Joy Partain, Joy Partain Communications
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For immediate release: August 10, 2022
Contemporary Chamber Orchestra Announces 2022-2023 Season
Kinetic Ensemble to Premiere Four Pieces, Collaborate with Local Choreographer and Award-Winning Composers, and Spotlight Environmental Justice and Women’s Issues
HOUSTON, TX – Houston’s artist-led, artist-curated ensemble Kinetic announces its eighth concert season, featuring three concerts at MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston). Kinetic’s 2022-2023 season features an array of notable collaborators, including Houston-based choreographer Kayla Collymore, Cleveland Orchestra bassist Charles Paul, violinist Mary Grace Johnson, soprano Alexandra Smither, and acclaimed composers Nicky Sohn (also Kinetic’s 2022-2023 Composer-In-Residence), Theo Chandler, and Patrick Harlin.
“Collaboration is in our DNA, so we’re thrilled to partner with so many acclaimed artists this season whose careers have taken them all over the world,” said Natalie Lin Douglas, artistic director and a music professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “And as music lovers are returning to live concerts, we’re proud to put on multi-dimensional performances showcasing brand-new works by some of today’s brightest talent.”
Opening the season in October are two premieres: Harlin’s The Wilderness Anthology, which combines Kinetic’s live performance with pre-recorded sounds from nature, highlighting the relationship between wilderness and music, and Sohn’s What Happens When Pipes Burst?, which recalls how the unprecedented freeze in January 2021 impacted Houstonians and their neighborhoods. March sees the premiere of Sohn’s Her Story, a new multi- disciplinary piece for solo violin, string orchestra, and three dancers, featuring choreography by Collymore and Johnson as violin soloist. Closing the season in May is Chandler’s Beyond the Sanctuary Walls for soprano, solo bass, and string orchestra, spotlighting Mr. Paul and Ms. Smither as featured soloists.
More info on the 2022-2023 season programming and subscriptions is available at KineticEnsemble.org.
October 9, 2022: The Wilderness Anthology
What: Featuring music inspired by nature, this concert includes separate premieres by composers Patrick Harlin and Nicky Sohn. Harlin’s The Wilderness Anthology combines Kinetic’s live performance with pre-recorded soundscapes, captured in the Amazon Rainforest and in the Book Cliffs of the western U.S. This piece focuses on the relationship between wilderness and music, and how human disruption affects our world’s ecosystems. Sohn’s What Happens When Pipes Burst? (2022) recalls 2021’s Winter Storm Uri and how the unprecedented freeze impacted Houstonians and their neighborhoods. The concert will be rounded out by the first Houston performance of Novak’s a string quartet is like a flock of birds, which Kinetic commissioned in 2020.
When: Sunday, October 9, 2022, at 6pm
Where: MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston), 3400 Main Street, 77002
Cost: $30 for one-night ticket; $70 for 3-concert season subscription
Program:
Nicky Sohn: What Happens When Pipes Burst? (2022–premiere)
Patrick Harlin: The Wilderness Anthology (2022–premiere)
Paul Novak: a string quartet is like a flock of birds (2020)
Leó Weiner: Pastorale, Fantasy and Fugue (1938)
More Info: KineticEnsemble.org/events-20222023-wilderness
March 3, 2023: Her Story
What: A program celebrating women artists and women’s stories, featuring a new concerto for solo violin, string orchestra, and three dancers, spearheaded by a team of female artists: composer Nicky Sohn, Kinetic violinist Mary Grace Johnson, and choreographer Kayla Collymore. This work is inspired by clients of the Women’s Home Houston, a rehabilitation and support center for women overcoming addiction.
When: Friday, March 3, 2023, at 7:30pm
Where: MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston), 3400 Main Street, 77002
Cost: $30 for one-night ticket; $70 for 3-concert season subscription
Program:
Nicky Sohn: New Violin Concerto (2023–premiere)
Anna Clyne: Within Her Arms (2008-09)
Gabriela Lena Frank: Leyendas (2001)
More Info: KineticEnsemble.org/events-20222023-her-story
May 26, 2023: Beyond the Sanctuary Walls
What: Featuring the premiere of Beyond the Sanctuary Walls for soprano, solo bass, and string orchestra by Theo Chandler. This five-movement work explores the intertwining nature of intimacy and distance, connection and separation, capturing the extremes of human experience. Paired with the audience favorite, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings.
When: Friday, May 26, 2023, at 7:30pm
Where: MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston), 3400 Main Street, 77002
Cost: $30 for one-night ticket; $70 for 3-concert season subscription
Program:
Theo Chandler: Beyond the Sanctuary Walls (2023–premiere)
Clara Schumann: Select lieder, arr. Strings
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings (1880)
More info: KineticEnsemble.org/events-20222023-sanctuary
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About Kinetic
An artist-led, artist-curated ensemble of 16 string players who perform collaboratively without a conductor, Kinetic is committed to amplifying diverse, under-represented, and newly composed classical music to communities in and beyond Houston, through flexible chamber and orchestra ensemble performances. Since forming in 2015, Kinetic has gained momentum as an innovative and dynamic force in classical music and has emerged as an influential advocate for diversifying the genre’s repertoire.
Praised by Arts+Culture Texas magazine for its “thoughtful, incisive programming” and “visually arresting... brilliantly executed” performances, Kinetic has been described by Houston Public Media as “Houston’s Indie, Conductorless Orchestra” that has “found its niche in Houston’s music scene.” Kinetic has commissioned and premiered over a dozen new works by composers, held residencies at six educational institutions, presented 70+ live and virtual classical music experiences, and reached over 12,000 Houston visitors and residents with its transformative, collaboratively driven performances. More info at kineticensemble.org.