Contemporaneous

🌟 Happy Holidays 🌟 We're so thankful for another fantastic year of performances and can't wait to bring to life all of the new and incredible creations we have planned in 2024!

Consider giving a holiday gift to Contemporaneous this year to further support artists in the pursuit of their wildest dreams below ✨

https://www.contemporaneous.org/donate24

We’re looking for a production coordinator who can help realize the dreams of artists in 2024 and beyond!

The Production Coordinator is a part-time position, reporting to the Executive Director and the Director of Artist Planning. This position will be responsible for coordinating + overseeing the ex*****on of the organization’s productions, including concerts, rehearsals, and other events.

Learn more: https://www.contemporaneous.org/opportunities

The last story in this series for our upcoming Oct 10 show at Roulette is from a fantastic flutist who’s been performing with us as of late, Yoshi Weinberg:

“Something about the flute had sparked something within me; my inner diva connected so deeply to something that was deemed so “feminine.” … I started private lessons with a local teacher at the age of 16, and auditioned for colleges to pursue a performance degree. However, in undergrad I wasn’t celebrated as a q***r jewish non-binary flutist, but rather I was stifled, judged, and condemned for being too q***r, too feminine, and too jewish. I fell into a deep depression and wished to quit music altogether by the time I was a second-year in undergrad.

I then discovered the new music community ... Because of the new music community, I have found the q***r family that I had always dreamed of having as a q***r kid in a conservative Minnesotan farm town. I have made life-long friends through the collaborations I have developed over the years as a freelance musician. My friends in Contemporaneous, as well as in my own ensemble InfraSound have given me the opportunity to be myself and to find people who respect not only how I play, but how I express my gender and q***rness. Music is my everything. Music is my blood, my breath, my heart, and it is most importantly my q***r family.”

Get your tickets for “Parables” & use code COMMUN23 to make them FREE: https://roulette.org/event/contemporaneous-jali-bakary-konteh-and-mafu-conteh/?mc_cid=db1b179131&mc_eid=c90bdee32b

Our second story centered around interwoven connections to music comes from another Contemporaneous violinist (and Jack of All Performance Groups) Josh Henderson!

"I think I associate the most musical of moments with my family on the time spent together going to and from many places and wearing out many-a-cassette tape in the process.”

Learn more about our upcoming Oct 10 performance with Jali Bakary Konteh & Mafu Conteh + get tickets: https://roulette.org/event/contemporaneous-jali-bakary-konteh-and-mafu-conteh/

📸: Warp Trio / Titilayo Ayangade ( #1), and Kristin Sumfleth ( #3)

In anticipation of our upcoming Oct 10 show with Jali Bakary Konteh and Mafu Conteh, we’ve asked a few folks to share how music connects them to their families! Today, Contemporaneous violinist Sabrina Tabby shares her short story on how CDs connected her to her parents:

“Gershwin Classics, The Kreisler Album, Beatles Greatest Hits. Just a few of the CDs my parents liked that we had on repeat in our car growing up. Mom adored classical music, Dad, classic rock. My earliest musical memories are of scatting our way through the entirety of Rhapsody in Blue in multiple-part harmony/counterpoint with my sisters, swooning over the charming nostalgia of Kreisler’s violin pieces, and belting out tunes by one of the greatest bands that ever lived! Whether you loved it or loathed it, we have to admit: the music our parents played for us before we were old enough to know any better shaped who we are."

Get your tickets for “Parables” & use code COMMUN23 to make them FREE: https://roulette.org/event/contemporaneous-jali-bakary-konteh-and-mafu-conteh/

We’re just a day away from DREAMS OF ONE/ALL! Have you reserved your spot yet?

Today we’re spotlighting Tonia Ko, composer and soloist of a brand new piece for amplified bubble wrap! 🫧 🫧 🫧

Tonia Ko was born in Hong Kong in 1988 and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. She earned a B.M. with Highest Distinction from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She holds a D.M.A. from Cornell University, where she studied with Steven Stucky and Kevin Ernste. Her practice has been enriched by further studies at the Tanglewood Music Center and Royaumont Académie Voix Nouvelles. She was the 2018-19 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago’s Center for Contemporary Composition. Upon relocating to the United Kingdom, she served as 2019-20 Honorary Research Fellow at City, University of London, and was appointed Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2020.

