ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Kinetic Ensemble’s Season Finale Features
All-American Creative Team—6 Living Composers
and Brand-New Partnership with Choreographer Lydia Hance
May 17 Concert Melds Music and Movement
Left to right: composers Kenji Bunch, Viet Cuong, Jennifer Higdon, Jessie Montgomery, Caroline Shaw, Paul Wiancko; choreographer Lydia Hance
Houston, TX — Houston’s artist-led, artist-curated Kinetic Ensemble closes out their 2023-2024 season on Friday, May 17, 7:30pm at MATCH with At Play, featuring a program of chamber and ensemble music written entirely in the 21st century by living, American composers of marginalized identities. This program is also the first collaboration between Kinetic and Lydia Hance, artistic director of Frame Dance Productions, and features new choreography by Hance, performed by 20+ professional and community dancers of all ages.
There are many elements “at play” in this concert: the program not only incorporates visual representation with dance, but also showcases spontaneity and freedom for individual musicians. Listeners will experience untraditional sounds not often heard in a classical setting, including improvisation, percussive sounds of chopping and tapping, snapping, and other surprises.
WHAT:
At Play, exploring the role of “play” within a musical ensemble, with new choreography for 20+ professional and community dancers of all ages from Frame Dance Artistic Director Lydia Hance, set to the music of six American composers including the GRAMMY award-winners Jennifer Higdon, Jessie Montgomery, and Caroline Shaw
WHO:
Kinetic Ensemble
WHEN:
Friday, May 17, 2024, at 7:30pm
WHERE:
MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston), 3400 Main Street, 77002
COST:
$30 general admission; $15 student tickets at the door
PROGRAM:
Viet Cuong: Next Week’s Trees for string orchestra (2021)
Paul Wiancko: Toy Bricks for violin, two celli, double bass, and 21 dancers (2012)
Caroline Shaw: Valencia for string quartet and two dancers (2012)
Jessie Montgomery: Voodoo Dolls for string quintet (2008)
Kenji Bunch: The Still, Small Voice for string octet and 17 dancers (2020)
Jennifer Higdon: Dance Card for string orchestra (2016)
MORE INFO:
https://www.kineticensemble.org
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Lydia Hance (Guest Choreographer)
Dubbed Houston’s “queen of curious locations,” Lydia Hance is the Executive and Artistic Director of Frame Dance Productions. She has been named an Emerging Leader by Dance/USA and has led Frame Dance in performances from the Galveston pier onto the METRO light rail, in the backs of U Haul trucks, downtown tunnels, and into museums, stages, and warehouses throughout Texas for the past six years. A champion of new music composers, her work deepens interdisciplinary and multigenerational collaborations, and investigates the placement of dance in our lives. She is a choreographer, curator, filmmaker, educator, and dance writer originally from the California Bay Area. She holds degrees in Dance Performance and English Literature from SMU and trained at the Taylor School, Graham School, Tisch School of the Arts, Limon Institute and SMU.
Frame Dance Productions (Dance Company)
Frame Dance Productions is dedicated to bringing the transformative power of modern dance to Houston through radically inclusive dance education, collaborative creation, and public-facing performance. Offering a variety of dance classes for children, adults, and families, the company has developed inclusive, empowering dance curricula for all ages that focus on developing socio-emotional skills, resilience, and creativity. They also partner with HISD to bring an innovative screen dance curriculum to young students, they showcase budding artists at the internationally acclaimed Frame X Frame Film Fest, and they serve the Houston Area Women’s Shelter by using dance to encourage self-awareness, self-expression, and creative risk in a safe and welcoming environment.
