Join MATA for their 25th Anniversary Benefit Concert in celebration of supporting emerging composers and sound artists for a quarter-of-a-century. MATA is dedicated to expanding their listening where time and sound meet. This concert features Curtis Stewart (violin), Ariadne Greif (voice), and Lester St. Louis (cello), all artists who each engage with new music in their own thoughtful, whimsical, and reflective way. Tonight we dive deep into Generation. Yes, as in generations of human beings and looking to the future of MATA, but more deeply – Generation as in the process of bringing into being.

Curtis Stewart will perform of Love. a through-composed collection of works to cherish all the time we live through - composition through DAW as a form of musical caretaking. If the push and pull of social and financial responsibility structure life; then, our aesthetic loves, personal passions, familial cares and social worries keep us tethered to it - These works tap into the visceral sensation of holding and loss - a sonic grappling with grief - the loss of a mother, the gain of a partner, the search for love in urban settings and all the ways we use identity to grasp onto this life of ours. Dedicated to Elektra Kurtis Stewart - 3/16/55 - 9/7/2021.

Ariadne Greif performs her own outrageous arrangements and conservative transcriptions of small pieces by Eve Beglarian and Paul Pinto, with their blessings, for herself and laptop. The program plays in the concept of “Generation” in several subtle, nerdy levels, and the program is simply curated for her own delight.

Found Sound Nation will present Mosaic: Daydreams a collection of short pieces that take us into the dreams of a group of children who live under the shadow of a separation wall, near the Qalandia checkpoint in Ramallah, Palestine. Blending music, film, animation and photo-journalism, these pieces explore how the unbound imaginative world of children washes up against and over the physical wall that surrounds them.

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About Ariadne Greif

Ariadne Greif, praised for her "luminous, expressive voice," "searing top notes," and "dusky depths," (NYTimes), enjoyed a casual child career as a “boy” soprano at the LA Opera, eventually making an adult debut singing Lutoslawski's Chantefleurs et Chantefables with the American Symphony Orchestra. She starred in operas ranging from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love with The Orlando Philharmonic, to Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias at the Aldeburgh Festival, and Atthis, by G.F. Haas, which the NY Times called "one of the most searingly painful and revealing operatic performances in recent times.” 

She performed with William Kentridge in his production of Ursonate at the Luxembourg Philharmonie, the Performa Festival, CalPerformances, and the Ultima Festival in Oslo, where she was invited back for September 2020 and 2022 with two large pieces of her own. She stepped in at the last minute at the 2022 Ojai Festival with AMOC, and starred in a film for Opera Philadelphia of We Need To Talk, a new monodrama written for Ariadne by Caroline Shaw and Anne Carson, as well as an opera film called Table Manners by Sheree Clement. Ariadne has premiered upwards of twenty new operas and more than a hundred new chamber works.

Ariadne has performed at Resonant Bodies, Sydney Chamber Opera, Sarasota Opera House, The Meidan Festival, Den Norske Opera, with the Orlando Philharmonic, The Knights, and across the US, Canada, France, Finland, and the Middle East, including more than 200 concerts with Ensemble Mélange, and in appearances with Pekka Kuusisto, Gabriel Kahane, Lukas Ligeti, and JACK Quartet, among others.

About Curtis Stewart

Curtis Stewart is a multi Grammy-nominated violinist/composer who enjoys bouncing between MTV specials with Wyclef Jean and sold out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder to stints at the Kennedy Center with the Jimmy Heath Big Band and runs at the Guggenheim, MoMA and Whitney Museums in NYC. Curtis has performed as a classical soloist at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic Bandwagon, as well as held chamber music residencies at Carnegie Hall, the MET Museum and National Sawdust. His work realizes a vision to find personal and powerful connections between styles, cultures, and music. Curtis is Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, faculty at The Juilliard School, director of Contemporary Music at the Perlman Music Program, has been commissioned to write works for the Royal Conservatory of music, The Virginia Symphony, WQXR in New York, Newport Classical Festival La Jolla Festival,The Eastman Cello Institute, The Knights, New York Festival of Song, PUBLIQuartet, and Carnegie Hall: Play/USA.  He is the Artistic Director of the American Composer’s Orchestra.  www.curtisjstewart.com

About Lester St. Louis

Lester St. Louis (b.1993) is a New York born and based Composer, Improviser, Cellist, Sound Designer and Curator. His work traverses through performance, installation, curation, artistic research and recording. His works are rooted in dynamic environments of improvisation both sonically and socially, ecstatic sound worlds. flow and interaction.  He has performed internationally throughout The U.S, The E.U, Canada, China and in South America; and collaborates with artists such as Chris Williams [under the moniker HxH], Edi Kwon Jaimie Branch, Dre A. Hočevar, Charmaine Lee, Isabel Crespo Pardo, Emeka Okereke, Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, TAK Ensemble, The International Contemporary Ensemble, Random International, Superblue, Terrence Nance, Found Sound Nation, Wet Ink Ensemble and many more. As a composer, Lester has been commissioned by artists such as The JACK Quartet, RAGE THORMBONES, Jennifer Koh, String noise Ghost Ensemble among others. He is deeply excited to see what new ventures and collaborations the future may bring and those that will be made.