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The ICA is pleased to present the Boston debut of enigmatic singer and visual artist Kaya Wilkins. The Norwegian-bred, Brooklyn-based performer, “offers softly sung lyrics that simultaneously skew sarcastic and soberingly real, set to saccharine bedroom-pop melodies” (Vogue). Kaya’s poetic lyrics playfully wander through themes such as emotional ambivalence, shared loneliness, and habitual love. Her records draw on both laconic folk and upbeat disco, as well as a host of esteemed collaborators (Eli Keszler, Adam Green, Taja Cheek of L’Rain, to name a few), to conjure hypnotically immersive soundscapes that create for a one-of-a-kind live experience. This special, one-night-only performance is offered as a tribute to her Boston-based grandmother, and will feature a blend of original music and reimagining of jazz standards and other tunes of yesteryear.  

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

Jazz Urbane Cafe, the Longy School of Music, and the Institute of Contemporary Art present: 

Affirmations for a New World 
featuring Sweet Honey in the Rock 

The concert will take place at the ICA/Boston.

Read the performance program

In 1973, Bernice Johnson Reagon founded Sweet Honey in the Rock, an a capella vocal ensemble founded with the mission to empower, educate, and entertain. Fifty years later, the legendary group celebrates in style with a monumental anniversary concert featuring performers from across generations. This unique, collaborative event features musicians from Jazz Urbane’s Imagine Orchestra, students from the Longy School of Music, and the incomparable voices of Sweet Honey in the Rock performing Boston composer William Banfield’s Symphony No. 10: Affirmations led by conductor Julius Williams. The concert also features a powerful, spirit-lifting solo set by Sweet Honey in the Rock. 

For composer Banfield, Affirmations “affirms every great human power we have; love, imagination, fear and courage, the will to change, to dream, to ask questions, [and] to touch someone else’s soul.”  

Both concert events will be sign-language interpreted. 

About Sweet Honey in the Rock

The Grammy-nominated African American vocal ensemble, Sweet Honey in the Rock® marks its 50th anniversary in November 2023 with a powerful three-year celebration that will honor its storied past and set the course for the future of the group, which has been described as, “one of the most dynamic, versatile, and still relevant musical collectives today.”

Since its inception in Washington, D.C. (1973), Sweet Honey in the Rock has thrived as a performance ensemble founded on the missions of empowerment, education, and entertainment.

Their current roster includes vocalists Carol Maillard, Louise Robinson, Aisha Kahlil, Nitanju Bolade Casel, and Rochelle Rice, with Romeir Mendez on upright acoustic/electric bass, and American Sign Language interpreter, Barbara Hunt.

Throughout five decades, the ensemble members have worked to create engaging and socially conscious music that consistently takes an active stance toward making our planet a better place for all in which to live. Their musical landscape embraces multiple genres/generations and addresses civil & human rights, women’s issues, gun violence, death, love, spirituality, children’s songs, and so much more.

About Imagine Orchestra

Created in 1992 by composer Dr. Bill Banfield, the Imagine Orchestra is a Boston hybrid-chamber group with an eclectic modern approach in style and orchestration. Imagine Orchestra is currently ensemble-in-residence at the Longy School of Music. The ensemble’s seminal recording Live at The Landmark (Innona Recordings) brought the group’s work critical praise from industry veterans Dr. Billy Taylor, David Baker, and Maria Schneider.

About Jazz Urbane Cafe

Jazz Urbane Cafe is an urban arts venue, scheduled to open in the fall of 2024, that spotlights the local and national artists who define and celebrate the diverse cultural traditions that make Boston a unique and global city. Our arts program will consist of nightly musical performances from local artists on the Jazz Urbane Recordings label (the Cafe’s sister company) and across greater Boston.  Jazz Urbane Cafe will also offer other presentation modes – ranging from film screenings to dance to dramatic theater to multimedia installations – to provide a holistic presentation of form and expression.

Tastefully complementing our performance series will be an exciting culinary program designed to make the Cafe a full sensory experience.  Our dinner, lunch, catering and takeout menus will feature a fusion of global flavors with many ingredients sourced locally.  The commitment to unique, sensuous flavors made from many local ingredients will extend to the Cafe’s bar program where offerings will include craft spirits and beers and a wine selection curated to be approachable for casual wine drinkers and thrilling for wine lovers.