In the attempt to follow aural, visual, and tactile instincts in a holistic way, Ko mediates between the identities of the composer, sound artist, and improviser. This has sparked interdisciplinary connections— most prominently “Breath, Contained”, an ongoing project using bubble wrap as a canvas for both art and sound. As a bubble wrap virtuoso, she has performed with other noted improvisers at Café OTO, Hundred Years Gallery, and the Ear Taxi Festival. She received a 2021 Koussevitzky Commission to compose a concerto for bubble wrap and chamber orchestra, featuring her as a soloist with Contemporaneous.

We hope you can come see this incredibly unique concert this Wednesday! Tix and more info in our linktree!

Meet pianist Eliza McCarthy, one of our three soloists performing in DREAMS OF ONE/ALL! This Wednesday, McCarthy will be giving the US premiere of Limina, a new concerto by Donnacha Dennehy co-commissioned by Contemporaneous!

Eliza McCarthy is a London based pianist dedicated to performing new and experimental music.
She plays in concert halls, art galleries, theatres, living rooms and car parks across the UK, Europe and US as a soloist and band member.

Passionate about developing close creaDve relaDonships with composers she has had the pleasure of working with, commissioning, premiering and recording music by many including John Adams, Thomas Adès, George Crumb, Tansy Davies, Donnacha Dennehy, Kit Downes, Andrew Hamilton, Nico Muhly and Laurie Spiegel.
She regularly collaborates with Mica Levi (Under the Skin, Jackie)
and their album Slow Dark Green Murky Waterfall was released in 2018 on Slip.

Recent performance highlights include Morton Feldman’s 90 minute solo piano work Triadic Memories at the Southbank Centre’s DEEP∞MINIMALISM fesDval, a solo show for Nature Unwrapped at King’s Place featuring music by John Luther Adams, Kit Downes and Donnacha Dennehy and the world premiere of True Stories & Ra?onal Numbers by Chris P. Thompson with James McVinnie Ensemble at the Barbican Centre.

As an ensemble member she can be heard performing with James McVinnie Ensemble, Manchester CollecDve, Decibel and Ireland’s leading new music group Crash Ensemble.

Eliza has recorded and released music on NMC, Milan Records, Slip, Diatribe Records, Foom, WW Records and Clay Pipe Music.
Her latest album, Years Went By, with composer Laurie Tompkins was released on Entr’acte in April 2022.

Alongside her life as a performer, Eliza teaches Mindfulness-based approaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and University of Birmingham helping performers engage with fear, anxiety and depression. She is also a professor at GSMD teaching contemporary repertoire studies to pianists.

Meet Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, one of our performers for next week’s concert, DREAMS OF ONE/ALL!

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (pronounced Kwee-Veen Oh Rye-Alla) makes music on a 10-string fiddle called the hardanger d'amore, and travels the world as a solo musician, in duos with Dan Trueman, Mick O'Brien and Brendan Begley, and as a member of The Gloaming and This is How we Fly.

Ó Raghallaigh has performed in a wide variety of locales, including some of the world’s biggest stages (Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall) but he prefers smaller more intimate venues with friends. He currently resides in Dublin, Ireland.

Ó Raghallaigh features in seventeen recordings ranging from traditional fiddling to more experimental and avant-garde. To quote him , he enjoys both “playing the old music that I love, and exploring the region where traditional music begins to disintegrate.” Hear him perform Dan Trueman’s “Midden Find” on the hardanger d’amore at National Sawdust next Wednesday, June 14! Tix in linktree!

In two weeks, come dream with us at National Sawdust!

Contemporaneous presents
DREAMS OF ONE/ALL

June 14, 2023, 7:30pm
National Sawdust
80 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY

* * *
Dreams of One/All reimagines the idea of what a “concerto” can be through three cutting-edge premieres. Composed by Donnacha Dennehy, Tonia Ko, and Dan Trueman, these new works expand the relationship between a solo instrument and a large ensemble. Dennehy writes a startling, powerful piece for piano, performed by Eliza McCarthy, presented in its US premiere on this show. Ko pens a solo for amplified bubble wrap, an innovative instrument she invented and plays, which will see its world premiere after winning the Koussevitzky Commissioning Prize. And Dan Trueman teams up with legendary Irish fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh on a piece commissioned by Contemporaneous for 10-string fiddle that brings the history of Irish traditional music in dialogue with the orchestra. Performed by the 23-person ensemble, these new works represent a culmination of many years of collaboration, and open up new futures for the concerto form.‍

As part of Contemporaneous's continued commitment to ensuring every show we develop is accessible to all people, free tickets are available for Dreams of One/All to anyone who needs them. Please contact [email protected] to claim a free ticket(s).

