Between the Air
TAK ensemble’s eighth studio album, Between the Air, is comprised of works written for the ensemble over the last seven years, inhabits a dizzying landscape of visceral extremes.
From Eric Wubbels’ blistering tour de force, INSTRUMENTS—as it splinters the ensemble into a fractured hydra of composite hyperinstruments—to Tyshawn Sorey’s glacially crystalline elegy for improviser, composer and bandleader jaimie branch that sublimates sonic architecture to a gossamer and enveloping fog.
Bethany Younge’s At midnight I walked into the middle of the desert elicits surreal atmospheres overflowing with raw sonic richness and unexpected encounters, while Golnaz Shariatzadeh’s moon that sank|wet grass zooms in as a trio subset for the ensemble, with sharp corners that spill into haunting tendrils of utterances at once throttling forward and remaining hidden. Lewis Nielson’s Siesta Negra, the center of the album, sets letters from Che Guevara’s last days of imprisonment with a tension so palpable its experience is hauntingly haptic.
Between The Air
TRACKLIST
1. INSTRUMENTS - Eric Wubbels
2. moon that sank|wet grass - Golnaz Shariatzadeh
3. Siesta Negra - Lewis Nielson
sudden vacillations between extremes, claustrophobic, stifled and breathless, evaporating, surreal, raw, eddies of voices, guttural intensity, metaphysical, the here and the hereafter, ruptured shutters, mercurial, kaleidoscopic, noise and precision, as if something is missing, hopeful, bittersweet, interlocking
Listen If You Like: Helmut Lachenmann, Ashkan Behzadi, jaimie branch, Olga Neuwirth, Maurico Kagel, Peter Evans, Yusef Lateef, Morton Feldman, JACK Quartet, Wet Ink Ensemble
4. At midnight I walked into the middle of the desert - Bethany Younge
5. For jaimie branch - Tyshawn Sorey
Artist: TAK ensemble • Album: Between the Air • Format: CD | Digital • Label TAK editions • Cat No. TAKed007 • Link: TAKeditions.com/Btwn
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
ABOUT TAK ENSEMBLE
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
Eric Wubbels
Regarded as “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), TAK delivers energetic performances "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (The WIRE), and “impresses with the organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity” (New Sounds, WQXR).
TAK is a mixed-quintet committed to musical exploration and experimentation and dedicated to commissioning new works and direct collaboration with composers and other artists. They have premiered hundreds of works to date since its founding in 2013. Recent highlighted collaborations include large-scale works by Eric Wubbels, Michelle Lou, Brandon López, Tyshawn Sorey, and Weston Olencki. The group has performed internationally at IntACT Festival (Thailand), Music Current Festival (Ireland), Cluster Festival (Canada), Harpa Concert Hall (Iceland), and the Delian Academy (Greece), among many others, and enjoys an active schedule of domestic touring in the U.S.
The quintet has released eight albums to critical acclaim; recent records have been described as “sublime art… a masterpiece,” (AnEarful), and “one of the most distinct and eclectic releases of the year” (I Care If You Listen). Their recorded output fosters a “deep sense of connection and communication” (Bandcamp Daily), and features collaborations with Mario Diaz de Leon, Taylor Brook, Erin Gee, Brandon López, Ann Cleare, Tyshawn Sorey, Seth Cluett, Natacha Diels, Scott L. Miller, David Bird, and Ashkan Behzadi. Their most recent release, Love, Crystal and Stone, brought together composer Ashkan Behzadi, scholar Saharnaz Samaienejad, painter Mehrdad Jafari, and design-house Sonnenzimmer to fuse poetry, visual art, original essays, and music into an experience-based hybrid publication. The ensemble’s 2019 album Oor launched their in-house media label, TAK editions, that aims to support recorded musical endeavors from across the experimental music communities, highlighting direct conversations with artists through the TAK editions Podcast. Recent TAK editions releases have included those of Ensemble Interactivo de La Habana, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Nina Dante + Bethany Younge, and several of TAK’s own recordings.
Deeply committed to educational collaborations, TAK has conducted residencies at dozens of higher educational institutions including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, University of Chicago, and many others. The ensemble has also collaborated with younger musicians and composers at the Walden School, the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program, and Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program. TAK served as the Long-term Visiting Ensemble in Residence at University of Pennsylvania from 2022-23.
TAK is: Laura Cocks, flute; Madison Greenstone, clarinet; Charlotte Mundy, voice; Marina Kifferstein, violin; Ellery Trafford, percussion.
photograph by Titilayo Ayangade
Eric Wubbels (b.1980) is a composer and
performer. Since 2004 he has been pianist
and Co-Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble
(NYC).A recipient of the Ernst von Siemens
Foundation Composer Prize, Wubbels has
been awarded grants and fellowships from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
Koussevitzky Foundation/Library of Congress,
and Chamber Music America, among others, and his music has been presented by LA Phil Green Umbrella series, Huddersfield Festival,ISSUE Project Room, Cafe OTO, Roulette, Bowerbird, LAMPO, ECLAT Festival, TRANSIT, Rainy Days, TIME:SPANS, Archipel, Ostrava Days, EAR WE ARE, Zurich Tage für Neue Musik, and Ultraschall. Current ongoing projects include: Second Nature (flute, percussion, keyboards trio with Erin Lesser and Ian Antonio of Wet Ink, interbeing (with TAK Ensemble), and duo with vocalist Charmaine Lee. As a performer, he has given U.S. and world premieres of works by major figures such as Peter Ablinger, Richard Barrett, Beat Furrer, George Lewis, and mathias spahlinger, as well as vital young artists such as Rick Burkhardt, Erin Gee, Bryn Harrison, Clara Iannotta, Darius Jones, Catherine Lamb, Ingrid Laubrock, Charmaine Lee, Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper, Anna Webber, and Katherine Young. He has recorded for hatART, Carrier Records, Out of Your Head, Intakt, New Focus, and quiet design, among others, has held teaching positions at Amherst College, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Peabody Institute.
