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Press Releases
International Contemporary Ensemble Performs Works by Nathan Davis, Phyllis Chen, and Nicholas Houfek at Target Margin Theater
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
International Contemporary Ensemble Presents November Residency
Performances at Target Margin Theater, November 4 & 5
Featuring Works by Nathan Davis and Phyllis Chen,
and Nicholas Houfek’s ColorSynth
New York, NY (October 27, 2021) — On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7pm and Friday, November 5, 2021 at 7pm, the International Contemporary Ensemble returns to the Target Margin Theater in Sunset Park, Brooklyn to present two residency performances that feature the experimental work of Nathan Davis, Phyllis Chen, and Nicholas Houfek. The Ensemble will also share improvisations and other projects workshopped at Target Margin. Both performances are free and have in-person and livestream options.
The November 4 program includes Nathan Davis’ new collaborative architectural installation, Planetary Home Improvement (full premiere in Prague in December 2021 with Christine Giorgio, Amelyn Ng, and Gabriel Vergara), which explores geologic time with ready-to-use building materials; and Phyllis Chen’s Tone Grove, which translates Anni Albers’ weaving patterns into custom-built drum sequences, creating sounds from hand-cranked music boxes, bamboo, rice, bowls, and hands. Physical, tactile experiences are central to these three works.
The November 5 program includes a showcase of Ensemble members’ work with Nicholas Houfek’s ColorSynth, featuring improvisations, compositions, and more synthesizers. The ColorSynth is a software interface built in Max/Msp that converts the musical pitch from an input into a specifically mapped color of light. It is a throwback to light organs of the early 20th century and looks forward to new options for today. Suzanne Farrin will be featured on ondes Martenot, an early electronic musical instrument played with a keyboard and a movable ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin.
Event Information
TargetMargin@7: Nov 4
Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7:00pm EDT
Target Margin Theater | 232 52nd St | Brooklyn, NY 11220
Tickets: Free with RSVP, in-person and livestream options
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
NATHAN DAVIS: Planetary Home Improvement
PHYLLIS CHEN: Tone Grove
International Contemporary Ensemble
Joshua Rubin, clarinet
Levy Lorenzo, percussion
Nathan Davis, percussion
Phyllis Chen, piano
Dan Lippel, guitar
Josh Modney, violin
Katinka Kleijn, cello
TargetMargin@7: Nov 5
Friday, November 5, 2021 at 7:00pm EDT
Target Margin Theater | 232 52nd St | Brooklyn, NY 11220
Tickets: Free with RSVP, in-person and livestream options
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
International Contemporary Ensemble
Suzanne Farrin, ondes Martenot
Gareth Flowers, trumpet
Levy Lorenzo, percussion
Nathan Davis, percussion
Dan Lippel, guitar
Josh Modney, violin
Katinka Kleijn, cello
Nicholas Houfek, ColorSynth
About Nathan Davis
Nathan Davis "writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority" (NY Times). His opera/ballet “Hagoromo" was produced by American Opera Projects and premiered at the 2015 BAM Next Wave Festival with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, choreographer David Neumann, and dancers Wendy Whelan, and Jock Soto. And Lincoln Center presented the premiere of “Bells”, a site-specific work for ensemble, multi-channel audio, and live broadcast to audience members’ mobile phones.
Nathan received other commissions from GMEM and Ensemble CBarré (Marseille), FringeArts and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (Philadelphia), Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Yarn/Wire, Claire Chase, Ekmeles, Miller Theatre, Ojai Music Festival, the Calder Quartet, and Third Coast Percussion, with premieres at Tanglewood, Park Avenue Armory, Guggenheim Museum, and Carnegie Hall. His music has been released on Starkland, Tundra, New Focus, and Bridge.
The 2018 Aaron Copland Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, Davis received awards and fellowships from the Camargo Foundation, New Music USA, NYSCA, Meet The Composer, Fromm Foundation, Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, MATA, and ASCAP. He and Phyllis Chen won an NY Innovative Theater Award for their score to Sylvia Milo's play “The Other Mozart”.
