join us in contemplation of tenderness on december third, 2024 at 8pm - dimenna center, cary hall

featuring works zeynep toraman, seare ahmed farhat, inti figgis-vizueta, and eric wubbels
and a special solo performance by qiujiang levi lu.

. • ° ¤ PROGRAM ¤ ° • .

Qiujiang Levi Lu - Solo

-pause-

viels - Zeynep Toraman
written for TAK in 2021

Bring me your silence - Seare Ahmed Farhat
written for TAK in 2023

form the fabric - inti figgis-vizueta

Root and Vein (quintet as solo) from interbeing - Eric Wubbels
written for TAK in 2023

. • ° ¤ ° ¤ ° • .

join us after the concert for a special reception in Cary Hall
to celebrate the end of the year

¤ ° HOLDING ° ¤

Qiujiang Levi Lu opens the night with a new solo performance—drawing from their body of work featuring augmented amplified laptop, special microphones and speakers placed in bodily orifices, and their custom-mapped flight joystick controller. Their choreographed, ritualistic improvisations that build on ancient Chinese drumming traditions, exploring their relationship to body, dysmorphia, sexuality, spirituality, and mortality—linking sound, movement, and violence in divine ceremony.

TAK will present four works by composers Zeynep Toraman, Seare Farhat, inti figgis-vizueta, and Eric Wubbels that envelope listeners in sonic textures that shift with the softest corners. Delicate, shimmering fabrics of sound gradually emerge, overlap with new entities, and evaporate, leaving behind a sweetly tangled sense of communal memory. Repetition invites fluctuation and gradual permutations of rhythms, locked in with acute precision, celebrates the ensemble’s joyful and intense attunement.

about Qiujiang Levi Lu ¤°•.

Qiujiang Levi Lu/卢秋江 (they/them) is a Beijing-born, NYC-based performance artist, vocalist, experimental improviser, composer, and lecturer in music at University of Pennsylvania.

For their solo performance art practice, Lu designs Max/MSP-based electroacoustic feedback systems with cyborg-like body augmentations inspired by Objectophilia/animism, which include special microphones and speakers placed within bodily orifices, augmented amplified laptop, and a custom-mapped flight joystick controller. Their resulting performances consist of choreographed, ritualistic improvisations that build on ancient Chinese drumming traditions and explore body dysmorphia, sexuality, spirituality, and mortality, linking together sound, movement, and violence in divine ceremony.

As a collaborative musician/improviser, Lu makes up half of the Chinese-American experimental electronic act Warp Duo with fellow improviser and violinist Scott Li, which fuses deeply emotional and melodic music with maximalist sound design. Lu has also performed extensively across the country with artists such as Ka Baird, Camilo Ángeles, Zoh Amba, Laura Cocks, Dana Jessen, Wendy Eisenberg, Dave Ballou, Devin Grey, Drew Wesely, Manuel Perez III, Adam Kantz, Julian Pujols Quall, etc.

As a composer, Lu writes instructed improvisation pieces for acoustic and electronic performers and improvisers. Lu’s commissioned works often take a meta, unorthodox approach to music technology, exploring human-machine relationships, audio-visual interactivity, mind-body connection, and the phenomenology of musical performance. Previous commissions have included Popebama, Luke Helker, and Ensemble Decipher.

Lu is the second prize winner of The International Electronic Music Competition 2023. Lu’s works have been performed and featured at international festivals, conferences, and venues such as ISSUE Project Room, High Zero Festival, MATA Festival, IRCAM Forum, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Jazz Showcase, SEAMUS conference, Elastic Arts, Spencer Museum of Art, NIME conference, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Oberlin MMG, Rhizome DC, and NowNet Arts conference. Lu has also been an artist in residence at Elektronmusikstudion EMS Stockholm SE.

Lu currently works as a lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching Musical Interfaces and Robotics, and Music Production. Lu also works at the university as an audio engineer, with previous experience recording and mixing at An Die Musik LIVE.

They hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Stony Brook University and a Master of Music in Computer Music from Peabody Conservatory, where they studied under Dr. Sam Pluta.

about the composers:

Zeynep Toraman ¤°•.

Zeynep Toraman is a composer and scholar from Istanbul, Turkey, living and working in Berlin, Germany. Her practice-based research explores the ways in which texts (in the broadest sense of this word) can interact with one another within the larger framework of musical compositions, by way of thinking of her own library as an archive, and enfolding autobiography, poetry, fiction and history within her works.
Past and recent collaborators include Lauren Cauley, ELISION Ensemble, Ensemble Linea, Quatuor Diotima, Distractfold Ensemble, Ensemble Adapter, Amie Weiss and Nicola Barbieri, Noam Bierstone, and the Wet Ink Ensemble. Her music has been performed at festivals such as as Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Darmstadt, Germany), Summer Academy Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany ), IRCAM ManiFeste (Paris, France) and Wet Ink Large Ensemble Readings (New York, NY). Her research has been supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 

Zeynep taught at the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at the University of University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and she completed her PhD in  Music Composition at Harvard University in 2023, where she studied with Chaya Czernowin, Hans Tutschku and John Hamilton.

Seare Ahmed Farhat ¤°•.

Seare Ahmad Farhat strives to create music that connects a listener to the visceral imagination, energy, and transformation within narrative forms. Starting out his musical endeavors in Afghan folk music, he later built on these valued experiences in the western classical tradition combined with other interests, such as mathematics. Seare has received commissions from the JACK and Flux Quartets, IU New Music Ensemble, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Quintessence Wind Quintet, and the Oberlin Sinfonietta, and served as the young composer-in-residence of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings in 2019.

Seare has also held residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Banff Evolution: String Quartet, and with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music as a Balhest Eeble Composer Fellow for the 2021-23 cycle. He has also received prestigious awards such as the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a BMI Composer Award. Seare holds a B.M. in Composition and B.A. in Mathematics from Oberlin College and Conservatory, a master’s degree from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he held the position of Assistant Director of the New Music Ensemble, and is currently pursuing a D.M.A. at Cornell University studying with Elizabeth Ogonek, Kevin Ernste, and Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri​.

inti figgis-vizueta ¤°•.

inti figgis-vizueta (b.1993) is a composer and educator who works to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & Indigenous futures. Described as a “rising new music star” (LA Times), with “smooth and serrated melodies” (New York Times), and “wrought from a language we’d do well to learn” (Washington Post), inti has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Dallas Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Reflektor, Aspen Music Festival, Ojai Music Festival, Spoleto Music Festival, International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Wild Up, Roomful of Teeth, Contemporaneous, Kronos Quartet, Attacca Quartet, JACK Quartet, Music from Copland House, violinist Jennifer Koh, cellists Andrew Yee and Jay Campbell, Ensemble Connect, and Crash Ensemble, among many others. inti’s work has been featured at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Hall Concert Hall, Symphony Center, REDCAT, National Concert Hall (IE), Southbank Centre (UK), Philharmonie de Paris (FR), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (NL), and Konzerthaus Berlin (DE). 

Upcoming projects include Earths to Come in 360° for the Venice Biennale, mad scramble for crumbs for Opera Saratoga, Metahaven’s film The Feeling Sonnets, and works for flutist Claire Chase, pianist James McVinnie, and cellist Andrew Yee with Roomful of Teeth. inti is the recipient of the Lotos Foundation Prize, ASCAP Foundation Fred Ho Award, National Sawdust Hildegard Award, Café Royal Foundation Music Grant and residency fellowships from Dumbarton Oaks, Civitella Ranieri, Juilliard Summer Percussion, and Music at Copland House.

Eric Wubbels ¤°•.

