The 2019 Look + Listen Festival opens May 3 with WQXR’s Terrance McKnight hosting Justice, a showcase of music that uses autobiography, theater, and reclaimed objects to explore historical power structures and tensions between migration and artistic inheritance.

Cellist and Seattle Symphony artist-in-residence Seth Parker Woods shares an intimate unaccompanied set including composer Nathalie Joachim’s Dam Mwen Yo containing field recordings from her Haitian musical heritage, Chinary Ung’s Khse Buon harnessing the vocalizations of Cambodian folk music, and MacArthur Fellow George Lewis’ touching soliloquy Not Alone dedicated to jazz cellist Abdul Wadud.

Noise-based chamber quintet TAK Ensemble performs the world premiere of a 2019 Look + Listen Commission by Rome Prize winning composer Jessie Marino mixing elements of theater, music, and the absurd, as well as 2018 Look + Listen Composition Competition winner Doug Balliet’s phantasmagoric vocalise on Victorian era Percy Shelley’s poem Ozymandias on the fleeting nature of power.

To close the night, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra composer-in-residence Angélica Negrón — whose solo work is assembled using digitally processed vocals paired with anything from electric vegetables to the innards of children’s toys — shares a set of songs reflecting on her native Puerto Rico.

The evening is presented alongside BRIC’s ongoing exhibition “The Portrait is Political” exploring the portrait as a means of recognizing the individual lives of artists and subjects who represent marginalized, under-recognized communities in Brooklyn.

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SETH PARKER WOODS (cello)
Chinary Ung — Khse Buon*
Nathalie Joachim — Dam Mwen Yo
George Lewis — Not Alone

TAK ENSEMBLE
Doug Balliet — Ozymandius (L+L Competition Winner)
Natacha Diels — iStrange Attractors
Jessie Marino — Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling** (L+L Commission)

ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN (voice & electronics)
Angélica Negrón — Ancetros, Transiente, Pasajero, Nubes, Yo Soy, [New Song]**

* NY Premiere
** World Premiere

The 2019 Look + Listen Festival continues with So To Speak, a curation of experimental songwriting and contemporary chamber music focused on the written word hosted by librettist Kelley Rourke.

Composer/saxophonist Darius Jones joins singer Amirtha Kidambi to present his Angels and Demons, musical adaptations of cosmological writings by iconic composer, improviser, and bandleader Sun Ra.

Vocalist and composer Majel Connery presents new songs with “repressed classical influences” from her upcoming EP Anything Chartreuse on sonnets by Oracle Hysterical composer Brad Balliet, and interdisciplinary performances with poet Jeff Dolven based on collected poems from his Speculative Music and A New English Grammar.

Chamber quartet Loadbang rounds out the evening with contemporary text settings that push the boundaries of vocal and instrumental music, including New York’s own neo-baroque composer Jonathan Dawe.

Co-presented by Areté Gallery, performances are accompanied by the exhibition “The Universe, How Vast, How Small” with microcosmic artwork from the gallery’s flatfile collection.

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MAJEL CONNERY (voice & electronics)
JEFF DOLVEN (poetry)
DYLAN GREENE (percussion)
Majel Connery & Jeff Dolven – Speculative Music
Majel Connery & Jeff Dolven – A New English Grammar

LOADBANG
Ya-jhu Yang – Three Pieces
Haukur Harðarson – Blind
Jonathan Dawe – Ship of Fools
ZongYun We – Flower
Adam Zahler – Ledascape

DARIUS JONES (saxophone)
AMIRTHA KIDAMBI (voice)
Darius Jones – Angels and Demons**

** US Premiere

The 2019 Look + Listen Festival closes with No Instruments Required, music generated by the human body featuring tap-dance interpretations of minimalist classics and vocal explorations of Depression-era America hosted by choreographer Catherine Tharin.

The Bang Group presents experimental tap reinterpretations of Steve Reich’s Clapping Music, Morton Feldman’s For John Cage, and a new work by Pauline Kim Harris written for the company.

And the vocal quartet Quince Ensemble performs new works from their series “This a Changin’ World” with original ballads inspired by Woodie Guthrie and the 1930s Dust Bowl migration of American workers.

The program is paired with innovative domestic designs by The Invisible Dog resident artists Marlo & Isaure.

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QUINCE ENSEMBLE
Gilda Lyons – Bone Needles
Amanda DeBoer Bartlett – I have no home*
Eliza Brown – Cassandra, IL
Michael Miller – Going down that road/Coda

THE BANG GROUP
Steve Reich – Clapping Music
Morton Feldman – For John Cage
Pauline Kim Harris – Sparkle

QUINCE ENSEMBLE
Maja Linderoth – Connected*
Laura Steenberge – The Four Winds* (selections)
David Reminick – In Dreams (selections)

*NY Premiere