Golnaz Shariatzadeh
Golnaz Shariatzadeh (*1996) is an interdisciplinary
artist and composer whose work centers on
sound. Their work moves fluidly between
animation, sculpture, drawing, and expanded
sonic forms – drawing on complex cultural
impressions from her childhood in Iran, they
have developed a language of fantasy that
remains central to their work today, using
imagined narratives to examine, refract, and
at times critique the violence embedded in the mundane.
Golnaz has received commissions from numerous international ensembles, their work has been performed across Europe, the United States, and Australia by leading contemporary musicians including the ELISION ensemble, NADAR ensemble, TAK ensemble, Riot ensemble, Ensemble Recherché, Ensemble NAMES, the Broken Frames Syndicate, amongst others. Golnaz has received numerous awards and was a finalist for the 2024 Gaudeamus Award.
Golnaz has studied under Chaya Czernowin, Hans Tutschku, Roscoe Mitchell and Zeena Parkins and holds a PhD in Music composition from Harvard University where she also studied animation with Ruth Lingford.
Lewis Nielson
Lewis Nielson studied music at the Royal
Academy of Music in London, England, Clark
University in Massachusetts and the University
of Iowa.
His works have been performed throughout the
North and South America, and in Europe.
He served for 21 years as Professor of Music
Theory and Composition at the University of
Georgia while while directing the University of
Georgia Contemporary Chamber Ensemble.
In 2000, he joined the composition faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he was Professor of Composition and chair of the Composition Department until 2015.
Bethany Younge
Bethany Younge is a composer and performer
whose work interrogates the physicality of
music-making, merging acoustic and electronic
sound with the visceral presence of the
performer. Her pieces often employ instrumental
deconstruction, motion-activated technologies,
sounding costumes, and choreographed
movement to amplify the body’s role in musical
expression. Propulsive rhythms and uneven
grooves collide with extended techniques,
creating a tactile, kinetic sound world that teeters between control and abandon.
Currently Technical Director and Core Lecturer at Dartmouth College, Younge has been commissioned and performed by festivals worldwide, including National Sawdust (New Works Commission), Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Darmstadt International Summer Course, Resonant Bodies Festival, Long Beach Opera, and Frequency Festival. She has collaborated with ensembles such as JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, ASKO|Schönberg, Fonema Consort, and Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, among others across the U.S. and Europe.
Her awards include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Award, a Fromm Commission, the Kanter/Mivos Prize, the Barcelona Mixtur Commission, a Stipend Prize from Darmstadt, and the Dublin Sound Lab Commission, along with a Gaudeamus Award nomination.
Tyshawn Sorey
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey
has performed globally with his own ensembles, as
well as alongside industry titans including John Zorn,
Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran,
King Britt, Claire Chase, Roscoe Mitchell, and
Steve Lehman, among many others.
The bar is set high for Sorey’s continued evolution
and success. He was named the 2024 Pulitzer
Prize in Music winner for his composition Adagio
(for Wadada Leo Smith), after being recognized as a 2023 Pulitzer Finalist for Monochromatic Light (Afterlife). Previously, Sorey roared onto the international landscape as a 2017 MacArthur Fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow. Adding to his reputation as a multi-faceted talent, Downbeat Magazine recognized Sorey with its 2023 Critics Poll Award as a Rising Star Producer, while annually placing him near the top of its Composer and Drum Set performance lists. Other recent accolades include the Pew Fellowship, the Fromm Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, and the Koussevitzsky Prize.
Sorey has composed works for the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, soprano Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider, A Far Cry, cellists Seth Parker Woods and Matt Haimovitz, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound, pianist Awadagin Pratt and vocal group Roomful of Teeth, pianist Sarah Rothenberg, violinist Johnny Gandelsman, and tenor Lawrence Brownlee, as well as for countless others. His music has been performed in notable venues such as the Library of Congress, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Hollywood Bowl, the 92nd Street Y, Park Avenue Armory, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lucerne Festival, and Lincoln Center. His compositions are published by Edition Peters.
Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2020, where he maintains a vigorous touring schedule in addition to his academic duties. He was selected as a Peabody Resident at Johns Hopkins University for Fall 2023, and has taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at an impressive assortment of institutions, including: Columbia University, Harvard University, Darmstadter Ferienkurse, Wesleyan University, The New England Conservatory, University of Michigan, The Banff Centre, Berklee College of Music, Mills College, University of Chicago, and The Danish Rhythmic Conservatory.
In spring 2023, Sorey debuted a musical collaboration with percussion ensemble Yarn/Wire titled “Be Holding,” a multimedia adaptation of the book-length poem by Ross Gay about the beauty and cultural significance of Julius Erving’s momentous sky hook dunk during the 1980 NBA Finals. The production included performances by professional wordsmiths Yolanda Wisher and David A. Gaines, along with students from Girard College, and was featured in the New York Times. Sorey’s trio (featuring pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Harish Raghavan) is currently touring with Sandbox Percussion Ensemble, performing a newly commissioned piece in honor of the Max Roach Centennial titled Cogitations. In the future, Sorey plans to continue pushing boundaries, extending cultural norms, and reformulating public perceptions of modern Black/Afrodiasporic creative practice through the breadth and depth of his works.