Bard Fisher Center and New Albion Present Pauline Oliveros and the International Contemporary Ensemble in Concert, September 17

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College and New Albion present Hudson Valley artist Pauline Oliveros and the acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble in concert. Members of the ensemble will perform works by Oliveros, a living legend in American experimental music. Oliveros is the founder of Deep Listening, a practice of “listening in every possible way to everything possible, to hear no matter what you are doing,” and will perform solo works for accordion. A conversation with the artists follows this performance. The program will be held on Saturday, September 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the LUMA Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center of the Performing Arts at Bard College. Tickets are $25 to $45 for the general public. For more information and to buy tickets, please visit fishercenter.bard.edu or call the box office at 845-758-7900.
 
Pauline Oliveros is a senior figure in contemporary American music. Her career spans 50 years of boundary-dissolving music making. In the 1950s she was part of a circle of iconoclastic composers, artists, poets gathered in San Francisco. Recipient of the John Cage award for 2012 from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Oliveros is Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, and Darius Milhaud Artist-in-Residence at Mills College. Oliveros has been as interested in finding new sounds as in finding new uses for old ones—her primary instrument is the accordion, an unexpected visitor perhaps to musical cutting edge, but one that she approaches in much the same way that a Zen musician might approach the Japanese shakuhachi. Oliveros’s life as a composer, performer, and humanitarian is about opening her own and others’ sensibilities to the universe and to facets of sounds. Since the 1960s she has influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth, and ritual. Oliveros is the founder of Deep Listening, which comes from her childhood fascination with sounds and from her works in concert music with composition, improvisation, and electro-acoustics. Deep Listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, and of one’s own thoughts as well as musical sounds. “Deep Listening is my life practice,” she explains. Oliveros is founder of Deep Listening Institute, formerly Pauline Oliveros Foundation, now the Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer. John Cage has said, “Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening I finally know what harmony is . . . It’s about the pleasure of making music.”
 
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), described by the New York Times as “one of the most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music,” is dedicated to reshaping the way music is created and experienced. With a modular makeup of 35 leading instrumentalists, performing in forces ranging from solos to large ensembles, ICE functions as performer, presenter, and educator, advancing the music of our time by developing innovative new works and new strategies for audience engagement. ICE redefines concert music as it brings together new work and new listeners in the 21st century. Since its founding in 2001, ICE has premiered over 500 compositions––the majority new works by emerging composers––in venues spanning around the world from alternative spaces to concert hall. The ensemble has received the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award for its contributions to the field, the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming, and was most recently named Musical America Worldwide’s Ensemble of the Year in 2013. From 2008 to 2013 ICE was Ensemble-in-Residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. ICE musicians serve as artists-in-residence at the Mostly Mozart Festival of Lincoln Center, curating and performing chamber music programs that juxtapose new and old music. In 2014 ICE began a partnership with the Illinois Humanities Council, Hideout in Chicago, and Abrons Art Center in New York to support the OpenICE initiative. ICE has released acclaimed albums on the Nonesuch, Kairos, Bridge, Naxos, Tzadik, New Focus, New Amsterdam and Mode labels. Read more at iceorg.org.
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The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College
 
Named for the late Richard B. Fisher, former chair of Bard’s Board of Trustees, the Fisher Center has become an influential force in performing arts programming, earning critical acclaim for innovative productions of opera, orchestral and chamber music, dance, and theater programs. The Center was designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry and distinguished acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and has received international praise for its breathtaking architecture and superb sound.
 
Each summer the Fisher Center presents Bard SummerScape, seven weeks of performing arts programs reflecting the life and times of the featured composer of the esteemed Bard Music Festival, recently celebrating its 27th year. Fall and spring seasons include original productions, special one-night-only concerts, and touring artists from around the globe.
 
The Fisher Center is home to the Bard College Theater & Performance and Dance Programs, providing students access to exceptional theater facilities and opportunities to work with professional directors and dramaturges on publicly attended productions throughout the year. The Bard College Conservatory of Music and Bard College Music Program stage regular orchestral and chamber concerts.
 
 

This event was last updated on 09-08-2016

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