April 22, 2011 - 7:30pm

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring
10309 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20903

“Quantum physics has recently confirmed what shamans and mystics, poets and musicians have long known: the universe is more like music than like matter. It may well be that our most fundamental relationship to the great mysteries is one of listening. Through sustained, concentrated attention to the fullness of the present moment, we listen for the breath of being, the voice of God.” –John Luther Adams

Composer John Luther Adams is known not only for his compositions that summon and embody the vistas of his home in Alaska, but for his tireless activism and interest in environmental causes and his passion for creating sound spaces that evoke a sense of “vastness, separateness and solitude.” (–Alex Ross)

On April 22, 2011, Great Noise Ensemble and The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring present a program in celebration of Earth Day, featuring John Luther Adams’s Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing. Adams describes the work as “a work of musical contemplation, an attempt to consecrate a small time and space for extraordinary listening (…) My hope has been not so much to compose a piece of music as to create — in essentially musical terms, with no external references — a wholeness of music, a sonic presence somehow equivalent to that of a vast landscape.”

For this performance Great Noise Ensemble is hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring, participants in the Green Sanctuary program of the Unitarian Universalist Association, who are “dedicated, through individual and collective efforts, to becoming better stewards of the Earth”. Visit www.uucss.org to learn more about UUCSS and www.uua.org to learn about Unitarian Universalism and the Green Sanctuary initiative.

Tickets are available online through OvationTix and at the door: $15 General Admission, $10 Students/Seniors.

Information and Directions To The Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring

March 4, 2011 - 7:30pm

Ward Hall, The Catholic University of America
3976 Harewood Rd NE
Washington, DC

Great Noise Ensemble looks inward to celebrate the composers within its own ranks in its March 4th concert at The Catholic University of America’s Ward Recital Hall. GNE composers Armando Bayolo, Blair Goins, Kevin McKee and Mark Sylvester take center stage along with one of GNE’s favorite collaborators, composer and CUA faculty member Andrew Simpson in a program celebrating the talents of some of D.C.’s most interesting up-and-coming talent.

Tickets are available online through OvationTix and at the door: $15 General Admission, $10 Students/Seniors, and free for Catholic University students, faculty and staff.

UPDATE: Due to circumstances beyond our control, Andrew Simpson’s Double Concerto will not be performed on this concert and will be reprogrammed at a later date. For updates on the programming and performance of this work, join our mailing list.

Information and Directions To Ward Hall, The Catholic University of America

December 3, 2010 - 7:30pm

Ward Hall, The Catholic University of America
3976 Harewood Rd NE
Washington, DC

Great Noise Ensemble takes a whole different direction with this concert on Friday, December 3 at Catholic University’s Ward Recital Hall: this show features works based on and inspired by pop and rock music from Radiohead to heavy metal. Works by Joshua Bornfield, Stephen Gorbos and Ryan Brown are going to rock the hall, and Steven Mackey’s Deal will feature the guitar stylings of one of our favorite performers, D.J. Sparr. Bring your groove and a friend– this is a show not to be missed.

Information and Directions To Ward Hall, The Catholic University of America

October 24, 2010 - 6:30pm

The National Gallery of Art
4th & Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC

On Sunday October 24, Great Noise Ensemble is proud to present one of the great masterworks of modern music, Louis Andriessen’s De Materie, at the National Gallery or Art.

De Materie incorporates eclectic musical influences, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach and Igor Stravinsky to the old Netherlands chanson “L’homme armé” and 20th-century boogie-woogie. GNE stretches the limits of both their personnel roster and their performing ambitions with this opera, which clocks in at over 70 performers including a sixty-member orchestra, chorus, vocal soloists and narrators.

The concert will be presented in the East Atrium of the National Gallery of Art, the perfect setting for a work that celebrates many and varied facets in its composition.

It’s epic. It’s amazing. If you miss it, you’ll regret it. And let’s not forget, it’s FREE. Admission to the concert is on a first-come, first-served basis, so come early and camp out for your seat!

