events
Penn State Residency
BlackBox residency at Penn State, with a performance on 10/23 performing works by Annie Nikunen, Ileana Perez Velazquez, Nathalie Joachim, Alex Burtzos, Baljinder Sekhon, and James Diaz.
George Washington University residency
BlackBox residency at George Washington University with a performance on 11/8 performing works by Annie Nikunen, Baldwin Giang, Heather Stebbins, and a world premiere by GW Professor of Music Composition Douglas Boyce.
University of Richmond SPRING Residency
First half of BlackBox’s residency as Ensemble in Residence at University of Richmond, with a performance on 11/14 playing works by Kelley Sheehan, Anthony Cheung, Heather Stebbins, Bekah Simms, and Benjamin Broening.
Scenes from the Post-Diaspora: BlackBox Ensemble performs Cheung, Mochizuki, and the US Premiere of Baldwin Giang's PIPA BOY
BlackBox performs works by Anthony Cheung, Misato Mochizuki, and two works by Baldwin Giang, including the US premiere of PIPA BOY—Three Scenes from the Post-Diaspora (2024), a multimedia work for ensemble and pipa player exploring global identity and the conditions of belonging and non-belonging, written during his time as a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
BlackBox at Bowerbird
BlackBox performs works by Annie Nikunen, Ileana Perez Velazquez, Baldwin Giang, Nathalie Joachim, Tania León, and James Diaz.
BlackBox at the Smithsonian
BlackBox returns to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, performing works by Anthony Cheung, Misato Mochizuki, Tania León, and Baldwin Giang.
BlackBox at Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew
In our second NYC show of the season, BlackBox performs works by Nathalie Joachim, Ursula Mamlok, Tania León, Ileana Perez Velazquez, and Douglas Boyce.
UC Davis Residency
BlackBox in residency at UC Davis with a performance on 3/5, playing works by Paul Novak, Kelley Sheehan, Baldwin Giang, and James Diaz.
SFSU Residency
BlackBox residency at San Francisco State University with a performance on 3/8, performing works by Paul Novak, Alex Burtzos, James Diaz, and more.
Williams College Residency
BlackBox residency at Williams College with a performance on 3/18, playing works by Annie Nikunen, Tania León, Nathalie Joachim, Ileana Perez Velazquez, and Douglas Boyce.
University of Richmond SPRING Residency
Second half of BlackBox’s residency as Ensemble in Residence at University of Richmond, with a performance on 4/19 playing the world premiere of a new work by Peni Candra Rini, Artist in Residence with University of Richmond’s Department of Music.
BlackBox at DiMenna Center
For our season closer, BlackBox performs works by Kelley Sheehan, Andile Khumalo, Elliot Carter, Paul Novak, and Unsuk Chin.
JULIUS EASTMAN: FEMENINE with Kyle Marshall Choreography
BlackBox Ensemble accompanies Kyle Marshall Choreography for their evening length dance piece set to Julius Eastman’s seminal work Femenine. Join us after the show for an after-hours concert of our Speculative Listening program.
JULIUS EASTMAN: FEMENINE with Kyle Marshall Choreography
BlackBox Ensemble accompanies Kyle Marshall Choreography for their evening length dance piece set to Julius Eastman’s seminal work Femenine.
SPECULATIVE LISTENING: The Sonic World of Julius Eastman @ The Whitney Museum
BlackBox brings our Speculative Listening project to the Whitney for a special performance presented as part of the Whitney’s Free Second Sundays series. Stay for an afterparty featuring DJs by Lovie and Honey Bun.
Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation Prizewinners Concert
BlackBox performs alongside Dice Trio as the recipients of the 2025 Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation Prize.
Unsuk Chin: Akrostichon-Wortspiel
A very special performance — BlackBox joins our soprano soloist Amber Evans for a performance of Unsuk Chin’s seminal Akrostichon-Wortspiel as part of her final DMA recital at the CUNY Graduate Center!
SPECULATIVE LISTENING: THE SONIC WORLD OF JULIUS EASTMAN AT Bang on a can LONGPLAY FESTIVAL
BlackBox presents a wide-ranging sonic portrait of Julius Eastman curated by Eastman scholar Isaac Jean-Francois as part of Bang on a Can’s LongPlay Festival. Featuring works by Hildegard von Bingen, Gérard Grisey, Barbara Kolb, and Julius Eastman.
University of Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition Residency
BlackBox performs new works by University of Chicago graduate composition students.
