A very special announcement from TAK Ensemble ..read more

Charlotte and Madison speak with poet, playwright, educator, actor, producer, and director Modesto "Flako" Jimenez about his site-specific theatre work originally inspired by his Bushwick neighborhood, Taxilandia, and multidisciplinary theatrical work Mercedes. for more about ¡Oye! Group: https://www.oyegroup.org/ About Flako: https://www.flakojimenez.com/ Photos from brooklyn gypsy taxi flow series: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/bgtflow/?hl=en for more about TAK: http://takensemble.com Our March 2 show: https://www.cprnyc.org/events/tak-ensemble-nothing-but-a-puff-of-wind David Bird ..read more

On this episode, Charlotte speaks with composer and performer Kurt Rohde and visual artist Marie Lorenz about the site-specific opera Newtown Odyssey, written for and about NYC's Newtown Creek. for more about the opera: https://www.newtownodyssey.com/ About Kurt Rohde: https://www.kurtrohde.com/ About Marie Lorenz: http://www.marielorenz.com/ Support your artistic ecosystem by donating to TAK 's year-end fundraiser. Get great perks like meditation tracks, tutorials, and TAK merch: www.takensemble.com/support ..read more

On this episode, Charlotte speaks with composer and performer Kamala Sankaram about her recent site-specific works. 'The Buried Brook' is a soundwalk that follows the currently buried Tibbets Brook in the Bronx, and 'The Last Stand' is an experimental opera and sound installation for trees. About Kamala Sankaram: https://www.kamalasankaram.com/ Hear the new album Bombay Rickey: https://bombayrickey.bandcamp.com/album/bombay-rickey Support your artistic ecosystem by donating to TAK 's year-end fundraiser. Get great perks like meditation tracks, tutorials, and TAK merch: https://www.takensemble ..read more

On this episode, Charlotte and Laura speak with Bryan Jacobs in advance of TAK’s premiere of his piece ‘Organic Synthesis Volume 2’ on Thursday Dec. 7, 2023. To hear more of Bryan’s music, go to https://soundcloud.com/bryanjacobs-1 Please contribute to TAK’s year-end fundraiser at http://takensemble.com/support Our upcoming concert, Machine Tongue, featuring ‘Organic Synthesis Volume 2’, ‘In a Forest’ by Michelle Lou and ‘la quemadura es el lenguaje con que juro…’ by Andres Guadarrama will be on Thurs. Dec. 7 at 8pm, at 580 Sackett St. Brooklyn NY, tickets are pay-what-you-can ..read more

Announcing TAK's newest release, Love Crystal and Stone! Ashkan Behzadi’s composition stretches musical lyricism to its limit, imagining an impossibly radical, revolutionary folk music that pushes the individual and collective virtuosity of TAK ensemble to new heights. This concert length work is a sensual, intricately interwoven, and deeply philosophical setting of the poetry of Federico García Lorca. The CD is housed inside a book featuring paintings by Mehrdad Jafari, an original essay by Saharnaz Samaeinejad, poetry by Federico García Lorca & translations by Ahmad Shamlou. Pre-order th ..read more

“My belief is that music was sort of a mediation between humanity and the wild world; a way of speaking back to the world that speaks so many languages.” In this week’s episode, Charlotte and Laura speak with Nina Dante and Bethany Younge about their album Lizard Tongue, released a year ago on TAK Editions. We talk about intimacy with collaborators, listeners and nature; what fulfilling collaborations can look like and advice for non-male people working in the male-dominated realm of music technology. The music in this episode comes from Lizard Tongue. To listen to the album, head to: https ..read more

On this episode we’re celebrating Star Maker Fragment’s birthday with vocalist and composer Jeffrey Gavett! A founding member of Loadbang and Ekmeles, and longtime collaborator of Taylor Brook, Jeff joins Taylor and Charlotte to talk about microtonal music, collaboration and digital nonsense. Star Maker Fragments: https://takensemble.bandcamp.com/album/star-maker-fragments Jeffrey Gavett: https://jeffreygavett.com/ Microtonal tools: https://www.steinberg.net/dorico/ https://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/ https://www.plainsound.org/ https://www.modartt.com/pianoteq The Machine Stops by Taylor Br ..read more

Charlotte and Laura speak with Eric Wubbels about the piece he's writing for TAK, titled 'Interbeing'. They talk about making music that responds on a deep level to what's going on in the world, about how debating with friends helps you to forge your own creative voice, how food relates to music, and many other things. We're giving the first public performance of 'Interbeing' this Saturday, May 21 at 8pm at the Dimenna Center! Tickets are PWYC and can be reserved here : https://www.takensemble.com/interbeing Eric's selected bibliography for Interbeing includes: Rirkrit Tiravanija- pad thai ; U ..read more

In this episode, we’re continuing a series of episodes focused on tuning practices, in celebration of Star Maker Fragment’s first birthday! Today, Marina and Taylor speak with musicologist Jatin Mohan. Jatin is a Fulbright Scholar from New Delhi, India, studying at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research focuses on comparing tuning practices in Hindustani classical music and western music. The music featured at the beginning and end of this episode is Raag Multani (Vilambit Khayal), performed by Dr. Parminder Singh. The clip in the middle is from Debashish Bhattacharya's album, 'Calcutta Slide ..read more