“America’s foremost new-music group” - Alex Ross

“bracing, illuminating, reassuring” - Financial Times

“the new gold standard for new music” - The New Yorker

“extraordinary” - New York Times

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is an artist collective devoted to transforming how music is made and heard. Working as performers, curators, educators and creative catalysts, ICE examines the ways new music connects with communities worldwide. Whether reaching students in schools or listeners in traditional and unconventional venues, ICE draws its audiences into the excitement of musical discovery.

ICE’s thirty-five musicians are showcased through thoughtfully curated concerts that highlight their virtuosity, adaptability and expressive depth. Members of ICE appear as soloists, chamber players, commissioners and partners alongside today’s leading musical artists. Since its founding in 2001, emerging composers have been at the heart of ICE’s programming. The ensemble’s recordings and digital platforms spotlight the many voices shaping music today.

Founded by flutist and MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase, ICE has earned the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and ASCAP/Chamber Music America’s Award for Adventurous Programming, and was named Musical America’s 2013 Ensemble of the Year. The group is currently ensemble-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Mostly Mozart Festival and previously completed a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. ICE has appeared at the Ojai Music Festival since 2015 and at international festivals including Acht Brücken Cologne and Musica Nova Helsinki. Recent performance venues also include the Park Avenue Armory, Nagoya Symphony Hall, ice floes during Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions and boats on the Amazon River.

Between 2011 and 2014, the ICElab program produced dozens of new works born from close collaborations between performers and composers. OpenICE, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, now shares the full range of ICE’s programming and commissioning with wider audiences worldwide through free concerts and online. The EntICE education project launched in 2015, pairing leading composers with youth ensembles to develop and perform new works alongside ICE. Inaugural EntICE partners include The People’s Music School Youth Orchestra (Chicago) and Youth Orchestra L.A. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE. Learn more at iceorg.org.

ICE Staff

Vanessa Rose, Executive Director
Claire Chase, flutist and Artistic Director (CEO)
Joshua Rubin, clarinetist and Co-Artistic Director
Jacob Greenberg, pianist and Director of Recordings and Digital Outreach
Rebekah Heller, bassoonist and Director of Individual Giving
Ross Karre, percussionist and Director of Production/digitICE.org
Maciej Lewandowski, Production and Operations Associate
Ryan Muncy, saxophonist, Director of Institutional Giving, and Co-Director OpenICE
Alice Teyssier, flutist, Artistic Operations Associate, and Co-Director OpenICE
Meredith Morgan, Director of Operations
Levy Lorenzo, Engineer and Technical Consultant
J Shim, Production Assistant