hurel, Dai Fujikura, George Lewis, and Alvin Lucier among many others. ICE's 2013 release on Mode Records features Smythe as the piano soloist in Iannis Xenakis's 'Palimpsest'. Smythe has also been a featured guest and soloist with many new music ensembles throughout the United States, including Milwaukee's Present Music, the Boston-based Firebird Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. He performs regularly in collaboration with many of the leading concert artists of his generation, appearing this last season with the cellist Joshua Roman, violinist Karen Gomyo, the Imani Winds, and members of the Providence and Rubens string quartets.

An innovative improviser, Smythe performs as a soloist and in collaboration with a wide array of jazz and creative artists, among them, most recently, Peter Evans, Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, and Anthony Braxton. This season will see the release of recordings featuring Smythe in projects led by Tyshawn Sorey and Nate Wooley. Smythe's own album, Pluripotent - described by celebrated jazz pianist Jason Moran as "hands down one of the best solo recordings I've ever heard" - is available for free download at corysmythe.bandcamp.com.

Smythe holds degrees in classical piano performance from the music schools at Indiana University and the University of Southern California, where he studied with Luba Edlina-Dubinsky and Dr. Stewart Gordon, respectively. He currently resides in New York City."

-CORY SMYTHE Website (http://corysmythe.com/bio)
11/29/2024

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"Flutist, soprano and sound artist Alice Teyssier ['ɑlis 'tesje] brings "something new, something fresh, but also something uncommonly beautiful" (UT San Diego) to her performances. Hailed as possessing an "ethereal and riveting" (The Flute View) voice with "unusual depth" (Badische Zeitung), Alice's mission is to share lesser-known masterpieces and develop a rich and vibrant repertoire that reflects our era. ​

"An arresting soprano, in all senses" (LA Times), Alice has appeared as a soloist with the San Diego Symphony, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, the San Francisco New Music Players, Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, the 21st Century Consort, Bourbon Baroque and the Bach Collegium San Diego, amongst others. She is a regular guest to the Monday Evening Concerts series, where she has premiered numerous works-from Salvatore Sciarrino to Cassandra Miller. As a complement to her activities as "a virtuosic soloist" (SF Chronicle) with a variety of ensembles, Alice is a core ensemble player with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with which she has toured to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, France, Brazil, Cuba, Abu Dhabi, Houston, Boston (...), and has been a mainstay ofthe group's residency at the Ojai Festival and Ensemble Evolution program at Banff. With the group, Alice has premiered new large-scale works by Wojtek Blecharz, Ann Cleare, Natacha Diels, Vijay Iyer, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Sabrina Schroeder, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and Monte Weber, amongst many others. With Michael Weyandt and Bradley Scott Rosen, she composes and performs as The Atelier, a uniquely organized music-image-movement ensemble, which was featured on the 2016 Resonant Bodies Festival in New York.

In 2007, Alice was "haunting" in the US premiere of Olga Neuwirth's opera 'Lost Highway', after the David Lynch film, at Miller Theater; she has since presented many modern operas by composers such as Anthony Davis, Esteban Insinger, Pauline Oliveros and IONE and Viktor Ullman and continues to forge new ways of creating and developing the operatic stage with her collaborators. She has been instrumental in creating roles in Ashley Fure's 'Force of Things', previewed at the 2016 Darmstadt Summer Courses and premiered at Peak Performances in Montclair, NJ, and Clara Latham's 'Talking Cure' (Anna O.), presented in its premiere concert version at Roulette Intermedium in summer 2018.

Connecting her work to the world and people of all walks of life is important to Alice, and she devotes much of her time in the educational and engagement realm. As a soloist and with ICE, she has given residencies for composers and performers of new music at such universities as Brown, Harvard, Huddersfield, Leeds, Michigan, SUNY- Buffalo and Stanford. Besides working with college and graduate students, Alice has made a mission of engaging younger children in the creative process; her work with OpenICE and EntICE initiatives has borne fruit with the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, The People's Music School in Chicago, USDAN, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and UpBeat NYC (Bronx).

Since 2018, much of Alice's creative life has been fueled by her transformed role as a mother. Through her Thresholds project, she composes, devises and collaborates around themes of life transitions. In 2021, she joined forces with several other artist mothers in founding MATRICALIS, a project and community hub that reflects on the impact of motherhood on individual musicians, providing them with resources, open forums and advoca​cy.

Born in Australia of French parents, Alice has lived all around the United States, France and Germany and continues to perform on all continents. She has earned degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM, MM Opera Theater), the Conservatoire de Strasbourg (Specialization Diploma) and holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of California-San Diego. Since 2017, she serves as Clinical Assistant Professor of Performance in the Music Department of New York University's Faculty of Arts and Science. Alice lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two children."

-Alice Teyssier Website (https://www.aliceteyssier.com/biography.html)
11/29/2024

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Track Listing:



1. Ubu 20:08

2. Baudelaires (Paris Spleen, Flowers of Evil, Artificial Paradises) 12:04

3. Oviri 9:38

Related Categories of Interest:


Tzadik
Compositional Forms
Improvised Music
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Zorn. John
Mori, Ikue
Large Ensembles
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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Tzadik.


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