I/O Ensemble and Talea Ensemble

The Williams College Department of Music presents I/O Fest ’15, a three-day festival of adventurous new music from around the globe. The festival includes four concerts with several world premieres, music of many composers, performances by the I/O Ensemble and IOTA, and special guests, Talea Ensemble. This event runs from Thursday, Jan. 8 through Saturday, Jan. 10 at the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance in Williamstown, MA. All events are free and open to the public. Neither tickets nor reservations are required.

Thursday, January 8 at 8 p.m., CenterStage, ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
The opening concert offers a program of small ensemble works performed by festival house band I/O Ensemble and guests from the internationally acclaimed Talea Ensemble. On this evening I/O Fest presents small ensemble works and solos by Eric Nathan, Raphaël Cendo, Salvatore Sciarrino, Charles Wuorinen, Judd Greenstein ’01, Brian Simalchik ’10, and Eun Young Lee.

Thursday, January 8 at 10:00 p.m., Dance Studio, ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Later that night the Williams Percussion Ensemble will present 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams’s elemental and immersive Strange and Sacred Noise in the darkness of the glass walled Dance Studio.

Friday, January 9 at 8 p.m., CenterStage, ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
The centerpiece of I/O Fest 2015 will be Talea Ensemble’s performance of Happy End by Georges Aperghis, one of the most original and inventive composers on today’s international scene.  An evening length work, Happy End is a retelling of the Charles Perrault fairy tale “Le Petit Poucet” [“Hop-o’-My-Thumb”] featuring live music, electronics, and an animated film by Hans Op de Beeck.

Saturday, January 10 at 8 p.m., CenterStage,’62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams
I/O Fest concludes with the first annual Steven Dennis Bodner Memorial Concert in remembrance of the late co-founder of the festival. Along with Philip Glass’s classic Music in Similar Motion the program will feature new works by student composers and Williams graduates performed by student ensembles and Williams faculty.

About I/O Fest
I/O Fest presents new and cutting edge music by leading international artists and the extraordinary composers in the Williams community, and features performances by guest artists as well as Williams student and faculty performers. The festival director is Matthew Gold.

Probing new sounds and ideas, I/O surveys the frontiers of contemporary music in its concert programs and the annual I/O Festival of New Music. Held each January in the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, this series of new music concerts and events immerses audiences in the full spectrum of today’s most vital compositional trends. Now in its 6th year, I/O Fest invites audiences to open their ears and minds to the music of now.

Event Program