RUN TIME ERROR with Simon Steen-Andersen & JACK Quartet Launches Miller Theatre's 2015-16 Season Tonight

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts presents the 2015-16 opening night: "RUN TIME ERROR", a composed program for strings, prepared bows, joysticks, whammy pedal and video, featuring Simon Steen-Andersen, composer & performer, and the JACK Quartet. This marks the premiere of a new version of Steen-Anderson's Run Time Error, a site-specific video work created during a three-week residency at Miller Theatre.

The concert is slated for tonight, September 17, 2015, 8:00 p.m. at the Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th Street). Tickets: $25-$40 | Students with valid ID: $7-14. For more, go to www.millertheatre.com/events/run-time-error.

From Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey: "Combining video, music, and live performance, Run Time Error is the first of several multi-media and theatrical projects we'll present over the course of Miller's 2015-16 season. Danish artist Simon Steen-Andersen will be in residence at Miller Theatre for three weeks working closely with the JACK Quartet to create a new version of the piece. Simon's unique synthesis of live performance and film, music and theater, results in works that are captivating, thought-provoking, and completely original-a perfect way to open our new season at Miller Theatre."

What if music wasn't just heard, but seen? Simon Steen-Andersen's innovative compositions blur the line between contemporary music and performance art. In his video work Run Time Error, he blazes a musical trail through the theater's backstage spaces, making the building itself sing by playing the furniture, walls, plumbing-whatever crosses his path. (He'll create a new version during his residency at Miller, and remix it live in performance.)

The JACK Quartet are his able partners for this Opening Night show, conceived as a nonstop theatrical experience. The performance employs whammy pedals, outlandishly modified bows, and video projections, subverting the concert experience and creating a musical performance that is as much about sight as it is about sound.

PROGRAM:

Run Time Error versions 1 and 2 (2015) - world premiere of new version,
Miller Theatre commission
String Quartet No. 2 (2012) - New York premiere
Obstruction Study Nos. 1- 3 (2012) - New York premiere
Study for String Instrument No. 3 (2011) - New York premiere
Study for String Instrument No. 2 (2009)
Study for String Instrument No. 1 (2007)
Half a Bit of Nothing Integrated (2007/2010) - New York premiere

ARTISTS:

Simon Steen-Andersen, composer & performer
JACK Quartet
Christopher Otto, violin
Ari Streisfeld, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Kevin McFarland, cello
Peter Tinning, camera performer

Simon Steen-Andersen (www.simonsteenandersen.dk) (b.1976) is a Danish composer, performer, and installation artist currently based in Berlin. He works in the space between instrumental music, electronics, video, and performance within settings ranging from symphony orchestra and chamber music (with and without multimedia) to stagings, solo performances, and installations. His works emphasize the physical and choreographic aspects of instrumental performance. They often include amplified acoustic instruments in combination with sampler, video, simple everyday objects, or homemade constructions.

Steen-Andersen has received numerous prizes and grants: the Nordic Council Music Prize and the SWR Orchestra Prize in 2014, the Carl Nielsen Prize (DK) and the Kunstpreis Musik from Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 2013, the International Rostrum of Composers and the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm Residency in 2010, and the Kranichsteiner Music Award in 2008. He has been commissioned by ensembles, orchestras, and festivals such as ensemble recherche, Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart, the SWR Orchestra, The Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Modern, and Oslo Sinfonietta. Steen-Andersen has also worked with ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Collegium Novum Zürich, Arditti, London Sinfonietta, Intercontemporain, asamisimasa, and NADAR.

Steen-Andersen studied composition with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Mathias Spahlinger, Gabriel Valverde, and Bent Sørensen. He has been a lecturer of composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark since 2008, in 2013-2014 he was a visiting professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and in 2014 he was a lecturer at the Darmstädter Ferienkursen für neue Musik.

JACK Quartet (www.jackquartet.com) electrifies audiences worldwide with "explosive virtuosity" (Boston Globe) and "viscerally exciting performances" (New York Times). Alex Ross (New Yorker) hailed their performance of Iannis Xenakis' complete string quartets as "exceptional" and "beautifully harsh," and Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times) called their sold-out performances of Georg Friedrich Haas' String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct. "mind-blowingly good."

The recipient of Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, JACK has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Suntory Hall (Japan), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), and the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Germany).

JACK is focused on the commissioning and performance of new works, leading them to work closely with composers including John Luther Adams, Chaya Czernowin, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Vijay Iyer, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Mackey, Matthias Pintscher, Steve Reich, and John Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Toby Twining, Georg Friedrich Haas, Simon Holt, Kevin Ernste, and Simon Bainbridge.

JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and spread of new string quartet music. The members of the quartet met while attending the Eastman School of Music and studied closely with the Arditti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, Muir String Quartet, and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Columbia University's Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall. Directions and information is available online at www.millertheatre.com or via the Miller Theatre Box Office, at 212.854.7799.