MATA Announces 25 YEARS: MATA FESTIVAL 2023 Full Lineup and Program

For 25 years, Music at the Anthology (MATA) has been a home for early-career composers, sound artists, and other music creators.

Through its annual festival, artist residencies, and educational initiatives, MATA has fostered the work of hundreds of experimental artists since its founding by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa. 25 Years: MATA Festival 2023 takes place over four evenings from Wednesday, May 31 to Saturday, June 3, 2023 as part of the Spring Season at Brooklyn's Roulette Intermedium, marking MATA's 25th anniversary as "the most exciting showcase for outstanding young composers from around the world" (The New Yorker).

The 25th Anniversary Festival will also be curated and performed by 2023 Artist-in-Residence, Found Sound Nation (FSN), a creative studio that uses music-making to connect people across cultural and societal divides. Inspired by over a decade of gathering people for collaborative creation and exchange across geographic borders, ages and disciplines, this year's MATA festival features composers from a range of geographic and stylistic backgrounds, embracing the many ways in which new musical compositions are created, shared, and passed down.

Each evening of composer works follows a theme, with a culminating night of works by Found Sound Nation that delve into spaces of our subconscious - memories, dreams, and rituals - created in collaboration with local and global artists through a series of workshops, conversations and exchanges. These works will be performed by a selection of hand-picked musicians chosen from an extensive network of artists that specialize in genres ranging from contemporary classical and experimental music, to hip-hop, jazz, as well as folk and other traditional musics from cultures around the world.

On the much anticipated milestone anniversary, MATA Executive Director Amanda Gookin says, "Found Sound Nation's deep dedication to cross-cultural collaboration, open heartedness, and willingness to experiment with any sound in any genre speaks volumes to the integrity, creativity, and respect they bring to their music-making. They are a very unique collaborator for MATA this season and I cannot wait to hear the sounds they will bring to the 2023 MATA Festival."

25 Years: MATA Festival 2023 opens on Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 8:00pm with Sound, Space, Ritual, an evening of pieces that set intentional and even ritualistic space for deep listening, meditation, and improvisation. Works include Akari Komura's Moon Greeting; Che Buford's I have been here before; Dionysius Arya Nataraja's Kafka, Postmortem; Isabel Crespo's la línea será; Kristofer Svensson's Av Hav; Yiheng Yvonne Wu's Sound-Body/Sound-Space; and Maja Linderoth's Mouthpiece.

On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 8:00pm, the festival continues at Roulette with Plug In, Turn Up, recontextualizing and harnessing elements of live band shows of all kinds to transform the energy of the contemporary classical listening space. Found Sound Nation performs Ivy Alexander's Infinite; Alexander Noice's Ambit; Jennifer Grossman's Meridian; Corie Rose Soumah's SPINNING, TOUCHED, UNDREAMT; SNOW; Aaron Edgcomb's L'amour:La Mort; Ben Richter's P A N T H A L A S S A: Dream Music of the Once and Future Ocean; Yiheng Yvonne Wu's Sound-Body/ Space-Space; and a new work by DM R.

The third evening of the festival on Friday, June 2, 2023 at 8:00pm is titled Voice, Lineage, Humanness, and features works about people and the nuances of our collective humanity. Works include Jessica Pavone's Hidden Voices; Jimena Maldonado's Repeat their names - II. Feminicidios; Molly Joyce's The End; Yan Ee Toh's Of Celestial Dreams; Lila Meretzky's All mute things speak today; Che Buford's i said...''; Jaehoon Choi's Brushing; and a new work by Sofia Scheps.

The final concert of the festival on Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 8:00pm is a special Artist-in-Residence concert by Found Sound Nation featuring original and collaborative works that delve into spaces of our subconscious, created in collaboration with local and global artists through a series of workshops, conversations and exchanges.

Mosaic: Memories is an experiential and performative mythology of the hidden cosmologies expressed in the stories, song traditions, home rituals, and relationships of women. It is drawn from two years of collected interviews, song archiving, recipe exchanges, portrait studios, and film footage of Kurdish women in Turkey and women in central Appalachia, as well as the voices of the artists themselves.

Mosaic: Dreams is a collection of short pieces that take us into the dreams of a group of children who live under the shadow of a separation wall, near the Qalandia checkpoint in Ramallah, Palestine. Blending music, film, animation, and photo-journalism, these pieces explore how the unbound imaginative world of children washes up against and over the physical wall that surrounds them.

Program Information
25 Years: MATA Festival 2023
May 31 - June 3, 2023 at 8:00pm
Roulette Intermedium | 509 Atlantic Ave. | Brooklyn, NY
Information: www.matafestival.org/2023-mata-festival

Tickets: On sale today, March 2, 2023.
GA Presale: $20
GA Walkup: $25
Student/Senior $10
Student/Senior Walkup: $15

May 31, 2023 - Evening 1: Sound, Space, Ritual
This evening features pieces that set intentional and even ritualistic space for deep listening, meditation and improvisation.

