Program
- Shelley Washington Say (for string orchestra) West Coast Premiere
- Shelley Washington MO'INGUS
- Shelley Washington Eternal Present West Coast Premiere
- Intermission
- Andrew Tholl Selected moments with no potential for advancement (for electronics) World Premiere
- Andrew Tholl Additional moments with possible windows of opportunity (for violin with electronics and saxophones) World Premiere
- Andrew Tholl What summer taught me, I can't recall (for saxophone quartet and ghost violin) World Premiere
- Andrew Tholl Every moment is another opportunity to shine (for 13 solo strings)
About
Artists
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Andrew Tholl
Andrew Tholl is a composer, violinist, and improvisor. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “vigorously virtuosic,” his compositions and performances have been heard across the United States and Europe. As a composer, Tholl’s conceptual interest lies in the exploration of time, the physicality of performance, noise, nostalgia, and memory. His style is heavily informed by a synthesis of musical influences, the integration of improvisation, and a practice-led methodology. As a soloist and chamber musician, he is dedicated to the performance of new music and the collaborative process between composer and performer. Aside from his work as a “classical” musician, Tholl maintains a second musical life writing and performing pop, rock, punk, noise, ambient, and improvisational music. He has also worked extensively in scoring for film, dance, and theater as both a performer and composer. Tholl holds degrees from Arizona State University, University of Michigan, and the California Institute of the Arts. He has previously served on faculty at CalArts and Moorpark College and currently teaches at UC Santa Barbara and Ventura College. He lives in Los Angeles, where he continues to be involved with music for concert halls, art galleries, films, puppet shows, bars, garages, bedrooms, and coat closets.
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Shelley Jane Wiley Washington
Composer Shelley Washington (1991) has emerged as an important and powerful voice of her generation. With an eclectic palette that draws from jazz, rock, American folk, classical, and other new and old musical spaces, Washington seeks to tell sonic stories that comment on current and past social narratives, both personal and observed. Her music explores emotions, intentions, and social injustices in hope of creating a public dialogue. Washington is an active performer and collaborator. She is a member of Los Angeles based ensemble, Wild Up, and has recently performed and recorded with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Pieta Brown, and the 37d03d Collective. Washington is also vocalist, saxophonist, and arranger in her Brooklyn-based band, Good Looking Friends. She currently is on faculty at NYU Steinhardt teaching music composition and holds a fellowship from Princeton University, and is on faculty at NYU Steinhardt. She lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Rodeo.
About Endless Season
Art in LA has been about freedom and an abundant eschewing of history. With intersecting methods and intentions, humble, aspiring, a city appealing to the aesthete and the mystic in all of her citizens. Here, famous artists are also street-side sign painters, our best restaurants drive or live in strip malls, and our landmarks are geographical before architectural or fleetingly experiential instead of permanent monuments to their own lineages. Here, our religious and secular musics sound the same.
Endless Season gathers around these uniquely West Coast traits. We ask lead artists to question, reinterpret, and challenge the past, modality, and genre. We hold a space of intersectionality and dialogue surrounding every aspect of our work. Together, we will explore the breadth of work and practices, discovering the many shapes of music and ideas in LA today.
Endless 2023 – 2024
This season puts Wild Up members at the center more than ever, showcasing the creative energy of this community of artists. There will be a dozen concerts featuring members not only as brilliant performers but also as composers and creators. The nexus is ENCLAVE, a weekend festival of Wild Up Composers and Creators in December, featuring Andrew Tholl, Shelley Washington, Jodie Landau, Sidney Hopson. Like most of the season, this weekend highlights the many shapes of music and ideas in Los Angeles today and starts codifying an LA school of composition.
Milestones run through the season, including revivals and seminal works from Julius Eastman and Gérard Grisey and more than a dozen World and West Coast Premieres, including workshops of three new large-scale works-in-progress: a new multi-disciplinary work by Sarah Hennies, with visual artist Susan Silton and L.A. Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson, portraits of genius emerging artists Leiliehua Lanzilotti, inti figgis-vizueta, and claire rousay, a new opera by David Longstreth, and the very beginnings of a deep dive into Arthur Russell.
In 2024, we welcome the return of Darkness Sounding, a festival that explores how listening, sound, and music shape our understanding of the world.