ICE to Reprise David Lang's THE WHISPER OPERA at NYU Skirball

From January 24 to February 3, 2018, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) reprises Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang's the whisper opera in 13 performances at NYU Skirball.

The small audience and musicians are enclosed in an intimate onstage set, as the opera, performed almost entirely in whispers, explores the question: "What if a piece were so quiet and so personal to the performers that you needed to be right next them or you would hear almost nothing?"

With direction and design by Jim Findlay, the whisper opera features sopranos Tony Arnold and Alice Teyssier and ICE musicians Kivie Cahn-Lipman (cello), Claire Chase (flute), Ross Karre (percussion), Joshua Rubin (clarinet). the whisper opera was premiered in NYC with one performance at Lincoln Center's 2013 Mostly Mozart Festival, and since toured across the US and Europe.

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IF YOU GO:

David Lang's the whisper opera
January 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, February 1, 2, 3, 2018 at 7:30pm and January 27, 28, February 3, 4 at 3pm
NYU Skirball | 566 LaGuardia Pl | NYC
Tickets: $75
Link: nyuskirball.org/events/ice-whisper-opera/#tickets

Performers:
Tony Arnold and Alice Teyssier, sopranos
Claire Chase and Emi Ferguson, flutes
Kivie Cahn-Lipman and Chris Gross, cellos
Joshua Rubin and Zachary Good, clarinets
Ross Karre, percussion

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The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is an artist collective committed to 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 has been featured at the Ojai Music Festival since 2015, and has appeared at festivals abroad such as Acht Brücken Cologne and Musica nova Helsinki. Other recent performance stages include 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 catalogues the ensemble's performances in a free online streaming video library. 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 youth 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. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE. Read more at iceorg.org.

NYU Skirball, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of New York City's major presenters of international work, and has been the premier venue for cultural and performing arts events in lower Manhattan since 2003. The 860-seat state-of-the art theater, led by Director Jay Wegman, provides a home for internationally renowned artists, innovators and thinkers. NYU Skirball hosts over 300 events annually, from re-inventions of the classics to cutting-edge premieres, in genres ranging from dance, theater and performance arts to comedy, music and film.

NYU Skirball's unique place as a non-profit cultural center within New York University enables it to draw on the University's intellectual riches and resources to enhance its programming with dialogues, public forums and conversations with artists, philosophers, scientists, Nobel Laureates, and journalists.

Jay Wegman is responsible for the direction and leadership of Skirball's artistic programming. He previously served as director of the Abrons Art Center at Henry Street Settlement from 2006-2016, where he curated a balance of local, international, emerging and established multi-disciplinary artists. During his tenure, Abrons was awarded a 2014 OBIE Award for Innovative Excellence and a 2015 Bessie Award for Best Production. He also served as Canon for Liturgy and the Arts at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine for over a decade and was a Fellow at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. from 2004-2005. Wegman is a graduate of Yale University.

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