DIALOGUES IN DUALITY: NYC PREMIERS BY NIKUNEN, SIMMS, DIAZ, and sekhon
On Saturday, November 23rd at 8pm at the Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew in Brooklyn, BlackBox Ensemble presents a series of works unified in their explorations of physicality and duality. Featuring works by Anthony Cheung, Annie Nikunen, Bekah Simms, Baljinder Sekhon, James Diaz, Brittany J. Green and Reilly Spitzfaden, we traverse dialogues between present and memory, sound and silence, structure and freedom, clarity and complexity, propulsion and resistance, unpredictability and certitude, chaos and smoothness, magic and science. This program features the US premieres of Simms’ Stygian Pulse and Diaz’s mil cuartos en linea recta as well as the NY premieres of Nikunen’s all mass is interaction and Sekhon’s Divination, commissioned for BlackBox to perform at University of South Carolina’s Southern Exposure New Music Series last month. From pitchwheel motions and chronic pain to physics and a thousand white rooms in a straight line, each of these composers expresses their own unique avenue in which to see, hear, and feel these physicalities and dualities through sound.
TICKETS
BlackBox at Timucua Arts Foundation
BlackBox presents an eclectic program of works by Jessie Cox, George Lewis, Brittany J. Green, and James Diaz.
BlackBox at University of Central Florida
Anthony Cheung enjamb, infuse, implode
Cole Reyes Shadowstains
James Diaz mil cuartos en linea recta
inti figgis-vizueta Form the Fabric
BlackBox University of Florida Residency
BlackBox plays pieces of graduate student composers at University of Florida.
BlackBox at USC - Southern Exposure New Music Series
BlackBox performs as part of USC’s Southern Exposure New Music Series.
Tyler Neidermayer Mosaic 1
Anna Thorvaldsdottir Ró
Annie Nikunen All Mass is Interaction
Angelica Negrón espacios, objectos, sonidos y tiempo
Berio Michelle II
Murail Paludes
Baljinder Sekhon Divination
Berio Yesterday
inti figgis-vizueta Form the Fabric
Tyler Neidermayer Mosaic II
BlackBox at UNC-Pembroke
Cole Reyes Shadowstains
Brittany J. Green Shift.Unravel.Break
Bekah Simms Stygian Pulse
James Diaz mil cuartos en linea recta
Brittany J. Green Maps
BlackBox in Fayetteville, NC
Cole Reyes Shadowstains
Brittany J. Green Shift.Unravel.Break
Bekah Simms Stygian Pulse
James Diaz mil cuartos en linea recta
Brittany J. Green Maps
Season Kickoff Party
Join us for an evening of music and celebration as we launch our 2024-2025 season!
The Sound of Space Between Us: Paris Film Premiere
The Sound of Space Between Us - a film of our performance at the Clark Art Institute - is premiered at the Fête de la Cite in Paris, France.
Director of Production and Cinematography: Kevin Chiu
Choreography: Annie Nikunen & Joelle Santiago
Dancers: Peter Cheng, Annie Nikunen, Liana Zhen-ai
Music: Feldman, Fujikura, Nikunen, figgis-vizueta
Performed at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, October 1, 2023
Consonance Collective: What We Owe to Birds
BlackBox performs the premiere of What We Owe to Birds, a multimedia cycle meditating on bird migration and conservation by the Consonance Collective, at the New Jersey Audubon Society’s annual Cape May Spring Festival.
Kaufman Center Special Music School Composers Concert
BlackBox workshops and performs new works by composition students at the Special Music School, the music magnet high school of the Kaufman Music Center.
New York University: Composers Collective Residency
BlackBox performs new works by New York University graduate composition students.
BlackBox Ensemble at Refugia Festival
BlackBox performs multiple sets on the inaugural Refugia Festival, produced and curated by Alexis Lamb, including the premiere of Alexis Lamb’s Resonant Gratitude with New Music Detroit and U-M students, a portrait concert of Libby Meyer, and a solo program of works by Thorvaldsdottir, Feldman, Nikunen, and inti figgis-vizueta.
University of Michigan: Composition Seminar
BlackBox performs new works by University of Michigan composition students in a public composition seminar.
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art: Borrowed Landscape
The ensemble presents a reprise performance of Dai Fujikura’s Borrowed Landscape, a play by the German playwright duo tauchgold with original music by prominent composer Dai Fujikura. Conceived by tauchgold as a “narratorio”—a dramatic play based on the musical structure of an oratorio—this piece was originally broadcast as a radio play in Germany in 2022. The BlackBox Ensemble presented the staged premiere of this new English translation at New York City’s Noguchi Museum in November 2023.
