The Newspeak program on June 11 will include a world premiere by Fiery Furnaces frontman Matt Friedberger. This is the first time in Wordless Music history that a member of the rock band is writing a piece for the classical ensemble.
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The Fiery Furnaces are an inventive and often challengingly experimental rock group from Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Oak Park, Illinois — a suburb of Chicago — they consist of the brother and sister team of Matthew Friedberger and Eleanor Friedberger.
Newspeak is an eight-piece amplified ensemble working under the direction of composer David T. Little and clarinetist Eileen Mack. Named after the though-limiting language in George Orwell’s 1984, Newspeak explores the grey area where art and politics mix. Through their programming, performances, and commissions, they seek to reconsider, redefine, and ultimately reclaim the notion of socially engaged music and its place in contemporary society. Embedding elements of a rock band into a classical new music ensemble, Newspeak confronts the boundaries between the classical and the rock traditions.
Newspeak is utterly committed to the music of living composers; to commissioning, work-shopping, developing and performing new works, and to encouraging composers to find their own voice in engaging with musical and social issues. Since 2004, they have commissioned and premiered more than thirty works, each engaging differently with the problem of the political in music, and primarily from American composers. They have proudly shared bills with such diverse groups as The Fiery Furnaces, Anti-Social Music, Pit Er Pat, Electric Kompany, STATS, Time of Orchids, The Motion Sick, Massey, NOW Ensemble, So Percussion, ACME, and Corey Dargel. They are currently preparing to record their first studio album for New Amsterdam Records.
