Author Archives: Robert

ICEcast: Jason Eckardt, “Undersong”

ICE’s most recent recording is out now: the new song cycle Undersong by composer Jason Eckardt, released today on Mode Records. In this episode, the ICEcast interviews Eckardt about poet Laura Mullen’s influence on Undersong, how one sets a poem without a strict structure to music, and why he continues to make music in trying times.
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ICEcast: SummerICE at The Delancey

As we gear up for our exciting roof party at The Delancey on Tuesday, let us take this opportunity to study an important figure in New York history, and namesake of the venue, James Delancey. —James Delancey, Sr. was a chief justice and later Lieutenant Governor of colonial New York, and a staunch British loyalist. [...]
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ICEcast: Nathan Davis

We recently sat down with ICElab composer Nathan Davis to discuss his writing process, on the eve of the release of his new album on New Focus Recordings, The Bright and Hollow Sky. In this episode of the ICEcast, Nathan tells us about composing for his friends in ICE, pulling inspiration from author Italo Calvino, dadaist Hugo Ball, and [...]
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ICEcast: Steve Lehman’s “Impossible Flow”

Our friend, composer Rafiq Bhatia, recently interviewed saxophonist and ICElab composer Steve Lehman (you may have heard of him recently). On this episode of the ICEcast, we feature selections from their conversation about rhythm, time, playing what you write, and writing what you want to play. Be sure to catch ICE as we perform the world premiere of [...]
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Marcos Balter: “Portmanteaux”

This Thursday, April 14, ICE performs the world premiere of the new piece Æsopica from ICElab composer Marcos Balter at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. As you might guess from the title, Marcos takes inspiration from the timeless fables of Aesop, with the protagonist narrator portrayed by ICE’s incredible tenor Peter Tantsits and [...]
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ICEcast: Mario Diaz de León

ICElab composer, guitarist, and ICE-friend Mario Diaz de León sat down for an interview with composer, guitarist, and ICE-friend Rafiq Bhatia to discuss Diaz de León’s most recent compositions for the band, to be performed next week at (le) poisson rouge: the New York premiere of the blistering bass clarinet solo The Soul is the [...]
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Davidovsky at C-PEMC

We’ll be at Miller Theatre this Friday to perform works from electro-acoustic music pioneer Mario Davidovsky. Check out this great picture from circa 1970 taken at Studio 317, one of four composition studios at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, located at Columbia’s Prentis Hall on West 125th Street. Clockwise from the center front, Vladimir Ussachevsky (seated), Milton [...]
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NYTimes: “I’m Playing With the Orchestra. Leave a Message After the Beep.”

The New York Times has a wonderful review of Nathan Davis’s Bells and our Chance Encounters program at the opening of Lincoln Center’s TullyScope Festival this past Tuesday. Be sure to check out the video of Jalons on the Times’s site.
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Review: “Enter Houses Of”

Just browsing through The Bangkok Post, and we stumbled upon this review of ICElab composer Mario Diaz de León’s 2009 album Enter Houses Of, performed by ICE. From writer Ung-Aang Talay: You won’t have to listen too hard to catch Diaz de Leon borrowing from rock and from composers as different as Scelsi, Steve Reich and [...]
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Schick: “The King of Denmark”

More incredible drawings from Steven Schick. On our Varèse project, he graphed out a map of “zones of intensity” for the program; this time, we have a visual representation of the the choreography for playing Morton Feldman’s The King of Denmark. Click the images to enlarge. See Schick perform it tomorrow, Tuesday, February 22, at TullyScope.
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