Since 1945, the Netherlands-based contemporary music festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek has presented groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership with Gaudeamus, ISSUE Project Room will present, for the first time in the United States, a festival highlighting some of the extraordinary talent that has emerged from the Gaudeamus Muziekweek.
Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York will mark ISSUE Project Room’s move to its new home at 110 Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn, where it has won a 20-year, rent-free lease and where, beginning in late January, it will present all of its programming. One of New York’s foremost commissioners and presenters of experimental art and performance, ISSUE has grown rapidly since its 2003 founding. In the process, it has contributed to the development of the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, where it is currently located, and, previously, Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It will now play a vital role in the development of rapidly growing Downtown Brooklyn.
ISSUE Project Room’s gorgeous jewel-box theater at 110 Livingston—originally designed by McKim, Mead, and White and built in the 1920s—will become the only European-style chamber hall open to the public in New York, and one of only a few in the United States. ISSUE Project Room Executive Director Ed Patuto says, “The ability to present works in an authentic hall with acoustics that complement the performance will be an unprecedented asset for New York’s experimental and broader cultural communities.”
Like ISSUE, Gaudeamus serves as a catalyst and incubator for the development of trends in contemporary music. The festival has nurtured and supported the work of composers ranging from Louis Andriessen, Gyorgy Ligeti and Pauline Oliveros to Yannis Kyriakides, Richard Barrett and Ted Hearne.
Mixing performances by Dutch and American ensembles, Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York will feature the U.S. premiere of 2011 Gaudeamus Prize-winner Yoshi Onishi’s “Départ dans…” performed by Wet Ink Ensemble, plus performances by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Iktus Percussion, and the Netherlands-based ensemble MAE. Programs include a portrait of Amsterdam-based composer Yannis Kyriakides, an evening of electronic music featuring Wouter Snoei, Matthew Ostrowski, and Philip White & Ted Hearne; a rare performance of Gyorgi Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes; and performances by the CUNY New Music Ensemble.
