Mission Statement
ensemble mise-en promotes large-scale composition projects and intense performances of contemporary and new music in New York City. The fifteen-plus member ensemble has the breadth of a "chamber orchestra", but defies the associated hierarchies of power, developing collective long-term programming and performance goals that interrogate canonicity in the contemporary scene. As a collective, the multi-national personnel has coalesced around a real aesthetic agenda, crystalized in the name mise-en; "mee" in Korean, means "beauty", and"zahn", "to decorate", and the group unabashedly promotes "beautiful" artwork to increasingly diverse audiences of contemporary sounds.
Description
During the upcoming 2013-2014 performance year, ensemble mise-en looks forward to expanding its diverse repertoire and audience outreach with four concerts, which will be presented at Moving Sounds Festival, University Settlement, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, and Tenri Cultural Institute. Concert programs will feature a total of 20 pieces, including seven new commissions and seven pieces by living American composers.
In accordance with its mission to bring new sounds to New York City, ensemble mise-en’s upcoming programs will include several NY and US premieres, such as Isang Yun’s Oktett and Arnold Schoenberg’s Gavotte Und Musette (Im Alten Style) Fr Streichorchester respectively. Likewise, the ensemble will honor Italian composer Franco Donatoni with a composer portrait concert at the Italian Academy, which will feature the US premiere of Donatoni’s Flag for 13 instruments and the NY premiere of Ronda . ensemble mise-en is also thrilled to welcome two new additions to this year’s concert season: a Boston tour in May 2014 and mise-en music festival 2014 in June.
ensemble mise-en is an innovative and versatile New York-based contemporary music collective led by composer Moon Young HA. With over fifteen of New York’s most talented musicians, our multi-national personnel strive to bring a repertoire of challenging, new sounds to diverse audiences. The ensemble wishes to impart an experience that is simultaneously multi-cultural, intellectually stimulating, and aesthetically pleasing ("mee" in Korean means "beauty", and "zahn" means "to decorate"), promoting large-scale composition projects and intense performances of contemporary music with programs featuring the works of many established and budding composers alike.
Since it was founded in 2011, ensemble mise-en has collaborated on several special projects, including more than ten commissions and twenty NY and US premieres, and has performed at various exciting venues such as (le) poisson rouge, Bohemian National Hall, the Tank, the DiMenna Center, Tenri Cultural Institute, The Invisible Dog Art Center, the cell, where the ensemble has been an artist-in-residence since 2012, and others. These performances have been supported by Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, Italian Academy at Columbia University, International Alliance for Women in Music, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Open Meadows Foundation, New York University, New York Foundation for the Arts, Harry and Alice Eiler Foundation, Goethe-Institute (Boston), and Villa Gillet (Lyon, France).
