rsvp for zoom link here
Scroll down for concert information, program notes, and artist biographies
Award-winning singer/songwriter Ayanna Witter-Johnson joins performers from NYC-based ensemble ShoutHouse and composers from ICEBERG New Music for a thrilling program of world premieres. Witter-Johnson, a MOBO-winning artist whose debut album debuted in 2019, has been described by Jazzwise as "a huge talent. Like a young Cassandra Wilson would have sounded if she also happened to be a fine cellist." This concert features new arrangements of songs from Ayanna's recent Roadrunner LP, presented alongside original concert compositions by ICEBERG composers.
PROGRAM.
Ayanna Witter Johnson arr. Baez —Something More
Victor Baez — Something More
Ayanna Witter-Johnson arr. Andersen — Falling
Drake Andersen — Falling
Ayanna Witter-Johnson arr. Burtzos — Wooden Woman Part I
Alex Burtzos — Wooden Woman Part II
Ayanna Witter-Johnson arr. Boyd— Unconditionally
Stephanie Ann Boyd — Momma
Ayanna Witter-Johnson arr. Healy — Rise Up
Program Note.
unconditionally, momma | voice, cello, classical music rock band, Op. 79
Ayanna Witter-Johnson's work "Unconditionally" is a touching and powerful tribute to her mother, and with that vivacious, energetic work as my inspiration, I've created a sister piece, a tribute in my own way to the impact my mother has had on my life. I love my mother tremendously - I really did get lucky in that department. And yet as I myself get closer to the age my mother was when I became a part of her life as she gave me mine, I find that it's my appreciation and understanding of her that is taking the space to deepen and grow. I can feel the weight of her responsibility and care towards my sister now so much more in retrospect than I could ever have in the days of my childhood. That infinite pool of her life's moments where she made her focus all about us and not herself.
The work of pregnancy,
Taking someone to school every morning for twelve years plus kindergarten or pre-school or daycare,
The driving to lessons or ballet or gymnastics or whatever kids do these days, and sitting in the car just waiting on this small person whose world is so small that you often get seen as the villain of it in moments of childhood growth or despair,
What about all the times she let sleep go un-taken while listening to the breathing of a sick child to make sure everything was ok?
And what about all those moments mothers spend answering our every question, and in doing so give us our first foundations by which we can abstractly understand our life, understand our place as humans on this earth.... All this time she spent teaching us about the language of nature; to know the inhabitants of the forests of our surroundings...
So I wrote a piece that's speaks a little bit about all these things. Thank you to Ayanna for trusting us with your stories, and for influencing me to spend a bit more time in gratitude. And thank you to Shouthouse for being in on this! What a combo!!
carnegie hill concerts
Carnegie Hill Concerts is a chamber music series that features artists of different genres and disciplines in curated, collaborative, shared programs, bringing people together to participate in the celebration and cultivation of New York City's diverse community.
ayanna witter-johnson
Singer, songwriter, cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a rare exception to the rule that classical and alternative r&b music cannot successfully coexist.
Graduating with a first from both Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and the Manhattan School of Music, Ayanna was a participant in the London Symphony Orchestra’s Panufnik Young Composers Scheme and became an Emerging Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre. She was a featured artist with Courtney Pine’s Afropeans: Jazz Warriors and became the only non-American to win Amateur Night Live at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem, NYC.
As a composer she has been commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Güerzenich Orchester, Ligeti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company and as an arranger/orchestrator for the London Symphony Orchestra (Hugh Masekela, Belief!) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Urban Classic).
Since releasing her EP’s (‘Truthfully’, ‘Black Panther’ & ‘Ella, Reuben & Ay’) and her debut album ‘Road Runner’ via her own record label (Hill and Gully Records) working with producers Marc Mac (4Hero), James Yarde (Terri Walker, Jamelia, Eric Benet) and featuring artists including pianist Robert Mitchell and rapper Akala. Ayanna has collaborated with several artists including Anoushka Shankar and Nitin Sawhney, extensively toured the UK and several countries in Europe, whilst gaining a MOBO nomination, receiving airplay on stations including BBC Radio 1, 1xtra, 2, 3, 4, 6, BBC London, BBC Manchester, Jazz FM and Scala Radio, TV features on BBC One London News and London Live and producing three commercial music videos via her YouTube channel.
A performer of extraordinary versatility her live shows are intimate journeys that chronicle her experience as a female artist in the 21st century. Because of her musical prowess, mesmerising vocals, non-compromising lyrics and ability to deftly reinterpret songs on the cello, Ayanna is able to straddle both the classical and urban worlds effortlessly.
She is the definition of eclectic soul.
shouthouse
Hailed as “incomparable to anything else… experimenting with a whole new form of expression” (The Culture Trip), ShoutHouse is a collective of musicians based in New York. Founded by composer Will Healy in 2014, ShoutHouse has formed a large community of artists that come together to present cutting-edge concert experiences that are redefining the boundaries of genre. Their debut full-length album, “Cityscapes”, came out on New Amsterdam Records in 2019.
