Joy Partain, Joy Partain Communications
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For immediate release: September 20, 2022
ONE Night Only! Women’s History Month Kicks off with Music, Dance, Storytelling by Women Creators:
Kinetic Ensemble Premieres New Music/Dance Piece Home, Featuring Stories from Local Nonprofit Agency, The Women’s Home, Plus 2 Add’l Pieces by Female Composers
Houston, TX — Houston’s artist-led, artist-curated Kinetic Ensemble kicks off Women’s History Month Season on Friday, March 3, 7:30pm at MATCH with Her Story, featuring a program of music by all-female composers spanning the twentieth century to today. At the program’s center is the world premiere of Home — a new multidisciplinary work for solo violin, string orchestra, and three dancers, brought to life by an all-star team of three female artists: Nicky Sohn (Kinetic’s 2022-2023 Composer-in-Residence), Mary Grace Johnson (Kinetic violinist), and Kayla Collymore (guest choreographer).
The inspiration behind Home comes from a series of interviews that Sohn, Johnson, and Collymore conducted with graduates of the Women’s Home, the rehabilitation and support center located in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood. “We were blown away by how incredibly resilient these women were, and how relatable their stories were — how addiction can truly happen to anyone,” states Johnson. “They were all so grateful to be given another chance, and what they have been able to do since recovering is amazing.” Johnson’s and Sohn’s partnership with the Women’s Home dates to 2020, when Johnson ran an online music workshop for the current residents at the start of the pandemic. The following year, the pair collaborated on a new piece for violin and piano, drawing inspiration from stories that they had collected from those residents. “Their stories were so impactful, Nicky and I felt like we needed to do another, larger scale piece and go deeper. That’s when the idea of Home was born, including the idea of pairing it with dance to better express the emotion behind the stories.” Johnson (a core member of Kinetic) and Sohn (who had been appointed Kinetic’s composer-in-residence), pitched the idea to Kinetic’s artistic director, Natalie Lin Douglas, who greenlit the project for the ensemble’s 2022-2023 season.
Translating the women’s stories into a musical composition Home has been a reflective experience for Sohn. “Writing Home opened my eyes to the importance of community. I learned that coming together and working toward a collective goal is necessary in order to overcome odds,” states Sohn. “Home invokes the lifecycle of the Phoenix, a mythological creature that is swallowed by its own flames and is reborn from its ashes… Pain can transform into something new, and through the scorching flames and the resulting ashes, a new life can be found.”
To honor Women’s History Month, the concert will also feature pieces by two other pioneering composers: Amy Beach (1867-1944), one of the first successful American female composers in an era when women were actively shunned as composers, and Latina composer Gabriela Lena Frank (b.1972), a graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and recipient of multiple honors, including the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Kinetic’s 2022-2023 season features collaborations with an array of acclaimed guest artists, including soprano Alexandra Smither and award-winning composer Theo Chandler. Kinetic’s programs this season combine cutting-edge new music with celebrated classics for strings, including by Tchaikovsky and Ravel, showcasing the ensemble’s stylistic versatility and commitment to diversifying classical music programming. The season concludes with Beyond the Sanctuary Walls on May 26, 2023, also at MATCH.
What: Her Story, celebrating Women’s History Month with music by all female composers, including pioneering American composer Amy Beach, award-winning Gabriela Lena Frank, and the world premiere of “Home,” a new multidisciplinary concerto for violin, string orchestra, and three dancers, spearheaded by a team of three female artists: Nicky Sohn (composer), Kayla Collymore (choreographer), and Mary Grace Johnson (violinist) and inspired by clients of the Women’s Home Houston, as a way to give these women a voice and raise awareness for the important work of the Women’s Home.
Who: Kinetic Ensemble
When: Friday, March 3, 2023, at 7:30pm
Where: MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston), 3400 Main Street, 77002
Cost: $30 general admission; $10 student tickets at the door
Program:
Amy Beach: String Quartet in One Movement (arr. string orchestra) (1921-29)
Nicky Sohn: Home for violin, string orchestra, and 3 dancers (2023 — Premiere)
Gabriela Lena Frank: Leyendas for string orchestra (2001)
More info: KineticEnsemble.org/events-20222023-her-story
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Nicky Sohn (Composer)
From ballet to opera to Korean traditional-orchestra, the wide-ranging talent of composer Nicky Sohn is sought after across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Characterized by her jazz-inspired, rhythmically driven themes, Sohn’s work has been described as “like John Adams’ ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine’ on steroids” (YourObserver), “dynamic and full of vitality” (The Korea Defense Daily), and having “elegant wonder” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). As a result, Sohn has enjoyed commissions from the world’s preeminent performing arts institutions, including sold-out performances at the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany, The National Orchestra of Korea, Minnesota Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, and the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra.
Recent highlights include an orchestral premiere by the St. Louis Symphony overseen by John Adams, orchestral commissions and performances from National Orchestra Institute and Festival with Marin Alsop, Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä, Annapolis Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, National Theater of Korea, Sarasota Orchestra, and the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, and chamber commissions and performances from the Kinetic Ensemble as their composer-in-residence, the violinist Lucia Lin (Boston Symphony), the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Moody Center, Carpe Diem String Quartet, Southern Exposure New Music Series, and Atlanta Chamber Players. Nicky Sohn is currently pursuing a fully-funded doctoral degree at the The Shepherd School of Music of Rice University and holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Mannes College of Music.
Kayla Collymore (Guest Choreographer)
Kayla Collymore, a New Jersey native, is a BFA Dance graduate of Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Kayla has performed with several dance companies including METdance Company (Texas, USA), Hou Ying Dance Theater (Beijing, China) and Brian Brooks Moving Company (New York, USA). She is an alumna of The School at Jacob’s Pillow and was voted 2017’s “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. She’s been featured in Southwest Contemporary Magazine, Dance Magazine and Arts & Culture Texas for her Co-direction, choreography, and performance of LINEAR/ FUNCTION. She has spent a large part of her career touring internationally with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures in their productions of “Swan Lake”, “Nutcracker”, “The Car Man” and currently “Sleeping Beauty”. When Ms. Collymore isn’t on tour, she is based in Houston, Texas as a freelance performer, dance educator, yoga instructor, movement designer and filmmaker.
Mary Grace Johnson (Violinist)
Violinist Mary Grace Johnson has appeared internationally at venues such as Lincoln Center, Solti Hall, and Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. A decorated performer, her accolades include Grand Prize of the Nashville Symphony CURB Records Concerto Competition, 1st prize of the National MTNA Young Artist Competition in Baltimore, Maryland, and honorary mention at the Bartok World String Quartet Competition in Budapest, Hungary as a founding member of the Unison Quartet. A former DACAMERA of Houston Young Artist, Ms. Johnson frequently performs at the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Moody Center, among others, and with Houston-based collectives Kinetic Ensemble, Loop38 and MUSIQA. She has premiered works by over a dozen composers including Anthony Brandt, Amy Nam, Nicky Sohn and Theo Chandler and actively promotes the music of underrepresented composers, especially women, through her recital programming.
Ms. Johnson received her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University, where she was awarded the Founder’s Medal for the Blair School of Music, the highest honor in her graduating class, and her master’s degree from the Juilliard School where she served as concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra. In addition to the violin, she has studied the viola and baroque violin. She is currently completing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree with Paul Kantor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and is on the faculty of the Paganini School of Music, AFA Chamber Music Academy and Lone Star College-University Park.
About Kinetic Ensemble
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.