The narratorio tells the story of three special instruments: a famous Stradivarius walled up for years in a cellar in Budapest, a double bass left behind by a Jewish orchestral bassist fleeing Poland in 1939, and a Baldwin upright piano silenced after the Hiroshima bomb killed its young owner. As the musicians of a trio approach these instruments, which for decades were considered lost, they uncover the stories, secrets, and histories these objects contain.
The performance will begin with Dai Fujikura’s Being As One.
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art: Wednesday Matinee Performance
The ensemble begins our series at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art with a companion program to Thursday evening’s performance of Borrowed Landscape, featuring works by Angélica Negrón, Tristan Murail, Baldwin Giang, and George Lewis.
BlackBox Festival: Night 2 - The Sound of Space Between Us
The BlackBox Ensemble closes out our festival with a special New York performance of The Sound of Space Between Us, an interdisciplinary, live-Art-infused performance experience connecting sound and movement through and within physical space. Conceived and co-curated by our flutist - composer, dancer, choreographer and Annie Nikunen - space is used as a meeting place for music and dance to converse from both ecological and interpersonal perspectives; our public place in the ecosystem and our private paths with(in) it.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Ró
Tristan Murail: Paludes
Angélica Negrón: Espacios, objectos, sonidos y tiempo
Seth Cluett: Interference is partial/afterimage
Morton Feldman: Dance Passage from Piano and String Quartet
Dai Fujikura: Being As One
Annie Nikunen: The Sound of Space Between Us
BlackBox Festival: Night 1 - After-Hours
Stick around after our festival opening concert for a late night electroacoustic show featuring solo and chamber performances by members of the BlackBox Ensemble!
Brittany J. Green: Thread and Pull
Nina Shekhar: Vocalise
Kaija Saariaho: Cendres
Lucy McKnight: fated joy
Additional works to be announced
BlackBox Festival: Night 1 - OPENING CONCERT
Our 2024 Festival begins with a program of works by new and frequent BlackBox collaborators, featuring an expanded roster of the BlackBox Ensemble in full force.
Paul Novak: Somatic Interludes (World Premiere)
Bobby Ge: Pupil of Light
Jessica Meyer: The dappled light just beyond her skin…
Baldwin Giang: butterfly, posthumously
Yaz Lancaster: Gender Envy
University of Florida: New Works by Student Composer
The BlackBox Ensemble premieres new work by University of Florida student composers in a special collaborative program with the UF Department of Dance at the HARN Museum of Art.
Flyover Country at the University of Florida
The BlackBox Ensemble performs Erich Barganier’s “Flyover Country,” an evening-length multimedia work premiered by the ensemble in 2022, as part of a residency at the University of Florida.
Space/Time/Memory: Sonic Landscapes by Thorvaldsdottir, Takemitsu, figgis-vizueta, and Fujikura
On Wednesday, November 8, BlackBox Ensemble and The Noguchi Museum will present an original four-part concert program of sonic landscapes designed to explore our relationship with space, time, objects, and memory. The program will feature the world premiere of the English-language version of “Borrowed Landscape,” a narratorio by playwright duo tauchgold (Heike Tauch und Florian Goldberg) and composer Dai Fujikura, as well as compositions by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, inti figgis-vizueta, and Toru Takemitsu.
The play “Borrowed Landscape” tells the story of three special instruments: a famous Stradivarius walled up for years in a cellar in Budapest, a double bass left behind in 1939 when fleeing from Poland to Erez Israel, and a piano silenced after the Hiroshima bomb killed its young owner. The musicians of a trio approach the stories of their three special instruments. What secrets are hidden in them?
What meanings do we assign to instruments, or objects, that become tied to our own experiences? What is memory, and how is it embodied in objects? What does it mean when those objects are forgotten and uncovered? Can an instrument remember, and does it remember those who have played it?
These are the questions the musicians of a piano trio explore when they are invited to a memorial concert in Hiroshima. They tell the story of their historic instruments, which for decades they were considered lost. As they are rediscovered and played again, their stories - a singular archive where individual experiences intersect with historical narratives - are revealed.
Conceived by the German playwright duo tauchgold as a “narratorio” - a dramatic play based on the musical structure of an oratorio - this piece was originally broadcast as a radio play in 2022. This performance will be the work’s live premiere.