Ted Hearne: New Songs

Composer, singer and bandleader TED HEARNE (b.1982, Chicago) draws on a wide breadth of influences ranging across music’s full terrain, to create intense, personal and multi-dimensional works.

The New York Times has praised Mr. Hearne for his “tough edge and wildness of spirit,” and “topical, politically sharp-edged works.” Pitchfork called Hearne’s work “some of the most expressive socially engaged music in recent memory — from any genre.”

Hearne’s newest theatrical work, The Source, sets text from the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs, along with words by Chelsea Manning (the U.S. Army private who leaked those classified documents to WikiLeaks), and was premiered to rave reviews last October at the BAM Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn. The New York Times called The Source “a 21st Century masterpiece,” and included it on its list of the best classical vocal performances of 2014 and best albums of 2015, noting that the work “offers a fresh model of how opera and musical theater can tackle contemporary issues: not with documentary realism, but with ambiguity, obliquity, and even sheer confusion.” The Source will see performances this season at LA Opera and San Francisco Opera.

Hearne’s piece Katrina Ballads, another modern-day oratorio with a primary source libretto, was awarded the 2009 Gaudeamus Prize in composition and was named one of the best classical albums of 2010 by Time Out Chicago and The Washington Post. A recent collaboration paired him with legendary musician Erykah Badu, for whom he wrote an evening-length work combining new music with arrangements of songs from her 2008 album New Amerykah: Part One. 

Law of Mosaics, Hearne’s 30-minute piece for string orchestra, will see performances this year by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. His album of the same name, with Andrew Norman and A Far Cry, was named one of The New Yorker’s notable albums of 2014 by Alex Ross.

A charismatic vocalist, Hearne performs with Philip White as the vocal-electronics duo R WE WHO R WE, whose debut album (New Focus Recordings, 2013) was called “eminently, if weirdly, danceable and utterly gripping.” (Time Out Chicago). Two albums of vocal music, The Source and Outlanders, were recently released on New Amsterdam Records.

Ted Hearne was awarded the 2014 New Voices Residency from Boosey and Hawkes, and recently joined the composition faculty at the University of Southern California. Recent and upcoming commissions include orchestral works for the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and A Far Cry, chamber works for eighth blackbird, Ensemble dal Niente and Alarm Will Sound, and vocal works for Volti, The Crossing and Roomful of Teeth.

American artist Peabody Southwell has been recognized for her “stylistic mastery and ripe, sensual sound” (Opera Magazine UK) in an unconventionally versatile range of mediums and styles, she has worked in the past three years as an acclaimed actor, singer as well as visual and costume designer, curator, and writer. She has performed principal roles for LA Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Carnegie Hall, Seattle Symphony, LA Philharmonic, New World Symphony and San Francisco Symphony and has been conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, James Conlon, John Adams and Robert Spano. As a native of Los Angeles she frequently appears with LA Opera including the central role in last season’s world premiere of David Lang’s Anatomy Theater, La Ciesca in Woody Allen’s production of Gianni Schicchi with Placido Domingo and the Third Lady in Barrie Kosky’s Magic Flute. As a designer, she costume designs the US staged premiere of Jonathan Dove’s L’Altra Euridice for the Bay Chamber Festival in Maine and designs costumes for WIFE in the first iteration of the three year Pelleas project with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Recent work includes her Carnegie Hall performance debut with Steven Stucky and Jeremy Denk’s The Classical Style led by Robert Spano, a return to San Francisco Symphony in Pulcinella conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, a debut performing Handel’s Messiah with Seattle Symphony and appearances with Los Angeles Opera as Flora inLa Traviata and in the new production of The Ghosts of Versailles, both conducted by James Conlon.  As an actor, she also recently completed filming for a role within the new feature The Disappointments Room produced by Relativity Media. As a designer and director in the past season, she co-directed and costume designed new productions of La voix humaine and Il segreto di Susanna for Opera San Antonio featuring soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci, severed as the curator and co-designer wildUp’s Pulp in Santa Barbara,  and designed costumes (with Emily Anne MacDonald) for Daphne with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Other recent season highlights as an actor,  mezzo soprano and contralto include debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic narrating Philip Glass’ The Civil warS, a tour with the New World Symphony and Tilson Thomas in Chicago and Miami, performances as the Third Lady in Barrie Kosky’s production of Die Zauberflöte for LA Opera, an acclaimed role debut as the title role in Handel’s Agrippina for Opera Omaha, the title role in La Tragèdie de Carmen for Des Moines Metro Opera, Juno and Ino in Semele for Seattle’s Pacific Musicworks with Stephen Stubbs, Omar in John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer for Long Beach Opera, a multi-media recital and accompanying short film featuring Schoenberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten with Mark Robson at Boston Court, the world premiere of Kamran Ince’s The Ghosts of Crosstown for Opera Memphis and the world premiere of Stucky and Denk’s The Classical Style for The Ojai Festival in California with subsequent performances at Ojai North in Berkeley. (PeabodySouthwell.com)