Frame Dance has produced and performed over 40 site-specific pieces in some of Houston’s most unique venues, including the Metrorail and the downtown tunnels. Frame Dance has worked with METRO, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston Parks Board, Asia Society Texas, Plant It Forward Farms, CORE Dance, Rice University, Houston Ballet, 14 Pews, Aurora Picture Show, and Contemporary Arts Museum. As part of its mission to expand dance’s “who” and “where”, Frame Dance’s Community Ensemble provides collaboration, exploration, and connection across generations for dancers aged 12-99. The company’s monthly Creativity Club invites the community to share ideas in an inclusive, compassionate, and joyful environment.
Kenji Bunch (composer)
Kenji Bunch writes music that looks for commonalities between musical styles, for understandings that transcend cultural or generational barriers, and for empathic connections with his listeners. Drawing on vernacular musical traditions, an interest in highlighting historical injustices and inaccuracies, and techniques from his classical training, Bunch creates music with a unique personal vocabulary that appeals to performers, audiences, and critics alike. Mr. Bunch is widely recognized for performing his own groundbreaking works for viola. He currently serves as Artistic Director of the new music group Fear No Music and is deeply committed to music education in his hometown of Portland, Oregon.
Viet Cuong (composer)
Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the music of Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong has been performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, among many others. Cuong’s music has been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center, and his works for wind ensemble have amassed several hundreds of performances worldwide. Cuong is currently the Pacific Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence and serves as Assistant Professor of Music Composition at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Cuong holds degrees from Princeton University (MFA/PhD), the Curtis Institute of Music (Artist Diploma), and Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM).
Jennifer Higdon (composer)
Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed and most frequently performed living composers, receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto, a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto and a 2020 Grammy for her Harp Concerto. Most recently, the recording of Higdon’s Percussion Concerto was inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Each year, there are several hundred performances of her works, and blue cathedral is today’s most performed contemporary orchestral work, with more than 600 performances worldwide. Her works have been recorded on more than seventy CDs.
Jessie Montgomery (composer)
Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. Since 1999, she has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players. She currently serves as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s professional touring ensemble. Montgomery is Professor of violin and composition at The New School, and the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Caroline Shaw (composer)
Caroline Shaw is the youngest ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, which she won in 2013. She has also been awarded several Grammy awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale, a Bachelor’s in Music from Houston’s own Rice University, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. She has worked with a range of artists including Rosalía, Renée Fleming, and Yo-Yo Ma, and she has contributed music to films and TV series including Fleishman is in Trouble, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, Beyonce’s Homecoming, and Dolly Parton’s America.
Paul Wiancko (composer)
Paul Wiancko is an acclaimed composer and cellist who performs most often as a member of the Kronos Quartet. The Washington Post named Wiancko to “22 for ‘22: Composers and Performers to Watch,” and describes him as “a restless and multifaceted talent who plays well with others”—a reference to his substantial collaborations with artists like Max Richter, Chick Corea, Norah Jones, Arcade Fire, and The National. “Even with this chronically collaborative spirit,” the Post continues, “Wiancko maintains a singular voice as a composer.” In 2023, Wiancko was named Director of Chamber Music at Spoleto Festival USA.
About Kinetic Ensemble
Dubbed “Houston’s Indie, Conductorless Orchestra” (Houston Public Media) and “Best Chamber Orchestra of 2023” (Houston Press), the artist-led, artist-curated Kinetic Ensemble has gained increasing recognition as an innovative and dynamic force in Houston’s music scene, and an important advocate for the diversification of classical music repertoire. Formed in 2015, the 16-member, conductorless string ensemble has been hailed for its “remarkably varied and rich strata of string colour” (Choir & Organ), “visually arresting…brilliantly executed” performances and “thoughtful, incisive programming” (Arts+Culture Texas). With a commitment to amplify diverse, under-represented, and newly composed classical music, Kinetic has premiered 19 new works by emerging and established composers of our time, including Karim Al-Zand, Daniel Knaggs, Nicky Sohn, Paul Novak, Daniel Temkin and more. Kinetic’s self-titled album, featuring four premiere recordings, was released in 2023 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical charts. More info at KineticEnsemble.org.
