Skin - Gemma Peacocke

 “Skin” looks at the experience of being born a woman into a world where gender, race, size, age and appearance can determine one’s safety; For the last five years – since moving to the United States – I’ve been trying to understand the (white) American idea of race and the relationship between violence and sexuality. My immigrant curiosity about the American fixation on skin has gradually stretched into tendrils of understanding, wending between the intricate layers of privilege, power, and shame associated with race and with sex, down into the dark roots of the country’s history. Skin is the meeting point of our bodies with the world through which we move. It is a place of weathering, of impact, of touch. It is a signifier to others of who we are, for how long we have lived, and where we come from. I wrote Skin as a rumination of the way in which our skin pushes up against truth, engendering both real identities and constructions of the self. 

Samuel Zagnit - Whispers for you

 Samuel Zagnit's Whispers for You is based on fragments of melody hummed to yourself that retain an almost unspoken quality. The first movement covers the inherent whispers with air sounds in the clarinet and trumpet, gradually showing longer melodic lines as the tunes pop above the airy texture. The second movement takes the melodies and grooves with them in a polyphonic mashup of different lines stacked almost haphazardly on top of each other.

inti figgis-vizueta - linger

 linger uses unison materials and flexible time structures to highlight registral discrepancies between the duet’s instrumentation. Through long repetitive structures broken by sudden shifts in harmony and pattern, the duet’s choices in ornamentation, rhythmic relationships, and duration in module length all serve the exploration of timbre and co-habited sonic space. The harmonies transform linearly, each plucked from the track of a certain album by a certain artist-- the result is an interesting combination of pentatonic and major modalities that imply monochromatic cityscapes and deeply rich foliage.'

Ford Fourqurean - Erode Submerge

 The title erode|submerge comes from the idea of shorelines being eroded and permanently submerged by rising tides and coastal flooding. As waters rise and remain, the waves subsume the shore, the heated sands are obscured and cooled. The work uses heavy ambient reverb and filtering of the clarinet to mimic the sound of waves, creating a wash of sound. 

Kate Amrine - As I Am

 “As I Am” has a sweet sort of longing and pleading, shown with repeating phrases in a minor key that expand and change slightly as the piece develops. While the piece is written out in standard music notation, each performance varies slightly as Kate improvises on certain phrases – making each performance a new experience.

Jinhee Han - Echo Me ii

 Echo me(ii) is inspired by a series of 'Echo me,' which is inspired by a Volta performance by Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, 2017, which reminded me of youthful days, chaotic moments, stillness and a progressive time in my life. Also, 'Echo' implies a repetition of the reflection from somewhere, a person who reflects or imitates another, and a sympathetic or identical response as to sentiments expressed, which is an important musical concept by abstract and controlled musical materials in a form. Three sections,- A, B, and C-, and the short bridges in-between sections are built on different scale structures that start from the chromatic mode on E, 'represents Me as mi' to scale, 2(W)-1(H)-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1, on Bb and m(minor)3-M(major)2-M1-M2-M3-M2-M1-M2- M3-M2-M1-M2-M3-M2-M1-M2-M3 on C scale is related by intervals until the end. Also, a thematic gesture at the beginning is segmented and developed as a reflection from A to B, B to C.

Howie Kenty - It wasn’t something that we could control

 This piece takes as its text the words of Jason Rochester and Cecilia Gonzalez, the heads of a family now living separately in Georgia and Mexico, respectively. Cecilia came to the USA illegally years ago, and, fearing deportation since Donald Trump's election, had self-deported to Mexico. She has been attempting to get a return visa, but has been unable to do so, and the family remains separated as of July, 2019. Jason Rochester had voted for Donald Trump in 2016; since the family's separation, he has become an active immigration law crusader.

Kate Amrine

A passionate and creative performer, Kate Amrine is a prominent trumpet player balancing a multifaceted career from developing new repertoire and curating concerts to freelancing with many different groups in the New York City. Recent performances include Vivaldi’s Double Trumpet concerto, a 10 week Off Broadway run of Alice by Heart, and premiering new pieces for trumpet and clarinet with her newest group Spark Duo with Ford Fourqurean. Upcoming performances include a CD release show of music from This is My Letter to the World, a Spring 2020 tour with Spark Duo, and many other interesting opportunities. As a composer, Kate wrote the title track of her debut album and continues to write other works, most recently being commissioned by the Brand New Bassoon trio. Kate’s upcoming album This is My Letter to the World is coming out on 1/24/20 on innova records. This album features new music for trumpet inspired by politics and social concepts and addresses issues including gun violence, identity and the experience of being a woman, meditation, and immigration. Several of the pieces have an accompanying video element as well.

