Amanda will present Forward Music Project 1.0 as part of the James Madison University Contemporary <usic Festival at the Forbes Center for Performing Arts.

New Yorkers, catch me and Allison Loggins-Hull playing our first live performance in over a year for Musical Storefronts! I’ll be playing a set of Forward Music Project commissions.

We can’t tell you the exact location, but you’ll find us just above Columbus Circle!

FMP Presents is an interactive series where mindfulness, storytelling, and music join together in an imaginative and meditative setting.

The first event is next Tuesday, September 22nd, when we celebrate the Autumn Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. This date also happens to be my birthday!

Storytelling and meditation led by Tanya Birl-Torres

Revolving around the theme of autoimmune disorders in women and its link to the suppression of truth, this story is witnessed through the body of a young black girl who has decided to fight “the system” within her own cells, weaving together her identity as she travels through time and across generations.

Music by Big Dog Little Dog (Jessie Montgomery, violin & Eleonore Oppenheim, bass)

Our improvised soundscape is based on the prompt Savasana. I used my background as a yoga practitioner and teacher to inform the structure of the music for this. In the Integral style Hatha Yoga, we have a practice called yoga nidra, or yogic sleep, that we do after the asana, or physical portion of the practice. In yoga nidra, we lie in savasana, or corpse pose, and we go through all of the koshas, or layers of the body-mind system, paying attention to each one in order from outermost to innermost, relaxing the physical body and mind systematically until the body is in a state of waking sleep, which allows it to repair itself like a battery recharging. For the structure of the improvisation, we are using this practice to dictate the structure of the music.

Celebrate Part II of Park Avenue Armory and National Black Theatre's "100 Years | 100 Women" project marking a century of women's suffrage and the World Premiere of Pamela Z’s FMP 3.0 work for cello and electronics, “And and And!”

Reflect the Times
Jannina Norpoth performs works for solo violin by Contemporary Black Composers and Amanda Gookin presents selections for solo cello that elevate stories of feminine empowerment through her initiative Forward Music Project. The two join composer Dameun Strange from American Composers Forum to talk about the practice that has led them to prioritize representation and social consciousness in their programming, commissioning, and performing.

PROGRAM:
Jessie Montgomery: Rhapsody No. 1
Jonathan Bailey Holland: Journal Entry
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR): Filter
Jannina Norpoth, violin

Allison Loggins-Hull: Stolen 
Angélica Negrón: Las Desaparecidas 
Leila Adu-Gilmore: For Edna
Amanda Gookin, cello

Hosted by The Kennedy Center and Dameun Strange, American Composers Forum

I’ll be performing two Forward Music Project works from my upcoming album on Bright Shiny Things’ virtual concert series, Room | to | Breathe.

Femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity is so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it.” This quote by Gwen Swap serves as inspiration for “Divine Feminine” in which we will break open your expectations of where femininity can thrive. 

Part of all proceeds will benefit Step Up (www.suwn.org), an organization that empowers girls to fulfill their potential. 

Forward Music Project 1.0 is officially out on July 10!

This project has been a long time coming. I commissioned these first seven FMP works in 2016 and finally recorded them last summer. So much has changed since then for my project, myself, and the world, but my attachment to this music only grows stronger.

Literal blood, sweat, pus, and tears went into the recording process. It was an enormous learning experience and I will carry this experience forward as FMP continues to grow. 

There is a long list of people to thank. Many are listed in the CD, but I would like to extend my gratitude here to the National Sawdust team, Garth MacAleavey, Mike Tierney, Bright Shiny Things, the fearless FMP composers, you generous donors, and my friends and family who supported me from the very beginning. I'd like to send love up to the sky to my mom, who would have been so proud to celebrate the work of these incredible women alongside me.

Recital Stream is a new platform for audiences and performers of classical music in response to the Coronavirus crisis. I’ll be performing a few works from Forward Music Project!

