International Contemporary Ensemble And Either/Or Present The Music Of Talib Rasul Hakim At The New York Public Library

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) joins Either/Or (EO) - two groups at the forefront of contemporary and experimental music over the past 20 years - to co-present a program of works by legendary Society of Black Composers co-founder Talib Rasul Hakim on Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Presented with the support of the Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, the Cheswatyr Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Fellows Program, the event includes a lecture immediately following the performance, focused on the history and ongoing impact of Hakim's work, and moderated by the co-directors of Either/Or, Director Richard Carrick and Curator Chris McIntyre, together with three MacArthur Fellows: composer-performers Courtney Bryan and Tyshawn Sorey, and ICE Artistic Director George Lewis.

"The Library for the Performing Arts is excited to host these phenomenal musicians and thinkers as they celebrate the compositions of Talib Rasul Hakim. The Music and Recorded Sound Division recently discovered the composition of Scope-Seven in our archives, and this concert and lecture will further our understanding of the work in a whole new way," said Kevin Parks, Curator for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the Library.

In the 1978 book The Black Composer Speaks, Hakim said of his work, "it is hoped that whenever [my] music is performed, both performer and listener will experience some degree of inner stirring, that they will experience some philosophical, religious, political, emotional, intellectual experience." In this program, the audience will experience five diverse aspects of Hakim's artistry, including Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. (1978), an imposing trio work that features a searching articulation of faith, mysticism, and spirituality in sound and form. Other Hakim works being presented include Currents (1967), his masterful entry to the string quartet canon; Scope-Seven (1965), an enigmatic solo piano work recently discovered within the vast holdings of the Library for the Performing Arts; Four (1965) for quartet; and Music for Nine Players and Soprano Voice (1977), which features the combined forces of ICE and EO performers and was premiered on April 24, 1977 at PS 307 in Brooklyn during the opening season of the Brooklyn Community Concerts (BCC) series, conducted by the revered composer and Pulitzer Prize awardee, Tania León. The May 18 program builds on Either/Or's November 21, 2021 portrait concert of Hakim's music, curated by Chris McIntyre, which brought Talib Rasul Hakim's music back into the limelight.

Alongside this event, International Contemporary Ensemble is pleased to announce the formation of the Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, thanks to a generous multi-year gift from Arlene and Larry, who are longtime supporters of the International Contemporary Ensemble. The purpose of the fund is to support the Ensemble's commitment to champion music by Afrodiasporic composers and performers, with a dual focus on newly created works and other recent and exciting compositions.

"We are extremely excited about the direction George Lewis has set for Ensemble programming during his tenure," said Arlene Dunn. "George has long been an inspiration and a mentor for us in developing a keener understanding of how the racial inequities and erasures that plague our society in general have specific deleterious effects on Afrodiasporic artists. For us, that evolved into a call for action, giving rise to this new fund."

"What I want our work to accomplish," said George Lewis, "is to understand how Afrodiasporic new music is not just about confronting inequities, but about changing and expanding the voice, meaning, and impact of classical music-a new identity, a new complexity."

Concert Information
The Music of Talib Rasul Hakim

Concert & Panel Discussion
International Contemporary Ensemble
Either/Or
Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts | 111 Amsterdam Ave | New York, NY 10023
Tickets: Free, registration is requested
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ice-and-eitheror-perform-music-by-talib-rasul-hakim-tickets-775842284157

Program:
Talib Rasul Hakim - Currents (1967)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Four (1965)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Music for Nine Players and Soprano Voice (1977)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. (1978)
Talib Rasul Hakim - Scope-Seven (1965)

Panel discussion to immediately follow performance

Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Fay Victor, mezzo-soprano
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Nicolee Kuester, horn
Cory Smythe, piano
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Either/Or
Richard Carrick, conductor
Jennifer Choi, violin
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Pala Garcia, violin
Madison Greenstone, clarinet
Chris McIntyre, trombone
John Popham, cello
Kal Sugatski, viola
Panelists
Courtney Bryan, composer
Tyshawn Sorey, composer
Richard Carrick, Director, Either/Or
Chris McIntyre, Curator, Either/Or
George Lewis, Artistic Director, ICE

About Talib Rasul Hakim

Talib Rasul Hakim (1940-88) was an integral member of a community of Black composers in New York City striving to create pathways into the overwhelmingly White world of "classical music" in the 1960s and '70s. Known as Stephen A. Chambers until converting to Sufism in 1973, Hakim was a deeply intellectual and spiritual man who ensconced himself in compositional study in the early '60s at institutions including Manhattan School of Music and The New School for Social Research, and with private teachers such as Margaret Bonds, Morton Feldman, Hall Overton, Chou Wen-Chung, and Ornette Coleman. His work gradually gained traction within the local avant garde community, with the performance of his Duo (1963) for flute and clarinet on the influential Music Of Our Time series at Town Hall as a crucial turning point. His compositional output during this period was prolific, writing for idiosyncratic groupings and standard ensembles alike. Simultaneously, Hakim joined forces with fellow African-American composers including Carman Moore, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Benjamin Patterson, and numerous others to co-found the Society of Black Composers (1968-1973). Building on his experiences with the Society, Hakim collaborated with colleagues Tania León and Julius Eastman (1940-1990) in 1976 to collaboratively curate the Brooklyn Community Concerts series for Lukas Foss' Brooklyn Philharmonia. Throughout this period he taught at numerous institutions including Pace University, Nassau Community College, and Adelphi University. Part of a musical family, Hakim's younger brother is influential jazz drummer Joe Chambers.

Hakim's work gained greater recognition after a series of recordings were released in the early 70's. Natalie Hinderas recorded his most performed work, Sound-Gone (1967) for solo piano in 1971 for Desto Records (later re-issued by CRI). Placements (1970) for piano and multiple percussionists was included in the important Folkways Records series New American Music in 1975. His chamber orchestra work Shapes (1965) was recorded by the Oakland Youth Orchestra (Desto Records) and the Baltimore Symphony recorded Visions of Ishwara (1970) for the Black Composers Series produced by Columbia Records in 1974 (now reissued as a CD boxed set).