Ensemble Decipher: Cat’s Cradle

For the opening of its 2023-24 season, Ensemble Decipher will continue its principal mission of highlighting incredible compositional voices working with new and vintage technologies by premiering a new work by Bora Yoon commissioned by the ensemble featuring a giant, electronically interactive version of the classic string-based game cat’s cradle. Decipher will also present works that have grown out of interdisciplinary collaborations with other artists and technologists, including the New York premieres of new works commissioned from composer-performer Erin Rogers and Lyn Goeringer and the world premiere of an expanded version of their co-created dance work with Iranian-American choreographer Hiva Sedaghat titled The Sound Sleep Has Been Shattered.Ensemble Decipher Joseph Bohigian laptop, papier-mâché, tethers, keyboard Robert Cosgrove laptop, tethers, percussion Eric Lemmon laptop, tethers, live mixing Chelsea Loew laptop, egg orb, tethers, vocals Taylor Long laptop, cow rib bone, tethers, percussion Niloufar Nourbakhsh laptop, planchette, tethers, no-input mixing and feedbackGuest collaborator Hiva Sedaghat choreographer, dance performerEnsemble Decipher is a modular, experimental music group that performs with vintage, contemporary, and emerging technologies. Founded in 2017 by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, the ensemble strives to redefine performer virtuosity by drawing on the technological advancements of our time to highlight new voices and ways of listening. Ensemble Decipher seeks to reflect on and challenge the power structures that lace the field of electronic music by reexamining technology’s role in their performance practice. Recent works commissioned by the group have mobilized network technologies, amplified gardening, machine learning, kinetic sculptures, acoustic instruments, and laptops.Ensemble Decipher has collaborated with notable composers and technologists including Mari Kimura, Margaret Schedel, Daria Semegen, Kamala Sankaram, Erin Rogers, Jose Tomás Henriques, Mara Helmuth, Yaz Lancaster, Paul Leary, Lyn Goeringer, and Lainie Fefferman and premiered works by many others. Recent feature performances include concerts at the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, International Computer Music Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Network Music Festival, New Music Gathering, Earth Day Art Model, and an ensemble residency at the New Music for Strings Festival in Denmark. Current members include Joseph Bohigian, Robert Cosgrove, Eric Lemmon, Chelsea Loew, Taylor Long, and Niloufar Nourbakhsh.