Name: Ekmeles and electronics
Start: 2026-05-24T16:30:00-04:00
End: 2026-05-24T18:00:00-04:00
Location: The DiMenna Center for Classical Music

May 24 2026, Ekmeles will perform a program of works with electronics, including Ekmeles commissions by Christopher Trapani and Bethany Younge, and works by George Lewis and Kaija Saariaho.
George Lewis's Amo, heard here in its US premiere, uses a massive eight-speaker system and custom software to paint a portrait of Anton Wilhelm Amo. Amo was a Nzema philosopher born around 1703 in present-day Ghana, taken by the Dutch East India Company in 1707 and presented as a gift to a family of German nobles, subsequently becoming a professor of philosophy at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany. The primary text is drawn from Amo's doctoral thesis in philosophy, earned at Wittenberg in 1734. The texts are in Latin, English, German, Dutch, and Twi, Amo's native language.
Kaija Saariaho's Nuits, adieux envelops four singers in an ever-shifting cathedral of reverberant sound, setting evocative texts on nights and farewells. Saariaho Each of the singers requires two microphones for the work, navigating between the two as indicated in the score, to send their voices to different portions of the electronic processing.
Bethany Younge's Bright Void, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, pairs the singers with innovative custom electronics. In addition to a synthesized part to be performed live by the composer, there is also a 3D printed siren which blends with the rough textures of the microtonal chest voice harmonies of the work.
Christopher Trapani's End Words, a Chamber Music America commission, features six immersive channels of electronics to match the six singers. The composer worked closely with the singers of Ekmeles, recording hours of samples to build the electronics, which expand upon the six live voices with an ensemble of doppelgängers, string instruments, eggshells, and weather events. The work consists of a swirling mix of live and pre-recorded vocal sounds, all precisely microtonally tuned to create a lush and unique harmonic world.