ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mallory Catlett is a creator and director of performance across disciplines from opera and music theater to plays and installation art. She is the founder of Restless NYC whose Obie Award winning production This Was The End, was recently remounted at Mabou Mines (2018). Her work in new opera includes: Mika Karlsson’s THE ECHO DRIFT (Prototype Festival 2018),  Stefan Weissman’s THE SCARLET IBIS (Prototype Festival 2015), Tarik O’Reagan’s WANTON SUBLIME (American Opera Projects 2014) and Aaron Siegel’s BROTHER, BROTHER (Experiments in Opera 2014). In NYC her work has premiered at 3LD, HERE, Ontological-Hysteric, PS122, Abrons, Chocolate Factory; featured at COIL, Prelude, Prototype and BAM’s Next Wave; and been developed at Barishnykov Arts, McDowell, Performing Garage, HERE, Mabou Mines, and Yaddo; and toured internationally to Canada, France, UK, Ireland & Australia. In 2016 she received a She is a Foundation for Contemporary Art 2015 Artist Grantee and a 2016 Creative Capital Artist for Restless’ 2020 production – M/F FUTURE.  She is a member of the multi-disciplinary artist led development and performance venue The Collapsable Hole and an Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Stony Brook University.

Aaron Siegel’s inquisitive and playful work represents a personal vision of how we live with and respond to the sounds in our world. He is a composer of music for the concert stage, the theater, video, and public art.  His large body of work for mallet percussion instruments has been embraced by a wide range of ensembles and is performed on a regular basis throughout the United States.  Siegel is one of the co-founders of Experiments in Opera (EiO) with whom he has produced over 60 new operatic works since its founding in 2011.  He also runs LockStep Records, an independent label dedicated to musical work at the intersections of improvisation, composition and sound art.  During the 2016-2017 season Aaron completed a new large-scale piece for Mantra Percussion, commissioned by Chamber Music America.  Siegel’s record ‘The Book of Notions,’ was released in September 2016 on LockStep Records.  He premiered a short opera based on the story “The Wallet” by Andrew McCuaig at EiO’s spring 2017 program, Flash Operas. He collaborated with soprano Michele Kennedy on, ‘Stay in the Sun,’ a song cycle based on the poems of Tess Taylor which was premiered in June 2017 along with ‘Navajo Manner,’ a song cycle for baritone Dashon Burton. Highlights include the premiere Siegel’s evening length opera, Brother Brother, at the Abrons Arts Center in May 2014.  In 2015, EiO premiered Sisyphus, a co-composed opera with Matthew Welch and Jason Cady.  Siegel’s monodrama ‘Laughing’ which tells the story of Abraham and Isaac through the lens of a tortured performance artist was premiered at Roulette in Brooklyn in April 2015.  Young People’s Chorus of New York City commissioned Aaron to write a new work for young voices for its Radio Radiance Series.  The resulting piece, ‘The Mysteries of Nothing’ was premiered in April 2015 at SubCulture.  In Fall 2014, Siegel released his first recording as the solo artist ‘Call Us Your People,’ an hourlong meditation on death and absurdity for voice and synthesizer.

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is an artist collective committed to transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. ice.org

A.M. Homes (librettist) is the author of the novels, This Book Will Save Your Life, Music For Torching, The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers, and Jack, as well as the short story collections, Things You Should Know and The Safety of Objects, the best-selling memoir, The Mistress’s Daughter along with a travel memoir, Los Angeles: People, Places and The Castle on the Hill, and the artist’s book Appendix A:Her work has been translated into twenty-two languages and appears frequently in Art Forum, Harpers, Granta, McSweeney’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Zoetrope. Homes has been the recipient of numerous awards including Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, NYFA, and The Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library. 

Contemporaneous is an ensemble of 22 musicians whose mission is to bring to life the music of now. Recently recognized for a “ferocious, focused performance” (The New York Times) and for its “captivating and whole-hearted commitment” (I Care If You Listen), Contemporaneous performs and promotes the most exciting work of living composers through innovative concerts, commissions, recordings, and educational programs.

Based in New York City and active throughout the United States, Contemporaneous has performed for a wide range of presenters, including Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, PROTOTYPE Festival, Merkin Concert Hall, MATA Festival, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and Bang on a Can. The ensemble has worked with a wide range of artists, including David Byrne, Donnacha Dennehy, Yotam Haber, Dawn Upshaw, and Julia Wolfe.

Contemporaneous has premiered more than 120 works, many of them large-scale pieces by emerging composers. Through its commissions and readiness to play challenging music, the ensemble encourages composers to take risks and defy constraints. Contemporaneous’ debut album, Stream of Stars — Music of Dylan Mattingly (Innova Recordings), has been featured on radio programs around the world, including WNYC’s “New Sounds” and WRTI’s “Now is the Time.”

Contemporaneous also leads participatory programs for public school students in the communities where the ensemble performs. These workshops are designed to instill a passion for new music and to convey the power of careful listening and meaningful expression through music. The ensemble has held residencies at such institutions as City University of New York, the University of New Orleans, Williams College, and Bard College, where the group was founded in 2010.