Also an active percussionist and member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, he appeared as a concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Nagoya Philharmonic. A graduate of Rice, Yale, and the Rotterdam Conservatory, Nathan currently teaches at The New School. www.nathandavis.com.
About Phyllis Chen
Described by The New York Times as “spellbinding” and “delightfully quirky matched with interpretive sensitivity,” Phyllis Chen is a composer and sound artist whose music draws from her tactile exploration of object and sound. She has performed her music at Lincoln Center, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Abrons Arts Center, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Los Angeles County Museum, Baryshnikov Arts Center and numerous other places.
The unrefined and raw tone of the piano inspired Phyllis to create very personal miniature theatre works (The Memoirist, The Slumber Thief and Down The Rabbit-Hole) in collaboration with her partner and video artist, Rob Dietz. One of her interdisciplinary solo works, Lighting The Dark, was described by The New York Times as “by turns poignant, humorous and virtuosic, Chen’s performance offered a slyly subversive take on issues relating to femininity, technology and power…the looping, spellbinding music…became a fitting tribute to the modest, repetitive, yet quietly heroic work of women.”
Phyllis was named a 2019 Cage-Cunningham Fellow by the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Phyllis has received commissions by ensembles and organizations such as the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICEensemble), A Far Cry, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Claire Chase Density Project, Opera Cabal Opera SHOP, Singapore International Festival of the Arts, the Roulette-Jerome, Look & Listen Festival, Jacob Greenberg, and others. She has received grants from New Music USA, Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, NYSCA (via Concert Artists Guild and Look & Listen Festival), Fromm Foundation and the Pew Heritage Trust via Christ Church of Philadelphia. She is currently working on a new carillon work commissioned by the Guild of Carilloners and a prepared music box work for the visual-art duo LigoranoReese supported by the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation.
Phyllis is one of the founding members of ICEensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble, based in New York City. “On The Nature of Thingness” (Starkland) is a collaborative album with ICEensemble featuring the chamber works of Phyllis and ICEensemble composer/percussionist Nathan Davis, was awarded the 2016 Independent Music Award for Best Contemporary Classical Music Album. www.phyllischen.net.
About Nicholas Houfek
Nicholas Houfek is a NYC based Lighting Designer working in Music, Theater, and Dance. Mr. Houfek has worked with SoPercussion (Lincoln Center Festival and Carnegie Hall,) The Bang on a Can All-Stars (Carnegie Hall) and ICE (Mostly Mozart, Miller Theater, Roulette, BAC.) His work in Theater and Dance include: The Play about My Dad, The Momentum (Collaboration Town), The Capables (Gym at Judson), Coney (The New Ohio), Take Me Back (Walkerspace), Travis and the Brazen Women (ARSNOVA), unFRAMED (John Jay College, SoloNova), Caucasian Chalk Circle (PPAS), Ian Spencer Bell Dance, William Isaac’s Kymera Dance, The 39 Steps (Olney Theatre Center). Co-Lighting Designs include: Natalie Merchant Tour 2014, Li’l Buck and YoYo Ma at (le) Poussin Rouge and the art installation Pharmacaphore with choreography by Silas Reiner at The Storefront for Art and Architecture. Tours with Natalie Merchant, Martha Graham, ArmitageGone! Dance, Deborah Hay, 360º Dance, and Jonah Bokaer as Lighting Supervisor. As an Assistant he has worked for New York City Ballet, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Lincoln Center Festival and Fall for Dance at NYCC. Graduate of Boston University. www.nicholashoufek.com.
About the International Contemporary Ensemble
The International Contemporary Ensemble is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created 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.
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 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. The International Contemporary Ensemble 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, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.
OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, offers free concerts and interactive, educational programming wherever the Ensemble performs. The International Contemporary Ensemble advances music technology and digital communications as an empowering tool for artists from all backgrounds. Curricular activities include a residency and coursework at the New School College of Performing Arts, along with a summer intensive program, called Ensemble Evolution, where topics of equity, diversity, and inclusion build new bridges and pathways for the future of creative sound practices. 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.
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The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2021-22 concert season are made possible by the generous support of the board of directors and many individuals as well as The Andrew W. 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 Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, The Casement Fund, 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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