Ensemble Offspring plays Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was born May 29, 1922, in Romania and died February 4, 2001, in Paris, France. He was a composer, architect, and mathematician who originated musique stochastique, music composed with the aid of electronic computers and based upon mathematical probability systems.

Learn more about Iannis Xenakis here.

Ensemble Offspring plays Iannis Xenakis

mikka/mikka S 9′

Charisma 4’

Rebonds b/a 13’30

Claude Vivier – Piece for violin and clarinet 7’

Felicity Wilcox – People of this Place 6’30

Brenda Gifford – Mungala 5’30

Carl Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has used computers in live performance since 1986. He has been hailed by the Village Voice as “the king of sampling.” and “one of the best composers living in (the USA) today.”. RELIX has written that “Stone makes music that can hit your ear holes like a DMT flash.” He was born in California and now divides his time between LA and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972. His works have been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near East. In addition to his schedule of performance, composition and touring, he is the emeritus professor in the Department of Media Engineering at Chukyo University in Japan.

Carl’s website

Photo by Tomohiro Ueshiba

Akaihirume is a Japanese singer whose ear is always tuned to the world’s sounds, which she keeps as material in her shell. As both her own compositions and improvisations using her wide range of vocalizations, she has worked on her solo performances and collaborations with artists of various styles.

Akaihirume’s website

A native from Lisboa, Portuguese Sara Serpa is a singer, composer, improviser, who through her practice and performance, explores the use of the voice as an instrument. Serpa has been working in the field of jazz, improvised and experimental music, since moving to New York in 2008. Literature, film, visual arts, nature and history inspire Serpa in the creative process and development of her music. Described by the New York Times as “a singer of silvery poise and cosmopolitan outlook,” and by the JazzTimes magazine as “a master of wordless landscapes,” Serpa started her recording and performing career with jazz luminaries such as Grammy-nominated pianist, Danilo Perez, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow pianist, Ran Blake.

Sara’s website

photo by Andre Matos

Born and raised in Madrid, Spain, pianist and composer Marta Sánchez charts a significant path through her innovative and original music, gaining significant global recognition.

Marta’s Website

Greg Ward is a saxophonist and composer that was born in Peoria, IL. Currently based in Chicago, Ward has had the opportunity to perform and record with a varied group of artists like Prefuse 73, Lupe Fiasco, Tortoise, William Parker, Andrew D’Angelo, and Mike Reed.

Greg’s website

Pakistani-American drummer and composer Qasim Naqvi is perhaps best known as a founding member of acoustic trio Dawn of Midi. Outside of his work in DOM, Naqvi is an accomplished solo artist with a passion for analogue and modular synthesizer systems.

Qasim’s website

Photo Credit: Julia Drummond

Meara O’Reilly Hockets For Two Voices performed by Mingjia Chen + Linnea Sablosky

beijing-birthed, toronto/LA-dwelling musician—vocalist, composer, songwriter, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, teacher, curator—mingjia (MING-juh) performs in solo & collaborative projects across many genres and likes to roll around in grass even though she is allergic. recognized for her improvisational & stylistic versatility as a vocalist & her fresh sound as a composer, she has performed at various venues and festivals across canada, china & the united states, & has produced four releases as a band leader.

mingjia’s website

Photo of Mingjia by erika poh & mingjia chen

Linnea Sablosky is an emphatic musician with a passion for close harmony and intricate rhythms. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she studied Balkan singing and West African drumming from a young age and has since developed fluency in musics from Georgia, Eastern Europe, and Indonesia. In 2013 she toured with Northern Harmony, singing and teaching workshops in England, North America, and Colombia. She is a member of several ensembles in Los Angeles including Kidi Band and a Georgian Polyphony sextet which she directs. Linnea holds a BFA in World Music Performance from California Institute of the Arts.