We can't wait to see you there! Tix in Linktree

Still feeling euphoric after the insanity that was Saturday's performance of Stranger Love! The journey of this piece has been in a lot of ways the journey of Contemporaneous - so many things that define our group and what it stands for stemmed from the creation of Stranger Love 11 years ago. We are so thankful to the LA Philharmonic for hosting us and helping us through every step of the way. To the fantastic creative team: Lileana, Chris, Matt, Hannah, Yi, and Kaye, thank you so much for creating such a visually spectacular show for the cosmic scale of this opera! To the cast of singers and dancers - you all were brilliant and beautiful! Thanks for making all that music with us!!

We can't believe it, but we still have half a season left of music to present to you! Stay tuned here for more deets :)

Photo creds to Craig T. Mathew

We’re 4 days away from the world premiere of Stranger Love! Check out Zach Woolfe’s profile on this opera we’ve all been so psyched to premiere at Disney Hall this Saturday! Tickets and NYT profile in our Linktree!

📸: Michael George, NYT

The 23-person music ensemble Contemporaneous has collaborated on new music with such luminaries as David Byrne, Dawn Upshaw, and Julia Wolfe. On May 20, experience their genius at Walt Disney Concert Hall performing Dylan Mattingly and Thomas Bartscherer's world premiere opera, "Stranger Love." bit.ly/WDCH2223SL

STRANGER LOVE ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
Meet Hannah Wasileski, Stranger Love's projection designer!
 
Hannah Wasileski is an artist and projection designer based in Berlin and Brooklyn. She found her way into the visual and performing arts through her background as a classical violinist. Beginning as a video and installation artist after graduating from the University of Brighton, UK, she moved to New York City where she was immediately drawn to the performing arts and the interaction of live performance and projection design for the stage. She graduated with an MFA from the Yale School of Drama where she was in the inaugural class of Projection Design. Her design work includes the world premiere of The Listeners (Norwegian National Opera), The World is Round (BAM; Obie Award), and Yuval Sharon's new production of Lohengrin (Wagner's Bayreuth Festival). Upcoming work includes Create Dangerously at Miami New Drama, World Premiere of Stranger Love at LA Phil, visuals for Christopher Cerrone’s Beaufort Scales, and El Niño at the Metropolitan Opera.

Wasileski is a frequent collaborator with Matt Saunders, Stranger Love's set designer, and Lileana Blain-Cruz, the show's director. They can't wait to team up again to bring you an unforgettable operatic experience! Swipe to see some early concept art made by Hannah of the projections for the show.

Rehearsals have just begun at Walt Disney Concert Hall and it feels truly surreal! With only 16 days left until the world premiere of Stranger Love, we hope you can reserve your spot to this performance that has meant so much to us here at Contemporaneous. Tix in our linktree!

STRANGER LOVE ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:

Introducing Matt Saunders, set designer!

Matt Saunders is a highly acclaimed scenic designer and creator of new performance work based in Philadelphia. He is a founding member and Associate Artistic Director of the OBIE Award-Winning experimental theatre company, New Paradise Laboratories, where he has been involved in the creation of their work through both scenic design and performance for 20 years. Saunders has designed over 100 shows for theater, opera, and dance, which have been seen across the nation. He is also a 2014 Pew Fellow, a 2015 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and currently serves as the Assistant Professor of Design in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College.

Saunders has collaborated with Stranger Love's director, Lileana Blain-Cruz, on several occasions, including a gorgeous adaptation of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in 2017, of which we’ve shared a photo! We are so excited to see them team up again to create some visual magic for Stranger Love!

We are only 25 days away from the long-awaited world premiere of Stranger Love (!!) and rehearsals begin later this week! If you haven't already, make sure to reserve your tickets today to what will be an incredible six-hour long journey of music, dance, theater and art!

Looking for a place to share your in-progress artistic endeavors with other fellow artists? Look no further than Contemporaneous’ Virtual Community Salon! For the last three years, on the third Friday of every month, we’ve been holding a free space where anyone can come share their artistic work in all stages of development, alongside ideas, dreams, and conversation with a welcoming community.

Our next salon is tomorrow, Friday April 21st, at 8pm. Sign up for free via our linktree and join us over Zoom!

STRANGER LOVE ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:

Introducing Lileana Blain-Cruz, director of Stranger Love!

