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RECENT MEDIA
March 27, 2022 - Cincinnati Business Courier
REVIEW: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's ‘Symphonie fantastique’ electrifies
by Janelle Gelfand
"Louis Langrée, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, has been making up for lost time. Because the pandemic postponed the performances of so many premieres, this season has had an abundance of them.On Friday night, Langrée opened with the CSO’s premiere of “Herald, Holler and Hallelujah!” by jazz great Wynton Marsalis. The program’s centerpiece was the world premiere of “Nine Mothers,” an engaging work by Kinds of Kings, a composer collective."
https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2022/03/27/csos-symphonie-fantastique-electrifies.html
December 11, 2019 - National Sawdust Log
inside national sawdust:
kinds of kings in residence
by Vanessa Ague
"At their 2019-20 season-opening concert at Brooklyn’s Roulette in October, the composer collective Kinds of Kings presented an eclectic set of new works for saxophone ensemble. Sounds spanned pulsating repetitions, powerful smashes, dissonant odes, haunting melodies, unabashed loudness, and deafening quietude. They told stories—of barren wastelands, social injustices, the roiling ocean."
https://nationalsawdust.org/thelog/2019/12/11/inside-national-sawdust-kinds-of-kings-in-residence/
November 6, 2019 - i care if you listen
~Nois Celebrates Music by Kinds of Kings at Roulette
by Aaron Wolff
"~Nois presented a set of commissions from the US-based collective Kinds of Kings, a group of composers that focuses on amplifying and advocating for under-heard voices in the music world. According to founding member Gemma Peacocke, Kinds of Kings is “a celebration of creativity and individuality.” This ideology was not only reflected in the variety of musical voices on the program, but also animated the space itself: each individual composer felt celebrated by their friends, fans, collaborators, and fellow composers who showed up to Roulette that evening."
https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2019/11/nois-kinds-of-kings-roulette/
July 24, 2019 - National Sawdust
kinds of kings residency
2019-20
"Disruptions to the status quo can trigger positive changes that result in a new equilibrium. This notion inspired Kinds of Kings’ residency project, Equilibrium and Disturbance. Over the course of four concerts, each of the group’s members will develop original compositions while building new relationships with underrepresented voices in the wider New York community."
https://nationalsawdust.org/kinds-of-kings/
April 3, 2019 - i care if you listen
Active listening #5: Towers by Shelley Washington
by Lior Willinger
“Towers is for me, and for all those who reside in their own stronghold. Though we often feel confined to our own separate spires in our own separate kingdoms, I know that someday we’ll all be able to come down. Slowly but surely, we will all rise together.”
January 28, 2019 - The New Yorker
the female gaze
by Steve Smith
Fresh Squeezed Opera, now in its fifth season, has earned a reputation for ingenuity and inclusiveness by championing contemporary works that represent a broad range of creators, viewpoints, and styles. The company’s latest offering, “The Female Gaze,” showcases chamber-scale multimedia works by the composers Whitney George (who also conducts), Gabrielle Herbst, and Gemma Peacocke—each one addressing women’s roles in society and in the operatic genre from an explicitly female perspective.
https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/classical-music/the-female-gaze-4
January 14, 2019 - Broadway World
National Sawdust Doubles Down On Core Traits In 2019 Season
by BWW Newsdesk
New Zealand-born composer and co-founder of the composer collective Kinds of Kings Gemma Peacocke celebrates the release of Waves & Lines on New Amsterdam Records at National Sawdust on International Women's Day. Peacocke adapted Waves & Lines from Eliza Griswold's acclaimed collection of landays - female Afghan folk poems passed down in secret as a sung oral tradition - translated into English, I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from contemporary Afghanistan.
January 7, 2019 - American Composers Forum
My Brain Is a Definite Patchwork”: JFund Awardee Shelley Washington
by Michael Cyrs
What kind of mind does it take to compose such pieces? “My brain often doesn’t let me get from A to B without stopping at A.1 or A.2 along the way,” explains saxophonist and JFund awardee Shelley Washington.
https://composersforum.org/my-brain-is-a-definite-patchwork-jfund-awardee-shelley-washington/
December 25, 2018 - The Movers and Makers Podcast
Portrait Interview of Maria Kaoutzani
by Michal Raymond Massoud
An interview with composer Maria Kaoutzani featuring recordings of her work.