Linnea’s website

David Lang Darker, performed by Ensemble Signal, with film by Bill Morrison 

Bill Morrison has premiered films at the New York, Rotterdam, Sundance, and Venice film festivals, and mulitmedia work at major performance venues around the globe such as BAM, the Barbican, Carnegie, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. His films typically source rare archival footage in which long-forgotten, and sometimes deteriorated, imagery is reframed as part of a collective mythology. DECASIA (2002) was the first film of the 21st century to be selected to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (2017) was named to multiple critics’ lists of the best films of the decade (2010s).  His work has been recognized with the Alpert Award, Creative Capital,  the Foundation for Contemporary Art, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

Bill’s website

Terry Riley 90th Birthday Tribute with Pete Townshend, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Gyan Riley, & Special Guests

Gyan Riley is a guitarist and composer living in New York City and extensively touring internationally both as a soloist and with artists such as Julian Lage, Bill Frisell, Terry Riley, and Grammy-winning singer Arooj Aftab. Gyan has six of his own CD titles and dozens of collaborative recordings. Recently he was featured as a performer and composer for two acclaimed PBS documentary series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: Hemingway, and The U.S. and the Holocaust.

“Beautiful and enigmatic”…”an alluringly intimate vibe created from the first note.” -The New York Times –

Gyan Riley’s website

photo credit: Dmitrij Matvejev

STRING NOISE plays Christian Wolff’s solo and duo violin pieces

Christian Wolff was born in Nice, France, to the German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S. in 1941, they helped to found Pantheon Books with other European intellectuals who had fled Europe during the rise of fascism. The Wolffs published a series of notable English translations of European literature, mostly, as well as an edition of the I Ching that came to greatly impress John Cage after Wolff had given him a copy.

Nico Muhly The Street, performed by Stef Van Vynckt

Nico Muhly, born in 1981, is an American composer who writes orchestral music, works for the stage, chamber music and sacred music. He’s received commissions from The Metropolitan Opera: Two Boys (2011), and Marnie (2018); Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Tallis Scholars, and King’s College, Cambridge, among others. He is a collaborative partner at the San Francisco Symphony and has been featured at the Barbican and the Philharmonie de Paris as composer, performer, and curator. An avid collaborator, he has worked with choreographers Benjamin Millepied at the Paris Opéra Ballet, Bobbi Jene Smith at the Juilliard School, Justin Peck and Kyle Abraham at New York City Ballet; artists Sufjan Stevens, The National, Teitur, Anohni, James Blake and Paul Simon. His work for film includes scores for for The Reader (2008) and Kill Your Darlings (2013), and the BBC adaptation of Howards End (2017). Recordings of his works have been released by Decca and Nonesuch, and he is part of the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue (2008).

Nico’s website

Kate Moore Rose of roses, flower of flowers (world premiere) + selected works, performed by Ensemble Offspring

Kate Moore is an internationally acclaimed composer. Her works are performed by Asko|Schönberg, Bang on a Can, Icebreker, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble Offspring, the Australian String Quartet, The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Groot Omroepkoor, among others. Rose of roses, flower of flowers (world premiere) is inspired by the ‘cantigas de Santa Maria’ a collection of 13th century songs commissioned by Alfonso X, it is a modern day cantiga. Intoxicated by the aroma of the rose, the nightingale, pierced with a thorn, sings itself to death.

Kate Moore – Fern (quartet + backing track) 12′

Kate Moore – Blackbird Song (trio) 9’30

Kate Moore – Synaesthesia Suite (violin solo + backing track) 19′

Kate Moore – Joyful Melodies (vibraphone solo) 13′

Kate Moore – Rose of roses, flower of flowers (violin, flute, clarinet, percussion + backing track) 5’ WORLD  PREMIERE

Kate’s website

Splinter Reeds plays Paula Matthusen 

Paula Matthusen is a composer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. In addition to composing for a variety of different ensembles, she also collaborates with choreographers and theater companies. She has written for diverse instrumentations, such as “run-on sentence of the pavement” for piano, ping-pong balls, and electronics, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker noted as being “entrancing”. Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space—real, imagined, and remembered. Recent areas of creative inquiry include extensive field recording, which has led to compositions and sound projects in aqueducts, caves, and sites of historic infrastructure.

Paula’s website