I/O Fest: Opus Zero Band and Percussion Ensemble

I/O FEST ’11

Steven Dennis Bodner and Matthew Gold, directors

After a very successful debut of the I/O Fest last year, the Williams College Department of Music proudly brings it back for a second year. Performances will take place over three days from Thursday, Jan. 6 through Saturday, Jan. 8, at ’62 Center and a site TBD. NO tickets necessary.

Box²

I/O New Music

Opus Zero Band

Songbooks

Michel van der Aa, Bernhard Lang, Louis Andriessen

PROGRAM
Michel van der Aa           Transit (2009)
Louis Andriessen            M is for Man, Music, Mozart (1991)
Bernhard Lang                DW 16, Songbook I (2004)

I/O New Music, co-directed by Steven Bodner and Matthew Gold, is the house band for the Williams College Music Department’s BOX series and curator of the annual I/O FEST. Composed primarily of Williams College music faculty and guests, I/O performs cutting-edge new music that explores the wide spectrum of today’s most vital compositional trends. The ensemble is especially interested in music that defies category, crosses musical and conceptual boundaries, and that challenges performers and audiences alike. With its flexible roster, I/O is able to perform electro-acoustic music, theatrical works, and compositions that re-imagine the capabilities of conventional instruments. I/O believes that music exists in space as well as time, and seeks to present programs that make full use of the physical environment in which it is performed. I/O New Music invites audiences to fully experience music that is not merely contemporary, but that, in advancing the musical language and perhaps altering the way we hear, is essential.

Formed in 2006 on the Williams College campus and directed by Steven Bodner, the Opus Zero Band—the highly-flexible, chamber-ensemble extension of the Williams Symphonic Winds—has quickly made a name for itself as one of the most cutting-edge new music ensembles in New England. The ensemble is committed to presenting innovative and provocative performances featuring the most significant music written today, regardless of instrumentation. In 2008, the Opus Zero Band presented the second complete performance (and collegiate premiere) of Louis Andriessen’s masterpiece De Materie, a performance described by Andriessen as “amazingly good” and by critic Barton McLean as “heroic” and “astounding.” Other recent highlights include collaborating with composer Steven Bryant on the creation of Ecstatic Variations (2009); presenting the American premiers of Klas Torsentsson’s Self-portrait with percussion, Michel van der Aa’s Preposition Trilogy, and Kyle Gann’s Sunken City; collaborating with Williams student composers and choreographers on the show “Overexposed,” which featured a semi-staged performance of Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat; and performing throughout Argentina in January 2009. The Opus Zero Band has also collaborated four times with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; besides presenting the premieres of feedforward (2007) by choreographer David Neumann and composer Eve Beglarian and also Philip Miller’s opera Hottentot Venus (2009), the ensemble presented a music+video concert in Club B-10 this past October and a full-length evening performance in the galleries last December. Along with the Symphonic Winds, the Opus Zero Band has commissioned and/or premiered a number of works by composers such as Lukas Foss, Judd Greenstein, David Kechley, Michael Torke, Jay Wadley, and Michael Weinstein. This past March, Opus Zero Band performed at the College Band Directors National Association Eastern Division conference at West Chester University, presenting a provocative program of music by Judd Greenstein, David Kechley, David Lang, and featuring Louis Andriessen’s De Staat.