Impuls Respons

Tuesday, February 11, 20258:00 pm
$25 advance$30 doors$20 Student/Senior (w/ ID, Senior 65+)doors 7pm

New York based avant garde musicians perform illuminating works by six prominent composers associated with contemporary classical music in Denmark and New York City. Innovative compositional approaches and extended techniques converge in an event that incorporates spatial elements, sculptural sound objects, audience engagement, and collaborative interpretation.

Artistry and sound entwine seamlessly in a formulated discourse, transcending boundaries, converging in experimental resonance, illuminating one another. This vibrant exchange bridges distances, contributing to a nuance of synthesis, vibration, and orchestrated patterns, weaving and unfurling sensations and frequency.

Organized by MV Carbon and Lars Lundehave Hansen. Presented by Roulette with generous support from Nordic Culture Fund. This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. Special thanks to Materials for the Arts.

Compositions by:
MV Carbon
Bára Gísladóttir
Jexper Holmen
Juliana Hodkinson
Mads Emil Dreyer
Ylva Lund Bergner
Performed by:
Laura Cocks
Zach Layton
Brian Chase
Samantha Sea Sea
MV Carbon

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


COMPOSERS

MV Carbon’s work focuses  on media manipulation, sound morphology and the transformative and interpretive interrelationship between sound, image, space, and place. Cello, magnetic tape, amplified objects, handmade instruments, electronics, and voice, are infiltrated with ambience, sensation, and sound masses.
Carbon has solo and collaborative records released on labels including Kill Rock Stars / 5RC, Atavistic Records, Discombobulate, Ecstatic Peace, Chaikin Records, Hanson, Load Records, No Fun Productions, Various Artists, and Veglia.
She has been awarded residencies from Bemis Center (NE), Clocktower Gallery (NY), EMS Elektronmusikstudion (SE), Issue Project Room (NY), Koncertkirken (DK), Pioneer Works (NY), Q02 (BE), and  Roulette (NY).

The works of Bára Gísladóttir are characterised by a deep and self-reflective calm, at times producing an almost meditative state in the music. In her pieces, time is as likely to move in circles as it is moving forwards towards a distinct goal.
Whether writing for acoustic instruments or electronics, Gísladóttir is especially concerned with the rich details of sounds. Thus, overtones, liminal registers and multiphonics play an essential part in her works, creating an atmosphere of slowly progressing mystery.’
Bára Gísladóttir studied at the Iceland University of the Arts, Conservatorio di musica “Giuseppe Verdi” di Milano and the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

It may be unfair to label Jexper Holmen's music with his own term 'Chamber Punk' because, as all labels, it only accentuate certain aspects of certain works and not the variety of it all. His approach to composing for classical instruments seems to be infused with the energy of punk and postpunk rock music – an energy based on brutal, ecstatic, noisy and abrasive impulses.

Often, Holmen is recklessly pursuing one extreme idea, pushing the sound and the musicians over the edge, hammering brutal tone clusters from the orchestra at the highest possible volume. This has given him the image of an enfant terrible, which he himself denounces. He explores extremes in order to extract ambiguous beauties and energetic ecstasies from them, not to play rebel in a world of self-content subtleties.

From chamber punk to nursery chamber, Jexper Holmen's music is a thrilling experience, be it brutal or gentle, expressive or ambient, the intensity is remarkable.

In her music, Hodkinson critically explores social relations within and outside of art, for example by including everyday objects in her works and, most recently, drawing on the audience as active participants in the performance situation, with the objective of questioning social, cultural and political relations in musical practice.
In Hodkinson’s work series Nothing Breaking the Losing (2016 – ongoing), the audience is invited into the performance situation itself and is thereby assigned a collective responsibility for realizing the work.
Juliana Hodkinson studied musicology and philosophy at King’s College Cambridge, Japanese at Sheffield University, and has written a PhD thesis at the University of Copenhagen on silence in music and sound art.

Like glistening sculptures, Mads Emil Dreyer’s music exists as much in its own sure forms as in the listener’s individual response to them. His music creates conscious hinterlands in which detailed, focused sounds can be observed, like an artwork unfolding in time. His versatility and flexibility have made him a favourite on Copenhagen’s new music scene and far beyond it.
As interested in knobs and buttons as violins and flutes, Mads Emil Dreyer often sets up a dialogue between electroacoustic and acoustic entities. His music might use electronics to blur tonal harmonies, mimic acoustic sounds or place a fog around regimented instrumental robotics.
Mads Emil Dreyer studied composition at advanced postgraduate level at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He also read humanities at the University of Copenhagen and the University of California, Berkeley.

