Solo works and duo improv for violin and saxophone from Modney and Ingrid Laubrock, including Modney’s new work Ascender. Although they have played in each other’s bands, tonight marks the acclaimed experimentalists’ first duo performance.

Josh Modney (b.1985, Albany, N.Y.) is a violinist and composer working at the nexus of composition, improvisation, and interpretation. A highly detailed relationship to sound production on the violin is foundational to Modney’s creative practice, with a particular interest in complex timbres, Just Intonation, and in exploring the perceptual space between improvisation and notation. He has worked closely with leading composers of his generation including Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Eric Wubbels, Tristan Perich, and Rick Burkhardt, and with major figures including Kaija Saariaho, Mathias Spahlinger, Helmut Lachenmann, George Lewis, and Pauline Oliveros. Modney’s releases include Ascending Primes (Pyroclastic Records); Near to Each (Carrier Records), featuring Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe, and Mariel Roberts; Engage (New Focus), his debut solo release; and an album of improvised chamber music with guitarist Patrick Higgins, EVRLY MVSIC (NNA Tapes). Modney is the violinist and executive director of the composer-performer collective Wet Ink Ensemble, a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, and a former member and co-founder of the Mivos Quartet.

Ingrid Laubrock (b.1970, Stadtlohn, Germany) is an experimental saxophonist and composer based in Brooklyn since 2009. She is interested in exploring the borders between musical realms and creating multi-layered, dense and often evocative sound worlds. Laubrock has performed with Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jason Moran, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Mary Halvorson, Tom Rainey, Tim Berne, Dave Douglas, and many others. Awards include a Fellowship in Jazz Composition by the Arts Foundation, SWR German Radio Jazz Prize, and the German Record Critics Quarterly Award. She was named Rising Star Soprano Saxophonist in the 2015 DownBeat Annual Critics Poll and Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist in 2018. Laubrock is one of the recipients of the 2019 Herb Alpert Ragdale Prize in Music Composition and has received composing commissions from the Shifiting Foundation, the Jerwood Foundation, American Composers Orchestra, Tricentric Foundation, SWR New Jazz Meeting, the Jazz Gallery Commissioning Series, NYSCA, Wet Ink, John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series, and the Eos Orchestra.

Presented in partnership with the Graham Foundation