Behind the Music: A Journey into Contemporary Composition with Alarm Will Sound

Behind the Music: A Journey into Contemporary Composition with Alarm Will Sound
Time & Date: Sunday, December 8, 2024 5:45-7:15PM

Join Alarm Will Sound, one of the nation’s leading ensembles for contemporary music, for an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience. This program offers attendees a rare opportunity to observe a working rehearsal of Marcos Balter’s Code-Switching, featuring a unique soundworld and intricate interplay of instruments.

Following the rehearsal, the ensemble will present a short talk on the creative process behind the piece and their approach to contemporary music-making. The evening concludes with a Q&A session where audience members can engage directly with members of Alarm Will Sound, including Artistic Director Alan Pierson, Executive Director Gavin Chuck, and others.

This intimate and interactive event is designed to demystify the process of creating and performing new music while showcasing the collaborative spirit that drives Alarm Will Sound.

What Attendees Can Expect
5:45–6:30 PM: Open video shoot of Marcos Balter’s Code-Switching.
6:30–6:45 PM: Presentation featuring insights into Code-Switching.
6:45–7:15 PM: Audience Q&A with Alarm Will Sound members.
Attendees will gain unique insights into the artistry, experimentation, and precision that define Alarm Will Sound’s approach to contemporary music.

About Alarm Will Sound
Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member band committed to innovative performances and recordings of today’s music. They have established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic skill. The New York Times says that Alarm Will Sound is “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene.”

With classical skill and unlimited curiosity, Alarm Will Sound takes on music from a wide variety of styles. Its repertoire ranges from European to American works, from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced. The group itself includes many composer-performers, which allows for an unusual degree of insight into the creation and performance of new work.

Alarm Will Sound is the resident ensemble at the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Held each July at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the festival features eight world premieres by early-career composers.

Alarm Will Sound may be heard on eighteen recordings, including For George Lewis | Autoshchediasms, their most recent release featuring music of Tyshawn Sorey. Their genre-bending, critically acclaimed Acoustica features live-performance arrangements of music by electronica guru Aphex Twin.

In 2016, Alarm Will Sound in a co-production with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, presented the world premiere of the staged version of Donnacha Dennehy’s The Hunger at the BAM Next Wave Festival and the Touhill Performing Arts Center.

In 2013-14, Alarm Will Sound served as artists-in-residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. During that season, the ensemble presented four large ensemble performances at the Met, including two site-specific productions staged in museum galleries (Twinned, a collaboration with Dance Heginbotham and I Was Here I Was I, a new theatrical work by Kate Soper and Nigel Maister).

In 2011, at Carnegie Hall, the group presented 1969, a multimedia event that uses music, images, text, and staging to tell the compelling story of great musicians—John Lennon, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul McCartney, Luciano Berio, Yoko Ono, and Leonard Bernstein—striving for a new music and a new world amidst the turmoil of the late 1960s.

Alarm Will Sound has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, (le) Poisson Rouge, Miller Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Kitchen, the Bang on a Can Marathon, Disney Hall, Kimmel Center, Library of Congress, the Walker Arts Center, Cal Performances, Stanford Lively Arts, Duke Performances, and the Warhol Museum. International tours include the Holland Festival, Sacrum Profanum, Moscow’s Art November, St. Petersburg’s Pro Arte Festival, and the Barbican.

The members of the ensemble have also demonstrated our commitment to education through residency performances and activities at the Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Princeton University, New York University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

For more information and to join the mailing list, visit Alarm Will Sound’s website at www.alarmwillsound.com

Main Event Photo by Thomas Fichter. Photo courtesy of Alarm Will Sound.