Information and Directions To The National Gallery of Art

Great Noise Ensemble is proud to be performing as part of the inaugural New Voices @ CUA festival on September 10th & 11th at the Catholic University of America: the festival will showcase exciting new works by seventeen composers from across the United States and Paris, who were selected by a panel from over 100 entries for their ingenuity and significance to the contemporary repertoire.  The selected compositions mirror The Catholic University of America’s tradition for excellence in musical theatre, opera, art song, and sacred music, highlighting some of the best new contributions to these genres by emerging and established composers.  Tickets, available at the door, are $10 for each concert, or $20 for a Festival Pass that includes all four concerts.  Visit the New Voices festival website for more information and come out to hear the world of these amazing up-and-coming composers.

Great Noise Ensemble’s founder and Artistic Director, Armando Bayolo, has been blogging over at Sequenza 21, where he’s now in the process of chronicling GNE’s upcoming production of Louis Andriessen’s opera masterwork De Materie, which will be presented at The National Gallery of Art on October 24, 2010. This is a truly epic undertaking for any ensemble, especially one like GNE, and the realization of a long-held dream for Armando and many other members of the group. Read his thoughts on the process over at the Sequenza 21 Forum.

As we close out our fifth season and prepare for our blockbuster sixth year performing together, we’d like to share one of the highlights of our season from our final concert: the world premiere performance of D.J. Sparr’s incredible percussion concerto, The 41st Rudiment. For those of you who couldn’t make it out to the concert, here’s what you missed (thanks to artist Terry Berlier, the artist who created the gorgeous sculptures that Chris Froh uses as instruments, for the video):

41st Rudiment (low res) from Terry Berlier on Vimeo.

Art is synergy, and is at its best when its facets reflect the many disciplines which color its classifications.

On April 30th, Great Noise Ensemble presents the world premiere of a brilliant new percussion concerto by composer D.J. Sparr: The 41st Rudiment. Performed by guest soloist Chris Froh on the fantastic percussion instrument sculptures created by sculptor Terry Berlier, Sparr’s concerto combines visual art with compositional mastery and spectacular stage performance for an experience on a myriad of artistic planes.

Also featured on the program are works by Ian Hartsough and Robert Paterson: Ian Hartsough’s City Life portrays the the “frustrations, wonders, and concerns that come with starting a life on one’s own” as seen through the lens of life in Manhattan, while Paterson’s Looney Tunes uses as inspiration and point of departure favorite characters from the cartoons of the same name.

This program is a featured performance in Great Noise Ensemble’s role as resident new music ensemble at The Catholic University of America, and is presented in The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music’s historic Ward Recital Hall.

Tickets:
$25 General
$15 Students & Seniors
Free for CUA Students, Faculty & Staff with valid CUA ID

Tickets are available through Ovationtix:
https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/692545

Great Noise Ensemble presents:
Colors of Cool
Friday, March 5, 2010, 7:30pm
Ward Recital Hall
The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
The Catholic University of America
General $25
Students & Seniors $15
CUA Students, Faculty & Staff Free with CUA ID

Colors and shapes, portraits and architecture: the musical reflects the visual in Colors Of Cool, presented by Great Noise Ensemble on March 5 at Catholic University’s historic Ward Hall.

This concert presents the music of five composers:

Geoffrey Gordon’s Cool Red Cool (a jazz and improvisation-tinged response to Andy Warhol’s Self Portrait (1986)),

Jonathan Russell’s Night Dance

Blair Goins’s Chamber Concerto (written for Great Noise Ensemble)

Jacob Cooper’s Not Just Another Piece For Solo Bass Drum

Harold Meltzer’s Brion (inspired by the colors and architectural shapes of the Brion-Vega Cemetery in San Vito d’Altivole, not far from Venice.)

Tickets available through OvationTix.

Great Noise Ensemble presents:
Colorfield Passions And Vespers
Sunday, January 31, 2010, 6:30pm
The National Gallery of Art
Washington, DC

Great Noise Ensemble returns to the National Gallery of Art for Colorfield Passions, a program of world premiere works inspired by the paintings of Mark Rothko (Armando Bayolo’s Kaddish:Passio:Rothko) and the music of Claudio Monteverdi (Carlos Carrillo’s Motets from Vespro della Beata Virgine (2010)), in collaboration with the National Gallery Orchestra and Chorus.

This concert is free: for more information visit the site for the Concert Series at the National Gallery of Art.