NOW Ensemble
Biographie NOW Ensemble
The NOW Ensemble:
Sara Budde, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet)
Patrick Burke, Composer
Logan Coale, Double bass
Mark Dancigers, Electric guitar
Judd Greenstein, Producer
Michael Mizrahi, Piano
Alex Sopp, Flute
Peter Rosenfeld (emeritus)
Shawn Conley (First Alternate)
Andrew Rehrig (First Alternate)
NOW Ensemble is a dynamic young group of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century. With our unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, NOW Ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with a blend of musical influences that reflects the diverse backgrounds and listening experiences of our members. We play in concert halls and art museums, rock clubs and jazz venues, for large audiences and for intimate gatherings, acoustic and plugged in. Above all, we strive for performances that are as lively and engaging as they are rigorous and technically sophisticated.
NOW Ensemble was formed in 2002 at the Yale School of Music, as an effort to form lasting bridges between performers and composers. In our earliest shows, NOW was a loose collective of adventurous performers and composers who put on concerts of new music, with instrumentation that varied from string quartets to solo piano music to electronic works. Over the course of the first years of our existence, NOW Ensemble morphed into a specific set of five instrumentalists, plus two non-performing composers, with a mix of students from Yale and Juilliard. By 2004, NOW existed in its "modern" form, with Alex Sopp on the flute, Sara Phillips on the clarinet, Mark Dancigers on the electric guitar, Michael Mizrahi on the piano, and Peter Rosenfeld on the double bass, and with Patrick Burke and Judd Greenstein, along with Mark, as the composers. This idiosyncratic instrumentation is the "NOW Ensemble sound", and brings an old approach to music-making – the chamber music tradition – to a new combination of instruments.
Today, NOW Ensemble is well-known as one of the brightest stars on the new music scene in New York City. We've performed on some of New York's most prestigious stages, from major concert venues to big-name festivals to clubs and bars and art galleries. Critics and audiences have taken notice, selling out our shows and filling our halls with enthusiastic fans, many of whom are being introduced to new music, or even classical music, for the first time. Even long-time followers of the scene have found something new in NOW Ensemble; WNYC radio personality John Schaefer called our performance of Magic With Everyday Objects, by Missy Mazzoli, "one of the great surprises of the 2007 (Bang on a Can) Marathon," and later invited Judd and Sara onto his Soundcheck program to talk about the group.
NOW Ensemble offers a unique combination of elements. We're a chamber ensemble, with no conductor, and with a deep commitment to internalizing the music that we perform. Having three composers in the ensemble makes all the composers with whom we work feel less like "outsiders" to the group, and more like what they are: an integral part of our success. The five performers in NOW Ensemble are each virtuoso players with distinguished solo careers and a wide variety of experience in other ensembles and genres of music. They've given recitals in Carnegie Hall, been members of world class orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, l'Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, and the American Composers Orchestra, and have appeared onstage and on recordings with indie rockers like Sufjan Stevens, The National, and Bright Black Morning Light. This breadth of experience, rather than distracting from their roles in NOW Ensemble, brings an essential diversity of sound and perspective to the group, something that is required in our interpretations of the widely varied scores and approaches that we encounter when working with today's best young composers.
Because of our unique instrumentation, NOW Ensemble relies on composers for new works to increase our repertoire. Over the four years since we established our permanent instrumentation, we have premiered over 35 new pieces that were written for the ensemble, nearly all of which were newly created by our friends and peers. While many young ensembles solicit works from established composers to augment their own reputation, NOW Ensemble has cast its lot with the exciting voices in our own generation of composers. This decision has made NOW a critical element in any discussion of the up-and-coming composers who are quickly rising to prominence in New York and around the country.
A list of composers who have written or are slated to write for NOW reads like a who's-who of our generation: Timothy Andres, Betsey Biggs, William Brittelle, Ryan Carter, Anna Clyne, David Crowell, Corey Dargel, Bryce Dessner, Yoav Gal, Steven Gorbos, Yotam Haber, Andrew McKenna Lee, David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Matt McBane, Nico Muhly, Tristan Perich, Scott Smallwood, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Gregory Spears, Christopher Tignor, Jason Treuting, Stefan Weisman, Miriama Young, and Nick Zammuto, along with many others. We also have commissioned a handful of works by more established composers, including Kathryn Alexander and John Halle. All these composers have become, through their works, an indispensable of our sound and our history.
As part of our educational mission, as well as our effort to support young composers, NOW has engaged in residencies at universities such as Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and the Yale Department of Music, for Yale's first-ever Visiting Artist Program. In these visits, NOW Ensemble works with students to perfect their pieces, and in the process, we often gain works that become part of our permanent repertoire. We have also visited a number of elementary and high schools for outreach programs, introducing an even younger generation to our new approach to music-making.
In our four years of existence, NOW Ensemble has already racked up an impressive slate of accomplishments. In 2005, NOW performed as part of the ZOOM: Composers Close Up series at Merkin Hall, and was a guest at the Look & Listen Festival at Chelsea's Robert Miller Gallery. That Fall, NOW Ensemble toured the Northeast as part of Free Speech Zone, a tour of politically-themed, provocative new music that reached audiences in New York, Boston and New Haven. The tour, which also featured the Newspeak Ensemble, was captured in the 2007 film The End of New Music, by Stephen Taylor, a film that was the subject of an article in the New York Times. In 2006, NOW Ensemble was the featured guest ensemble at the Carlsbad Music Festival, where we premiered a new work by Matt McBane. NOW built a tour around that show, playing two concerts in Los Angeles (at Dangerous Curve and Molly Malone's Irish Pub) and visiting CalArts for a composition seminar and performance. That year, NOW also visited the Crane Arts Center in Philadelphia, and gave a series of shows with the Fireworks Ensemble. The 2006-2007 season was filled with residencies at Princeton, Yale, and the University of Virginia, as well as a return to Crane Arts and concerts at the Wave Hill Cultural Center, BAM Café, and at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York's World Financial Center.
In 2008, NOW released our first record on the pioneering New Amsterdam record label. The disc, titled NOW, features a collection of our core repertoire by member composers Patrick Burke, Mark Dancigers, and Judd Greenstein, as well as one piece by our good friend Nico Muhly. NOW has received widespread acclaim, including five-star reviews in Time Out New York and Time Out Chicago, a feature on WNYC's Soundcheck and frequent airplay on that station and on WFMU, and a big mention in Justin Davidson's New York article, "The Next Next Wave." The record is a document of what NOW Ensemble has achieved so far, and an indication of the direction we intend to travel in the years to come. We look forward to bringing our unique sound and dynamic approach to contemporary music to a wide audience of new listeners, around the country and around the world.
