In response to health and safety concerns, our show with A Winged Victory For The Sullen at Grace Cathedral on Thursday, April 16th has been cancelled. If you purchased tickets directly from Ticketmaster, you will be automatically refunded. Otherwise, refunds are available at point of purchase. Thank you for understanding and we apologize for the inconvenience.
This event is all ages.
$35.00 – General Admission (Fully Seated – First Come, First Serve)
*plus applicable service fees
Tickets are also available with a $5.00 service charge fee at the Fox Theater Box Office (open on show nights and on Fridays from noon – 7:00pm), and at The Independent Box Office (open on show nights and Monday through Friday from 11:00am – 6:00pm). Please note all ticket sales are subject to availability.
All doors & show times subject to change.
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A Winged Victory for the Sullen
A Winged Victory for the Sullen have nurtured a cult status over the past decade. The pair, made up of Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltzie, have carved out a grand, stirring sound amongst the so-called neoclassical and ambient world – tags which they don’t use themselves but with which they’ve inevitably become associated. Important innovators both in their own right and as a duo, they’ve separately had a hand in iconic film scores and game-changing ambient-classical groups. Their material together has produced a series of singular releases shaped by their unique collaborative process.
New album “The Undivided Five”, only their second piece of original music outside of film and stage commissions, sees them pay greater heed to the small details in their sound than previously, something they say has been encouraged by the move to a new label. They channel influences such as Debussy, nodded to in the opening track, whose big chords and complicated arrangements inform a lot of their approach. It took shape across eight different studios across Europe, including Brussels’ Eglise Du Beguinage, where Wiltzie has previously performed with Stars of the Lid, and where he organised a 2018 tribute concert for Jóhann Jóhannsson.
The direction of their new album was also shaped by their connection to Jóhannsson. They were asked to create a remix for him, which he heard before he died, where they unlocked a new process in terms of how they work. They recomposed the strings, using modular synthesis, old synths and string and piano arrangements, a method they applied to album opener ‘Our Lord Debussy’. “It’s about going into the DNA of music and taking different strands,” they say.
The start of recording sessions for the album were marred by the death of one of their closest friends. Within weeks after the funeral O’Halloran found out that he would be expecting his first child, and it was soon after that a visit to see the art of af Klint brought home a profound realisation of life, death, the afterlife, and the spaces in between. She belonged to a group called “The Five”, a circle of five women with a shared belief in the importance of trying to make contact with spirits, often by way of séances. This chimed with the duo’s unspoken approach to collaboration, and nudged them to return to their writing process centered around the harmonic perfect fifth; the five senses, the divine interval – The Undivided Five.
The album is their debut for Ninja Tune, and comes as change is underway for O’Halloran, moving from Berlin – hence the title of ‘Keep It Dark, Deutschland’ – after a decade in the German capital. He’s headed to Iceland, where the pair took their latest press shots and which is an important connection for both of them. The wide-spanning connections which have shaped the record are testament to their deep roots as artists. This album’s powerful energy is driven by the deep-rooted bond between them.
Clarice Jensen
Clarice Jensen is a composer and cellist based in Brooklyn, NYC who graduated with an MA from the prestigious Juilliard school. A versatile collaborator, Jensen has recorded and performed with a host of stellar artists including Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, Björk, Stars of the Lid, Dustin O’Halloran, Joanna Newsom, Nico Muhly, Owen Pallett, Arcade Fire, Jónsi, Tyondai Braxton, Dirty Projectors, Blonde Redhead, Frightened Rabbit, Beirut, and Nick Cave. In her role as the artistic director of ACME (the American Contemporary Music Ensemble), she has helped bring to life some of the most revered works of modern classical music, including pieces by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Gavin Bryars and more.
As a solo artist, Clarice has developed a distinctive compositional approach, improvising and layering her cello through shifting loops and a chain of electronic effects to open out and explore a series of rich, drone-based sound fields. Pulsing, visceral and full of colour, her work is deeply immersive, marked by a wonderful sense of restraint and an almost hallucinatory clarity. Meditative yet with a sculptural sharpness and rigour that sets it apart from the swathe of New Age / DIY droners, she has forged a very elegant and precise vision
Her music has been described by Self-Titled as “heavily processed, incredibly powerful neo-classical pieces that seem to come straight from another astral plane”; by Boomkat as “languorously void-touching ideas, scaling and sustaining a sublime tension”; whilst Bandcamp remarked upon “a kaleidoscope of pulsing movement rich in acoustic beating and charged with other psychoacoustic effects, constantly shifting in density and viscous timbre.”
Jensen’s striking debut album For This From That Will Be Filled was released in April 2018 on the Berlin-based label Miasmah and followed in September 2019 with the Drone Studies EP, a cassette release via Geographic North. Signing to FatCat’s 130701 imprint (Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hasuchka, Dustin O’Halloran, etc) in late Summer 2019, her sophomore album, The experience of repetition as death, is due for release in April 2020.