Eric Wubbels (b.1980) is a composer and performer. Since 2004 he has been pianist and Co-Director of the
Wet Ink Ensemble (NYC). His music has been presented by LA Phil Green Umbrella series, Huddersfield Festival,ISSUE Project Room, Roulette, Bowerbird, Chicago Symphony MusicNOW, New York Philharmonic CONTACT,
Contempuls (Prague), TIME:SPANS, and Zurich Tage für Neue Musik, among others.

A recipient of the 2023 Ernst von Siemens Foundation Composer Prize, Wubbels has been awarded grants and
fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NYFA, NYSCA, Fromm Foundation, ISSUE Project Room,Chamber Music America,  MATA Festival, Barlow Endowment, Jerome Foundation, and Yvar Mikhashoff Trust,
and residencies at the MacDowell Colony ('11, '16, '20), Copland House, L'Abri (Geneva),  Djerassi Resident Artists Program,
and Civitella Ranieri Center (Italy).

As a performer, he has given U.S. and world premieres of works by major figures such as Peter Ablinger,
Richard Barrett, Beat Furrer, George Lewis, and Mathias Spahlinger, as well as vital young artists such as
Rick Burkhardt, Erin Gee, Bryn Harrison, Clara Iannotta, Darius Jones, Catherine Lamb, Ingrid Laubrock,
Charmaine Lee, Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Katharina Rosenberger, Kate Soper, and Anna Webber.

He has recorded for hatART, Carrier Records, Out of Your Head, Intakt, New Focus, and quiet design,
among others, has held teaching positions at Amherst College and Oberlin Conservatory, and the Peabody Institute.

about TAK ensemble ¤°•.

Regarded as “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), TAK delivers energetic performances "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (The WIRE), and “impresses with the organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity” (New Sounds, WQXR). 

TAK is a mixed-quintet committed to musical exploration and experimentation and dedicated to commissioning new works and direct collaboration with composers and other artists. They have premiered hundreds of works to date since its founding in 2013. Recent highlighted collaborations include large-scale works by Eric Wubbels, Michelle Lou, Brandon López, Tyshawn Sorey, and Weston Olencki. The group has performed internationally at IntACT Festival (Thailand), Music Current Festival (Ireland), Cluster Festival (Canada), Harpa Concert Hall (Iceland), and the Delian Academy (Greece), among many others, and enjoys an active schedule of domestic touring in the U.S.

The quintet has released seven albums to critical acclaim; recent records have been described as “sublime art… a masterpiece,” (AnEarful), and “one of the most distinct and eclectic releases of the year” (I Care If You Listen). Their recorded output fosters a “deep sense of connection and communication” (Bandcamp Daily), and features collaborations with Mario Diaz de Leon, Taylor Brook, Erin Gee, Brandon López, Ann Cleare, Tyshawn Sorey, Seth Cluett, Natacha Diels, Scott L. Miller, David Bird, and Ashkan Behzadi. Their most recent release, Love, Crystal and Stone, brought together composer Ashkan Behzadi, scholar Saharnaz Samaienejad, painter Mehrdad Jafari, and design-house Sonnenzimmer to fuse poetry, visual art, original essays, and music into an experience-based hybrid publication. The ensemble’s 2019 album Oor launched their in-house media label, TAK editions, that aims to support recorded musical endeavors from across the experimental music communities, highlighting direct conversations with artists through the TAK editions Podcast. Recent TAK editions releases have included those of Ensemble Interactivo de La Habana, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Nina Dante + Bethany Younge, and several of TAK’s own recordings. 

Deeply committed to educational collaborations, TAK has conducted residencies at dozens of higher educational institutions including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, University of Chicago, and many others. The ensemble has also collaborated with younger musicians and composers at the Walden School, the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program, and Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program. TAK served as the Long-term Visiting Ensemble in Residence at University of Pennsylvania from 2022-23. 

TAK is: Laura Cocks, flute; Madison Greenstone, clarinet; Charlotte Mundy, voice; Marina Kifferstein, violin; Ellery Trafford, percussion.