Ylva Lund Bergner’s music is mostly written for smaller chamber ensembles, and often includes electronics that the musicians control themselves. She often focuses on dramatic music such as monodrama or chamber opera, text being an important inspiration for her work. In these pieces, the visual aspects of the performance also play an important role.
In some of her compositions she implements unusual folk instruments and home made objects as a way of creating a more personalised sound world. A central element in her music is the dynamic of getting the musicians to melt together, creating a single coherent body of sound.
Ylva Lund Bergner was born in Sweden. She studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. In 2005-06 she studied with Fabio Cifariello Ciardi at Conservatorio di Musica in Perugia, Italy, and in 2010-11 she studied at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon, France, Robert Pascal & Michele Tadini.
PERFORMERS

Samantha Sea Sea is a New York based, New York native performance artist who works with video, sound, movement, poetry and the human voice. Their work explores multiple themes such as inter generational hopes/traumas/joy, Afro Futurism, magical realism, mental health, Black spiritual traditions, and connection to water. She started working in performance in 2015 after participating in a series of ensemble performances directed by Monica Mirabile. Samantha has performed at Wild Project, Secret Project Robot, MoMA PS1, Essex Flowers, La Plaza Cultural Community Garden and Roulette Intermedium among many other spaces.

Most recently she completed a residency at Otion Front Studio. In 2023 she started a pop up performance venue/curatorial project called irrelevent art space that showcases performance art, poetry, and music, and strived to create an environment where people could bring their young children to shows. This project, currently on hiatus, was inspired by Samantha’s experience of becoming a parent and realizing how few forward thinking family friendly venues existed in NYC. In March 2025 Samantha will be participating in a group residency for artists/caregivers at the Wedding Cake House in Providence, RI.

Zach Layton is a guitarist, composer, curator, teacher and visual artist based in New York. He has composed orchestral music for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn and has performed and exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, The Kitchen, MoMa/PS1, ISSUE Project Room, Roulette, EMPAC, Eyebeam, International Computer Music Festival, Experimental Intermedia, Performa, Exit Art, Sculpture Center, Transmediale Berlin, SCOPE Art Foundation, Audio Art Festival Krakow and many other venues in New York and worldwide. He has worked with a diverse range of artists and musicians including Vito Acconci, Bradley Eros, Bobby Previte, Henry Fraser, Ben Vida, Tony Conrad, Victoria Keddie, Tristan Perich, Elliott Sharp, Joshua White, David Grubbs, Loren Connors, Luke Dubois, Peggy Ahwesh, Bradford Reed, Alex Waterman, and many more.

Brooklyn-based musician Brian Chase is the drummer for Grammy-nominated rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, NYC’s experimental music community, and Drums and Drones, a solo project with a compositional focus on the harmonic resonance of drums and percussion. In 2018, Chase started Chaikin Records, a record label that spotlights pioneering figures of the avant-garde with a particular focus on the NYC scene. The first release on Chaikin Records was Drums and Drones: Decade, a triple album and book described by The Wire as “an indispensable statement on how drummers hear sound.” Additional releases by Chase on Chaikin Records include albums with harpist Zeena Parkins, pianist Anthony Coleman, saxophonist Catherine Sikora, and a collaboration with visual artist Keti Kartveli. As an educator, Chase has taught at Bennington College, The New School, and was a guest artist at So Percussion’s SoSI festival. Chase’s writings have appeared in John Zorn’s Arcana series, culture blog Talkhouse, and Modern Drummer magazine. For more on Chase, visit chasebrian.com and chaikinrecords.com.

Laura Cocks (they/she) is a flutist with “febrile instrumental prowess” (The New York Times), who works in a wide array of environments as a performer of experimental music and “creates intricate, spellbinding works that have a visceral physicality to them” (Foxy Digitalis). Laura is the executive director and flutist of TAK ensemble, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), with whom Laura makes musics "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (WIRE Magazine). They are also a member of Talea Ensemble, noted for their “astonishing fluidity,” “compelling lucidity, ” and “precise control” (The New York Times).

