Katherine Young & Yarn/Wire

For this residency, Katherine Young and Yarn/Wire collaborate to create the outdoor installation and performance piece Biomes 4.0.

Katherine Young’s electroacoustic music and sonic art uses expressive noises, curious timbres, and kinetic structures. Collaboration is central to her practice. The LAPhil, Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Dal Niente, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, and others have commissioned her music. She has worked closely with Wet Ink, Ensemble Nikel, WasteLAnd, Linda Jankowska, and Oliva DePrato. Her installation work has been commissioned by the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. As a bassoonist and improviser, Katherine amplifies her instrument and employs a flexible electronics setup. She has documented her work on numerous recordings, including her debut with Sam Scranton as Beautifulish (out December 2020 on Shinkoyo) and a duo with Anthony Braxton. She teaches composition, improvisation, and electronic music at Emory University in Atlanta. Young is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition.

Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet dedicated to the promotion of creative, experimental new music. Described by The Brooklyn Rail as “fascinating and exciting, with playing that is precise and full of purpose,” the ensemble is admired globally for the energy and precision it brings to performances of today’s most adventurous compositions. Founded in 2005, the ensemble seeks to expand the representation of composers so that it might begin to better reflect our communities and experience new creative potential.

Yarn/Wire appears internationally at prominent festivals and venues including the Lincoln Center Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), Ultima Festival (Norway), Transit Festival (Belgium), Dublin SoundLab, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Contempuls Festival (Prague), Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York’s Miller Theatre at Columbia University, River-to-River Festival, La MaMa Theatre, Festival of New American Music, and London’s Barbican Centre. Their numerous commissions include works from composers such as Enno Poppe, Michael Gordon, George Lewis, Ann Cleare, Raphaël Cendo, Peter Evans, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Tristan Murail, Sam Pluta, Tyondai Braxton, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. The ensemble enjoys collaborations with genre-bending artists such as Tristan Perich, Ben Vida, Mark Fell, Sufjan Stevens, and Pete Swanson. For more information, visit www.yarnwire.org.