History
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photo© Andrew Fingland
Recognized for its high-caliber performances and daring programming, the composer/performer collective counter)induction has established itself as a major force in contemporary music. Hailed by the New York Times for its “fiery ensemble virtuosity” and for its “first-rate performances” by the Washington Post, counter)induction has given critically-acclaimed performances at venues such as Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, and Roulette. Of a 2005 c)i concert, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times wrote that it was: “brilliantly performed…masterly….the most bracing of musical experiences,” adding that he had “seldom been among such intensely focused listeners. How could you not have been drawn in when the music was so provocative, the setting so inviting and the performances so compelling?”
counter)induction has been awarded an ASCAP/Chamber Music America “Award for Adventurous Programming,” and was recently a featured ensemble at the “Music at the Anthology” Festival. The group has been featured on Merkin Hall’s “Zoom: Composers Close Up,” Boston Conservatory’s New Music Week, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society series, Columbia University’s Music Scholarship Conference, George Washington University, repeat performances at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and the University of Pennsylvania, and in a production of the multimedia opera “Senjo” with the Active Eye theatre troupe in New York. At Columbia University, c)i is the resident ensemble with the Music Department’s composition program; every semester offering open rehearsals, critical discussions, and public performances of undergraduate student works.
Since emerging in 1998 from a series of collaborations between graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania and the Juilliard School, counter)induction has premiered numerous pieces by both established and younger emerging American composers; including Eric Moe, Suzanne Sorkin, Ursula Mamlok, and Lee Hyla. c)i has also widely promoted the music of international composers not often heard in America, including Jukka Tiensuu, Bernhard Gander, Gilbert Amy, Dai Fujikura and Vinko Globokar.
In all of its concerts, counter)induction presents programs which represent the true diversity of compositional styles in the US and abroad. In June 2006 they presented Message in a Bottle, a showcase of music by young American composers, including the co-winners of c)i’s first “Composition Competition.” In Sonati, presented in February 2006, the ensemble proffered music by contemporary Italian composers, from masters Giacinto Scelsi and Salvatore Sciarrino to premieres by up-and-coming composers Anne Marie Turcotte and Emmanuella Ballio. Talk Dirty to Me, from December 2005, explored the interface of speech and sound in music, and included dialectically-inspired music by Vinko Globokar, Jonathan Harvey, and c)i composer-members Douglas Boyce and Kyle Bartlett.
counter)induction hopes to undermine narrow conceptions of music by illuminating connections and parallels not easily seen. Electronic and acoustic, solo and ensemble, through-composed and improvised – the ensemble posits a universe where assumed oppositions are re-imagined as opportunities for innovative programming and spontaneous, high-energy performances. counter)induction celebrates the diversity of contemporary music with an aesthetic unbounded by convention.