Composing While Black Digital Program
Program
Performers
Featuring AACM Members
Adegoke Steve Colson, piano
Iqua Colson, voice
Reggie Nicholson, percussion
Thurman Barker, percussion
with International Contemporary Ensemble
Alice Teyssier, flute
Toyin Spellman-Díaz, oboe
Alexander Davis, bassoon
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Daniel Lippel, electric guitar
Jacqueline Kerrod, harp
Leah Asher, violin
Dara Hankins, cello
Program Notes
Adegoke Steve Colson: Instant Death of the City (1976)
This work was first performed by the Steve Colson Sextet in March of 1976, at NAME Gallery in Chicago. The sextet included, along with myself and my wife, Iqua, Thurman Barker on drums – who is a featured composer on tonight’s program. It was performed again in 1988 at The Great Hall at Cooper Union (with a stellar lineup – ten performers, including AACM members (Henry Threadgill, Rasul Siddik, Leroy Jenkins).
The piece was written about the hardships of life in Urban America, particularly as faced by African Americans. The War on Drugs targeted Black youth, and although the larger community used drugs to a greater degree, Black youth were incarcerated much more frequently and were given longer prison terms. In fact, military weapons were sold, and the money was used to purchase cocaine. Oliver North had the drugs flown to U.S. military bases in Texas, and distributed to black teenagers in LA. This composition is a commentary on social justice.
Adegoke Steve Colson: Counterpoints 1 & 2 (2016)
In 2016 I was commissioned by New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), to write a large work in celebration of Newark’s 350th Anniversary. Here Is The Place, Our City surveys Newark’s history and is approximately 90 minutes in length. It is scored for a Male Chorus with Piano (# l) accompaniment, and an Improvising Ensemble of Oboe, Trumpet, Harp, Baritone Sax, Guitar, Piano (#2), Bass, Drums. The work premiered in 2017 at NJPAC. Counterpoints 1 & 2 are excerpts from this larger work.
Iqua Colson: Days Go By (2015)
In Days Go By the lyrics and music came to me simultaneously. Balance is important in life. Life is a series of experiences – and through it all I am grounded by my family, my art, and those close to me. We all experience beauty and strife, but I learned from my Mother – who was a force – to “just keep moving.” Adversity and the wonder of living are part of a life well lived: we strive for balance and learn to look within for serenity and happiness. Days Go By features string instruments and voice.
Iqua Colson: Atrocities (2022)
Toni Morrison reminded us “art is dangerous … Those who want to control and deceive know exactly the people who will disturb their plans … and those people are artists.” The world in which I find myself shocks me, but I can’t say I’m surprised. As I always say, “I’m a 60s kid…” and we were confronted with plenty of horrors. Yet some of today’s players on the world stage show an overwhelming arrogance, combined with ignorance, that makes me take pause. The promise of a great society that seemed possible a couple of times in my life is elusive. The Atrocities continue.
Reggie Nicholson: Variations of a Thought (2024)
Variations of a Thought (2024) is a suite consisting of three movements – Blutopia, Adagio, and Summernite. Each movement has my concept of structured improvisation where there is a section in each piece to improvise within the movement with cues to continue throughout the piece. This concept is the variations within each movement. As a percussionist, I naturally wanted to include some of my favorite percussion instruments, snare drum, large gong, concert bass drum, and drum set.
Thurman Barker: South Side Suite (2017)
Upon deciding to write my first Chamber Orchestra piece, I asked myself: What is my goal? Most of my performance career has been in the style of Blues, Jazz and Contemporary Classical music. The drum set and/or percussion lies at the core of these three styles. So I asked myself why not write a piece that is written in a Chamber orchestra format but with music that draws from, and combines these three idioms? Additionally, in most cases the drum set plays a constant tempo however in South Side Suite the drums play a percussion role instead. My intention and goal with this piece was to display another aspect and role of the drum set and to combine the idioms that I have grown up with.
