The kickoff show of the 2012 MATA Festival brought together New York's new-music heavyweights JACK Quartet with Germany's Quartet New Generation, a recorder collective founded in Amsterdam and Berlin. Recorded at the Brooklyn venue Roulette, the evening marked the beginning of a three night run of world premieres, emerging composers and unusual instrumental combinations.

For the festival's opening evening, the two forward-thinking, young ensembles alternated to perform music by Huck Hodge, Gordon Beeferman, Hugi Gudmunsson, Yi Qin, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexdandri, José Luis Hurtado and Oscar Bianchi.

The performance opened with Triptych, the first in a three-part video series by composer/director Jacob Cooper in which the composer/director manipulated "found footage" (in this case the closing death scene in Carmen) to create unusual audio/video works, before moving to a number of U.S. and New York premieres by emerging, MATA-comissioned composers.

The show featured two world premiere performances: one for the JACK Quartet, written by 2011 Rome Prize winner Huck Hodge, and the other a piece by Shanghai-based composer Yi Qin for Quartet New Generation, and closed with a piece by MATA's Artistic Director Yotam Harber performed by both ensembles together—a transcription of an 18th century psalm originally transcribed by Benedetto Marcello. 

2012 marks the MATA Festival's 14th season. Every year, the festival features MATA-commissioned works performed by internationally renowned and adventurous ensembles. MATA has commissioned 67 works and has presented over 293 performances of pieces by young composers.

Program

Jacob Cooper: Triptych I: Commencer Une Autre Mort (watch below)

Yi Qin: Sound Shadow^°
QNG

Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri: Untitled IV (Atemlos)**
(motor driven devices designed and built in collaboration with Swiss artist Pe Lang)
QNG

Huck Hodge: re[(f )use]^°
JACK

Hugi Gudmunsson: Matins*
JACK

Oscar Bianchi: Crepuscolo**
QNG

Gordon Beeferman: Passages
QNG

Yotam Haber: Estro poetico-armonico^
JACK and QNG

^world premiere
*NY premiere
**US premiere
°MATA commission

Jacob Cooper: Triptych I