Presented in partnership with Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival

International Contemporary Ensemble has been receiving rave reviews for its innovative and inventive approaches to crafting new music and engaging audiences.  With a flexible roster of 33 leading instrumentalists performing in forces ranging from solos to large ensembles, ICE functions as performer, presenter, and educator, advancing the music of our time. Since its founding in 2001, ICE has premiered over 500 compositions, the bulk of them by emerging composers, in venues ranging from New York’s Lincoln Center and Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art to galleries, bars, clubs, and schools around the world. www.iceorg.org

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Program Highlights

Nathan Davis: H Street Bells, for winds, percussion and many bells

“Bells,” by Nathan Davis is a site-specific piece that ICE first performed at Lincoln Center last season.  As a site specific work, it has been updated for H Street.  “Bells” examines and explores various forms of communication.  It is a dynamic and engaging piece that also incorporates the use of technology, specifically cell phones.  As bells were a method of mass communication, the piece examines how cell phones are influencing communication and the environment. It uses audience’s cell phones as a decentralized PA system to transmit processed sound from live instruments.

 

Additional program highlights include:

John Cage: Telephones and Birds, for three performers (1977)

Cage 6’23″ (arr. ICE from 45″ for a speaker, Variations II, Atlas Eclipticalis)

Steve Reich: Vermont Counterpoint, for flute and tape (1982)

Mario Diaz de Leon: Altar of Two Serpents, for two flutes (2010)

Nathan Davis: On Speaking One Hundred Names, for bassoon with electronics (2011)
Phyllis Chen: Mobius, for music box (2011), toy piano

John Cage: Credo in US, for two percussionists, piano, and radio (1942)