Photo 1 by Kiki Vassilakis, Photo 2 by Anna Maggý, Photo 3 by Brian Slater, Photo 4 by  Anka Bardeleben, Photo 5 by David Stjernholm, Photo 8 by by Samantha Riott; Photo 9 by Molly Stinchfield, Photo 10 by Lauren Seiden

Impuls Respons

Tuesday, February 11, 20258:00 pm
$25 advance$30 doors$20 Student/Senior (w/ ID, Senior 65+)doors 7pm

New York based avant garde musicians perform illuminating works by six prominent composers associated with contemporary classical music in Denmark and New York City. Innovative compositional approaches and extended techniques converge in an event that incorporates spatial elements, sculptural sound objects, audience engagement, and collaborative interpretation.

Artistry and sound entwine seamlessly in a formulated discourse, transcending boundaries, converging in experimental resonance, illuminating one another. This vibrant exchange bridges distances, contributing to a nuance of synthesis, vibration, and orchestrated patterns, weaving and unfurling sensations and frequency.

Organized by MV Carbon and Lars Lundehave Hansen. Presented by Roulette with generous support from Nordic Culture Fund. This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. Special thanks to Materials for the Arts.

Compositions by:
MV Carbon
Bára Gísladóttir
Jexper Holmen
Juliana Hodkinson
Mads Emil Dreyer
Ylva Lund Bergner
Performed by:
Laura Cocks
Zach Layton
Brian Chase
Samantha Sea Sea
MV Carbon

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


COMPOSERS

MV Carbon’s work focuses  on media manipulation, sound morphology and the transformative and interpretive interrelationship between sound, image, space, and place. Cello, magnetic tape, amplified objects, handmade instruments, electronics, and voice, are infiltrated with ambience, sensation, and sound masses.
Carbon has solo and collaborative records released on labels including Kill Rock Stars / 5RC, Atavistic Records, Discombobulate, Ecstatic Peace, Chaikin Records, Hanson, Load Records, No Fun Productions, Various Artists, and Veglia.
She has been awarded residencies from Bemis Center (NE), Clocktower Gallery (NY), EMS Elektronmusikstudion (SE), Issue Project Room (NY), Koncertkirken (DK), Pioneer Works (NY), Q02 (BE), and  Roulette (NY).

The works of Bára Gísladóttir are characterised by a deep and self-reflective calm, at times producing an almost meditative state in the music. In her pieces, time is as likely to move in circles as it is moving forwards towards a distinct goal.
Whether writing for acoustic instruments or electronics, Gísladóttir is especially concerned with the rich details of sounds. Thus, overtones, liminal registers and multiphonics play an essential part in her works, creating an atmosphere of slowly progressing mystery.’
Bára Gísladóttir studied at the Iceland University of the Arts, Conservatorio di musica “Giuseppe Verdi” di Milano and the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

It may be unfair to label Jexper Holmen's music with his own term 'Chamber Punk' because, as all labels, it only accentuate certain aspects of certain works and not the variety of it all. His approach to composing for classical instruments seems to be infused with the energy of punk and postpunk rock music – an energy based on brutal, ecstatic, noisy and abrasive impulses.

Often, Holmen is recklessly pursuing one extreme idea, pushing the sound and the musicians over the edge, hammering brutal tone clusters from the orchestra at the highest possible volume. This has given him the image of an enfant terrible, which he himself denounces. He explores extremes in order to extract ambiguous beauties and energetic ecstasies from them, not to play rebel in a world of self-content subtleties.

From chamber punk to nursery chamber, Jexper Holmen's music is a thrilling experience, be it brutal or gentle, expressive or ambient, the intensity is remarkable.

In her music, Hodkinson critically explores social relations within and outside of art, for example by including everyday objects in her works and, most recently, drawing on the audience as active participants in the performance situation, with the objective of questioning social, cultural and political relations in musical practice.
In Hodkinson’s work series Nothing Breaking the Losing (2016 – ongoing), the audience is invited into the performance situation itself and is thereby assigned a collective responsibility for realizing the work.
Juliana Hodkinson studied musicology and philosophy at King’s College Cambridge, Japanese at Sheffield University, and has written a PhD thesis at the University of Copenhagen on silence in music and sound art.

Like glistening sculptures, Mads Emil Dreyer’s music exists as much in its own sure forms as in the listener’s individual response to them. His music creates conscious hinterlands in which detailed, focused sounds can be observed, like an artwork unfolding in time. His versatility and flexibility have made him a favourite on Copenhagen’s new music scene and far beyond it.
As interested in knobs and buttons as violins and flutes, Mads Emil Dreyer often sets up a dialogue between electroacoustic and acoustic entities. His music might use electronics to blur tonal harmonies, mimic acoustic sounds or place a fog around regimented instrumental robotics.
Mads Emil Dreyer studied composition at advanced postgraduate level at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He also read humanities at the University of Copenhagen and the University of California, Berkeley.

