For this second of three New Sounds Live concerts from the Ecstatic Music Festival, on Wednesday, February 6, 2013, at 7:30PM at Merkin Hall, it's a double-bill of vocally-driven new music. Hear Sarah Kirkland Snider's new song-cycle for seven vocalists and chamber orchestra,"Unremembered," featuring vocal performances by DM Stith, Shara Worden and Padma Newsome along with the Orchestra for the Next Century.  The work sets poetry by New-York-based poet/writer Nathaniel Bellows recalling strange and beautiful happenings experienced during a childhood in rural Massachusetts. Also sharing the bill is the indie chamber band Clogs in a trio incarnation with Newsome (vocals, viola), Rachael Elliott (bassoon) and Thomas Kozumplik (percussion). Together with the Orchestra for the Next Century, directed by Gary Schneider, Clogs perform new works and arrangements by Newsome, Worden and Stith.

TICKETS via MERKIN HALL BOX OFFICE

On Saturday, January 26, 2013, New Sounds Live and the Ecstatic Music Festival present multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, bandleader and composer Carla Kihlstedt together with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), for the premiere of Kihlstedt's new ICElab commission, At Night We Walk in Circles and Are Consumed by Fire. Written for nine members of ICE plus Kihlstedt, the song cycle is based on dreams and their mirror on waking lives.  Also on the bill are Kihlstedt's band, Causing a Tiger, and teen alt-classical ensemble Face the Music, who will join ICE in performing the legendary composer George Lewis's Artificial Life 2007.

The New Sounds Live fall concert series kicks off this October with three nights of free live shows at the World Financial Center Winter Garden, celebrating the WNYC music program Soundcheck, as it launches into its second decade.  The shows themselves are a wide sampling of music, featuring Afrobeat party band Antibalas with indie-punk legend Ted Leo performing the music of Hugh Masekela (October 23), pianist/composer Vijay Iyer with electro-chamber band Victoire (October 24), and The Brooklyn Philharmonic with with Pan Sonatas Steel Orchestra & special guests (October 25.)  John Schaefer, host of Soundcheck and New Sounds, will emcee the shows.

All performances will be taped for later broadcast on WNYC, and streamed live at Q2 Music.

EVERY NIGHT IN THE CONCERT SERIES IS FREE!  Shows start at 8PM.

World Financial Center Winter Garden
Antibalas / Ted Leo performs Hugh Masekela - Tuesday, October 23rd at 8PM
Vijay Iyer / Victoire - Wednesday, October 24th at 8PM
Brooklyn Philharmonic - Thursday, October 25th at 8PM
220 Vesey Street
Battery Park City ››› Directions
Admission FREE

The celebrated New York-born composer and electronic musician Dan Deacon returns to the Ecstatic Music Festival following last year’s sold-out collaboration with So Percussion. This time around, Deacon has prepared a series of new works for two chamber groups: NOW Ensemble, dubbed “a deft young group gaining attention” (New Yorker), and the “outstanding” (New York Times) Calder Quartet.

Nick Zammuto of The Books and Jason Treuting (pictured) of So Percussion break away from their bands for an evening of spelling bees, homemade videos and fantastically-textured music, joined by janus, guitarist Grey McMurray and vocalist Daisy Press.

The versatile and stunning sextet, yMusic, performs new works by Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire / Bell Orchestre) and Son Lux utilizing the organic processes of the human body.

New Sounds Live Silent Film Series
Live performances by two celebrated new-music orchestras: The Wordless Music Orchestra performs Jóhann Jóhannsson's score to Bill Morrison’s The Miners’ Hymns, and The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble performs Michael Gordon's score for Morrison’s masterpiece Decasia.

New Sounds Live presents “American Pie,” the grand finale to the American Composers Orchestra's SONiC Festival at the World Financial Center’s Winter on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 7PM.  The National's Bryce Dessner will perform with Aaron Dessner as guitar soloists in Bryce's new orchestral piece, "St. Carolyn by the Sea." Based on American novelist and Beat poet Jack Kerouac's "Big Sur," "St. Carolyn by the Sea" will be premiered by American Composers Orchestra (ACO), which commissioned the piece. Admission is FREE.

This season’s New Sounds Live Concert Series gets underway when Mos Def, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, songstress Mellissa Hughes, and other special guests join members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic for a "reduction sampler."   Hear Derek Bermel’s arrangements of Mos Def’s original songs, 19th century Shape Note singing, works by David T. Little, Lev Zhurbin (aka Ljova), Corey Dargel, and Frederic Rzewski, all in small ensemble versions of music that the full orchestra will play later in the season.  The performance takes place at 7PM in the World Financial Center's Winter Garden on Wednesday October 12, 2011.  Admission is FREE.

Composer Bobby Previte, whose ensembles "speak in visionary tongues" (The New Yorker), premieres TERMINALS, Part 1: DEPARTURES – a set of five concertos for the enthralling and innovative quartet So Percussion and star soloists.  The solo improvisers include Zeena Parkins, harp; John Medeski, keyboards; DJ Olive, turntables; vocalist Jen Shyu; and Bobby Previte himself on drums. Having been fascinated by the architecture of airports since a young age, Previte's work is a musical interpretation and graphic representation of their structure and form.

Composer/vocalist Shara Worden, renowned in both the classical and indie rock worlds, is joined by the diversely talented sextet yMusic for an evening of works by Worden and Sarah Kirkland Snider, “a composer with an enviable knack for crafting moody, strikingly beautiful works" (Time Out New York). The show will include a selection of new and recent works by both composers, including the premiere of an instrumental work by Worden for yMusic, and selections from the duo's standout 2010 album, Penelope,

Mind control experiments and conspiracy theories are the subject matter for brand-new music performed by an electric chamber ensemble and a Grammy-nominated big band. Those are just two of the four offerings on this New Sounds Live concert at Merkin Hall, part of the Ecstatic Music Festival, on Thursday February 24, 2011 at 7:30.  Socially engaged, hybrid genre-straddling ensembles Newspeak and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society take on brand new works written specifically for each. 

New Sounds Live is proud to present the annual Bang on a Can People’s Commissioning Fund Concert: three world premieres commissioned by the people! New York’s electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars take on new works by  Bryce Dessner of The National and Clogs, producer and tabla player Karsh Kale and composer/genre-hopper Nick Brooke.

Experience original scores by the Alloy Orchestra to classic silent films as part of the New Sounds Live concert series on February 2, 3 & 4th, 2011, each night at 7PM at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden. There are three nights of silents to be heard and seen - Harold Lloyd's “Speedy,” Douglas Fairbanks’ “The Black Pirate,” and a trio of comedic shorts; including a Chaplin film, a Buster Keaton film, and a "Fatty" Arbuckle classic.

Based on his Frippertronics explorations of the ‘70s, English guitarist, composer, and founder of the prog-rock band, King Crimson, Robert Fripp creates site-specific solo performances weaving sonic tapestries with electric guitar and digital effects.  Each of these Soundscapes performances is a one-of-a-kind event and is a rare chance to see Fripp live, and according to the artist himself, perhaps for the last time.  Free at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden on Friday, Dec. 3 at 12:30PM and 7PM and on Saturday, Dec. 4 at 12:30PM and 7PM.

The first event of this season’s New Sounds Live concert series is “Requiem for Fossil Fuels,” a site-specific memorial mass combining human voices and ambient sound.  It’s the result of more than twenty years of work and collaboration by Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger, two sound artists/composers and sonic thinkers.  The performance takes place at 7PM in the World Financial Center's Winter Garden on Friday, November 12th.  Admission is FREE.