Upcoming events
launching our 2023-2024 season - our biggest yet!
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.
The Sound of Space Between Us
The Sound of Space Between Us is a site-specific, Live-Art-infused, interdisciplinary 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. Stationed around the serene reflecting pool at the Clark Art Institute, overlooking the Berkshire mountains, the musicians become choreographic agents, responding to each other, the dancers, and audience, and the surrounding landscape, working as individual parts in a predetermined map or improvising as a unit. The program traverses a spectrum of notated scores, sonic maps and choreographic exercises by Annie Nikunen, Meg Stuart, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Dai Fujikura, Morton Feldman and inti figgis-vizueta with choreography by Annie Nikunen and Joelle Santiago.
PROGRAM
Seth Cluett Interference is Partial / Afterimage
Meg Stuart Choreographic Exercises
Anna Thorvaldsdottir Spectra
Morton Feldman Clarinet and String Quartet (excerpt)
Dai Fujikura Being as One
Annie Nikunen The Sound of Space Between Us
inti figgis-vizueta Form the Fabric
Mannes School of Music Pre-College Division Composition Residency
BlackBox performs works by composition students in the Mannes School of Music Pre-College Division as part of an end-of-year workshop.
All The Things We Cannot See
PROGRAM
Ari Sussman: Apophenia
Cole Reyes: shadowstains
Eliza Brown: In the Age of the Rise
Jimena Maldonado: Constelaciones
inti figgis-vizueta: Form the Fabric
BlackBox @ Sacred Music at Columbia
BlackBox presents an evening of spatial music in the beautiful St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University as part of their Sacred Music series.
PROGRAM
inti figgis-vizueta: Form the Fabric
Jessie Cox: Existence Lies In-Between
George Lewis: Arcades
Jessie Cox Portrait Concert
The BlackBox Ensemble is thrilled to present a portrait concert of composer Jessie Cox, one of the daring and experimental composers of our time. Sitting at the intersection of avant-garde classical, experimental jazz, and sound art, Cox's music invites us to step into an ever-expanding sound world. In this portrait, the BlackBox Ensmeble pairs a selection of Cox's solo and chamber works with works by two composers - Dai Fujikura and George Lewis - whose influence on Cox has shaped his own music.
PROGRAM
Jessie Cox: Quantify
Jessie Cox: The Same But Different (for solo drumset)
Jessie Cox: Time-Space (for solo bass clarinet)
Dai Fujikura: Abandoned Time
Jessie Cox: Existence Lies In-Between
George Lewis: Hexis
outside the box festival
Join us outside on Pier 45 in Hudson River Park for our inaugural Outside the Box Festival, a day-long community arts celebration. The afternoon begins with a family-friendly musical workshop presented by Art Beyond the Ink in collaboration with BlackBox. Then, choreographer Joelle Santiago presents a new work featuring dancer Liana Kleinman with original music by BlackBox member Annie Nikunen. Interspersed throughout the afternoon will be BlackBox Ensemble performances of some of our favorites - works by Paul Novak, Annie Nikunen, Ari Sussman, Cole Reyes, and Tanner Porter, who joins the ensemble for a performance of her piece “Honey.” Admission is free with a suggested donation of $20.
Flyover Country Virtual Premiere
The BlackBox Ensemble presents the virtual premiere of Erich Barganier's "Flyover Country," an evening-length piece for speaker, chamber ensemble, and fixed media based on poetry by John McCarthy, filmed and recorded live at the world premiere performance at the DiMenna Center in April 2022.
NYU Nevermind the Noise Ensemble-in-Residence Performance
BlackBox premieres new works by the Nevermind the Noise Collective, NYU’s graduate student composers collective, as their spring 2022 ensemble-in-residence.
"Flyover Country" World Premiere
BlackBox Ensemble performs the world premiere of Erich Barganier’s “Flyover Country,” an evening-length work based on poetry by John McCarthy.
BlackBox @ williams college I/O Festival
The BlackBox Ensemble performs at the Williams College I/O Festival of Contemporary Music hosted by the Clark Institute, with a program featuring Heather by Tanner Porter, Everything Is… Distorted by Bekah Simms, and prisms and mirrors by Paul Novak, and …To Experience Life. by Brittany J. Green. To conclude the program, the Williams College I/O Contemporary Music Ensemble will join BlackBox for a performance of Brittany J. Green’s Intersections.
BlackBox Ensemble: Intersections
BlackBox Ensemble performs world premieres of “reflected tides” by Paul Novak, featuring new poetry by Ira Goga, and Annie Nikunen’s “The Love of Being Lost in Anonymity,” alongside Brittany J. Green’s “Intersections.”
BlackBox Ensemble with Tanner Porter
Works by Brittany J. Green, Bekah Simms, Jimena Maldonado, and the LIVE PREMIERE of "Honey" by Tanner Porter!
Gallery of Sound
Join us for our sonic “gallery” - solo performers will be stationed in individual rooms, with audience members welcome to wander through the rooms as they choose. The program includes solo works by Dai Fujikura, Kaija Saariaho, and Jessie Cox, and ensemble works by Brittany J. Green, George Lewis, and Tyler Neidermayer.
Elegy
A virtual concert of works by Juhi Bansal, Carlos Simon, Yaz Lancaster, Brittany J. Green, and Jessica Mays.
Watch on YouTube
Play-in
BlackBox, in collaboration with Sound Off: Music for Bail, presents our first ever “play-in,” where musicians from across New York City came together for an outdoor, public performance to raise money for The Bail Project.