Echoi_Contemporary_Music_Ensemble

Plural of Echos (Greek: ἤχος, IPA: ['ixos]), Echoi denotes the building blocks of melody in Byzantine Music, akin to the modes of Western medieval music or the Arabian maqam.

Initially conceived at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2005 as a laboratory for confronting the challenges posed by the contemporary chamber repertoire, Echoi has become one of the United States’ premiere young contemporary ensembles. Consisting of six soloists who first collaborated as members of Oberlin’s maverick Contemporary Music Ensemble, Echoi has been featured in performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Symphony Space in Manhattan and the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo. With the guidance of mentor Tim Weiss, the ensemble establishes creative autonomy through careful collective score study and intensive rehearsal, allowing it to render authoritative interpretations of demanding works without the aid of a conductor.

Echoi has often collaborated with living composers. In 2007, the sextet was featured in Oberlin’s Electronic Music Festival, where it premiered Mario Diaz de Leon’s 8.8.06, written especially for the group. The same year, Echoi commissioned and premièred Lewis Nielson’s acclaimed trio Iskra at the American Composers Association Festival of American Music in New York City. As a result of this mutually rewarding relationship, Nielson is writing a sextet for Echoi to be premiered in 2008. In 2006, the group was ensemble in residence in Jason Eckardt’s four-month New Music Workshop, where the members lectured and coached composers on the use of contemporary instrumental techniques. Echoi’s future engagements include residencies at Oberlin Conservatory and SUNY Buffalo’s Center for 21st Century Music.

Reuniting to rehearse and produce programs at various times during the year, the ensemble performs works of various formations (from full sextet to solo repertoire) allowing for diverse and fresh programs. The group’s name is an allusion to Lukas Foss’ 1960s work of the same title that combines elements of both the European Avant-Garde and American Experimentalist traditions – two institutions that we hope to carry into the 21st century. Because of the importance of repertoire choice to the group and the listening challenges it poses, Echoi undertakes efforts to educate its audience about the composers and the works, through self-composed program notes or pre-concert discussions.

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