Regarded as “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), TAK delivers energetic performances "that combine crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex” (The WIRE), and “impresses with the organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity” (New Sounds, WQXR).  

Founded on the principles of curiosity, change, and co-creation, TAK is dedicated to the commissioning of new works and direct collaboration with composers and other artists and they have premiered hundreds of works to date. The ensemble has released seven albums to critical acclaim, launching their in-house media label, TAK editions, in 2019, on which they have released several albums and seasons of the TAK editions Podcast.

TAK has been in residence at institutions such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, The Delian Academy for New Music, and recently concluded their year-long post as University of Pennsylvania’s Long-term Ensemble in Residence.

The 22-23 season marked TAK’s 10th anniversary, which celebrated a decade of cultivating creative programming at the highest level. Upcoming projects include new commissions from Jessie Cox, Bryan Jacobs, Ann Cleare, Weston Olencki, Elaine Mitchener, Seth Cluett, and ongoing collaborations with Eric Wubbels and DM R with Joy Guidry. Recent collaborations have included evening-length works by Michelle Lou, Mario Diaz de Leon, Taylor Brook, Brandon Lopez, and Ashkan Behzadi;  theater works with David Bird and Kelsey Tortsveit, TELE-violet theater company, Taylor Brook, and Alec Hall and Joshua Gelb; and concert pieces by Tyshawn Sorey, Bethany Younge, Natacha Diels, Erin Gee, Hannah Kendall, Julien Malaussena, Bara Gisladóttir, Lewis Nielson, Julio Zúñiga, and may other esteemed and wonderful composers and artists.

TAK is Laura Cocks, flute; Madison Greenstone, clarinet; Charlotte Mundy, voice; Marina Kifferstein, violin; Ellery Trafford, percussion.

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TAK’s operations occur on Lenape lands—Lenapehoking; we acknowledge the Lenape as the original people of this land and their continuing relationship with their territory.

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UNFATHOMABLE LINES

This virtuosic and visceral constellation of works written for the ensemble comprise TAK’s hallmark repertoire. Each work represents several years of close collaboration with the composer and dozens of performances, making TAK’s performance of these works singularly precise, energetic, and intense.

Second Nightmare for KIKU - Natacha Diels

Mouthpiece 28 - Erin Gee

Ornations - Tyshawn Sorey

Arqueros - Ashkan Behzadi

Series Imposture - David Bird

STAR MAKER FRAGMENTS

A concert-length work described as "sublime art... a masterpiece" (AnEarful), Star Maker Fragments evocatively renders socio-political explorations depicted in Olaf Stapleton's science-fiction masterpiece, Star Maker. Amidst transcendentally detailed microtonal lines and sweeping electronics, the work narrates an interstellar journey of introspection and revelation through curiosity and empathy.

Star Maker Fragments & Star Maker Postlude - Taylor Brook

LOVE, CRYSTAL AND STONE

This concert-length song-cycle by Iranian-Canadian composer, Ashkan Behzadi, stretches musical lyricism to its limit, imagining an impossibly radical, revolutionary folk music that pushes the individual and collective virtuosity of TAK ensemble to new heights. Love, Crystal and Stone draws on the Iranian cultural relationship with Ahmad Shamlou’s translations of the works of Federico García Lorca to create a sensual, intricately interwoven, and deeply philosophical setting of the text, often obscured through textural and timbral reimaginings.

Love, Crystal and Stone - Ashkan Behzadi

THE BLOOMING BODY

Spanning musical performance, theatrical installation, and sonic sculptures, this program centers Eric Wubbels’ ongoing masterwork, interbering, a ritualized hybrid theatrical performance that intertwines chamber compositions with video works, audience participation, and a series of “cartouches” that create fluctuating sonic sculptures created by the performers’ bodies. Paired with Wubbels’ work is Michelle Lou’s new work for TAK, BLOOM, which weaves the sound worlds of the 90’s industrial rock and grunge into physical sculptures created through entangling each player’s body with one another through resonating wire, bespoke glass vases, and fishing line.

interbeing - Eric Wubbels

BLOOM - Michelle Lou

E  D U  C  A  T  I  O  N   /   W  O  R  K  S  H  O  P S

TAK is dedicated to working with young composers, and has collaborated with a number of university composition programs, including: Oberlin  Conservatory, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Boston University, Columbia University, The Delian Academy of New Music, New York University, Tulane University, New Orleans University, Williams College, University of Texas at Austin and dozens of others. They have also conducted workshops, readings, and masterclasses with younger students through the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program and the Juilliard Music Advancement Program.