Program:

Leila Adu-Gilmore: For Edna

Allison Loggins-Hull: Stolen

Las Desaparecidas: Angélica Negrón

Dam mwen yo: Nathalie Joachim

Performing FMP 2.0 commission, SEETHING, by Shelley Washington

Amanda will give an early World Premiere of Pamela Z’s new work for Forward Music Project 3.0 as part of The Park Avenue Armory’s 100 Years | 100 Women Celebration of Commissions! This work is commissioned in part by National Sawdust.

Park Avenue Armory, with lead partner National Black Theatre, has invited ten New York City-based cultural institutions to join 100 Years |100 Women, a two-part, multidisciplinary initiative marking the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Together, this cohort of institutions—which includes the Apollo Theater; The Juilliard School; La MaMa Experimental Theatre Company; The Laundromat Project; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of the Moving Image; National Sawdust; New York University (Department of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts; Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity and Strategic Innovation; and Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture); and Urban Bush Women—is commissioning one hundred artists who self-identify as women to respond to this significant anniversary. The culminating event—a large gathering, showcase, and celebration of the commissions—will take place on May 16, 2020, in the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall and historic rooms.

"100 Years | 100 Women will launch on February 15, 2020, as part of the Armory’s annual “Culture in a Changing America” symposium—a day-long event hosted throughout the institution’s historic period rooms, featuring conversations, performances, and salons led by artists, activists, scholars, and civic and cultural leaders.”

National Sawdust will present Forward Music Project as part of a performance and panel discussion celebrating the Suffrage movement and artistic creation within the last century. 

4:00–5:30pm
Salons
Second Floor

I’ll be performing FMP commission, Veiled, by Niloufar Nourbakhsh as part of the 2020 Composers Now Festival kick-off event

Join Talea in an open conversation with Amanda Gookin and Bill Solomon on the role of gender in music programming & education.

How might an organization best approach its programming decisions to represent diverse gender identities in programming? How do our perceptions of music relate to perceptions of gender norms? And what are some resources available to performers, administrators, educators, and listeners when considering gender representation in today's music?

The conversation is free and open to all; please join us and share your thoughts and questions!

I’ll be representing Forward Music Project as a guest speaker on the panel, “Small and Mid-Sized Presenting: Scaling Classical Music Programming to Your Needs.”

Description:

Room: Hilton Concourse Level, Concourse E

Presenting classical music can pose unique challenges for small and mid-sized organizations. This session explores strategies for building a classical music audience, maintaining artistic quality despite budget limitations, and offering tactics for new classical music presenters. This interactive session will benefit presenters from all types of communities and organizational structures.

Cellist Amanda Gookin and viele player David McCormick join forces for a guided musical meditation featuring works of Hildegard von Bingen, Pauline Oliveros, and Ryan Keebaugh.

This experiential performance integrates live performance, vibration, nature sounds, and the breath in a musically-guided meditation inspired by the mystical medieval writings and music of Hildegard von Bingen and Deep Listening works by Pauline Oliveros. Participants will be invited to listen deeply as they are led through a series of exploratory meditations to center the listener’s energy as they focus their breath and reception to sound. Each participant will receive a sample of oil inspired by Hildegard’s herbalism writings and participants can breathe in the healing properties of herbs such as peppermint and rosemary while they settle into the warm vibrations of the cello. All are welcome and participants are encouraged to dress comfortably and bring a pillow, blanket, or yoga mat. 

Tribeca New Music presents LOST and FOUND

Featuring works by: Robert Honstein, Sam Suggs, Allison Loggins-Hull, and Shelley Washington

Mike Compitello, percussion

Sam Suggs, bass

Amanda Gookin, cello

In presenting the world premiere of Lost and Found Mike and Robert create a program that plays on the idea of things lost and discarded, but also on the collaborative spirit driving their process. The artists on this program - cellist Amanda Gookin, bassist Sam Suggs, and percussionist Mike Compitello - have worked together for years in many different contexts and their coming together represents a similar fusion of friendship and creativity.

The Kennedy Center presents National Sawdust as part of The REACH Opening Festival. I will perform works from Forward Music Project 1.0 and collaborate with Magos Herrera in a tribute to João Gilberto!