Thurman Barker: Pandemic Fever (2019)
Whenever I think of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I am reminded of how it heightened my appreciation for technology. For the first time, my work depended on it. This new composition, Pandemic Fever, is full of conflicts between sections in the ensemble. Each section expresses their opinions about the Pandemic and how to deal with it. Governors across the country were competing for supplies like ventilators, gowns and masks. The Commander-in-chief had no plan. All this confusion makes its way into the score. Rhythms are disjointed and uneven. Strings and piano act as a web. Xylophone, snare drum and brass suggest caution, danger. Woodwinds are the sound of hope, saying: we can get through this.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Referred to as a “musical power couple” in The New York Times (2017), the music of composer-pianist Adegoke Steve Colson and composer-vocalist Iqua Colson focuses on many facets of the human experience. Their critically acclaimed performances and recordings illuminate social issues, and have featured such innovators as Reggie Workman, Tyshawn Sorey, Joseph Jarman, David Murray, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Davis and Henry Threadgill, as well as master artists of other disciplines including dancer/choreographer Savion Glover, writer/activist Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and dancer/actress Carmen de Lavallade. Iqua regularly consults and produces arts based projects. She worked with a team and acclaimed actress Cicely Tyson to design and build the Cicely L. Tyson School of Performing & Fine Arts Campus in New Jersey. She has received awards for initiatives that use the arts as catalyst for educational and/or social change. Iqua worked with tenor saxophone titan Fred Anderson for several years in her early career which contributed to her decision to join the AACM. Her compositions usually center around vocal performance. Adegoke is a decorated composer who has written for large and small ensembles and received several honors and commissions supporting his work in music composition. His commission from Fromm Music Foundation led to his first collaboration with ICE when they premiered his piece Mirrors, for baritone voice and ensemble in New York during their 2023 season. His works for small ensembles have been recorded by such greats as bassist Richard Davis, composer and trumpeter Hannibal and most recently by Andrew Cyrille on his ECM Release, “The News.” Adegoke was honored by his home town November 2018 when he was inducted into The East Orange Hall of Fame, joining several other distinguished E.O. natives in all fields including Althea Gibson, Dionne Warwick, Naughty by Nature, John Amos, and Whitney Houston. Adegoke Steve Colson is a Steinway Artist.
Percussionist-composer Thurman Barker is a recipient of a 2022 NYSCA award for composition and is a Professor Emeritus of Bard College in music and jazz studies. An original member of the AACM, Barker has collaborated closely with other AACM members, including Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill, as well as Sam Rivers and Cecil Taylor. Barker composes music for ensembles large and small, moving beyond genre to reflect the human experience itself.
A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1979, percussionist-composer Reggie Nicholson has twice been nominated for the Alpert Award in the Arts, and his compositions exhibit a keen aware of sound, space, and timbre. He has performed at many venues around the world, and has released recordings for solo percussion, percussion ensemble, percussion with electronics, and chamber forces.
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is internationally renowned for its impact on experimental music. Now in its sixtieth year, with chapters in Chicago and New York, the composite output of AACM members has explored new and influential ideas about timbre, sound, collectivity, extended technique, instrumentation, intermedia, computer music technologies, installations, and kinetic sculptures.
Now in its third decade, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a multidisciplinary collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to building and innovating collaborative environments in order to inspire audiences to reimagine how they experience contemporary music and sound. The Ensemble creates a mosaic musical ecosystem as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), honoring the diversity of human experience and expression by commissioning, developing, recording, and performing the works of living artists. Co-founded in 2001 by flutist and MacArthur “genius” Fellow Claire Chase, the Ensemble has premiered over 1,000 works. The Ensemble has given performances at Warsaw Autumn, TIME:SPANS, Berliner Festspiele, HEAR NOW Los Angeles, Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, Ojai Music Festival, and Big Ears Festival as well as in venues such as the Dutch National Opera, Cité de la Musique (Paris), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Japan Society, Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Music Center, Fridman Gallery, Chelsea Factory, NYU Skirball and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
SUPPORT
This performance is made possible through lead support from the Arlene & Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music.
The International Contemporary Ensemble’s performances and commissioning activities during the 2024-25 concert season are made possible by the generous support of our board of directors, many individuals, as well as the Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Robert D. Bielecki Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Siemens Musikstiftung, New Music USA, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for the International Contemporary Ensemble.
