International Contemporary Ensemble Presents Tyshawn Sorey's PERLE NOIRE Feat. Julia Bullock At Harvard

The International Contemporary Ensemble, "America's foremost new-music group" (Alex Ross), performs Tyshawn Sorey'sPerle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine featuring star soprano Julia Bullock on Friday, May 3, 2019 at 10pm at Oberon, the American Repertory Theater's club venue. Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine honors the brilliance, daring, courage, and tragedies of Josephine Baker in a production conceived by Peter Sellars with original music by Tyshawn Sorey and texts by Claudia Rankine, both MacArthur Fellows.

Described by The New York Times as "one of the most important works of art yet to emerge from the era of Black Lives Matter," Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine is a 75-minute work for flute, bassoon, saxophone, violin, guitar, piano, percussion, and solo voice.

Ensemble Co-Artistic Director Rebekah Heller, who also plays bassoon in the work says, "This powerful collaboration between Tyshawn, Julia, and five members of the ensemble has been a fluid and continuously evolving process since our earliest brainstorms together in 2015. From its world premiere on the main stage of the Ojai Music Festival, to productions at Houston da Camera, Chicago's Stoney Island Arts Bank, and the grand staircase of the Met Museum, this piece continues to make history by enveloping audience members inside its intimate and uniquely poignant statement."

Program Information
Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine
Friday, May 3, 2019 at 10:00pm
Oberon | 2 Arrow Street | Cambridge, MA
Tickets: Free but tickets required; available April 1st online at americanrepertorytheater.org. Tickets unclaimed at 9:45PM will be released to those on the waiting list.
Link: https://www.iceorg.org/events/2019/5/3/perle-noire-meditations-for-josphine-at-harvard-university

Performers:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Julia Bullock, soprano
Tyshawn Sorey, composer, percussion, and piano
Conceived by Peter Sellars
Texts by Claudia Rankine
Choreography by Michael Schumacher

Program:

Tyshawn Sorey: Perle Noire: Meditations for Josephine

About Tyshawn Sorey
Newark-born multi-instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Claire Chase, Steve Coleman, Steve Lehman, Robyn Schulkowsky, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Myra Melford, among many others.

Sorey has received support for his creative projects from The Jerome Foundation, The Shifting Foundation, and Van Lier Fellowship and was a 2015 recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award. The Spektral Quartet, Ojai Music Festival, and International Contemporary Ensemble have commissioned his works. As a percussionist and resident composer, he collaborates regularly with the Ensemble. As a leader, he has released six critically acclaimed recordings that feature his work, including his latest Verisimilitude (Pi Recordings, 2017).

Sorey received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition in 2017 from Columbia University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Composition and Creative Music at Wesleyan University, where he received his Masters in Composition in 2011. Learn more at https://tyshawnsorey.com/.

About the International Contemporary Ensemble
The International Contemporary Ensemble is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, the Ensemble explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. The Ensemble's 35 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, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland's Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.

New initiatives include OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which offers free concerts and related programming wherever the Ensemble performs, and enables a working process with composers to unfold in public settings. DigitICE, a free online library of over 350 streaming videos, catalogues the Ensemble's performances. The International Contemporary Ensemble's First Page program is a commissioning consortium that fosters close collaborations between performers, composers, and listeners as new music is developed. EntICE, a side-by-side education program, places Ensemble musicians within youth orchestras as they premiere new commissioned works together; inaugural EntICE partners include Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and The People's Music School in Chicago. Summer activities include Ensemble Evolution at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, in which young professionals perform with the Ensemble and attend workshops on topics from interpretation to concert production. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the Ensemble. Read more at www.iceorg.org.

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