PS21 Black Box Theater
2980 New York 66
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2022-11-19 0:00
2022-11-19 1:30
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[Switch~ Ensemble] - Resonant Mechanisms: The Experimental Tradition in Upstate New York
November 18, 2022 at 7:00 pm | $25 General, $20 PS21 Members, FREE Students & Youth
[Switch~ Ensemble] plays works by Sarah Hennies, Victoria Cheah (world premiere), Julius Eastman, and Jen Kutler (world premiere)
PS21 Black Box Theater @ 2980 New York 66, Chatham, New York, 12037
PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century
kelly@ps21chatham.org
Share Sarah Hennies, Everything Else (2016)
Victoria Cheah, Hard columns you within (2022) - world premiere
Julius Eastman, Buddha (1984)
Jen Kutler, Chatter Marks (2022) - world premiere
Laura Cocks, flutes
Madison Greenstone, clarinets
Lauren Cauley, violin
T.J. Borden, cello
Megan Arns, percussion
Jason Thorpe Buchanan, artistic director & electronics/sound
Chris Chandler, electronics/sound
The [Switch~ Ensemble] presents a concert of new and old works, engaging with the rich tradition of experimental music in upstate New York. Commissions from Victoria Cheah and Jen Kutler are featured, for quintet and electronics of contrasting modalities. Jen Kutler’s new work is for ensemble and analog machinery, digitally controlled and activated in response to the musicians. Kutler’s artistic practice utilizes “modified found objects that are cultural signifiers of power, gender, queerness and intimacy,” exploring “common and discrepant experiences of familiar social tones in immersive sound and media environments.”
Victoria Cheah is a multi-disciplinary composer interested in boundaries, sustained energy, and social/performance rituals. Cheah’s new work for [Switch~] interrogates how outer forces can destroy one’s sense of self by amplifying contradictions within. Using intimate amplification of the ensemble and items from Cheah’s personal history, this work pushes the presence of these specific objects, instruments and artifacts, to listeners’ awareness.
Sarah Hennies is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. Her work Everything Else (2016) asks musicians to choose an object/method for performing a repetitive sound-making action that is “non-musical”.
Julius Eastman lived in upstate New York and NYC for much of his career. While his work was under-appreciated during his lifetime it has gained significant recognition in the past decade. NPR has described his music as “challenging, mischievously irreverent, and sometimes ecstatic”. Buddha (1984) is a late period open instrumentation work, a single-page, hand drawn score of a resonating oval encompassing 20 staves of non-durational pitches, without performance instructions.
With support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Amphion Foundation.
Masks will be optional during indoor performances.
Fri, Nov 18, 2022 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
PS21 Black Box Theater
2980 New York 66
PS21 has two unique venues in one stunning building on a bucolic setting just one mile outside the Village of Chatham: a traditional stage with open air seating protected by a sweeping pavilion roof as well as an enclosed black box theater. Equipped with state-of-the-art theatrical equipment, PS21 is able to accommodate a wide range of works by today's most brilliant artists in dance, theater and music.
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