About the Longy School of Music

The Longy School of Music of Bard College prepares students to make a difference in the world. Through groundbreaking conservatory training, Longy students discover new ways to make their music matter while expanding their vision of what a life in music can mean. Longy welcomes all kinds of musicians, eliminating barriers to ensure access for students who are passionate about changing lives and impacting communities through music. Longy prepares students to meet the challenges of a changing global landscape head-on, giving them the skills to reach new audiences and engage new communities.

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

logo for Longy school of music of bard college

Three celebrated musicians Grammy Award-winning vocalist Arooj Aftab, pianist Vijay Iyer, and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily debut in Boston their collaborative project Love in Exile. The trio creates lush, haunting collaborative soundscapes of meditation and yearning. Rich improvisations bloom into achingly provocative experimentation and creates a sound as described by Aftab as “about self-exile, and the search for freedom and identity, and finding it through love and music.” 

Read the performance program

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

In celebration of American Jazz composer and drummer Max Roach’s 100th birthday, Max Roach 100 brings together three visionary choreographers—Ronald K. Brown, Ayodele Casel, and Rennie Harris—to produce new works in tribute to Roach’s legendary music and activism. Ronald K. Brown and Cuban-based Malpaso Dance Company will collaborate on a piece set to Percussion Bitter Sweet, Roach’s message-driven score characterized by its Afro-Cuban percussion. Roach’s The Dream/It’s Time, in which the drummer’s band joins a recording of Martin Luther King Jr. in an aspirational and urgent conversation, will be amplified by hip-hop dance company Rennie Harris Puremovement. The deeply knowledgeable tap dancer Ayodele Casel will perform a new solo to a series of duets between Roach and another pioneer of Jazz, pianist Cecil Taylor. 

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

Due to popular demand, a second performance has been added!

Among the most acclaimed jazz saxophonists of his generation, Joshua Redman is hailed for his improvisational brilliance and virtuosic inventiveness. At the ICA, a remarkable, dynamic group of musicians including pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Joe Sanders, drummer Brian Blade, and co-winner of the 2023 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition Gabrielle Cavassa, will join Redman. The artists will perform selections from Redman’s newest album, Where Are We, featuring music by Rodgers & Hart, John Coltrane, Bruce Springsteen, and more. Redman describes Where We Are as “a meditation on America and the power and importance of place.”

Preview the performance brochure.

 

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

32 Sounds is an immersive documentary and profound sensory experience from filmmaker Sam Green that explores the elemental phenomenon of sound. The film is a meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us. The film will be at ICA/Boston in its “live cinema” form, featuring live narration by Sam Green and live original music by JD Samson.

Directed and Performed by Sam Green 

Composed and Performed by JD Samson, with Michael O’Neill 

Produced by Josh Penn & ArKtype/Thomas O. Kriegsmann 

Cinematography by Yoni Brook 

Editing by Nels Bangerter & Sam Green 

Sound Design by Mark Mangini 

Lighting Design by Yuki Nakase Link 

Live Sound Design by Dan Bora 

Headphone Experience Design by Sam Crawford

Bios

Sam Green is a New York-based documentary filmmaker. Green’s most recent live documentaries include A Thousand Thoughts (with the Kronos Quartet) (2018), The Measure of All Things (2014), The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller (with Yo La Tengo) (2012), and Utopia in Four Movements (2010). With all of these works, Green narrates the film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. Green’s 2004 feature-length film, The Weather Underground, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award, was included in the Whitney Biennial, and has screened widely around the world.

JD Samson is best known as leader of the band MEN and for being one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band and performance project Le Tigre. For more than a decade Samson’s career as a visual artist, musician, producer, and DJ has landed her at the intersection of music, art, activism, and fashion. She has toured the world, produced songs for Grammy award winning artists, written for publications such as The Huffington Post, Talkhouse, and Creative Time Review, created multimedia artwork, hosted documentary programs, acted, modeled, and engaged in direct support with a wide-range of progressive social and political causes. Samson is now an Assistant Arts Professor at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

Commissioned by Stanford Live, Stanford University; The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi; Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Institute of Technology; Green Music Center of Sonoma State University; Arizona Arts Live at University of Arizona; and developed through a creative residency at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts.  

