Macie Stewart shares new work from her latest release, When the Distance is Blue (International Anthem, 2024), out March 21. When the Distance is Blue is a cinematic, symphonic companion to the times we spend in-between. Rooted in Stewart’s prepared piano improvisations and string arrangements, the record is collaged with field recordings from a year on the road, giving shape to Stewart’s most striking work yet.

Opening for Stewart is Booker Stardrum, the composer, percussionist, producer, and educator returning to Roulette from the Hudson Valley.

Macie Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist, composer/arranger, songwriter, and improviser based in Chicago, IL. A distinguished, go-to collaborator who Pitchfork credits with “making some of the best tracks of the past five years transcendent,” Stewart’s deeply humanist and often otherworldly capacities in deep listening have shaped each collaboration as much as her technical prowess and ingenuity. Aptly called a “master of equilibrium” by DownBeat magazine, she has an uncanny ability to meet the needs of the music with precision and taste. Heralded for her versatility, Stewart works with piano, violin, guitar, voice, and synthesizers, effortlessly traversing styles and scenes.

As a composer, Stewart’s work continues to dissolve the boundaries between disciplines. Aside from her debut record, Mouth Full of Glass released in 2021 on Orindal Records and rereleased in 2022 on Full Time Hobby Records, Macie also composed a piece for Hubbard Street Dance’s film, Half of Us, alongside Sima Cunningham in 2021. That same year, she worked with Sima Cunningham and Alex Grelle to produce a performance piece paying homage to Kate Bush. In 2022, Stewart/Cunningham composed the score for a 50-piece orchestra premiering the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Before I Was. And in 2023, choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams enlisted Stewart to create a sound installation for her dreamlike performance piece, Hisako House. Most recently, Stewart was invited to compose a site-specific piece for the ESS Florisonic Installation at Lincoln Park Conservatory. As part of the longest running sound installation in North America, their twenty-minute composition titled “The World Doubles in Size” played in the conservatory’s fern room from September through November of 2024.

Booker Stardrum is a composer, percussionist, producer, and educator. Stardrum has been involved with countless experimental and improvisational collaborations, pop projects, film scores, and sound design productions, and has released three solo records (‘Crater’ in 2021, ‘Temporary etc.’ in 2018 and ‘Dance And’ in 2015). Stardrum’s music is a highly personal amalgamation of electro-acoustics, minimalism, ambient, jazz, and contemporary experimental electronic music. His compositions are sculptural, carved from the dense layering of instruments and manipulated samples, a pantonal harmonic sense, and an intuitive approach to rhythm.

Stardrum’s frequent collaborators include SML, Lisel, Horse Lords, Wendy Eisenberg, Amirtha Kidambi, Photay, Ben Vida, Will Epstein, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Chris Williams, Patrick Shiroishi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, and Nels Cline. Stardrum has scored films by Suneil Sanzgiri and Miranda Javid. He was a OneBeat fellow, a New Amsterdam Composer fellow, a Pioneer Works resident and a Denniston Hill resident. Stardrum has had new works commissioned for The Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), National Sawdust (Brooklyn, NY) and Indexical (Santa Cruz, CA). He has toured in the US, Europe, Asia, and South America and has performed at such festivals as Big Ears (US), Rewire (NL), Le Guess Who (NL), BRDCST (BE), Moers (DE), Meltdown (U.K.), Brighton (U.K), Festival Bo:m (ROK), Hopscotch (US) and Ecstatic Music (US). His discography includes solo and collaborative releases on independent labels such as International Anthem, NNA Tapes, Northern Spy Records, Mexican Summer, Saddle Creek, Luminelle, Prom Night Records and Home Tapes. Booker lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State.