Events

On Cox's "Black as a Hack for Cyborgification" (with Youssef Amin)

And a free improvisation for violin and electronics by Johnna Wu and Simon Kanzler

The Summer Online Festival continues with musicians slated to perform at the Academy in upcoming seasons. 

PinkNoise is: 

Johnna Wu, violin
Simon Kanzler, electronics
Eric Umble, clarinet
Roberta Michel, flute
Issei Herr, cello
Timothy Leonard, cello
Han Chen, piano

PinkNoise is a New York-based chamber ensemble dedicated to musical improvisation and compositions in acoustic and electronic mediums as a reaction and response to the conditions of their community and society. Their mission is to reveal how improvisation in musical performances lies at the intersection of historical and contemporary works, and how it is a synthesis of multifarious cultures and styles from the past and the present that connect them to their conscience in society. They also believe in performing new works by composers in acoustic and electronic mediums and collaborating with visual artists and writers to present music as a collaborative and interdisciplinary art form.

Each member of the ensemble is a performer, composer, and creator committed to inverting, translating, reflecting, and transcending the boundaries of both old and new music to present a kaleidoscopic range of performances that connect us to our sensibilities and conscience.

Jessie Cox is a composer, drummer, educator, and music theorist currently in pursuit of his doctorate degree at Columbia. He has written over 100 works for various musical ensembles, including electroacoustic works, solo works, chamber and orchestral works, and works for jazz ensembles and choirs. He has composed for performers such as JACK Quartet, Claire Chase, String Noise, International Contemporary Ensemble, Rebekah Heller, Vasko Dukovski, Either/Or, Cory Smythe, Ryan Muncy, Katinka Kleijn, Promenade Sauvage, Janet Underhill, Cehryl, Greg Saunier of Deerhoof, and more.

He has studied composition with Georg Friedrich Haas, Richard Carrick, Seth Cluett, Derek Hurst, Marti Epstein, and drums with Neal Smith and Tony “Thunder” Smith. Jessie has played at the Accra Jazz Festival and the Martinique Jazz Festival with the Maher Beauroy Trio, Rhythm and Thought Festival with High Key People. His compositions have been performed at NUNC3 at Northwestern University, New Music Gathering, Bang on a Can Music Series, Roulette Interpretation Series, OpenICE Library Festival at Lincoln Center, Composers Now Festival, Frequency Series at Constellation in Chicago, String Noise Sounds Series in NYC (where he is also co-curator), and Polyfold, and won the Leroy Souther’s Award (2015) and the Bill Maloof Award (2017) for his compositions. 

Johnna Wu, founder of PinkNoise, is an active performer and improviser in North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2015, she was the only artist awarded the Fulbright scholarship to study in Germany, and was sponsored by the State Department of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. She graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts with double degrees in Biology and Musicology, She obtained a Masters of Music degree in violin performance at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Joseph Lin. The study of improvisation has allowed her to fuse her strong interests in contemporary music, East-Asian folk music, jazz, tango, and musical theatre with classical music. Her most recent appearances include performances for the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonie Guterres at the General Assembly Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Paris Philharmonie, the Banff Centre in Canada, and Carnegie Hall in New York.

Simon Kanzler is a composer, laptop performer and vibraphonist based in New York. He seeks to transcend boundaries by integrating multifarious idioms of music within his work. His involvement in Berlin’s and New York’s jazz and contemporary music scene, have led to projects working with a broad range of musicians including new music ensembles, jazz bands, improvisers, heavy metal and rock musicians. He has recently focused on live-electronics as a means to expand the sound of acoustic instruments and to create a dialogue between musicians and the computer as an instrument. 

Youssef Amin is a second-year M.A. student of Psychology at New York University. He is research assistant at the Max Planck — NYU Center for Language, Music and Emotion (CLaME), and currently working on attention decoding in music using both behavioral and MEG protocols. His background in music includes a Bachelor of Music in Piano degree from Ithaca College under the tutelage of Vadim Serebryany.