Lavinia Meijer (harp), Clarice Jensen (cello), Caimin Gilmore (double bass)
GROUNDTONE (Day 4)
GROUNDTONE closes with an evening of new music featuring stellar soloists from Europe and the Hudson Valley, a US premiere, and much more.
PS21 and New Amsterdam Records present an international double bill featuring music and performances from American cellist/composer Clarice Jensen & Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer, culminating in the US premiere of BlackGate, by Irish composer Caimin Gilmore.
Jensen, whose album The experience of repetition as death was described by NPR as “among the great ambient albums of the 21st century,” here presents preview material from her forthcoming new record.
Meijer, one of the foremost harp players in Europe, regularly appears on the biggest classical stages in the world & holds the distinction as the only classical artist to have hit the top 10 in the Dutch album charts with three consecutive albums.
Gilmore, a double bassist & member of new music group Crash Ensemble, is celebrating the release of his debut album BlackGate on New Amsterdam & Ten Spot Records (IRL), August 1st. The work will receive a series of special US performances from Jensen & Meijer in July. Gilmore is currently touring the US with Irish band Ye Vagabonds & has performed on over 40 albums, including releases from Leonard Cohen & Damon Albarn, but here emerges with BlackGate as a major new Irish compositional voice.
PROGRAM
Set I Lavinia Meijer solo harp
Works by Lavinia Meijer and Phillip Glass
Set II Clarice Jensen solo cello & effects pedals
Works from Jensen’s forthcoming album In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness due for release on FatCat/130701 October, 2025
Set III US Premiere of BlackGate by Caimin Gilmore
With cellist Clarice Jensen, harpist Lavinia Meijer, and electronics
Photo credits left to right: Juri Hiensch, Steph Larsen, ?
GROUNDTONE is PS21’s new, four-day weekend of immersive concerts and adventurous music.
A sonic exploration of PS21’s untamed natural landscape, the festival invites listeners to experience dazzling performances and site-specific creations by visionary, genre-defying artists in settings across our grounds.
Part of Upstate Art Weekend, each day will include free performances, workshops, open rehearsals, and community music making open to all. Highlights include Lina Lapelytė’s immersive installation Study of Slope and ticketed concerts each evening.
Written for cello, double bass, harp & DX7, Caimin Gilmore was recorded by Meijer, Gilmore & Irish cellist Kate Ellis (Crash Ensemble, Martin Hayes) in 2024. It had its world premiere at Kilkenny Arts Festival (IRL) & subsequent performance at New Music Dublin Festival in the National Concert Hall of Ireland this year. It will receive its US premiere on July 21st at PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance (Chatham), with a special rearrangement of the work including Lavinia Meijer & Clarice Jensen.
BlackGate, is a cross-genre piece reflecting & encapsulating Gilmore’s multifaceted career across a spectrum of styles, from contemporary music to pop, classical and folk. Gilmore’s playing & music has been described as:
“Caimin Gilmore’s upright bass-playing was reminiscent of Danny Thompson’s work, fluid and sunlit.” —The Spectator
“Discovering this EP is like discovering you actually breathe. You simply can’t live without it.” —Folk Radio UK
Ahead of its general release, 1st August, on New Amsterdam Records (USA) & Ten Spot Records (IRL), a limited number of 10” pre-sale vinyl’s & cassettes will be available exclusively for audiences at PS21.
Born in South Korea and adopted at the age of 2, Lavinia Meijer is now based in the Netherlands. At only 9 years old, she started to play the harp. She studied at the conservatories of Utrecht (she was admitted to the conservatory at the age of 11) and Amsterdam, receiving her BA and MA with the highest distinction. Aged only 14, Lavinia Meijer was already performing with symphony orchestras. Her passion to broaden the possibilities of the harp is noteworthy. Not only does Mrs. Meijer search for rare classical solo & orchestral repertoire, she is also always on the alert for contemporary music possibilities, performing together with Òlafur Arnalds and others. She performs pieces by Radiohead in classical venues to great artistic and critical acclaim and enjoys commercial success for her albums. Ms Meijer tours extensively all over the world in classical and rock venues and at outdoor festivals. Ms Meijer has received numerous awards, including 2 gold discs and a certified platinum disc for the album Metamorphosis / The Hours with pieces by the acclaimed American composer, Philip Glass.
Ms. Meijer has performed on international stages such as Carnegie Hall, NYC; Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Paradiso, Amsterdam; Musikverein, Vienna; Carré, Amsterdam; Philharmonie, Berlin, Cité de la Musique, Paris; Bronfman Auditorium,Tel Aviv; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and Seoul Arts Center. As a featured soloist she has performed harp concertos with renowned orchestras such as Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, working with such leading conductors as Andrew Grams, Thierry Fischer, Charles Floyd, Frans Brüggen, Hannu Lintu, and Marco Boni. Ms. Meijer played Bryce Dessner’s exciting piece Aheym as the special chosen guest artist of Kronos Quartet and Mr. Dessner pledged to write her a new composition.
Lavinia Meijer is the only classical artist to have hit the top 10 in the Dutch rock album charts with three consecutive albums. She starred in a TV commercial for the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum in 2015. Her albums Passaggio and Voyage were recorded in Berlin by the noted Tonmeister and 15x Grammy Award winner, Andreas Neubronner. Recently she released both Voyage, her seventh solo album with music by Debussy, Tiersen, Satie and Ravel, a live-recording with bandoneonist, Carel Kraayenhof: In Concert and The Glass Effect, to celebrate Philip Glass’s 80th birthday in 2017.
Clarice Jensen is a composer and cellist based in New York who graduated with a BM and MM from the Juilliard School. 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 color, her work is deeply immersive, marked by a wonderful sense of restraint and an almost hallucinatory clarity. Meditative yet with a sculptural sharpness and rigor 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, Hauschka, Dustin O’Halloran, etc.) in late summer 2019, her sophomore album The experience of repetition as death was released April 2020. Naming it among the top 50 albums of 2020, NPR remarked “This collection of requiems for a dying mother ranks among the great ambient albums of the 21st century.” Her latest album Esthesis was released in October 2022 and NPR ranked it among the Best Experimental Albums of the Year. Boomkat stated, “Jensen finds a fine line between in-the-moment, tactile precision and lingering hallucinatory afterimages that emerge from her improv/compositional system. The pieces betray an exquisite depth of feeling in Jensen’s diffractive rendering of shimmering layers and gently transitory movements,” with Magnetic Magazine reporting, “There is no doubt this album will impact people profoundly.”
Caimin Gilmore is a member of Irish new music group Crash Ensemble. He has recorded or shared the stage with:
Zach Condon, Squarepusher, Bernard Butler, Shahzad Ismaily, The Staves, Justin Vernon, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Thomas Bartlett, Anais Mitchell, Phoebe Bridgers, Dirty Projectors, Kate Stables, Tom Fleming, Alabaster de Plume, Sam Amidon, Greg Saunier, Dionne Warwick, s t a r g a z e & Irish acts Gavin James, Dermot Kennedy, Colm Mac Iomaire, Lisa Hannigan, Damien Dempsey, Kodaline, Loah, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds, John Francis Flynn, Jessy Buckley, Cormac Begley, John Sheahan, Tolü Makay, Niamh Regan, David Kitt, Anna Mieke, Rachel Lavelle, Saint Sister, Ships, Stephen James Smith, Participant, Lemoncello, Niamh Bury & Hard Rain Ensemble. He performs regularly with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland & celebrated Irish Dance Company Teac Damsa.