October 17, 2018 - The New Yorker
desdemona quartet
by Steve Smith
Any composers’ collective is meant to bolster and sustain the voices of its individual constituents. For the members of Kinds of Kings—Susanna Hancock, Emma O’Halloran, Shelley Washington, Finola Merivale, Maria Kaoutzani, and Gemma Peacocke, distinguished young creators who work in diverse styles—strength in numbers also amplifies their mission of providing visible, vocal support to composers who are underrepresented in conventional concert-music life because of their gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The collective’s first joint presentation in New York features this excellent young quartet, in works inspired by mortality, race, and the historical marginalization of women.
https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/classical-music/desdemona-quartet
October 1, 2018 - Adagio for Things
There will be milkshakes: gemma peacocke
by loudBOX PROduction
On today's episode, Michael chats with Gemma Peacocke, a rising composer who has a compositional voice full of authenticity and a heart of gold.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/adagio-for-things/id1436131597?mt=2#
July 20, 2018 - Columbia Tribune
Signal fire: Festival composer seizes chances to innovate, advocate
by Aarik Danielsen
The cry of hearts broken yet united rises up within “Skirl,” the piece Gemma Peacocke will premiere at next week’s Mizzou International Composers Festival.
The word “means both the shrill sound of a bagpipe and the keening of the bereaved,” the New Zealand-born, New Jersey-based composer said in an email.
In her piece, as in much of the music Peacocke composes, the weight of history intersects with a moment’s urgency; mind, soul and body connect to make a sound both glorious and devastating.
July 12, 2018 - National Sawdust Log
Shelley Washington and Gemma Peacocke: Confronting Sexism from Male Allies
by John Hong with interviews with Gemma Peacocke and Shelley Washington and a cameo by Emma O'Halloran
June 13, 2018 - i care if you listen
Silent Voices, Sounding Alarms
by Rebecca Lentjes with mentions of Gemma Peacocke and Shelley Washington
June 1, 2018 - New York Times
This Week: Harry Styles Goes Soft Rock; ‘Dietland’ Dishes Feminist Revenge
This week, the storied Brooklyn venue Roulette features two concerts of music by rising composers that powerfully interrogate issues of gender and identity [...] On Wednesday, “Erasure” transforms a portrait concert of five visceral works by Gemma Peacocke into a broader, staged exploration of women’s experiences, with pieces that delve into themes like rage, marginalization and abuse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/arts/harry-styles-tour-dietland-amc.html
May 24, 2018 - National Sawdust Log
Gemma Peacocke: Reaching New Audiences Through Collective Action
by Rebecca Lentjes
New Zealand-born, Princeton-based composer Gemma Peacocke explores sound worlds that combine acoustic and electronic sound, including her song cycle Waves + Lines, which is based on female-authored Afghan folk poems, and the soundtrack and sound design for Undrown’d, a play about asylum seekers held in offshore detention centers.
On June 6, Roulette will present an evening of Peacocke’s chamber works, including three NYC premieres and one world premiere. She recently took the time to tell National Sawdust Log about her motivations and aspirations, and the concert program just ahead.
https://nationalsawdust.org/thelog/2018/05/24/gemma-peacocke/
May 24, 2018 - KMUC
Mizzou Music: Gemma Peacocke
by Aaron Hay
On this week’s episode of Mizzou Music, we’re joined by composer Gemma Peacocke. She’ll be a guest composer at the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival from July 23 to the 28. We discuss some of her past works and what we can expect to hear at this summer’s festival.
http://kmuc.org/post/mizzou-music-gemma-peacocke-0#stream/0
Apr 20, 2018 - Rehearsal Magazine
Waves + Lines
Madi Chwasta chats with the US-based composer Gemma Peacocke, as well as Tamara Kohler and Kaylie Melville from the ensemble Rubiks Collective, about Gemma's work, Waves + Lines, the role of women in classical music, and the advice they'd give to young musicians.
http://rehearsalmagazine.com/podcast/waves-lines-episode-1
Apr 10, 2018 - Cut Common
Gemma Peacocke composes the poems of oppressed women
by Stephanie Eslake
It's a concept that moved Gemma Peacocke to compose a new musical work. This New Zealand-born and New Jersey-based composer wrote her Waves + Lines song cycle in 2017. It was premiered in Brooklyn. Now, it'll be presented by Rubiks Ensemble at the Metropolis New Music Festival on 20 April.
https://www.cutcommonmag.com/gemma-peacocke-composes-the-poems-of-oppressed-women/