Wet Ink Ensemble: Winter Chamber Concert featuring Artist-in-Residence Ingrid Laubrock
Free ($20 suggested donation; pay-what-you-can, students free)
- Ingrid Laubrock, saxophone
- Ian Antonio, percussion
- Josh Modney, violin
- Alex Mincek, saxophone
- Sam Pluta, electronics
Wet Ink Ensemble joins with Artist-In-Residence Ingrid Laubrock for an evening of music for chamber ensemble. Program will include Aquarelle for piano and vibraphone by Jo Kondo, Axamer Folio for saxophone and drums by Eric Wubbels (feat. Laubrock), the premiere of Josh Modney's Ascender for violin and distortion pedal, and a trio set by Laubrock, Alex Mincek (sax), and Sam Pluta (electronics).
Jo Kondo's Aquarelle finds beauty and mystery in simple surfaces and fine gradations of harmony and color. Eric Wubbels's Axamer Folio, a "modular labyrinth" that reconfigures itself for each performance, features saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and Ian Antonio on drums in a new version that highlights the diverse backgrounds of the two players. Josh Modney's Ascender augments Modney's extroverted solo violin practice with distortion pedal, enabling access to richly harmonized Just Intonation sonorities and harsh noise. The program concludes with a new trio that showcases the distinctive musical personalities of saxophonists Laubrock and Mincek interweaved with the dynamic live electronics of Sam Pluta.
About Wet Ink Ensemble
The Wet Ink Ensemble is a collective of composers, performers, and improvisers dedicated to adventurous music-making. Named "The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018" by The New York Times, Wet Ink's work is rooted in an ethos of innovation through collaboration, extending from the music and the unique performance practice developed in the "band" atmosphere of Wet Ink's core ensemble of composer-performers, to projects with a broad range of renowned creators, from Evan Parker to George Lewis to Peter Ablinger, and committed performances of music by young and underrepresented composers, from today’s most promising emerging voices to the next generation of artists.
Hailed for "sublimely exploratory" (The Chicago Reader) and "dense, wild, yet artfully controlled" (The New York Times) performances and "uncompromisingly original music by its members, and unflagging belief in the power of collaboration" (The New Yorker), Wet Ink has been presenting concerts of new music at the highest level in New York City and around the world for over 20 years. Wet Ink's programming celebrates the nexus of composition, improvisation and interpretation, from early collaborations with Christian Wolff and ZS to pioneering portrait concerts of Peter Ablinger, Mathias Spahlinger, Anthony Braxton, and the AACM composers, work with renowned creative musicians such as Ingrid Laubrock, Peter Evans, Darius Jones, and Katherine Young, and long-term collaborative projects with Wet Ink's four acclaimed composer-members (Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper, and Eric Wubbels). In May 2020, the ensemble launched Wet Ink Archive, an online journal of adventurous music featuring writings and recordings by a wide range of artists (please visit at archive.wetink.org).
Wet Ink has been in residence at institutions including Duke University, EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center), Columbia University, the Royal Academy of Music (UK), and The Walden School, among many others, and has been featured on numerous recordings. Highlights include Katharina Rosenberger’s TEXTUREN, which was awarded a German Record Critics Prize, and solo records by Alex Mincek (Torrent), Kate Soper (IPSA DIXIT), Sam Pluta (Broken Symmetries), Eric Wubbels (Duos with Piano, Book 1), and Josh Modney (Engage), all of which were celebrated on various "Best of" lists by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bandcamp Daily, Sequenza 21, and The Nation. Wet Ink has released four acclaimed solo albums (Wet Ink Ensemble; Relay; Wet Ink: 20, which features the Wet Ink Large Ensemble; and Glossolalia/Lines on Black).
Wet Ink is co-directed by an octet of world class composers, improvisers, and interpreters that collaborate in band-like fashion, writing, improvising, preparing, and touring pieces together over long stretches of time. These directors are Erin Lesser (flutes), Alex Mincek (saxophone), Ian Antonio (percussion), Eric Wubbels (piano), Josh Modney (violin), Mariel Roberts (cello), Kate Soper (voice), and Sam Pluta (electronics). The Wet Ink Large Ensemble is a group of extraordinary New York City musicians that come together to play the world's most exciting and innovative music. Learn more at www.wetink.org.
http://www.wetink.orgAbout Ingrid Laubrock, saxophone
About Ian Antonio, percussion
About Josh Modney, violin
Josh Modney is a violinist and creative musician working at the nexus of composition, improvisation, and interpretation. A “new-music luminary” (The New York Times) hailed for “jaw-dropping technical skill…” and as “one of today’s most intrepid experimentalists” (Bandcamp Daily), Modney is a foremost interpreter of adventurous contemporary music, and has cultivated a holistic artistic practice as a composer, solo improviser, bandleader, music director, writer, arts administrator, and collaborator.
https://joshmodney.com/