International Contemporary Ensemble Collaborates With Tomomi Adachi For John Cage's JAPAN SERIES At Japan Society

International Contemporary Ensemble collaborates with performer/composer/poet/visual artist Tomomi Adachi for a three-concert series titled John Cage's Japan celebrating John Cage's relationship with Japanese culture, presented by the Japan Society this season. Japan Society's Cage Shuffle, performer Paul Lazar's take on Cage's Indeterminacy with choreography from Tony Award-winner Annie-B Parsons, begins the John Cage's Japan series on Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. and Friday, September 29, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

The first concert in collaboration with International Contemporary Ensemble, on Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 8:30 p.m., is inspired by Cage's visit to the renowned Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto in 1962. Over 20 years later, he would compose Ryoanji (1983) using non-ordinal graphical notation inspired by the Temple's Zen rock garden. Adachi breathes modern life into Cage's composition with his direction of a cutting-edge concert utilizing technology and creative spirit to allow the piece to be performed telematically. Ensemble musicians (Michael Lormand, trombone; Lizzie Burns, double bass; Clara Warnaar, percussion) will be playing live with musicians in Japan - Hitomi Nakamura on the hichiriki, the ancient double-reed woodwind, and Maki Ota on vocals, whose sounds and images will be streamed into the Japan Society Theater in New York from a tea house in Kanazawa City, Japan. The performance is accompanied by a captivating backdrop of hypnotic 3D visuals depicting the raked sand of the Zen garden created by Dr. Tsutomu Fujinami, a researcher at the prestigious Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology. A lecture on the origins of Cage's fascination with Japanese culture and how those interests manifest in Ryoanji, led by John Cage scholar James Pritchett, precedes the performance.

In the second concert on Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30 p.m., Adachi brings John Cage's unrealized project, Noh-opera: Or the Complete Musical Works of Marcel Duchamp, to life in a world premiere performance. Cage envisioned a premiere in Japan, but not enough of the work was ever finished to be staged. In response to this dream project, Adachi freshly imagines the work into existence by seamlessly integrating captivating aspects of western opera and Noh. Adachi's artificial intelligence-written music and lyrics for the work are based on the confounding paradoxes found in Zen Buddhist koans, succinct but open-ended riddles on the human condition. The performance features the distinctly unique voice of Gelsey Bell (recognized as the “future of experimental vocalism” by The New York Times), renowned Japanese Noh actor Wakako Matsuda, and musicians from the International Contemporary Ensemble. 

The final concert presented by the Japan Society on Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. features a collaboration with experimental sound artists Tania Caroline Chen and Victoria Shen and artist Tomomi Adachi that recreates the essential works performed at John Cage's historic visit to Japan in 1962, often referred to as the "Cage Shock." The evening includes musicians from the International Contemporary Ensemble (Michael Lormand, trombone; Kyle Armbrust, viola; and Katinka Kleijn and Michael Nicolas, cello), performing Sapporo (1962) by Toshi Ichiyanagi (1933-2022), the esteemed Japanese composer and first husband of Yoko Ono. A pre-concert lecture will be delivered one hour prior to the start of the show by musician and Cage scholar James Pritchett.

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Concert Information
John Cage's Ryoanji 
International Contemporary Ensemble with Tomomi Adachi
Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 8:30 p.m.
Preceded by a Lecture by Cage scholar James Pritchett at 7:30 pm
Japan Society | 333 E 47th St | New York, NY 10017
Tickets: $40; $32 for Japan Society members 
Link: https://iceorg.org/events/2023/10/21-ryoanji  

Program:
John Cage - Ryoanji

Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
     Michael Lormand, trombone
     Lizzie Burns, double bass
     Clara Warnaar, percussion 
Hitomi Nakamura, hichiriki
Maki Ota, vocals
Tomomi Adachi, director

Tomomi Adachi's Noh-opera / Noh-tation: Decoding John Cage's Unrealized Project 
International Contemporary Ensemble
Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. 
Followed by an Artist Q&A 
Japan Society | 333 E 47th St | New York, NY 10017
Tickets: $40; $32 for Japan Society members
Link: https://iceorg.org/events/2023/11/16-noh-opera    

Program:
Tomomi Adachi - Arrangement of John Cage's Noh-opera: Or the Complete Musical Works of Marcel Duchamp

Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Gelsey Bell, voice
Wakako Matsuda, Noh actor
Tomomi Adachi, curator  

Cage Shock: An Homage to his First Japan Visit
International Contemporary Ensemble with Tomomi Adachi
Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Followed by a Private Artists and Member Gathering
Preceded by a Lecture by Cage scholar James Pritchett at 6:30 pm
Japan Society | 333 E 47th St | New York, NY 10017
Tickets: $40; $32 for Japan Society members 
Link: https://iceorg.org/events/2023/12/7-cage-shock   

Program:
John Cage - Haiku, Aria, Solo for Piano with Fontana Mix, 0'00" 
Toshi Ichiyanagi - Sapporo

Artists:
International Contemporary Ensemble
     Michael Lormand, trombone
     Kyle Armbrust, viola
     Katinka Kleijn, cello
     Michael Nicolas, cello 
Tania Caroline Chen, piano
Victoria Shen, sound artist
Tomomi Adachi, curator

Japan Society is the premier organization connecting Japanese arts, culture, business, and society with audiences in NYC and around the world. In over 100 years of work, we've inspired generations by establishing ourselves as pioneers in supporting international exchanges in arts and culture, business and policy, as well as education between Japan and the US. From our New York headquarters, a landmark building designed by architect Junzo Yoshimura that opened to the public in 1971, we are perfectly situated to strive forward into the next century.  

Since its inception, the Japan Society Performing Arts Program has brought 1000+ productions of and inspired by Japan to audiences in NYC and beyond, through North American tours organized by Japan Society. Programs range from the traditional arts to contemporary theater, dance and music. Since the establishment of the Performing Arts Endowment in 2005, the Society also commissions non-Japanese artists to create Japan-related new works through fostering cross-cultural collaborations that have become part of its important mission.

With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble's 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.

Acclaimed as “America's foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), the Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble's composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble's founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.

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 Musical America's Ensemble of the Year in 2014. The group has served as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival (2008-2020), Ojai Music Festival (2015-17), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2010-2015). In addition, the Ensemble has presented and performed at festivals in the U.S. such as Big Ears Festival and Opera Omaha's ONE Festival, as well as abroad, including GMEM-Centre National de Création Musicale (CNCM) de Marseille, Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Warsaw Autumn, International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, and Cité de la Musique in Paris. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, ice floes at Greenland's Diskotek Sessions, Brooklyn warehouses, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and boats on the Amazon River.

The International Contemporary Ensemble advances music technology and digital communications as an empowering tool for artists from all backgrounds. Digitice provides high-quality video documentation for artist-collaborators and provides access to an in-depth archive of composers' workshops and performances. The Ensemble regularly engages new listeners through free concerts and interactive, educational programming with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

Curricular activities include a partnership at The New School's College of Performing Arts (CoPA), 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.

The International Contemporary Ensemble's performances and commissioning activities during the 2023-24 concert season are made possible by the generous support of the Ensemble's board, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, The Cheswatyr Foundation, Amphion Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, New Music USA's Organizational Development Fund, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, 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.