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Opening set by Photocomfort

Anjimile won the world over with the clear-eyed honesty of his first record—a meditation on spirituality and liberation, bolstered by Anjimile’s delicate, earthy vocals. Giver Taker drew on musical influences ranging from African pop and Sufjan Stevens to a childhood spent in the church. NPR deemed it one of the 50 best albums of 2020. In his critically acclaimed 2023 album, The King, he continues exploring what it means to be a Black trans person in America.  

The ICA is pleased to welcome Anjimile back to Boston after a 2021 move to the South. Anjimile first hit the stage in Boston while a music industry student at Northeastern University. He recorded several EPs and albums on his own, and his star rose when his 2018 NPR Tiny Desk Concert contest entry was deemed the best out of Boston. The King showcases the perfect marriage between Anjimile’s lyricism and musicality and the power of brilliant production. 

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

Please note this performance includes a strobe effect and strong language. 

Brooklyn-born musician serpentwithfeet’s experimental electronic music tenderly explores passion and love between gay Black folks. The Guardian said of his 2021 record DEACON, “There can be few albums this year more wholesome, soppy, or unabashedly life-affirming.” He joins MacArthur “genius” Fellow Wu Tsang and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly to present Heart of Brick, a theatrical dance and musical performance that tells the story of two men finding themselves and falling in love in a gay dance hall and captures the multi-generational spirit of the Black queer community. Combining music created for the performance with material from serpentwithfeet’s new album, as well as older songs, Heart of Brick is an evocative new work that embodies the sweetness and sincerity at serpent’s core. 

Read the performance program.

Created by serpentwithfeet 
Directed by Wu Tsang 
Choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly 
Co-written by serpentwithfeet & Donte Collins 
A Joyce Theater Production 
Produced: The Joyce Theater 
Co-Produced: Kampnagel International Summer Festival 
Co-Commissioned by: The Joyce Theater Foundation, Kampnagel International Summer Festival, The LA Phil – with generous support from Linda and David Shaheen, Seattle Theatre Group, Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa 

Accessibility

  • Accessible and companion seating can be selected when purchasing tickets online, or at the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org.
  • Assistive listening devices are available for all theater programs at the theater entrance.
  • A link to live captioning will be shared by the day of the event and will be available in the theater.
  • ASL interpretation is available by advance request; please contact the Box Office at 617-478-3103 or visitorservices@icaboston.org to make a request.

Are there other access accommodations that would be useful to help you fully participate in this program? Let us know at accessibility@icaboston.org or learn more about Accessibility at the ICA at icaboston.org/accessibility.

Called the most extreme organ trio ever, Simulacrum is yet another wild new offering from composer and alchemist John Zorn, who continues to explore new worlds and new ensembles into his sixth decade. With dramatic through-composed pieces (meaning pieces in which each stanza takes on a new style) that unfold with a cinematic logic, this genre-bending music defies classification, touching upon metal, jazz, minimalism, atonality, noise, and more. Passionately performed by an unusual all-star trio of John Medeski on organ, Matt Hollenberg on guitar and Kenny Grohwoski on drums, this powerful and fascinating music highlights the MENTAL in experimental!
 

First Republic Bank is proud to sponsor the ICA’s 2015–16 Performance Season.

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Presented in conjunction with Leap Before You Look:
Black Mountain College 1933–1957

Between 1949 and 1954, composers John Cage and Pierre Boulez exchanged a series of remarkable letters that are the basis for this exceptional concert featuring soloists of the renowned Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain. The group will perform a selection of works written during the composers’ correspondence including Boulez’s “Second Piano Sonata,” “Livre pour quatuor,” and “Douze notations,”and Cage’s “String Quartet in Four Parts,” “Six melodies for violin and keyboard,”“Music of Changes,” and “Sonatas and Interludes.” While teaching at Black Mountain College in 1952, Cage introduced students to the works of the young French composer, whom he viewed as a major figure in contemporary composition and sympathetic to his own musical developments. Many of the Cage compositions to be performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain premiered at the College and illustrate his emerging compositional practices, which he discussed at length with Boulez. Selections from the letters will be read during the concert, offering a unique look at the work and practice of these hugely influential masters.

First Republic Bank is proud to sponsor the ICA’s 2015–16 Performance Season.
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