INTERDISC. #04

a newsletter of my upcoming events, thoughts and musings in sound, movement, fashion, aromatics, beauty, photography, film, tea, reading and more

Performing in Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet at Roulette as part of BlackBox Festival (pc: Kayla Miller)

January and February 2024…

Dear friends,

It’s been a little while! I hope you’ve been having a refreshed start to 2024. I just came off a jam-packed performing/composing stretch, between preparing for the premiere of my piece The Sound of Space Between Us with The Phoenix Symphony in April, administrative and artistic planning and preparation for BlackBox Festival, and playing with BlackBox in DC!

BlackBox Festival was a huge success, and it took a village! Playing flute in 10 pieces (with C flute, alto flute, bass flute and piccolo) and choreographing/dancing in two others - one that I composed - was one of the most intense multi-tasking feats I’ve ever tackled, but I loved each and every part in this unification and culmination of my practices. Thank you to all who came out for this memorable weekend!

The first night at ShapeShifter, I played flute on Paul Novak’s Somatic Interludes (World Premiere), Bobby Ge’s Pupil of Light, Jessica Meyer’s The dappled light just beyond her skin…, Yaz Lancaster’s Gender Envy, Kaija Saariaho’s Cendres, and a fabulous new duet titled carvings for flute and piano by and with composer/pianist and dear friend Paul Kerekes, who wrote it for us while we were composition fellows at Tanglewood this past summer.

The second night was our Roulette debut featuring the NY premiere of The Sound of Space Between Us, a program I curated centered around a piece of the same name for string quartet and movement that I composed, choreographed and danced in. Huge thanks to my dance partner Peter Cheng, who lifted me, dipped me and ran around with me all over! I also choreographed and danced to Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet (as seen in the picture above) — that was years in the making, and only just the beginning… :)

This program initially premiered at The Clark earlier this fall, and it was such a thrill having it at Roulette. Prior to the two iterations, I created the choreography in the studio, so I had to reorient it on two strikingly different scales: a vast outdoor landscape and an intimate concert space. Made me think a lot about how different the pieces felt with those polar-opposite perceptions: dancing from afar as a dot within nature vs. steps away from the audience, close enough to hear my breath. I loved both experiences, and all that came with the unique lenses they lent to the program. I also played flute on Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ró, Tristan Murail’s Paludes, Angélica Negrón’s Espacios, objectos, sonidos y tiempo, and Seth Cluett’s Interference is partial/afterimage.

A couple weeks later, BlackBox headed to DC to perform at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art! We performed Murail and Negrón again, as well as George Lewis’ Arcades. The following night featured BlackBox’s second performance of Borrowed Landscape, which we originally premiered at The Noguchi Museum back in November! BlackBox had quite the run since September - from The Clark to Noguchi to BlackBox Festival to DC - and I’m in awe of all that happened in that short time. Grateful for such an amazing team, and we have more exciting things in store this spring…more on that soon!

Throughout all that, I was finalizing details on my orchestra piece, The Sound of Space Between Us (Part III!), premiering with The Phoenix Symphony April 26, 27 and 28. It’s been surreal seeing the second and third installments of this series - string quartet and orchestra - come to life simultaneously over the past few months. If you happen to be around Phoenix that weekend, would love to see you there!

Last weekend, I performed Khachaturian’s Masquerade Suite and Tchaik 4 with String Orchestra of Brooklyn — always such a moving experience performing in our home base of St. Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights. I’m currently working on my piece for Tanglewood this summer, for 16 brass and a couple percussion! So honored to be part of this upcoming Tanglewood season, and can’t wait to see and hear all the extraordinary concerts on the lawn beneath the stars…my picnic gear’s ready to go. :)

I was so thrilled to be the first guest on Steph Thompson’s new podcast as part of her blog ListenUpNYC, highlighting all kinds of musical and artistic events happening in NYC and beyond! We talked about The Sound of Space Between Us in the context of Deep Listening, and how that was involved in my curation, composing, choreographing and performing within the program. Steph is a sound healer, improv multi-instrumentalist and journalist, and has such a contagious energy and spirit. So much fun chatting with her! You can listen to the episode here!

