These recent works by George Lewis for solo instrument, small ensembles and voice, with texts by some of the most audacious literary figures of our time – Fred Moten, Lyn Hejinian, and Sylvia Wynter – are part of the composer’s ongoing exploration of what decolonization might sound like. Performed by International Contemporary Ensemble.

Melodies for Miles (2022): violin solo
a whispered nine (2019): soprano, flute, guitar, viola, percussion
Apis (2019): baritone, clarinet/cass clarinet in B-flat, trumpet in C, trombone
H.narrans (2020 / US Premiere): soprano, clarinet/bass clarinet in B-flat, trumpet in C, percussion, violin, double bass
Creative Construction Set^TM (2015): open instrumentation

A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.

George E. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Correspond- ing Fellow of the British Academy, Lewis’s other honors include a MacArthur Fellow- ship (2002), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), a United States Artists Walker Fellowship (2011), an Alpert Award in the Arts (1999), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Lewis studied composition with Muhal Richard Abrams at the AACM School of Music, and trombone with Dean Hey. A member of the Association for the Advance- ment of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis’s work in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia instal- lations, and notated and improvisative forms is documented on more than 150 recordings. His work has been presented by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonia Orchestra, Radio- Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, Mivos Quartet, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, London Sinfonietta, Spektral Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Wet Ink, Ensemble Erik Satie, Eco Ensemble, and others, with commissions from American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Harvestworks, Ensemble Either/Or, Orkestra Futura, Turning Point Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad, IRCAM, Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and others.

Lewis has served as Fromm Visiting Professor of Music, Harvard University; Ernest Bloch Visiting Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley; Paul Fromm Com- poser in Residence, American Academy in Rome; Resident Scholar, Center for Disci- plinary Innovation, University of Chicago; and CAC Fitt Artist in Residence, Brown University. Lewis received the 2012 SEAMUS Award from the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and his book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award; Lewis was elected to Honorary Membership in the Society in 2016. Lewis is the co-editor of the two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016), and his opera Afterword (2015), commissioned by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago, has been performed in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic. In 2015, Lewis received the degree of Doctor of Music (DMus, honoris causa) from the University of Edinburgh. Lewis recently co-edited the book Composing While Black. Afrodiasporic New Music Today for Wolke Verlag.

International Contemporary Ensemble: With a commitment to cultivating a more curious and engaged society through music, the International Contemporary Ensemble – as a commissioner and performer at the highest level – amplifies creators whose work propels and challenges how music is made and experienced. The Ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time.