Yarn/Wire/Currents, a new and ongoing collaboration of ISSUE and the acclaimed piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, opens with the premiere of newly commissioned works for the ensemble by Berlin-based composers Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri and Thomas Meadowcroft.
Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri’s work for Yarn/Wire combines acoustic instruments (resonant bodies) and motor driven devices that function both as sound sources themselves and as active preparations that determine speed, dynamics and other musical parameters. The result is a slow, purposeful "unfolding" of sound: an intense procedural sequence of extremely minimal slow-motion movements produces complex and concentrated sustained sounds and textures over time.
Thomas Meadowcroft’s Walkman Antiquarian makes use of various combinations of music technologies in order to make clear the dizzying and ever accelerating use of technology in music making and consumption, and this technology's effect upon the ability to think in longer blocks of time.
Yarn/Wire/Currents brings newly commissioned experimental works to Issue Project Room. Each concert features two pieces written for the percussion and keyboard quartet Yarn/Wire for an assemblage of acoustic, modified, electronic, and handmade instruments. Yarn/Wire/Currents presents the result of close collaborations between the group and an international array of composers to explore the intersections of live performance, installation, technology, and music theater. The series continues on May 1, 2013, with works by composers Rick Burkhardt and Christopher Trapani.
Yarn/Wire is a chamber quartet specializing in the performance of 21st century music. A unique instrumental combination of two percussionists (Ian Antonio & Russell Greenberg) and two pianists (Laura Barger & Ning Yu) allows Yarn/Wire to interface with both traditional performance practice and emergent stylistic trends with ease. Founded in 2005, Yarn/Wire is admired for its "spellbinding virtuosity" (Time Out NY) and the energy and precision it brings to performances of today's most exciting music. Yarn/Wire were ISSUE Project Room Artist-In-Residence in 2012.
Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri (1974, Ptolemais, Greece) studied composition with Chaya Czernowin, Rand Steiger and Roger Redgate. She received her doctoral and masters degrees in composition from the University of California, San Diego, the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien and the University of London, Goldsmiths College. Selected prizes and awards including the Impuls award, the Dan David Prize, the Kurt Weil Fellowship, the Robert Erickson Scholarship and the Stipendienpries der Darmstadter Ferienkurse. In 2007 she was a composer in residence at EMS Stockholm Studios in Sweden.
Thomas Meadowcroft is an Australian composer and musician living in Berlin, where he has been based since 1998. His music has been described as 'reaching an inexpressible purity' (Le Monde), 'nerve torture' (Süd-deutsche Zeitung) and 'dreamy post-rock' (New York Times). His work involves notated compositions for acoustic instruments and electronics, performance and improvisation in various musical contexts, sound installations, as well as music for theatre and film.
