Wet Ink Ensemble Season 25 Opener: Roberts (feat. Hanick), Soper, Modney

• Conor Hanick, piano
• Mariel Roberts, cello
• Josh Modney, violin
• Sam Pluta, electronics

Mariel Roberts — Selected works (new solo piano work for Conor Hanick; world premiere)
Kate Soper — Selected works (new solo cello work for Mariel Roberts; world premiere)
Josh Modney — LYNX for violin, cello, and electronics (feat. Sam Pluta & Mariel Roberts; world premiere)

New York City-based new music collective Wet Ink Ensemble opens its 25th anniversary season with an evening of world premieres by Wet Ink's composer-performers Mariel Roberts, Kate Soper, and Josh Modney on Monday, October 9, 2023 at 8pm at Opera America's Scorca Hall.

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.org

About Conor Hanick, piano

https://conorhanick.com/

About Mariel Roberts, cello

American cellist Mariel Roberts is widely recognized not just for her virtuosic performances which seethe with "excruciating intensity" (The Whole Note), but as a "fearless explorer" in her field (Chicago Reader). Her ravenous appetite for collaboration and experimentation as an interpreter, improvisor, and composer have helped create a body of work which bridges avant-garde, contemporary, classical, improvised, and traditional music.

https://www.marielroberts.com/

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/

About Sam Pluta, electronics

http://www.sampluta.com/