The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has received a $450,000 award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support OpenICE, a new initiative, that will yield more than 150 new concerts featuring more than 60 newly commissioned works over the next three years. The concerts will be presented through seasons in ICE’s home cities of New York and Chicago, as well as new seasons in cities and rural areas throughout the United States, and will extend internationally to diverse corners of the world including Greenland and the Amazonas region of Brazil that have little to no access to contemporary music.
Read the full press release:
OpenICE
Launch of a new multi-year initiative with leadership funding from
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Abrons Arts Center — January 29-31
New York — The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has received a $450,000 award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support OpenICE, a new three-year initiative to develop, engage, and sustain diverse, new 21st-century listeners through an outpouring of artist-driven programming that is free and open to the public. By serving constituencies with little access to the art form, working with students of all backgrounds, forming new partnerships with community leaders and cultural organizations in nontraditional venues, and making ICE’s work available through DigitICE, the ensemble’s online library of contemporary music performances, OpenICE will yield more than 150 new concerts featuring more than 60 newly commissioned works over the next three years.
The concerts will be presented through seasons in ICE’s home cities of New York and Chicago, as well as new seasons in cities and rural areas throughout the United States, and will extend internationally to diverse corners of the world including Greenland and the Amazonas region of Brazil that have little to no access to contemporary music.
As an evolution of ICElab, ICE’s in-house commissioning program from 2011 to 2015, OpenICE expands the concepts and practices of “the lab” onto a much larger scale, with greater numbers of commissioned works, performances, and listeners reached. Whereas ICE’s musicians were elemental in the collaborative processes of ICElab, OpenICE will provide further means of artist engagement by transforming the breadth of ICE’s roster into a curatorial collective. ICE artists, in collaboration with guest composers and other artists, will be the creative engine behind the programming and production of OpenICE. All artists will be involved in extensive educational outreach as a part of each OpenICE project.
A key enabler of OpenICE will be a framework of new partnerships with community organizations in OpenICE locales. Claire Chase, co-Artistic Director and flutist of ICE, comments that “rather than just partnering with academic institutions, venues, and traditional performing arts presenters, through OpenICE we will partner with libraries, humanities councils, community centers, community organizers, public housing developments, artist collectives, and many other outfits not typically associated with the performing arts. The aim is to get new music into the wider world.”
At its core, OpenICE is inspired by the quintessentially American institution of the public library, with its enduring commitment to the social value of public access to knowledge. Parallel to our libraries, which provide a variety of entry points for people with different backgrounds and levels of education and experience, OpenICE aims to remove the velvet rope associated with classical music and offer a no-barrier-to-entry experience for broad new constituencies. OpenICE programming serves our current audience, provides multiple entry points for new listeners, and offers opportunities for everyone to learn, fulfilling our fundamental belief that we are responsible to make our best work accessible to diverse new audiences.
Chase continues, “OpenICE puts into practice our learnings over the past decade about commissioning, producing and advancing the music of our time with the social responsibility of building a diverse 21st century audience. How does a small organization make a big impact, and how do we do it in the most open and forward-thinking way? By looking at performance, commissioning, education and audience development as part of the same breath, rather than as separate arms of an organization, OpenICE enables us to take a crack at this.”
George Lewis, composer and faculty member of Columbia University, as well as a frequent collaborator of ICE, notes that “OpenICE’s boldly conceived, open-source vision of new music programming will convene an international, multi-generational conversation of unprecedented scope to bring emerging ideas and emerging communities together. One can only imagine the swarm of new sounds and convergences that will result.”
OpenICE New York will launch in January 2015 at the Abrons Arts Center, the performing and visual arts program of Henry Street Settlement. Through July, the six-month launch period will be anchored by free monthly concerts designed and curated by ICE musicians which feature a wide range of the ensemble’s performance forces — from large ensemble to solo and chamber performances. The programs include music by Pauline Oliveros, electronic duo and ICElab collaborator exclusiveOr, saxophonist/composer Steve Lehman, George Lewis, and John Zorn, among others. OpenICE Chicago launched in October 2014 at The Hideout, a celebrated hub of Chicago’s independent music scene, and continues monthly.
The launch season of OpenICE will be made possible through leadership support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional support from The Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research at the Eastman School of Music, New Music USA, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
OpenICE New York Launch — Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, New York, NY 10002
The launch of OpenICE celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Henry Street Settlement with three concerts representing the best of New York’s new music. All events are free and open to the public.
January 29, 2015 | 8:00pm
Concert #1: Smythe/Evans, Wolff, Zorn
Cory Smythe/Peter Evans: New Work TBA WORLD PREMIERE (2015)
John Zorn: Il n’y a plus de firmament, for woodwind quintet (2014)
Christian Wolff: Pete, for chamber ensemble (2014) NEW YORK PREMIERE
January 30, 2015 | 8:00pm
Concert #2: Music of Lewis, Zorn and Oliveros
George Lewis: Born Obligato (2013)
Pauline Oliveros: Buffalo Jam
John Zorn: Baudelaires (2013)
January 31, 2015 | 8:00pm
Concert #3: Zorn, Oliveros and ICElab’s ExclusiveOr
ExclusiveOr: Magnets (2014)
John Zorn: selections from Book of Heads
Pauline Oliveros: Ear Rings
John Zorn: Oviri (2014) WORLD PREMIERE
Digital press kit: iceorg.org/about/media
OpenICE
Launch of a new multi-year initiative with leadership funding from
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Abrons Arts Center — January 29-31
New York — The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) has received a $450,000 award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support OpenICE, a new three-year initiative to develop, engage, and sustain diverse, new 21st-century listeners through an outpouring of artist-driven programming that is free and open to the public. By serving constituencies with little access to the art form, working with students of all backgrounds, forming new partnerships with community leaders and cultural organizations in nontraditional venues, and making ICE’s work available through DigitICE, the ensemble’s online library of contemporary music performances, OpenICE will yield more than 150 new concerts featuring more than 60 newly commissioned works over the next three years.