Recent season highlights include performances on The Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, National Sawdust’s Resonator Festival, The Harlem Arts Festival, Satellite Collective’s Echo & Narcissus at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Cooper Hewitt Museum’s summer concert series, and on 44 Charlton at The Greene Space. ShoutHouse often appears at New York’s legendary clubs like The Bitter End, The Shrine, Rockwood Music Hall, and more. ShoutHouse’s first EP was featured on radio programs around the world, including WNYC’s “New Sounds” with John Schaefer, WBAI’s “Making Music” with Jordan Maclean. Since its inception, ShoutHouse has received support from The Juilliard School’s entrepreneurship program, the Brooklyn Arts Fund, Jerome Fund for New Music, the Queens Arts Council, The Sparkplug Foundation, and others.
iceberg new music
ICEBERG New Music is a collective of ten young composers based in New York City. ICEBERG's mission is to promote the idea that substance, not surface, is the heart of music creation and perception. The collective's ten member composers hail from different schools of thought and cultivate radically different sounds – from musical theater and indie rock to avant-garde sounds and electronic installations – but their contrasting musical languages belie a shared emphasis on structure and depth of meaning. When these artists compose for the same ensemble and present their works during a joint concert, the result is a glimpse into the ever-widening possibilities of art music in the twenty-first century.
ICEBERG is committed to excellence of craft, inclusiveness of style, and educational outreach on behalf of the new music community. They present numerous concerts each season, partnering with some of the country's top ensembles to create programs that are innovative, diverse, and listener-oriented. In 2020-21, ICEBERG's New York City concerts will feature acclaimed ensemble ShoutHouse, performing alongside singer-songwriter Ayanna Witter-Johnson and members of the band Bent Knee. All of the organization's events are followed by a community discussion with continuing open bar, giving audience members the opportunity to engage directly with the composers and performers about the music they just heard.
ICEBERG composers are dedicated to engaging directly with the community as energetic advocates of contemporary music. The collective participates in an annual residency at Crosstown Arts in Memphis, TN, during which they present public concerts, free lectures, and teach at the University of Memphis Summer music camp. In 2018, ICEBERG unveiled its Young Composer Award, a scholarship fund aimed at pre-collegiate composers from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds. In 2020, they began the ADVICEBERG project, which offers free career counseling to emerging BIPOC composers.
ICEBERG is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supported in part by a creative engagement grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
STEPHANIE ANN BOYD, COMPOSER
Michigan-born, Manhattan-based American composer Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette, Ashley Bouder, NYCB soloist Peter Walker, and XAOC Contemporary Ballet’s Eryn Renee Young. Eero, a ballet commissioned by Access Contemporary Music and Open House New York, was written for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Her music has been praised as “attractive lyricism” (Gramophone), “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe), “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review), “arrestingly poetic” (BMOP), and “wide ranging, imaginative” (Portland Press Herald).
Boyd’s music has been commissioned and performed by concertmasters of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony, the Faroe Islands Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal players in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been commissioned and/or played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the New England Conservatory Philharmonic, the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, the New York Jazzharmonic, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Roosevelt University Orchestra, the Eureka Ensemble, the JVL Festival Orchestra, the Texas State University Symphony, the Cremona International Academy Orchestra, the UW La Crosse Symphony, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and the El Paso Youth Symphony. Her work has been presented by the Thalia and her Sisters concert series, the Moirae Ensemble, and Sandcastle New Music in New York City; Æpex Contemporary Music in Michigan; Juventas New Music, Collage New Music, and the New Gallery Concert Series in Boston; Cincinnati Soundbox, and others. Stephanie has worked with conductors such as Andrew Litton, Lina Gonzales, Earl Lee, Nathan Aspinall, Cliff Colnot, Gill Rose, Julian Benichou, Kristo Kondakci, and Kevin Fitzgerald.
The 2020/2021 season includes commissions from the Wyoming Symphony, Astral Artists with cellist Tommy Mesa, violinist Megan Healy, pianists Lara Downes, Lise de la Salle, Marta Aznavoorian, Lucille Chung, Susie Maddocks, Adrienne Park, Diane Kaztenburg Braun and Music Street, Sarah Bob and the New Gallery Concert Series, Holly Roadfeldt, Marianne Parker, Eunbi Kim, the Kurganov-Finehouse Duo, and others. This season also includes performances by the Lincoln Trio, Juventas New Music, Jennifer Reason, Lisa Pegher, Shouthouse, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, including concerts at the Kaufman Center, the Boston New Music Festival, the Festival of New American Music, Pianoforte in Chicago, live on Chicago’s WFMT radio station, and elsewhere.
Stephanie holds degrees from Roosevelt University and New England Conservatory, and she was one of the last violin students of renowned pedagogue John Kendall.