~Nois and Kinds of Kings: Afterimage

About

Afterimage is a brand new program for Chicago’s award-winning saxophone quartet ~Nois featuring works written by each member of the Kinds of Kingscomposer collective. Exploring themes of contemporary life including riotous nights out, street harassment, displacement and isolation, and living through moments of darkness, “this different blue space” is the first collaboration between Kinds of Kings and ~Nois. The concert will include two world premieres, and Kinds of Kings member Shelley Washington will join ~Nois member János Csontos on her baritone saxophone duet Big Talk. The pieces performed in this program will be recorded and released on ~Nois’s sophomore album. ~Nois’s debut album is set to be released later in 2019.

~Nois
Brandon Quarles—soprano saxophone
Hunter Bockes—alto saxophone
Jordan Lulloff—tenor saxophone
János Csontos—baritone saxophone

Featuring:
Shelley Washington—baritone saxophone

Program:
Gemma Peacocke: Dwalm
Susanna Hancock: HIATUS *
Finola Merivale: Kenopsia**
Maria Kaoutzani: A shore to a shore*
Emma O’Halloran: Night Music
Shelley Washington: Big Talk

* World Premiere
** New York Premiere

~Nois is an award-winning saxophone quartet from Chicago, IL. Known for its “masterclass-level demonstrations of precise articulations and glowing legatos” (I Care if You Listen), “truly innovative musicianship,” and “raw creativity” (Cacophony Magazine), the group blurs the boundaries between contemporary classical music and experimental improvisation. In recent seasons, ~Nois has performed with Eighth Blackbird, the Bang On A Can All-Stars, flutist Claire Chase, and singer-songwriter Shara Nova of My Brightest Diamond. The group tours regularly and has performed and premiered works by Marcos Balter, William Bolcom, Georg Fredrich Haas, Tonia Ko, David Ludwig, Pauline Oliveros, and Gemma Peacocke. ~Nois is Hunter Bockes, János Csontos, Jordan Lulloff, and Brandon Quarles. www.noissaxophone.com

Kinds of Kings is a collective of US-based composers: Gemma Peacocke (New Zealand), Shelley Washington (United States), Emma O’Halloran (Ireland), Finola Merivale (Ireland), Maria Kaoutzani (Cyprus), and Susanna Hancock (United States). Based in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and Kentucky, the collective is focussed on amplifying and advocating for underheard voices and producing immersive and inclusive work. Described as, “distinguished young creators who work in diverse styles,” (The New Yorker) the collective’s 2019-2020 concert series, Equilibrium and Disturbance, features Rubiks Collective (Melbourne, Australia), ~Nois saxophone quartet (Chicago), Isabelle O’Connell (New York), Nouveau Classical Project (New York), and Real Loud (New York). Kinds of Kings is an artist-in-residence at National Sawdust in 2019-2020. The collective has previously had portrait concerts with New York-based chamber groups Metropolis Ensemble and Desdemona Ensemble, the ZAFA Collective in Chicago, and the St Louis Symphony as part of the orchestra’s Pulitzer Series. www.kindsofkings.com

Gemma Peacocke is a composer from Hamilton, New Zealand. She grew up composing as a strategy to avoid practicing the violin. Her multimedia song cycle setting poems by Afghan women, Waves & Lines, is adapted from Eliza Griswold’s book I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan. Waves & Linespremiered in 2017 at Roulette Intermedium and has been performed at Australia’s Melbourne Recital Centre, National Sawdust in New York, and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and it has been released as a studio album on the New Amsterdam label. Peacocke’s music has been performed and commissioned by Third Coast Percussion, PUBLIQuartet, the Rochester Philharmonic, Rubiks Collective, cellist Nick Photinos, and Alarm Will Sound. www.gemmapeacocke.com

Emma O’Halloran is an Irish composer who freely intertwines acoustic and electronic music. A recent graduate from the doctoral program at Princeton University, O’Halloran has written for folk musicians, chamber ensembles, turntables, symphony orchestra, film, and theatre. For her efforts, she has been praised by I Care If You Listen editor-in-chief Amanda Cook for writing “some of the most unencumbered, authentic, and joyful music that I have heard in recent years,” and has won numerous competitions, including National Sawdust’s Hildegard competition and the Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation award. O’Halloran lives in Brooklyn and is currently working on her first full-length opera. www.emma-ohalloran.com

Finola Merivale is an Irish composer currently living in New York. She is pursuing a DMA in Composition at Columbia University, where she is studying with Georg Friedrich Haas, George Lewis, and Zosha Di Castri. Her music is fueled by her thoughts on social injustices and climate change. She has lived in four different countries on three different continents, and a sense of place—both real and imagined—also greatly inspires her work. 2019–2020 projects include commissions from Rebekah Heller, Karl Larson, REAL LOUD, and Pathos Trio. www.finolamerivale.com

Maria Kaoutzani is a composer from Limassol, Cyprus, currently based in Chicago, IL, where she is a PhD candidate and a Lindsay Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at the University of Chicago. Her works have been performed in Europe, the US, Canada and Latin America, by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Longleash Trio and Imani Winds, and at festivals such as New Music On The Point, Valencia International Performance Academy, International Symposium for New Music, among others. mariakaoutzani.com

Susanna Hancock is an Asian-American composer and bassoonist whose works explore color, process, and acoustic phenomena. Her music draws from a wide array of influences including minimalism, spectralism, folk, and electronic mediums. Hancock’s compositions have been played by the JACK Quartet and members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and featured in concerts and festivals throughout the world including the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, Vox Novus/Composers Voice Concert Series, USF New-Music Festival, and the Dimitria Festival in Thessaloniki, Greece. susannahancockmusic.com

Shelley Washington writes music to fulfill one calling: to move. With an eclectic palette, Washington tells stories focusing on exploring emotions and intentions by finding their root cause. Using driving, rhythmic riffs paired with indelible melodies, she creates a sound dialogue for the public and personal discourse. She performs regularly as a vocalist and saxophonist, primarily on baritone saxophone, and has performed and recorded throughout the Midwest and East Coast- anything from Baroque to Screamo. www.shelleywashington.com