Icebreaker (band)
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Icebreaker is a UK-based new music ensemble founded by James Poke and John Godfrey. The group have established themselves as one of the UK's leading new music interpreters.
Icebreaker was formed in 1989 to play at the new Dutch music festival in York. The group currently consists of 13 members, and includes pan-pipes, saxophones, electric violin and cello, guitars, percussion, accordion and keyboards. They always play amplified.
Their repertoire encompasses some of the best known names in contemporary music today, such as Louis Andriessen, Diderik Wagenaar, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Yannis Kyriakides and Philip Glass. Icebreaker are not easy to categorise or pigeonhole in any musical sense, creating a music that blends contemporary classical, rock and alternative music.
Icebreaker have made concert appearances in the UK, US and Europe, including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Warsaw, Aarhus, Gent, Grenoble and Budapest festivals, Sonorities in Belfast, the Baltic Gaida Festival and the NYYD Festival in Estonia, as well as a dedicated Icebreaker festival with the Wiener Musik Galerie in Vienna. In London they have appeared at Meltdown, the ICA, the Place Theatre, the South Bank, the Barbican, the Warehouse, Ocean and the Almeida, among other venues. They have appeared on two Arts Council Contemporary Music Network tours of England. United States appearances include New York's Bang on a Can Festival, the Lincoln Center Festival, and a performance at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers' Orchestra in Stewart Wallace's The Book of Five.
They have been resident ensemble at the Dartington International Summer School for the advanced composition course led by Louis Andriessen, and have held composition workshops for the SPNM in Bangor and Belfast as well as additional workshops in New York and London. In June 2005 they took part in the Popular Music course at Goldsmiths College in association with John Paul Jones.
Icebreaker's most recent albums have been released on the New York-based label Cantaloupe Music. 2005 saw the release of Cranial Pavement, including music by John Godfrey, Richard Craig, Yannis Kyriakides and Conlon Nancarrow, as well as the worldwide release of the new version of Michael Gordon's Trance. This 52-minute work was originally released on Argo in 1996 and has been completely re-worked and re-mixed for the Cantaloupe version.
Icebreaker's first album Terminal Velocity (music by Andriessen, Gordon, Lang, Gavin Bryars and Damian le Gassick), also originally on Argo, has also just been produced in a remastered version for Cantaloupe.
Other albums include Rogue's Gallery (NewTone), with works by Andriessen, Lang, Godfrey, Michael Torke and Steve Martland; a portrait of Diderik Wagenaar (Composers' Voice) and Extraction (between the lines), containing music by le Gassick and Gordon McPherson. Contributions to compilation albums include works by Graham Fitkin (Argo), Steve Martland and John Godfrey (Century XXI A - M / NewTone).
Tanzwerk Nürnberg, the West Australian Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet of Seattle have used Icebreaker's recordings for performances. In June 1998, Ashley Page created Cheating, Lying, Stealing, featuring Icebreaker as guest performers, for The Royal Ballet at Sadler's Wells, a programme which was revived in September/October 2004 for Scottish Ballet.
The 2003/4 season saw a major multi-media collaboration with the renowned Dutch ensemble Orkest de Volharding, and singer Christina Zavalloni, entitled Big Noise. The project, consisting of four new commissions from leading composers from Britain and Holland, each working in conjunction with a video artist, toured major venues in the UK and the Netherlands.
Other recent projects have included a further performance of The Book of Five with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra in Germany, recording the music to the independent American film Book of Love, and AtaXia, a collaboration with Wayne McGregor's company Random Dance, based on Trance, premiered in Sadler's Wells, London in June 2004 with further performances in Amsterdam and New York.
[edit] Members (2006)
- James Poke (artistic director, flutes, pan-pipes, wind-synthesiser, keyboard programming)
- Rowland Sutherland (flutes, pan-pipes, voice)
- Richard Craig (musical director, saxes, clarinets, conducting)
- Christian Forshaw (saxophones)
- Bradley Grant (saxophones, clarinets)
- Dominic Saunders (keyboards)
- Andrew Zolinsky (keyboards)
- Ian Watson (accordion, keyboards)
- Emma Welton (electric violin)
- Audrey Riley (electric cello, keyboards)
- Dan Gresson (percussion, drums)
- James Woodrow (guitar, bass guitar)
- Pete Wilson (bass guitar)
- Mel (production assistant)
- Ernst Zettl (sound engineer)
