Featuring: International Contemporary Ensemble, Torngat
Event Information: 212-505-FISH
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Repertoire:
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) performs Peter Maxwell Davies' "Eight Songs for a Mad King"
About:
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), hailed by The New York Times as "one of the most adventurous and accomplished groups in new music" with "vivid, high-energy performances," brings its signature multimedia spectacle, Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, back to New York for one final staging.
Alvin Lucier’s Bird and Person Dyning haunts the incomparable tenor Peter Tantsits as he becomes King George III. In this explosive role, Tantsits tumbles through the late stages of the king’s mental demise after losing the American colonies and his own throne at the hands of his ambitious son. His bewilderment and anguish at his fallen state is cut through by strains of desperate nostalgia for simpler, saner times.
Director Lydia Steier invokes “videocam diary” culture as the mad King rants and muses to a stationary camera. His image is then projected onto a very large screen, juxtaposing his own exhibitionism with the voyeurism of the audience. Simultaneously, each musician is observed by a small spy camera, projecting distorted, ever-shifting images onto television screens. The cumulative resulting illusion begs the question, “who is watching who?”
First produced at PS 122 in the Fall of 2005, Steier & ICE’s Eight Songs for a Mad King garnered critical and audience acclaim, and has since been presented around the U.S., as well as Michuacan, Mexico. Raved Alex Ross, “[ICE’s] voyeuristic videocam staging of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King was one of the sharpest shows I saw last season…”
Bio:
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a uniquely structured chamber music ensemble comprised of emerging performers and composers who are dedicated to advancing the music of our time. Through innovative programming, multimedia collaborations, commissions by young composers, and performances in nontraditional venues, ICE brings together new music and new audiences.
ICE was founded in 2001, and has rapidly established itself as one of the leading new-music ensembles of its generation, winning first prize in the 2005 CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, and performing over sixty concerts a year in the US and abroad. Recent engagements include performances at the Mostly Mozart Festival of Lincoln Center, the Bang on a Can Marathon at the World Financial Center, the Composer Portraits Series the Miller Theatre, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, CAL Performances in Berkeley, CA, the Gardner Museum in Boston, and on tour in Latin America and Eastern Europe. The ensemble will release three CDs in 2007, on the Bridge Records, Focus Recordings and Naxos Records labels.
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Torngat is an instrumental trio born from the fertile music community of Montreal. Their music is mainly constructed with drums, keyboard and french horn, but it is the multi-instrument capacity of the three musicians that brings out the unique sound of Torngat. On stage, we can witness Julien Poissant playing keyboard with his left hand, bass drum with his right foot, hi-hat with his left foot and trumpet from the right hand… and this, simultaneously! The
Wurlitzer and the analog synthesizer are the favorite tools of Mathieu Charbonneau, but he easily masters the xylophone, percussions, trumpet, melodicas and other electronic device that create miraculous sounds. Man of copper, Pietro Amato also patted is way playing with the Bell Orchestra as well as touring and recording with Arcade Fire. Master of diverse instruments
acoustic and electronic, he also mastered the art of singing on some of the album tracks.
Video:
ICE
Torngat
18+ or accompanied by legal guardian. This show is General Admission, first come, first serve. Seating is Limited. A purchased ticket does not guarantee you a seat. There is a two item minimum for all seated performances.
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