American Contemporary Music Ensemble in Three Shows at Big Ears

ACME, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, will perform three concerts at this year's Big Ears Festival, on March 23 and 24, 2017, celebrating their new album, Thrive on Routine, released in February on Sono Luminus, as well as collaborating with Icelandic composer and performer Jóhann Jóhannsson, Denmark's Theatre of Voices, and Blonde Redhead.

On Thursday, March 23 at 11:30pm, ACME joins the incomparable Blonde Redhead at The Mill & Mine, performing the band's hypnotic 2004 album Misery is a Butterfly in its entirety, as well as select songs from the alt-rock trio's extensive catalogue. Blonde Redhead and ACME's sold-out performances of this new collaboration last October in New York, Washington D.C., Montreal and Durham, NC garnered rave reviews.

On Friday, March 24 at 4:30pm, ACME takes the stage at The Mill & Mine for a concert celebrating the group's new album, Thrive on Routine, released February 24 on Sono Luminus. The concert will feature Meredith Monk's first string quartet, Stringsongs, from 2005, which ACME has performed frequently and recorded for Q2 Music's Meet the Composer podcast, plus Caroline Shaw's in manus tuas for solo cello and Timo Andres' Thrive on Routine for string quartet, from the new album. In addition, ACME will play Charlemagne Palestine's rarely performed landmark piece Strumming Music, with surprise guest musicians, in a version created for ACME's concerts at The Kitchen in New York last spring.

On Friday, March 24 at 7pm, also at The Mill & Mine, ACME performs Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's immersive Drone Mass with Jóhannson, Copenhagen's unparalleled vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, and conductor Donato Cabrera. Drone Mass is a 60-minute contemporary oratorio which fuses the sounds of string quartet, electronics and vocals, and is inspired by texts from the Nag Hammadi library, sometimes referred to as the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians. Jóhannsson says of the work, "I was interested in the Gnostic idea of the material world being the creation of a malevolent demiurge - a false god - and that eating the fruit of Knowledge was the first step out of the bondage of cruel and oppressive powers. I was also interested in the idea of the drone, both as a musical device, the bourdon, but also the all-seeing, sometimes benevolent and sometimes lethal eyes that pervade our skies. I have no specific thoughts about how these ideas relate to each other but for me they have some kind of poetic resonance which is usually enough for me." Drone Mass was commissioned by ACME in 2015 in celebration of the group's tenth anniversary and was premiered that year at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it has since been presented at the Sacrum Profanum Festival in Poland.

ACME players for Big Ears are Clarice Jensen, ACME artistic director and cello; Yuki Numata Resnick, violin; Ben Russell, violin; and Caleb Burhans, viola. Theatre of Voices singers for Drone Mass are Else Torp, Kate Macoboy, Signe Asmussen, Iris Oja, Paul Bentley-Angell, Jakob Skjoldborg, Steffen Bruun, and Lauritz Jakob Thomsen.

About ACME:

Described by NPR as "contemporary music dynamos" and by The New York Times as "vital," "brilliant," and "electrifying," the American Contemporary Music Ensemble's (ACME) dedication to new music extends across genres and has earned them a reputation among both classical and rock crowds. ACME was honored by ASCAP during its 10th anniversary season in 2015 for the "virtuosity, passion, and commitment with which it performs and champions American composers." Led by Artistic Director and cellist Clarice Jensen and featuring a flexible roster of more than 20 musicians, the group's many collaborators have included Jóhann Jóhannsson, Blonde Redhead, Max Richter, The Richard Alston Dance Company, Wayne McGregor's Random Dance, actress Barbara Sukowa, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, Grizzly Bear, Low, Matmos, Jeff Mangum, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Roomful of Teeth, Lionheart, and Theo Bleckmann. ACME has performed at leading venues including Carnegie Hall, BAM, (Le) Poisson Rouge, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Stanford Live, UCLA, Duke Performances, Washington Performing Arts, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Recital Hall, and festivals including Big Ears, Sacrum Profanum, and All Tomorrow's Parties. ACME has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, New World, New Amsterdam, and Butterscotch Records, and released its first portrait album, Thrive on Routine, on Sono Luminus in February 2017, featuring music by ACME members Caroline Shaw, Timo Andres, and Caleb Burhans, plus John Luther Adams. In addition to Big Ears, the group's 2016-2017 season includes a tour with Blonde Redhead; a tour with Jóhann Jóhannsson; a performance at the LA Philharmonic's Reykjavik Festival; and concerts in New York at National Sawdust, Roulette, and The Kitchen. www.acmemusic.org

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