Kate is very dedicated to commissioning and performing new music, premiering over 30 pieces both as a soloist and a chamber musician. Kate’s debut album “As I Am” was self - released on November 7th 2017, featuring new music by women composers. Through this project, she was invited to present recitals at various festivals and events including the International Women’s Brass Conference and the Women Composer’s Festival of Hartford. In addition to advocating for female composers, Kate is very passionate about expanding awareness and representation for female brass players. She is half of the team behind Brass Chicks – a blog dedicated to celebrating the work of female brass players with guest posts and interviews.

Kate frequently subs on Broadway and performs in other regional musical theater productions both in and outside of the NYC area. She completed two tours with Broadway: The Big Band Years in fall 2015 and spring 2016 and played second trumpet in the National Tour of Annie in December 2015. Selected regional show experience includes Ragtime on Ellis Island in 2016, The Crossing Opera at BAM in 2017, and various film score recording sessions since 2010. As a commercial player, Kate also performs with groups of many different styles and was fortunate to appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in an all-girl horn section with the band Sleigh Bells.

As a contractor, Kate has experience hiring everything from a full orchestra to a big band to a horn section for various events. She contracted a full orchestra for a recording session of Netanel Hershtik’s album The Art of Cantor at Avatar Studios. She also has hired musicians for over 10 different musicals, rock groups, and various church events since coming to NYC in 2010.

Ford Forqurean

Ford Fourqurean strives to bring together communities through contemporary music. He is in demand as both a freelancer and as a guest artist and clinician at universities and institutions throughout the United States. He serves as artistic director of Unheard-of//Ensemble along with many other projects connecting contemporary music with diverse audiences.

​

Ford regularly performs across New York City at venues ranging from National Sawdust, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Roulette, and Spectrum to DIY spaces and house concerts. During the 2019-20 season, he is performing guest artist workshops with Unheard-of//Ensemble at Cornell, collaborating with ICEBERG composers collective, performing in Pittsburgh as part of Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s concert series, and touring Texas.

​

In past seasons with Unheard-of, Ford has lectured and worked with students of the Sibelius Academy, Manhattan School of Music, and Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music among many others. Known for their “scintillating and evocative” performance (Steve Smith, National Sawdust Log), Unheard-of has collaborated on over 50 new works for their instrumentation and performed/lectured at universities and colleges across the United States. He currently serves as Executive Director of the inaugural Collaborative Composition Workshop hosted at Stony Brook University, overseeing all aspects of the festival as well as being ensemble faculty with Unheard-of. 

​

Ford is a member of Amalgama and one half of Spark Duo with trumpeter Kate Amrine. As a freelancer, he has worked with contemporary groups of all styles. This season, he performed in Seoul, South Korea with ensemble mise-en as part of Arts Incubator’s Audio Trading Manual 2019. He toured the Midwest in 2018 with Tenth Intervention visiting Denison University, Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s Contemporary Festival, and the Johnstone series in Columbus, Ohio. In past seasons, he has worked with Little Orchestra Society, Fresh Squeezed Opera, Curiosity Cabinet (guest residency at Queens College), and the Uptown Philharmonic.

​

He was a Future Music Lab Fellow working with Mari Kimura at Atlantic Music Festival in 2018, a 2017 fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at Mass MOCA, and was the Contemporary Ensemble clarinet fellow for the Atlantic Music Festival in 2016. Ford has also presented his research on Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Quintet at Clarinet Fest, Madrid as finalist of the 2015 International Clarinet Association Research Competition. He has also earned recognition as one of six national winners of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi’s Marcus L. Urann Fellowship. 

​

Also an avid composer, Ford has studied with Reiko Füting, Todd Reynolds, and Fred Cohen, and vocal composition with Susan Botti. He worked as studio manager and assistant in MSM’s Contemporary Performance Program coordinating electronics for contemporary recitals. He recently performed Project M, his new initiative developing new works for clarinet and MUGIC motion sensor, at Oh My Ears! Festival in Phoenix, Arizona, Mise-en’s Bushwick Open Studios, and will present erode|submerge and quiver|static at ClarinetFest, Reno/Lake Tahoe this June.

​

Ford is completing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at Stony Brook University as a Teaching Assistant and Assistant Director of the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players (CCP). He served as Interim Director of the CCP during the Fall 2019 semester. He holds a Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program where he worked with David Krakauer and Alan R. Kay