Face the Music: Home with Nathalie Joachim, Trevor New, and Peter Askim
6pm doors • 7pm show
About
Kaufman Music Center’s teen new music ensemble, Face the Music, joins forces with composer/flutist/vocalist Nathalie Joachim, a member of eighth blackbird and Flutronix and 2019-20 Kaufman Music Center Artist-in-Residence, to perform new arrangements from her critically-acclaimed debut album Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti), a joyful and life-affirming evening-length work for voice, flute, string quartet, and electronics.
A celebration of some of Haiti’s most iconic yet underrecognized female artists and an exploration of Joachim’s Haitian heritage, Fanm d’Ayiti features original songs incorporating the recorded voices of Joachim’s grandmother and the girls’ choir of her family’s home village of Dantan; new arrangements of songs by some of Haiti’s greatest female singers; and recorded interviews with these artists about their lives fighting for social justice and uplifting the people of Haiti.
Tickets
The Artists
Face the Music is Kaufman Music Center’s contemporary music education program for teenagers, and the country’s only youth program dedicated to studying and performing post-genre music by living composers. Praised for “stunning performances” by the New York Times, Face the Music features a collection of ensembles, including a chamber orchestra, a jazz big-band, an improvisation collective, string quartets, and mixed chamber ensembles, all dedicated to studying and performing experimental, new-classical, new-jazz, and avant-garde music written exclusively by living composers.
Face the Music members have unparalleled performance opportunities at high-profile NYC spaces like Merkin Hall, National Sawdust, Roulette, the Jazz Gallery, and BAMcafé, as well as experimental performance spaces and schools. Face the Music also offers mentorship, support and unique promotional opportunities to developing young performers and composers through its unparalleled network of professional contemporary musicians, organizations, media, and venues. In partnership with Luna Composition Lab, Face the Music mentors young composers who are female-identifying, non-binary, or gender non-conforming.
Nathalie Joachim is a Brooklyn-born Haitian-American flutist, composer, and vocalist known for creating “a unique blend of classical music, hip-hop, electronic programming, and soulful vocals reminiscent of neo-R&B stars like Erykah Badu” (Wall Street Journal). She is co-artistic director and flutist of the four-time Grammy-winning contemporary chamber ensemble eighth blackbird, and co-founder of the critically acclaimed urban art pop duo Flutronix. Joachim comfortably navigates everything from classical to indie-rock, all while being a committed advocate for social change and cultural awareness. Her authenticity has gained her the reputation of “an edgy multi-genre performance artist who has long been pushing boundaries” (Washington Post).
Ms. Joachim has performed and recorded with an impressive range of today’s most exciting artists and ensembles, including Bryce Dessner, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Richard Reed Parry, Miguel Zenón, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. As a composer, Joachim is regularly commissioned to write for instrumental and vocal artists, dance, and interdisciplinary theater, each highlighting her unique electroacoustic style. Upcoming works include Discourse, an evening-length performance and community engagement/social change initiative commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts; new solo instrumental works for cellist Seth Parker Woods and violinist Yvonne Lam; and larger scale chamber works for So Percussion, Lorelei Ensemble, and Duo Noire.
Joachim’s 2018 centerpiece Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti), an evening-length work for flute, voice, string quartet, and electronics, is a celebration of some of Haiti’s most iconic yet underrecognized female artists, as well as an exploration of Joachim’s personal Haitian heritage. Commissioned by and developed in residence through St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series, Fanm d’Ayiti will tour nationally in the 2019-20 season with Chicago-based, Grammy-nominated ensemble Spektral Quartet. The work will be released on New Amsterdam Records in 2019 as Joachim’s first featured solo album.
Other recent projects include Land Bridge, an evening-length score for Helen Simoneau Danse funded by New Music USA; Dam Mwen Yo for solo cello and processed field recordings, written for Amanda Gookin of PUBLIQuartet as part of her Forward Music Project, and featured in a TEDx talk; and Ulysses in 3, a collaboration with renowned jazz drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. as part of Park Avenue Armory’s Under Construction residency program. Joachim’s original compositions have been broadcast on NPR, WNYC, WQXR, Q2, J-Wave, Tokyo FM, FM Yokohama, and more. In addition, she has been featured in television segments on Saturday Night Live, The Late Show with David Letterman, Telemundo, BK Live, and The Daily Buzz, as well as an internationally broadcast ESPN Super Bowl commercial.
Ms. Joachim is an official Burkart Flutes & Piccolos artist, and has appeared as a concert soloist both in recital and with orchestra on stages throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, where she is represented by Village Again Records. Highlights include featured performances at the Newport Jazz Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Museum, Fukuoka Symphony Hall, National Flute Association Conventions, Gezmataz Genoa Jazz Festival, Symphony Space, Biwako Hall, Virginia Arts Festival, and WNYC’s Greene Space, among others.
She is an active educator of students of all ages and skill levels. Ms. Joachim is Director of Contemporary Chamber Music at the Perlman Music Program; is a guest teaching artist for The Juilliard-Nord Anglia Performing Arts Programme; and has held faculty positions at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She is a former flute faculty member at the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, and has coached chamber music for the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. Her youth education workshops, presented internationally with Flutronix, focus on creative collaboration and the use of traditional instruments in modern ways, including improvisation, extended techniques, and the integration of technology. At the university level, she has been presented as a music career lecturer and panelist, and has led masterclasses for the Juilliard School, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina School for the Arts, University of North Carolina Greensboro, University of the Arts, New York Flute Club, New England Conservatory, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and many other institutions across the country.
Joachim is a graduate of the Juilliard School, and was the first person to successfully complete the conservatory’s MAP, Pre-College, and College Division programs. Upon graduation, she was granted the first ever Juilliard InterArts Award for independently producing and presenting exceptional interdisciplinary arts performances involving music, dance, theater, and technology while pursuing her degree. She continued her graduate degree studies at the New School, where her focus was audio production and sound design.
When I was a young kid, my parents and I lived in New Jersey. Most weekends we would go to Delaware to visit my grandparents and whenever my grandfather was listening to music or working on something, he would whistle. My grandfather was an amazing whistler. It took me a while but eventually I was able to join in. This piece is about those memories and the memories I have of learning from people in my family.
The Whistler is on my new solo album “Places”. The music depicts quiet family moments, times of struggle, and resilience. With this new adaptation the piece will now be punctuated by other musical voices than my own and further shaped by the conductor using a gestural control device I’ve developed. If you get the urge to whistle with us at the end of the piece, feel free. Many years ago my Grandfather did so while I was playing Greensleeves with my high school orchestra, you’ll be in good company.
