Katie Porter: Malosma / 18 Flowers in a Row

Saturday, February 17th at 8pm, ISSUE is pleased to present Malosma / 18 Flowers in a Row, the first commission from 2024 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Katie Porter. The clarinetist and composer presents new chamber music works inspired by microcosms and macrocosms of change: both in our personal narratives and the world around us. Her work is rooted in decades of experimental and community performance practices, where she explores how music can exist almost like landscapes or relationships, slowly altering our ability to perceive change, time, and space. This Winter, between phases of renovation, ISSUE returns to our 22 Boerum Pl. theater for a series of limited capacity Artist-In-Residence and Fellowship events.

The first piece, Malosma, is created collaboratively with Christine Tavolacci for bass clarinet and bass flute. The duo is named after the first flower to rise from the ashes of wildfires; it explores new normals, extreme weather events, floods, fires, cities filled with smoke, and sounds that both sit on the edge of perception and fill the entire room. Porter and Tavolacci present the expanded version of this work for the first time at ISSUE.

The second work, inspired by impermanence, is a premiere of Porter’s 18 Flowers in a Row by the quartet Moons: Katie Porter (clarinets), Judith Berkson (accordion/voice), Laura Cetilia (cello) and Christine Tavolacci (flute). Meditating on systems that collapse and expand upon themselves, the piece uses text about abstract change in our lives, and how we cannot always see what is right in front of us.

Katie Porter is a Brooklyn-based clarinetist, performer/composer, writer, and artist. Devoted to collaboration, Katie's projects include: Phase to Phase a bass clarinet duo with Lucio Capece in Berlin, Malosma a bass clarinet and bass flute duo with Christine Tavolacci in LA, Eternities with sound artist Bob Bellerue in NYC, Red Desert Ensemble with percussionist/composer Devin Maxwell, Quartet or Two Duos with James Ilgenfritz, Lucie Vítková, and Teerapat Parnmonkol in NYC, and MUD with poet/filmmaker Anne Penders in Brussels. Passionate about fostering musical communities, she co-founded Listen/Space in Brooklyn, the Listen/Space Commissions in the mountains of Utah, and the biennial VU Symposium for experimental, electronic and improvised music.  She has premiered works by Sarah Hennies, Teodora Stepančić, Andre Cormier, Daniel Goode, John Luther Adams, Yvette Janine Jackson, Manuela Meier, Michael Pisaro, Jurg Frey, Laura Cetilia, Brian Harnetty, Phill Niblock, Carolyn Chen, Patricia Alessandrini, Nomi Epstein, Quentin Tolimieri, Teodora Stepančić, and Christian Wolff, among many others.  Her writings are published in the journal Sound American, and she can be heard on the labels Another Timbre (UK), Gravity Wave / Erstwhile (US), Edition Wandelweiser (DE), FTARRI (Japan), Infrequent Seams (US), Karl Records (DE), Editions Verde (US), and Harmonic Ooze (US).  Katie is recording a multi-year project for solo clarinet in Nancy Holt's land artwork, Sun Tunnels, in the remote Utah desert. www.fromkp.com

Christine Tavolacci is a Los Angeles based flutist specializing in contemporary and experimental music. Christine is active as a soloist, improviser, curator and chamber musician both in California and internationally. She is co-founder and co-­director of Southland Ensemble, and has been a frequent performer in the Monday Evening Concerts series in Los Angeles, the world's longest-running series devoted to contemporary music. Christine has also performed with The Industry, Ojai Festival, LA Phil Noon to Midnight, the Vinny Golia Large Ensemble, the Angel City Jazz Festival, and Microfest. Her playing has been released on Orenda Records, Bridge Records, BIG EGO Records, Slub Music(Japan) and Tzadik. In addition to her musical pursuits, Christine is a formally trained clairvoyant, trancemedium healer and psychic development teacher. Her metaphysical practice is a continuous source of inspiration for her musical explorations. http://christinetavolacci.com

As a daughter of mixed heritage, Mexican-American cellist, Laura Cetilia is at home with in-betweenness, straddling multiple worlds as cellist / composer / educator / collaborator while working within acoustic / electronic / traditional / experimental sound practices. Her compositions have been described as “unorthodox loveliness” (Boston Globe) and hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric' (Sequenza 21). Her works have been performed by TAK Ensemble, loadbang, Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Dog Star Orchestra, a.pe.ri.od.ic, LCollective, and others. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 (established in 2003 with Mark Cetilia, electronics/ modular synth) as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” And in the performer / composer collective Ordinary Affects she has collaborated with, commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Michael Pisaro, Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben, and Magnus Granberg. Laura is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Cornell University and is also a proud mother of one. 

Judith Berkson is a mezzo-soprano, pianist, accordionist, and composer. Citing influences ranging from Jewish cantorial music to jazz standards and lieder from composers such as Schubert and Schumann, her music offers a contemplative, spare space for the reworking of classical and traditional structures within contemporary sonic modes and techniques. Berkson’s compositions often explore microtonal tuning for acoustic instruments and in particular the voice. Other projects include Liederkreis which uses voice along with analog keyboards to create works that draw on classical, electronic, and experimental forms. She has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, City Opera, Laurie Anderson and has worked with new music ensembles including Mivos Quartet, Wet Ink, Yarn/Wire, Experiments in Opera, and the Boston Microtonal Society. As a vocalist, she has premiered works by Enno Poppe, Mick Barr, Joe Maneri, Chaya Czernowin, Rick Burkhardt, Gerard Pape, Alvin Lucier, Julia Werntz and Aleksandra Vrebalov. She has recorded for ECM Records and has written two operas. Her latest opera Partial Memories was about forgotten female artists Janet Sobel and Mary Gartside featured at the NODO Festival in Ostrava in 2022. She is currently a DMA candidate as a composer-performer at CalArts.