Chicago native, ALLISON SEMMES, songstress & actress. Her music roots are in gospel, jazz, and classical music. She began singing in the youth choir of Greater Institutional AME Church and the Chicago Childrens Choir. She later received her BM in Classical Voice at University of Illinois Champaign Urbana & M.M. (Musical Theatre) at NYU-Steinhardt. Broadway credits: Book of Mormon, Motown the Musical. Nat’l tour: The Color Purple, Motown the Musical (Diana Ross). University/Regional theatre: Bubbling Brown Sugar, Dreamgirls, The Wiz, Candide, L’incoronazione di Poppea, Violet, Puccini’s Suor Angelica. She’s receives nods from the Broadway World Chicago Award for Best Actress and NAACP Theatre Award. A long time friend of Ted Hearne from CCC, she’s sung in his “Katrina Ballads” & “You’re Causing Quite A Disturbance”.

The music of composer, performer, improviser, and sound designer PHILIP WHITE (b.1981) is known for its ecstatic intensity and expressive sonic palette. Working with an array of homemade electronics at the intersection of noise, jazz and contemporary concert music, White exploits the tension between rigorous, closed electronic systems and the urgency of human compulsion.

In addition to his solo work (“bona fide evocative music,” Brooklyn Rail, “vibrant textural tapestry” (Wall Street Journal) current projects include R WE WHO R WE with Ted Hearne (“utterly gripping” Time Out Chicago) and a duo with Chris Pitsiokos (“annihilating and enervating” Village Voice).

Philip has also performed with such diverse musical talents as Toshimaru Nakamura, Kronos Quartet, Tomomi Adachi, Paula Matthusen, Sam Pluta, Peter Evans, Nate Wooley, Suzanne Thorpe, Bob Bellerue, Weasel Walter, Hans Tammen, Aram Shelton, Gene Coleman, MV Carbon, Phillip Stearns, Pete Edwards, Molly Bradbury and Jeff Donaldson, and he has worked closely with visual artists Seth Gadsden and Kevin Taylor. Recent performances include Carnegie Hall (NYC), Brooklyn Academy of Music, ISSUE Project Room (NYC), Diapason (NYC), The Stone (NYC), Silent Barn (NYC), Spectrum (NYC), Center for New Music (SF) Bent Festival, Red Room (Baltimore), Fylkingen (Stockholm), and the American Academy in Rome. Outside of the music world, he has worked closely with several artists in the dance/performance/theater realm including Ralph Lemon, Nora Chipaumire, Urban Bush Women, Daniel Fish and he is currently collaborating with Jim Findlay on a musical based on the works of Bruce Haack.

“Trailblazing” cellist Mariel Roberts (Feast of Music) is quickly gaining recognition as a deeply dedicated interpreter and performer of contemporary music. Recent performances have garnered praise for her “technical flair and exquisite sensitivity” (American Composers Forum), as well as her ability to “couple youthful vision with startling maturity”. (InDigest Magazine). She holds degrees from both the Eastman School and the Manhattan School of Music, where she specialized in contemporary performance practice while studying with Alan Harris and Fred Sherry. Mariel performs internationally as a member of the Mivos String Quartet, and has performed with a variety of other ensembles in venues around the world as an advocate of living composers.  

As a performer, Mariel has been working to expand the technical and expressive possibilities of her instrument through close relationships with other innovative performers and composers. Her passion for collaboration and experimentation has led her to premiere a huge number of new works by both emerging and established composers. She has performed in such venues as the the Kennedy Center, the Guggenheim Museum, Zankel Hall, MoMA, The Stone, Issue Project Room, and Roulette,  and has appeared on many international concert series including Wien Modern (Vienna, Austria), Darmstadt Internationalen Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Darmstadt, Germany), Asphalt Festival (Düsseldorf, Germany), KLANG Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark) Cervantino Festival (Guanjuato, Mexico), HellHOT! New Music Festival (Hong Kong), Beijing Modern Festival (China) Shanghai New Music Week (China), and Aldeburgh Music (UK). Praised for her wide-ranging tastes and musical flexibility,  Outside Left writes: “To say Mariel Roberts is a good cello player is like saying your smartphone makes good calls; the statement is true but ignores the capabilities and implications of what’s before you.”  She has appeared with SIGNAL Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Dal Niente, SEM Ensemble, and the Wordless Music Orchestra. Furthermore, she has been a resident artist at the Darmstadt New Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Aldeburgh Music Festival, and has participated in the Bang on a Can Festival, and the Lucerne Summer Festival led by Pierre Boulez. 
In addition to frequent far-reaching international tours with the Mivos Quartet, Mariel has recently made appearences as a soloist at the Avant Music Festival, the Symphony Space “Music of Now Marathon”, as a guest artist at Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), as a teaching and performing artist at the Unviersity of Denver, on the Gerswhin Hotel’s “Contagious Sounds” series, the UnTied series in Baltimore, and the World Science Festival.   Mariel has been featured as a chamber musician on recordings for Innova Records, Albany Records, New World Records, New Amsterdam Records, and Urtext Records.   
Mariel’s premeire solo album, Nonextraneous Sounds, was recorded at the unrivaled EMPAC studio in Troy, NY, and released on Innova Records in September 2012. The record, consisting of brand new works commisioned by Mariel, received high accolades from sources such as TimeOut NY, TimeOut Chicago, the American Composers Forum, New Sounds with John Schaefer, and WQXR radio. New York’s WQXR radio writes, “By playing a program this well-curated, with this much confidence, precision and good old-fashioned muscle, Roberts is not so much “making a statement,” artistically speaking, as she is sounding an alarm. Listeners should come running.”

