In Tuesday’s (8/9) New York Times, Steve Smith writes, “In 2007 Claire Chase, an accomplished flutist and an ambitious, industrious organizer, spelled out her hopes for the International Contemporary Ensemble, which she founded in 2001 with a group of fellow graduates of the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. ‘We want to become the first large-scale, flexible contemporary ensemble in the United States that is as important and indispensable as a city’s symphony orchestras, opera companies and theater companies,’ she said … Four years and countless memorable events later, Ms. Chase and her colleagues are serving as artists in residence this year at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. The two concerts that the ensemble presented on Monday evening showed that insinuation into the mainstream has come without compromise … Both events were part of Stravinsky Too, a festival subseries devoted to Stravinsky’s music. … In an imaginative stroke the concert opened with a player piano—a Yamaha Disklavier programmed by Cory Smythe, actually—merrily rattling its mechanized way through Stravinsky’s ‘Study for Pianola.’ … ‘Epitaphium,’ a funerary 12-tone miniature for trio from 1959, eased into ‘Three Pieces for String Quartet,’ a modestly radical polytonal work from 1914. Joined by the bright young conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, the ensemble made its way through increasingly larger, more complex pieces.” Michael Finnissy’s 1967/1971 “Untitled Piece to Honour Igor Stravinsky” had its American premiere, and John Zorn’s 1972 “Canon for Igor Stravinsky (Ode for a Crayfish)” received its world premiere.
Posted August 10, 2011
