Wild Up
Stave Sessions

Crystal Ballroom Somerville Th - Crystal Ballroom

Los Angeles-based ensemble Wild Up creates mind-bending and theatrical contemporary music experiences by playing with place, structure, the relation of artist to audience: any aspect of the concert experience is up for reinvention at any time.

Their Stave Sessions performance prominently features the work of twentieth-century avant-garde composer, pianist, vocalist, and performance artist Julius Eastman, whose fascinating, profound, and surprising compositions are a major focus for Wild Up and Artistic Director Christopher Rountree. Wild Up were recent Grammy Award nominees for the second volume of their eventual seven-volume Eastman recordings project, and NPR said of the album, "what the group unearths on Julius Eastman, Vol. 2: Joy Boy is more than just music, it's a set of relations and modes of comporting in the world that risk trading fleeting, worldly praise to regain the eternal soul."

Called “a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant … fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family” by Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times, Wild Up has been lauded as one of classical music’s most exciting groups of young musicians. Led by Founder and Artistic Director Christopher Rountree, the collective at once upholds and spontaneously redefines the notion of a traditional ensemble.

Program

Wild Up: Eastman, Braxton, Lara

Julius Eastman, Touch Him When

Eastman, Our Father

Jürg Frey, Grizzana 

Anthony Braxton, Sonata 

Eastman, Buddha 

Felipe Lara, Ventos Uivantes 

Eastman, Gay Guerrilla

presented without intermission. total running time of pieces listed is approximately 90 minutes

Artist Roster

Wild Up
Christopher Rountree, Conductor

 richard valitutto, piano
Jiji, Guitar
Rachel Beetz, Flute/Bass Flute
Brian Walsh, Clarinet/Bass Clarinet
Archie Carey, Basson
Mona Tian, Violin
Andrew McIntosh, Violin/Viola
Derek Stein, Cello

This performance is part of Stave Sessions.

 

“Wild Up, however, goes beyond all the others in capturing the sheer expansiveness of Eastman’s music. The repeated rhythmic tick that begins everything and never quite goes away is heard here as an invitation to dream… It is the sound of stepping out of yourself. ”

The Los Angeles Times

“...a radical California chamber collective of composers, performers, and improvisers whose imagination and ambition seem boundless.”

Grayson Haver Currin Pitchfork

Featured Artists

Videos

01 02
Wild Up performs Igor Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto"

Wild Up performs Igor Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto"

02 02
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Wild Up performs " Desired Constellation" by BJÖRK

01 02
Wild Up performs Igor Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto"

Wild Up performs Igor Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto"

02 02
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Wild Up performs " Desired Constellation" by BJÖRK

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Stave Sessions

Four nights of contemporary music at Somerville's Crystal Ballroom

Learn more

Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theatre Information

Stave Sessions is sponsored by
Susan & Michael Thonis.

Support provided by the Barr Foundation through its ArtsAmplified initiative and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music.


This performance is made possible in part by support from Celebrity Series' LIVE PERFORMANCE! Arts for All Innovation Funds.