February 3, 2010
Contact: Eric Wubbels
Valentine Visiting Professor
413/542-5316
ekwubbels01@amherst.edu

AMHERST, Mass.— On Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 8 p.m., New York-based new music collective The Wet Ink Ensemble will present an evening of virtuosic and enveloping works for ensemble and electronics in Buckley Recital Hall in the Arms Music Center at Amherst College.

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The Wet Ink Ensemble

The first event in a two-part spring residency at Amherst, the concert will offer students and audience members a chance to experience the expanded expressive and sonic resources that amplification, computer processing and contemporary instrumental techniques have recently brought into the discourse and tradition of classical music. Ranging from complexly notated to semi-improvised, from raucous and blunt to delicate and detailed, the program is comprised of six pieces by American, Canadian and British composers under the age of 50, representing a diverse group of 21st-century styles.

Earlier in the week, The Wet Ink Ensemble will conduct a hands-on workshop with student composers where these techniques, technologies and aesthetics will be demonstrated and discussed. Undergraduates in Amherst’s Advanced Composition Seminar will then spend the semester writing new works for the ensemble, which will return to perform the seminar’s final concert in May.

About the Ensemble

Co-directed by Valentine Visiting Professor Eric Wubbels, The Wet Ink Ensemble is a New York-based ensemble dedicated to creating, performing and promoting adventurous contemporary music. Founded in 1998, the group has established a reputation for exceptionally committed performances and programming that is consistently ahead of the curve. With strong ties to several New York arts communities—uptown and downtown new music, the visual arts, jazz, punk, electronic music—Wet Ink is able to present engaging programs from the real frontier of new music with a kind of energy and authenticity rarely found elsewhere. Recent engagements include performances at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Bargemusic, New York experimental music landmarks The Kitchen and Roulette Intermedium, and Germany’s historic Darmstadt Festival. The ensemble can be heard on recordings on the Carrier Records and Quiet Design labels.

The program is as follows:

  • Amy Williams—First Lines, for flute and piano
  • Alex Mincek—Pendulum 5.2, for ensemble and electronics
  • Richard Barrett—Codex I, for ensemble
  • Eric Wubbels—Shiverer, for flute and piano
  • Chiyoko Szlavnics—Triptych for AS, for two violins, accordion and sine waves
  • Sam Pluta—new work (2010), for ensemble and live electronics

The Wet Ink Ensemble is made up of artists Erin Lesser, flutes; Alex Mincek, tenor saxophone; Ian Antonio, percussion; Eric Wubbels, piano/accordion; Joshua Modney, violin; Jim Altieri, violin; Kate Soper, voice, and Sam Pluta, electronics.

About the Mead Art Museum

The Mead Art Museum houses the art collection of Amherst College, totaling more than 16,000 works. An accredited member of the American Association of Museums, the Mead participates in Museums10, a regional cultural collaboration. During the academic term, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to midnight and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information, please visit the museum’s Web site, www.amherst/museums/mead, or call 413/542-2335. 

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