NYU SKIRBALL
NYU Skirball holds close James Baldwin’s dictum that “artists are here to disturb the peace.” Our mission is to present adventurous, cross-disciplinary work that inspires yet provokes, confirms yet confounds, and entertains yet upends. We proudly embrace renegade artists who surprise, productions that blur aesthetic boundaries, and thought-leaders who are courageous, outrageous, and mind-blowing. We are NYU’s largest classroom. We want to feed your head.
NYU SKIRBALL FUNDING
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; The Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater; Collins Building Services; Harkness Foundation for Dance; Villa Albertine; Polish Cultural Institute; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Québec Government Office in New York; Goethe Institut-New York; Austrian Cultural Forum New York; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.
BECOME A MEMBER
NYU Skirball Members are friends …. with benefits. Members receive discounted tickets to productions, events, pre-sale opportunities, exclusive invitations, and special access to innovative artists, academics, and thought-leaders. More importantly, members support a broad range of cutting-edge performances to New York City. Memberships start at $75.
NYU SKIRBALL STAFF
Director Jay Wegman
Supervisor, Lighting And Sound Emily Anderson
Ticket Operation Specialist Cliff Billings
Engagement Director J De Leon, PhD
Theater Technician Brian Emens
Company Manager Tayler Elizabeth Everts
Theater Technician George Faya
Theater Technician Angie Golightly
Operations Manager Jenny Liao
Marketing Manager Clare Lockhart
Box Office Manager Craig Melzer
Development Director Kimberly Olstad
Front of House Supervisor Jordan Peters
Production Manager Alberto Ruiz
Senior Supervisor, Lighting And Sound Don Short
Finance and Administrative Manager Caroline Grace Steudle
Operations Director Ian Tabatchnick
Press Representative Helene Davis
NEXT @ NYU SKIRBALL
Adrienne Truscott & Brokentalkers: Masterclass
March 28-29| U.S. Premiere
Taking shape as an interview, Masterclass doesn’t hold back. Performed by fed-up feminist Adrienne Truscott and all-around good guy Feidlim Cannon, Masterclass begins as a fun and familiar parody, but there is something more at play. Using the arts world as a metaphor, Masterclass is a literate and hilarious examination of gender and power.
Fist and Heel Performance Group /Reggie Wilson: The Reclamation
April 4–5 | World Premiere
Choreographer Reggie Wilson is conspicuously reclaiming foundational ideas from his early gestural and “duet-ed” works and landing on provocative questions and surprises fitting to the times we are now experiencing. Wilson’s meticulous and rigorous kinesthetic reclamation process is asking, if not begging us What do you have? What do you keep? How do you make what’s ever left meaningful…ultimately, Is the reclamation of self, necessary to build resilience?
Daniel Léveillé Danse: Amour, Acide et Noix
April 11–12
Four bodies, given over to the dance, reveal what has taken refuge behind the strangely opaque skin: muscle, water, breath, energy, an outlook on life, so alive and aware of the other, in spite of or maybe because of a need to not be entirely alone. This remounting of Amour, acide et noix speaks of solitude but also and, most specifically, of the infinite tenderness of touch, the harshness of life, and the desire for avoidance or escape from these bodies, often so heavy.
Seán Curran Company: PATH and Everywhere All The Time
April 18–19| World Premiere
Seán Curran Companymakes its NYU Skirball debut with two works: the world premiere of PATH, a 30-minute work reflecting on the phenomenon of the Camino de Santiago — the ancient Catholic pilgrimage route across northern Spain to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia – and Curran’s own spiritual wayfaring; and Everywhere All the Time (2018), which explores the relationship of humans with the natural environment.
Łukasz Twarkowski: The Employees
April 24–26| North American Premiere
The story of The Employees unfolds in an undetermined near future, on a spaceship carrying people and humanoid robots, with Earth having been annihilated. The crew of the spaceship 6000, overseen by a mysterious organization, is on a mission to explore a distant planet called the New Discovered. Among them are both humans and humanoid robots, though it’s unclear who’s who. This dark satire follows the crew’s reflections on consciousness and identity through fragmented reports left by the spaceship’s crew.