The concerts will be presented through seasons in ICE’s home cities of New York and Chicago, as well as new seasons in cities and rural areas throughout the United States, and will extend internationally to diverse corners of the world including Greenland and the Amazonas region of Brazil that have little to no access to contemporary music.
As an evolution of ICElab, ICE’s in-house commissioning program from 2011 to 2015, OpenICE expands the concepts and practices of “the lab” onto a much larger scale, with greater numbers of commissioned works, performances, and listeners reached. Whereas ICE’s musicians were elemental in the collaborative processes of ICElab, OpenICE will provide further means of artist engagement by transforming the breadth of ICE’s roster into a curatorial collective. ICE artists, in collaboration with guest composers and other artists, will be the creative engine behind the programming and production of OpenICE. All artists will be involved in extensive educational outreach as a part of each OpenICE project.
A key enabler of OpenICE will be a framework of new partnerships with community organizations in OpenICE locales. Claire Chase, co-Artistic Director and flutist of ICE, comments that “rather than just partnering with academic institutions, venues, and traditional performing arts presenters, through OpenICE we will partner with libraries, humanities councils, community centers, community organizers, public housing developments, artist collectives, and many other outfits not typically associated with the performing arts. The aim is to get new music into the wider world.”
At its core, OpenICE is inspired by the quintessentially American institution of the public library, with its enduring commitment to the social value of public access to knowledge. Parallel to our libraries, which provide a variety of entry points for people with different backgrounds and levels of education and experience, OpenICE aims to remove the velvet rope associated with classical music and offer a no-barrier-to-entry experience for broad new constituencies. OpenICE programming serves our current audience, provides multiple entry points for new listeners, and offers opportunities for everyone to learn, fulfilling our fundamental belief that we are responsible to make our best work accessible to diverse new audiences.
Chase continues, “OpenICE puts into practice our learnings over the past decade about commissioning, producing and advancing the music of our time with the social responsibility of building a diverse 21st century audience. How does a small organization make a big impact, and how do we do it in the most open and forward-thinking way? By looking at performance, commissioning, education and audience development as part of the same breath, rather than as separate arms of an organization, OpenICE enables us to take a crack at this.”
George Lewis, composer and faculty member of Columbia University, as well as a frequent collaborator of ICE, notes that “OpenICE’s boldly conceived, open-source vision of new music programming will convene an international, multi-generational conversation of unprecedented scope to bring emerging ideas and emerging communities together. One can only imagine the swarm of new sounds and convergences that will result.”
OpenICE New York will launch in January 2015 at the Abrons Arts Center, the performing and visual arts program of Henry Street Settlement. Through July, the six-month launch period will be anchored by free monthly concerts designed and curated by ICE musicians which feature a wide range of the ensemble’s performance forces — from large ensemble to solo and chamber performances. The programs include music by Pauline Oliveros, electronic duo and ICElab collaborator exclusiveOr, saxophonist/composer Steve Lehman, George Lewis, and John Zorn, among others. OpenICE Chicago launched in October 2014 at The Hideout, a celebrated hub of Chicago’s independent music scene, and continues monthly.
The launch season of OpenICE will be made possible through leadership support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional support from The Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Paul R. Judy Center for Applied Research at the Eastman School of Music, New Music USA, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
OpenICE New York Launch — Abrons Arts Center
466 Grand Street, New York, NY 10002
The launch of OpenICE celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Henry Street Settlement with three concerts representing the best of New York’s new music. All events are free and open to the public.
January 29, 2015 | 8:00pm
Concert #1: Smythe/Evans, Wolff, Zorn
Cory Smythe/Peter Evans: New Work TBA WORLD PREMIERE (2015)
John Zorn: Il n’y a plus de firmament, for woodwind quintet (2014)
Christian Wolff: Pete, for chamber ensemble (2014) NEW YORK PREMIERE
January 30, 2015 | 8:00pm
Concert #2: Music of Lewis, Zorn and Oliveros
George Lewis: Born Obligato (2013)
Pauline Oliveros: Buffalo Jam
John Zorn: Baudelaires (2013)
January 31, 2015 | 8:00pm
Concert #3: Zorn, Oliveros and ICElab’s ExclusiveOr
ExclusiveOr: Magnets (2014)
John Zorn: selections from Book of Heads
Pauline Oliveros: Ear Rings
John Zorn: Oviri (2014) WORLD PREMIERE
Digital press kit: iceorg.org/about/media
January 22, 2015