Student CoLab is National Sawdust’s flagship education program for middle school composers and artists. This performance is the culmination of a three-month program in music composition, film, and projection design, for young people at El Puente Beacon Leadership Program in Williamsburg. The program features National Sawdust Artist-in-Residence cellist Amanda Gookin (Forward Music Project). This multimedia concert features new music for cello, voice, and electronics, as well as video projection and film, all written, designed, and performed by students at MS50.

This year, Student CoLab took Amanda Gookin and S Katy Tucker’s Forward Music Project as the inspiration for the program. Forward Music Project is a multimedia project driven by social justice and empowerment for women and girls. Using the same format and principles of collaboration, and drawing upon similar themes of justice, gender, and empowerment, young people have created all of the new music, film, and visuals which you will experience at this performance.

This journey of artistic discovery and self expression empowers young people to have a voice on issues that affect them, while also enabling them to explore and fulfill their potential as a creative beings.

Amanda will perform works from Forward Music Project as part of the 2019 Rotterdam Art Music Festival. ROAM presents "Classical music of today: adventurous, innovative, and free from convention."

Two sets at 3:00 + 4:00 PM
EUROPEAN PREMIERES:
Niloufar Nourbakhsh: Veiled for cello and electronics (2018)
Shelley Washington: SEETHING for cello and kick drum (2019)
Amanda Feery: Stray Sods for cello and electronics (2016)
Jessica Meyer: Swerve for cello and loop pedal (2016)

I am honored to be a featured National Sawdust artist on the opening night performance of Classical:NEXT in Rotterdam!

The Opening Ceremony of 2019 Classical:NEXT is curated by Composer and National Sawdust Artistic Director, Paola Prestini, and produced by Holly Hunter, Director of National Sawdust Projects. This night will feature Deep Listening led by IONE as developed by composer Pauline Oliveros, Amanda Gookin's Forward Music Project with visuals by S Katy Tucker, National Sawdust Hildegard Award-winner Emma O'Halloran, short film "Kipatsi, Nija, Añaantsi (Land, Water, Life)," directed by filmmaker Murat Eyuboglu, and a live performance by Peruvian composer/performer Pauchi Sasaki.

Performing Forward Music Project 2.0 commission “Veiled” for cello and electronics by Niloufar Nourbakhsh as part of the Emruz Festival celebrating contemporary Iranian artists.

Featuring:

Paola Prestini: “To Tell a Story” for cello and electronics (FMP 2.0 commission)

Paola Prestini: “Body Maps” for cello and voice

Nathalie Joachim: “Dam Mwen Yo” for cello and electronics

The Kennedy Center presents Forward Music Project in collaboration with video artist, Katy Tucker as part of DIRECT CURRENT and National Sawdust Projects.

In the face of division, hashtags, and soundbites, Forward Music Project 2.0: In This Skin commissions five new multimedia works for solo cello and provides space and time for audiences to listen deeply to, interact with, and contemplate the visceral joys and struggles of women.

World Premieres:

Alex Temple: “Tactile” for cello and vocal effects

Paola Prestini: “To Tell A Story” for cello and electronics

Kamala Sankaram: “Belly” for cello and electronics

Niloufar Nourbakhsh: “Veiled” for cello and electronics

Shelley Washington: “SEETHING” for cello and kick drum

This experiential performance integrates cello, vibration, nature sounds, and the breath in a musically-guided meditation inspired by the mystical medieval writings and music of Hildegard von Bingen and Deep Listening works by Pauline Oliveros. Participants will be invited to listen deeply as they are led through a series of exploratory meditations to center the listener’s energy as they focus their breathe and reception to sound. Each participant will receive a sample of oil inspired by Hildegard’s herbalism writings and participants can breath in the healing properties of herbs such as peppermint and rosemary while they settle in to the warm vibrations of the cello. All are welcome and participants are encouraged to dress comfortably and bring a pillow, blanket, or yoga mat. 

Day-long residency with the music students at Georgetown University participating in reading sessions, conversations on activism in music and concert programming, plus a performance of Forward Music Project!