Ylva Lund Bergner’s music is mostly written for smaller chamber ensembles, and often includes electronics that the musicians control themselves. She often focuses on dramatic music such as monodrama or chamber opera, text being an important inspiration for her work. In these pieces, the visual aspects of the performance also play an important role.
In some of her compositions she implements unusual folk instruments and home made objects as a way of creating a more personalised sound world. A central element in her music is the dynamic of getting the musicians to melt together, creating a single coherent body of sound.
Ylva Lund Bergner was born in Sweden. She studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. In 2005-06 she studied with Fabio Cifariello Ciardi at Conservatorio di Musica in Perugia, Italy, and in 2010-11 she studied at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon, France, Robert Pascal & Michele Tadini.
PERFORMERS

Samantha Sea Sea is a New York based, New York native performance artist who works with video, sound, movement, poetry and the human voice. Their work explores multiple themes such as inter generational hopes/traumas/joy, Afro Futurism, magical realism, mental health, Black spiritual traditions, and connection to water. She started working in performance in 2015 after participating in a series of ensemble performances directed by Monica Mirabile. Samantha has performed at Wild Project, Secret Project Robot, MoMA PS1, Essex Flowers, La Plaza Cultural Community Garden and Roulette Intermedium among many other spaces.

Most recently she completed a residency at Otion Front Studio. In 2023 she started a pop up performance venue/curatorial project called irrelevent art space that showcases performance art, poetry, and music, and strived to create an environment where people could bring their young children to shows. This project, currently on hiatus, was inspired by Samantha’s experience of becoming a parent and realizing how few forward thinking family friendly venues existed in NYC. In March 2025 Samantha will be participating in a group residency for artists/caregivers at the Wedding Cake House in Providence, RI.

Zach Layton is a guitarist, composer, curator, teacher and visual artist based in New York. He has composed orchestral music for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn and has performed and exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, The Kitchen, MoMa/PS1, ISSUE Project Room, Roulette, EMPAC, Eyebeam, International Computer Music Festival, Experimental Intermedia, Performa, Exit Art, Sculpture Center, Transmediale Berlin, SCOPE Art Foundation, Audio Art Festival Krakow and many other venues in New York and worldwide. He has worked with a diverse range of artists and musicians including Vito Acconci, Bradley Eros, Bobby Previte, Henry Fraser, Ben Vida, Tony Conrad, Victoria Keddie, Tristan Perich, Elliott Sharp, Joshua White, David Grubbs, Loren Connors, Luke Dubois, Peggy Ahwesh, Bradford Reed, Alex Waterman, and many more.

Brooklyn-based musician Brian Chase is the drummer for Grammy-nominated rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, NYC’s experimental music community, and Drums and Drones, a solo project with a compositional focus on the harmonic resonance of drums and percussion. In 2018, Chase started Chaikin Records, a record label that spotlights pioneering figures of the avant-garde with a particular focus on the NYC scene. The first release on Chaikin Records was Drums and Drones: Decade, a triple album and book described by The Wire as “an indispensable statement on how drummers hear sound.” Additional releases by Chase on Chaikin Records include albums with harpist Zeena Parkins, pianist Anthony Coleman, saxophonist Catherine Sikora, and a collaboration with visual artist Keti Kartveli. As an educator, Chase has taught at Bennington College, The New School, and was a guest artist at So Percussion’s SoSI festival. Chase’s writings have appeared in John Zorn’s Arcana series, culture blog Talkhouse, and Modern Drummer magazine. For more on Chase, visit chasebrian.com and chaikinrecords.com.

Laura Cocks (they/she) is a flutist with “febrile instrumental prowess” (The New York Times), who works in a wide array of environments as a performer of experimental music and “creates intricate, spellbinding works that have a visceral physicality to them” (Foxy Digitalis). Laura is the executive director and flutist of TAK ensemble, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), with whom Laura makes musics "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (WIRE Magazine). They are also a member of Talea Ensemble, noted for their “astonishing fluidity,” “compelling lucidity, ” and “precise control” (The New York Times).

Photo 1 by Kiki Vassilakis, Photo 2 by Anna Maggý, Photo 3 by Brian Slater, Photo 4 by  Anka Bardeleben, Photo 5 by David Stjernholm, Photo 8 by by Samantha Riott; Photo 9 by Molly Stinchfield, Photo 10 by Lauren Seiden