ICE Performs The Music Of Anna Thorvaldsdottir At National Sawdust Led By Steven Schick

On Sunday, May 27, 2018 at 4:00pm, the pioneering International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) presents a program of works by composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir highlighting her unorthodox use of the piano. ICE pianist Cory Smythe, a champion and commissioner of Anna's solo music, is in the center of National Sawdust's stage, circled by the audience, with the audience encircled by ICE musicians, immersed in the music. Conductor Steven Schick, a longtime ICE collaborator, leads the ensemble. This performance is part of ICE's year long participation as a National Sawdust 2017-18 Artists-in-Residence. This project is supported by Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology program.

The program features three solo works and one ensemble piece, two of which will be recorded for ICE's second disc of Anna's music on the award-winning Sono Luminus label. Trajectories, for piano and video, opens the program, followed by [one] and Scape. The three piano works involve strums and resonant scraping inside the instrument which embellish Anna's potent harmonies. Aequilibria for eleven instruments is an ICE specialty last heard in New York at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival.

Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir's music is immersive. Inspired by landscapes, nature, and flowing, sustained sounds, it transports a listener to the vast expanse of an unfamiliar, seductive place. The International Contemporary Ensemble's collaboration with Anna has spanned many years, including an appearance at the Ojai Music Festival. Of that performance, Alex Ross of The New Yorker wrote, "Nothing I witnessed at opera houses this past season was as dramatic." As the Kravis Emerging Composer at the New York Philharmonic, Anna's orchestral piece Metacosmos was premiered in April 2018, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The Philharmonic has presented chamber works by Anna at National Sawdust on their CONTACT! new-music series.

Program Information
ICE presents: The Music of Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Sunday, May 27, 2018 at 4pm
National Sawdust | 80 N 6th St | Brooklyn, NY
Tickets: $29 in advance, $34 at the door
Link: https://nationalsawdust.org/event/ice-presents-the-music-of-anna-thorvaldsdottir-with-cory-smythe-and-the-international-contemporary-ensemble/

Program:
Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Trajectories
Anna Thorvaldsdottir - [one]
Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Aequilibria
Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Scape

About Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Anna Thorvaldsdottir's music is frequently performed internationally, and has been featured at several major venues and music festivals such as Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC, the Composer Portraits Series at NYC's Miller Theatre, the Leading International Composers series at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Big Ears Festival, Spitalfields Music Festival, ISCM World Music Days, Nordic Music Days, Ultima Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Tectonics, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Her works have been nominated and awarded on many occasions - most notably, Anna is the recipient of the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize 2012 for her work Dreaming, the New York Philharmonic's Kravis Emerging Composer Award in 2015, and Lincoln Center's 2018 Emerging Artist Award and 2018 Martin E. Segal Award. In April 2018, Esa-Pekka Salonen lead the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of Anna's work Metacosmos, which was commissioned by the orchestra. The work will receive its European premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic in January 2019, conducted by Alan Gilbert.

Anna's debut portrait album - Rhíz?ma - was released in October 2011 through Innova Recordings and was very well received and appeared on a number of "Best of 2011" lists, e.g. at TimeOut New York and TimeOut Chicago. Anna's portrait album - Aerial - was released by Deutsche Grammophon in November 2014 and appeared on a number of year end lists, e.g. at The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, iTunes Classical, and WQXR's Q2. In the Light of Air was released by Sono Luminus in August 2015, performed by ICE and appeared on a number of year end lists, e.g. at The New York Times, The New Yorker, Boston Globe, NPR Classical, and Chicago Reader. Anna is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Anna holds a PhD from the University of California in San Diego.

About the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE 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 ICE'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, ICE 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. ICE 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 ICE 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. ICE'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 ICE 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 ICE and attend workshops on topics from interpretation to concert production. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE. Read more at iceorg.org.

OpenICE is made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Booth Ferris Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Pacific Harmony Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Casement Fund, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the 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 Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. Portions of this project are supported by Nokia Bell Labs. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.

About National Sawdust
National Sawdust's mission is to build new audiences for classical and new music by providing outstanding resources and programmatic support to both emerging and established artists and composers. Centered on discovery within music, its programming introduces audiences to new artists and styles, and introduces artists to new audiences. An incubator of new music, NS also provide artists the space, time, and resources they need to create their art.

National Sawdust is both a state-of-the-art performance venue and a recording studio, housed within a preserved century-old sawdust factory. The building-which has won multiple architecture awards-also houses Rider, a two-story bistro and bar led by James Beard Award-winning chef Patrick Connolly. Rider completes the audience experience by offering an exceptional menu of food and drink during performances.

About National Sawdust Artists-in-Residence Program
National Sawdust Artists-in-Residence Program provides both individual artists and groups with space, technical and marketing staff support through recordings, rehearsals, shows as well as commissions. Over 80 hours of staff support for each residency with a total financial commitment of $450k (in kind and reward payments combined) ensure that these dedicated artists can present their new works in various stages of development in concert, often in collaboration with other artists they meet during their year-long residency.

To post a comment, you must register and login.