Taylor Levine is a guitarist in the NYC area. He is a founding member of Dither, an electric guitar quartet. In addition, Taylor often performs a variety of composed and improvised music with a wide range of groups. Some of these include Signal Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, Marc Ribot, Tyondai Braxton, Erykah Badu, Bang on a Can, Eighth Blackbird, Blarvuster, Newband, Meredith Monk, Theo Bleckmann, Weasel Walter, Eve Beglarian, Ethel, New York City Opera, New World Symphony, London Sinfonietta, BBC Orchestra, and Wordless Music Orchestra. Taylor also pursues an active role as an educator. He studied at The Manhattan School of Music and The Amsterdam Conservatory. Taylor currently resides in Brooklyn, where he can often be found building a variety of electronic circuits.

Called “outstanding” by The San Francisco Chronicle, “transcendent” by The Charleston City Paper, “a vanguard effort of new chamber music” by The San Francisco Examiner, and “a fully distorted perpetual motion of awesome” by I Care If You Listen, The Living Earth Show is a megaphone and canvas for some of the world’s most progressive artists. Comprised of electric guitarist Travis Andrews and percussionist Andy Meyerson, the San Francisco-based ensemble uses the traditions of classical and experimental music as tools to allow artists of all disciplines to create their most ambitious works and respond to the world in which they live.

Memorizing every work it performs, The Living Earth Show thrives on pushing the boundaries of technical and artistic possibility in its presentation of commissioned electro-acoustic chamber music. The ensemble has commissioned and premiered works by such diverse composers as Anna Meredith, Timo Andres, Nicole Lizée, M. Lamar, Raven Chacon, Brian Ferneyhough, Samuel Adams, Ken Ueno, Luciano Chessa, Sharmi Basu, Ted Hearne, Jon Russell, Adrian Knight, Alden Jenks, Nick Vasallo, and Zachary James Watkins. Many of these commissions can be found on the group’s critically acclaimed debut album, High Art (Innova Records, 2013) and its upcoming albums Dance Music (New Amsterdam Records) and TAFT (slashsound).

Upcoming productions include Aeolus, opera with Ken Ueno and Majel Connery, a new song cycle presented with and composed by Ted Hearne, a collaboration with Kronos Quartet and Youth Speaks, M. Lamar’s song cycle Lordship and Bondage: The Birth of the Negro Superman, Dennis Aman’s evening-length work 24 Preludes and Fugues, Nicholas Vasallo’s Surrounding The Earth, a new work written for the ensemble by Raven Chacon, the collaborative performance project AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, and a new evening-length collaboration with Post:Ballet and composers including Samuel Adams, Andrew Norman, Daniel Wohl scheduled to premiere in 2019.

When not performing as The Living Earth Show, Andy and Travis also comprise 2/3 of the rhythm section of C O /\/\ /\/\ /\ /\/ D O, a musical juggernaut dedicated to dismantling heteropatriarchy through militant, violently queer rap metal.

The Nouveau Classical Project (NCP) is a New York-based contemporary classical music ensemble. Our mission is to engage new audiences by integrating music with other arts disciplines and to show that classical music is a living, breathing art form. NCP has performed at exciting venues such as (le) poisson rouge, Galapagos Art Space, Korea Gallery, Symphony Space, The Center for Fiction, and Issue Project Room as part of MATA’s Interval series. Fashion collaborations include CFDA winner Pamela Love, Project Runway winner Gretchen Jones, Kempner Collection, Ecco Domani winner Novis, Tanya Taylor, and more. Our projects are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and other generous foundations and individual donors.