Lileana Blain-Cruz is a Tony-nominated theater director known for her innovative and thought-provoking productions. She has received numerous awards and accolades for her work, including the prestigious Drama League's 2022 Founders Award for for excellence in directing. Blain-Cruz is currently the resident director of Lincoln Center Theater. She will make her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in the 2023-2024 season, directing John Adams' El Niño. Her productions have been praised for their bold and imaginative staging. With her unique vision and exceptional talent, we are thrilled to have Lileana Blain-Cruz directing Stranger Love!

We are 38 days away from the long-awaited world premiere of Stranger Love, and tickets are already selling fast! If you haven't already, make sure to reserve yours today!

as always, link in bio ❤️

It’s finally happening! After 11 years of development, experience the world premiere of STRANGER LOVE — the ecstatic six hour opera about love, the seasons, and the expansion of the universe from composer Dylan Mattingly and librettist Thomas Bartscherer. Find tickets through our linktree!
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Scored for a 28-piece orchestra, eight singers, and six dancers, Stranger Love is a grand celebration of being alive. It’s a love story and a story about love, that broadens over the course of three acts as it moves from the experience of two lives, to an archetypical image of the possibilities of human love, to a final, ecstatic vision of the divine — a love supreme.
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We can’t tell you how exciting it is to finally be premiering this entire work, after having performed parts of it at PROTOTYPE Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon, and our own Day of Imagination. Now at long last we can finally share this extraordinary dream with you! Join us in LA at Walt Disney Concert Hall for the party of a lifetime!
Learn more via the link in our bio!
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STRANGER LOVE
Saturday May 20 | 4pm
Walt Disney Concert Hall
111 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012

What could be better than enjoying some tacos and sipping a margarita outside on a warm spring night in late May? We know what you’re all thinking - the late English composer John Tavener’s transcendental composition, “The Protecting Veil,” right? How could anything else make your Friday night any better?

Mark your calendars for May 26 at 7pm at Green-Wood Cemetery, when we’ll be performing Tavener’s “The Protecting Veil” with cellist Joshua Roman as soloist. The outdoor event, appropriately titled “Tacos, Tequila, and Tavener’s Protecting Veil” will be a night you won’t want to miss. Come at 7 for some swing jazz, tacos, and drinks. Then as the sun sets over Green-Wood’s Gothic arch, kick back and listen to us and Josh play a brand-new arrangement of Tavener’s iconic work.

This event will be run by our friends at Death of Classical. More info can be found in the corresponding the link in our bio!

We hope you enjoyed getting lost in a maze of sound last night! Thank you to Ethan and Vikram for creating such a gritty and intense work of art! Thanks to all the players, including Lucy and Tariq, our vocalists. And thanks to the team at Roulette for providing the space and creating the atmosphere to immerse ourselves in the world of Swan Songs. 🦢

One week away from Swan Songs! We asked some of the creative forces behind the work about a “swan song” that has had a lasting impact on them, whether it be a song or another work of art or otherwise. Here’s what Lucy Dhegrae, one of the soloists, and Vikram Devasthali, the librettist, had to say.

March 15 at Roulette! Don’t forget to use the code SWANSONGS23 to get free tickets! Link in bio for tix 🦢

We are exactly two weeks away from the March 15 premiere of SWAN SONGS, an immersive operatic experience created by composer Ethan Braun and librettist Vikram Devasthali. Get your tickets now for this event before it's too late! 🦢 Link to tickets in our bio

As part of our mission of making new music as accessible as possible, we're offering the code SWANSONGS23 to anyone who is in need. The code makes tickets free! So, no need to worry about whether you can afford to hear some great music. Just enter the code under "Payment Info" and enjoy the night on us!

A retelling of the myth of Ariadne.
An immersive operatic experience.
Join us for a journey through a musical labyrinth.

Contemporaneous presents SWAN SONGS, an all-new opera composed by Ethan Braun, with libretto by Vikram Devasthali. Featuring vocalists Lucy Dhegrae and Tariq Al-Sabir.

March 15 2023 - Roulette Intermedium

🦢 🦢 🦢Tickets in our bio 🦢 🦢 🦢

Another upload from GENEALOGY! This time, it’s Eve Beglarian’s “The Continuous Life,” for chamber orchestra, tape, and speaker. This piece capped off the concert, and featured WQXR host Terrance McKnight reciting the eponymous Mark Strand poem. Check out our Linktree to watch and listen in full.

We want to make sure every self-presented concert we do next year is free or discounted for our audience, just like we did for GENEALOGY. In order to provide that kind of accessibility, we ask for those who are financially capable to help us reach our $75,000 goal. Our bio contains the link to our donation page as well - check it out and help make our vision a reality!