Reflecting its expanding profile across the global arts community, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has launched its first International Composers Exchange. The International Composers Exchange offers composers from a specific country outside of the United States artist-in-residency opportunities in New York, where they can develop their careers through seminars, creative exchanges and performances. NYFA then sends its artists abroad for similar opportunities that complete the exchange. The announcement was made by NYFA Executive Director Michael L. Royce.
The initial program is a month-long reciprocal residency with The Netherlands that brings five artists from Holland to New York from mid-September to mid-October for performances, lectures and other events. In April 2013, three NYFA composers and one NYU composer will visit Amsterdam and The Hague to work with selected ensembles and institutions. On the American side, this first effort is in partnership with NYU and The Consulate-General of the Netherlands, with support from Netherland-America Foundation. On the Dutch side, the exchange is organized by Sasha Zamler-Carhart, a composer and faculty member at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. He brings his experience producing his works on both sides of the Atlantic to this project.
The International Composers Exchange aligns with NYFA's mission to provide support, counsel and creative interaction with arts organizations from around the world. In recent months, NYFA has met with arts and cultural institutions, and individual artists, in a range of countries, including Lebanon, China, the UK, Germany and Costa Rica, as well as The Netherlands. In addition to cultural exchanges, NYFA also provides a best practices business framework to arts organizations and artists in need of reimagining their funding and revenue models in the face of diminished government support.
This concert concludes the first International Composers Exchange, which brought five artists from the Netherlands to New York City to work in residency with some of the city's most dynamic young ensembles and artistic institutions. The concert presents the result of this international collaborative work, with a great variety of styles and media, ranging from jazz to chamber music to video installation. Completing this diversity is the world premiere of a new work by Michael Edward Edgerton, the leading specialist of extended vocal techniques, as well as a piece by composer and NYFA scholar Eve Beglarian, who will be going to the Netherlands as part of the second round of the Interational Composers Exchange.
New Performance Piece (title tba)
Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen (Netherlands)
Mise-En Ensemble, dir. Moon-Young Ha
The Europeans: A Melodrama of Logic, Jeremiah Runnels (USA/Sweden/Netherlands)
Ekmeles Ensemble, dir. Jeffrey Gavett
Ignored Manuals,Thanasis Deligiannis (Greece/Netherlands)
The Island of the Sirens, Eve Beglarian (USA)
Azure Suite, Michael Edward Edgerton (USA)
NYU Composers' Ensemble
9orc, Yedo Gibson (Brazil/Netherlands)
Originally from Brazil, Yedo Gibson is a saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and improviser. He is the founder of The Royal Improvisers Orchestra (RIO), a group of 20 young musicians from all kind of backgrounds playing improvised music conducted by Yedo and other musicians from the orchestra. Yedo is partnering with the NYU Jazz Ensemble.
Born in Houston, Texas, Jeremiah Runnels studied Sonology, Composition and Music Theatre at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague and attended workshops by key artists in the contemporary music scene, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Brian Freneyhough, Robert Ashley and Alvin Curran. He is a co-founder of Ensemble Lös Caballeros and Het Atelier with Yedo Gibson, Cornelis de Bondt. He is partnering with Ensemble Mise-En, the innovative and versatile New York-based contemporary music collective, led by composer Moon Young Ha.
Thanasis Deligiannis grew up in Greece in a family of traditional folk musicians. He is a member of the artistic team of the Nieuw Ensemble, the Atlas Ensemble and a graduate of the Amsterdam Conservatory. He is partnering with Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, the New York vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of new and rarely-heard works and gems of the historical avant garde.
Music, film and performance artists Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen have worked together since 2007. Their award-winning 3-channel video installation "You'll Never Walk Alone" was recorded in Uganda. In 2010 they had their first solo exhibition, featuring their video “Ebedi Dönus,” made during a residency program at Platform Garanti, Istanbul. The video is a mixture of Turkish television programs, poetry of Nazim Hikmet and the imagination of Sander and Witte themselves. The duo will be in residence at the NYFA Studios at Artists Alliance Inc.
A private reception for the artists is scheduled to take place at the Dutch consulate in New York on September 19th. On September 28th, the artists will participate in a talk/work-in-progress lecture series at NYFA in Brooklyn. This event is free and is open to the public. To reserve space and RSVP, please visit www.nyfa.org.