Until next time,

Annie

Upcoming Events…

SAT 3/23 at 7:30PM| Williamsburg, NY | National Sawdust

So excited to be back performing with Sugar Vendil and Isogram at National Sawdust! We’ll be performing more of Sugar’s piece Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia, and Sugar will share a set of new solo works for piano, voice and live electronics.

TICKETS HERE

FRI 4/26 at 7:30PM, SAT 4/27 at 7:30PM, SUN 4/28 at 2PM| Phoenix, AZ | Symphony Hall

If you’re around Phoenix, join us for “Mozart & Shostakovich: The Power of 10”, featuring the world premiere of my piece The Sound of Space Between Us, Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos featuring Michael Stephen Brown and Adam Golka, and Shostakovich 10!

TICKETS HERE

Flowers in a little shop I stumbled upon in Tribeca, a few days before Valentine’s Day <3

of-the-months…

little luxury: I discovered a cafe in Park Slope called Lively that also sells skincare and bath products (!). I got these lovely arnica-infused Eir NYC Post Session Salts with ginger and bergamot — super relaxing to unwind with after dancing, Pilates, or just a long day!

movement: Peter Cheng - aka my dance partner in The Sound of Space Between Us - gave an amazing movement class that sparked so much improvisatory inspiration. He’s teaching more of them through his recently launched Play Motion Lab sessions - find out more here!

sound: Julia Bullock’s (now Grammy-winning!) album Walking in the Dark is a treasure, and I especially love the last track, her rendition of Who Knows Where the Time Goes?. I’ve listened to it a million times and still never tire of it. I also love that her husband and conductor Christian Reif accompanies her on piano…their performance dynamic is really special. Partners in life and artistic collaboration I find to be one of the most beautiful things to experience and witness.

destination: DC with BlackBox! We got to walk around the National Mall, see the Capitol and Washington Monument, go to a delicious Thai restaurant nearby, and of course the highlight was performing at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art!

flower arrangement: I love designing my own bouquets, and this time I felt like going for a more wildflower bunch!

book: It’s a lifelong learning process, generating continuous streams of creative energy and output from project to project, which led me to start reading Twyla Tharp’s “The Creative Habit". She has some great exercises in not only getting the creative juices flowing, but getting to know yourself and how you think and act more intimately; how your experiences inform such a personal, vulnerable process. I really liked the idea of embracing more long-term strategy of understanding the relationship between creativity and where it comes from in our bodies and minds. There’s still a lot to get to know about ourselves, especially as life continues to carve us. It’s so easy to just chug along and not make the time to do that kind of internal assessment, but working towards that deeper understanding of why we do (or don’t do) certain things really helps break up the rust and open up new thoughts. No matter what art form, an artist nurturing creativity is like being an athlete; caring for and listening to our body and mind enables the rest.

skin: Pharmacy products have been experiencing a renaissance — often underrated, there are some timeless gems on those shelves that have remained widespread go-tos over the years of beauty “best-of” lists. Whenever my skin has flared up or needs a stabilizing reset, I often go back to the basics I used in middle school (this Aveeno Clear Complexion Foaming Cleanser has been a staple in my cabinet for as long as I can remember). Weleda is one of these pharmacy staples. Especially during the dry cold winter months, their Skin Food creams are the perfect hydrator. There’s Weleda’s Skin Food Original Ultra-Rich Cream, and then they came out with the Skin Food Light Nourishing Cream, which I use. This article is helpful in deciding which one is best for you.

hair: I think it’s safe to say I’ve tried a good chunk of the market’s hairsprays for texture and volume, but COLOR WOW’s Style on Steroids Color-Safe Texture Spray is one of my favorites. It gives amazing body, and also has heat protection!

scent: I gifted my partner Shawn the D.S. & DURGA Concrete After Lightning candle for his birthday. With notes of electricity, panic grass, summer rain, ozone, concrete and steam(!), I didn’t know what to expect at first, but it’s the glorious aromatic combination I didn’t know I needed, and is super refreshing. D.S. & DURGA perfectly captures those scents from childhood or a specific sensory experience you remember so vividly yet can’t quite put your finger on.

tea: As a lover of genmaicha, I came across Morihata’s Organic Genmaicha at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art gift shop: “A well-rounded and balanced cup with aromas of puffed rice and notes of hazelnut and cereal.”

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