Akari Komura - Moon Greeting
Che Buford - I have been here before
Dionysius Arya Nataraja - Kafka, Postmortem
Isabel Crespo - la línea será
Kristofer Svensson - Av Hav
Yiheng Yvonne Wu - Sound-Body/Sound-Space
Maja Linderoth - Mouthpiece

June 1, 2023 - Evening 2: Plug In, Turn Up
In this evening's performance we turn it up, recontextualizing and harnessing elements of live band shows of all kinds to transform the energy of the contemporary classical listening space.

Ivy Alexander - Infinite
Alexander Noice - Ambit
Jennifer Grossman - Meridian
Corie Rose Soumah's - SPINNING, TOUCHED, UNDREAMT; SNOW
Aaron Edgcomb - L'amour:La Mort
Ben Richter - P A N T H A L A S S A: Dream Music of the Once and Future Ocean
Yiheng Yvonne Wu - Sound-Body/Sound-Space
DM R - New Work Commissioned by FSN for the 2023 MATA Festival

June 2, 2023 - Evening 3: Voice, Lineage, Humanness
This evening features works about people and the nuances of our collective humanity. We examine lineages, histories and voice, confronting human beauty, human pain, and the connections in between.

Jessica Pavone - Hidden Voices
Jimena Maldonado - Repeat their names Mvt. II, Feminicidios, Mvt. III, Resistencia
Molly Joyce - The End
Yan Ee Toh - Of Celestial Dreams
Lila Meretzky - All mute things speak today
Che Buford - i said...
Jaehoon Choi - Brushing
Sofia Scheps - New Work Commissioned by FSN for the 2023 MATA Festival

June 3, 2023 - Evening 4: Mosaic: Memories and Mosaic: Dreams
This evening is a special event curated by Ensemble-in-Residence, Found Sound Nation.

Mosaic: Memories - an experiential and performative mythology of the hidden cosmologies expressed in the stories, song traditions, home rituals, and relationships of women.

Mosaic: Dreams - A collection of short pieces that take us into the dreams of a group of children who live under the shadow of a separation wall, near the Qalandia checkpoint in Ramallah, Palestine.

About Found Sound Nation
Found Sound Nation (FSN) believes that collaborative music creation is a deeply effective way to become aware of the beauty, trauma, and hidden potential in our communities.

Our work emphasizes a mobile approach to creating and producing music, combining traditions of musique concréte, hip hop, audio journalism, and contemporary composition. FSN has collaborated with music festivals worldwide, led audio production workshops around the world, from Haiti to Indonesia, and worked extensively with Carnegie Hall running music composition workshops for incarcerated youth in the Bronx and Brooklyn. For the last 10 years, FSN has partnered with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Bang on a Can to produce OneBeat, our most ambitious initiative. OneBeat is the gathering place for the musical leaders of the 21st century, convening young professional musicians from around the globe, through a constellation of programs, to develop initiatives that use music as a tool for the betterment of our communities.

Founded by Christopher Marianetti and Jeremy Thal in 2010, Found Sound Nation began its work as part of the groundbreaking new music organization Bang on a Can, created in 1987 by composers Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon and David Lang. In 2015, FSN incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and continues to partner with Bang on a Can on various projects. Learn more at www.foundsoundnation.org.

About MATA
Music at the Anthology (MATA) is an incubator for adventurous emerging artists experimenting with composition, multimedia, collaborative performance art, and every imaginable sound in between. We present, support, and commission the music of early-career composers, regardless of their stylistic views or aesthetic inclinations. Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996 as a way to address the lack of presentation opportunities for unaffiliated composers, MATA has since developed into the world's most sought-after performance opportunity for young and emerging composers.

The first MATA Festival took place in 1998, and showcased Jonathan Hart Makwaia, singing his own compositions, alongside performances by Lisa Moore and Ted Baker. Since then, MATA presents an internationally-recognized annual festival each spring in New York City of new music by early-career composers selected from a free global call for submissions; MATA Presents, commissioned projects presented at venues and non-conventional spaces throughout New York; and MATA Jr., an evening of music by pre-college composers, mentored by emerging composers, and performed by top performers in new music.

MATA's festivals and events are critically acclaimed and broadly respected: The New Yorker has hailed MATA as "the most exciting showcase for outstanding young composers from around the world." The New York Times has called it "nondogmatic, even antidogmatic;" The Wall Street Journal said that it "tells us a lot about how composers are thinking now." Composers that have been presented by MATA early in their careers include future Rome, Alpert, Takemitsu, Siemens, and Pulitzer Prize-winners, Guggenheim Fellows, and MacArthur "Geniuses." In 2010, MATA was awarded ASCAP's prestigious Aaron Copland award in recognition of its work. Learn more at www.matafestival.org.

*Photo Credit: Alexia Webster