In the 2022-2023 academic year, TAK will explore the model of long-term residency relationships with University of Pennsylvania, where they will be in residence for the duration of the academic year.

We have several educational offerings as independent events or in conjunction with public performances:

•Workshops and masterclasses for composers, performers, and the musically-curious

•Residencies with universities to showcase student composers and build their bodies of work 

• Classes and seminars in performance practice, applied critical theory, music theory, and various musicological topics

•Seminars on entrepreneurship, professional development, and music business

•Custom-made programs to match institution-specific needs

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“As one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music, TAK’s command of the performance theatrics necessary in this genre shines even on a recording. Jam-packed with wild instrumental pyrotechnics (Sorey’s Ornations) alongside clever moments of vocal fry imitating bow overpressure (Gee’s Mouthpiece 28), a violin harmonic gliss tailing the accelerated whoosh of a whispered crescendo (Behzadi’s Az Hoosh mi..), and letter names of notes sung on the incorrect pitches (Diels’ The Colors Don’t Match), TAK and their composer collaborators have developed one of the most distinct and eclectic releases of the year.”

— I Care if You Listen / Oor

“sublime art… a masterpiece.”

- An Earful / Star Maker Fragments
“The six have birthed with this project an experimental chamber album unlike any other…engrossing and transporting…a presentation that plays like a live performance.”

— Textura Magazine / Star Maker Fragments

“OK, I have to say, Star Maker Fragments is a big coup de cœur for me at the start of this year. On this album, Taylor Brook‘s composition is masterfully interpreted by her and TAK Ensemble. You start the album a regular human on planet Earth, but you find yourselves among a strange alien species, and end up a conscious, living star before exploding into multiverses. The journey is unique and wonderful; it’s best experienced with your full attention.”

— Can This Even be Called Music / Star Maker Fragments

“The group puts the novel’s text to music with a varied and shimmering set of movements that dovetail seamlessly with Brook’s electronics.”

— Avant Music News / Star Maker Fragments

“a very convincing encapsulation of a striking landmark book…intriguing”

- The Wholenote, Editors Corner / Star Maker Fragments

“TAK ensemble just goes for it. They make their music as free as the subject matter it is based on… It’s about how the music fits with each other to create these lurid soundscapes that seamlessly flow into one another.”

- Vital Weekly / Star Maker Fragments

“A placid jumble of bio- and zoomorphic manifestations worthy of Salvatore Sciarrino, the only mimetic hint before the perspective is drastically subverted with the sudden fall into a Kubrickian tunnel of light and color, a synaesthetic viaticum through which the interstellar journey begins…The first great proof of the maturity achieved by one of the most promising composers of the new generation.”

— Esoteros / Star Maker Fragments

"New York new-music chamber ensemble TAK pins down the musical magical realism of emerging composer Taylor Brook. These young, fearless players navigate Brook’s mechanized instruments and alternate tunings with fluid grace and confidence."

- The Boston Globe / Ecstatic Music

“21st century chamber music that combines crystalline clarity with the disorienting turbulence of a sonic vortex.”

- WIRE Magazine

"My first encounter with TAK Ensemble quite literally took my breath away. This intrepid quintet...impresses with the organicity of their sound, their dynamism and virtuosity — and, well, just a dash of IDGAF as they slay the thorniest material like it’s nothing.... As titillating and irresistible a band as we have on the new music scene today."

- WQXR, New Sounds

"Mr. Diaz de Leon sells his vision with aplomb on a new album performed by the TAK Ensemble and the composer himself (on synthesizer, naturally). The edgy electronic timbres can serve a range of compositional functions: contrasting dramatically with the purity of a soprano’s sound, in one moment, before finding, in the bass clarinet, a partner in grain."

- The New York Times / Sanctuary
“I found myself having a thought that I would return to many times throughout this program. New music can be strange, intimate, challenging, and moving, and in capable hands, can be all four at once…For the fifth time that night, I found myself almost entirely outside of time, so engrossed in the performance that I honestly could not give an accurate break-down of the roughly 90 minute program.”

- Sequenza 21 / ArchiTAK

"Haunting"

- VICE Creator’s Project / Idolum

“…deeply thought out and replete with paradoxes...bands of magical realism stripe Ecstatic Music as well, and the players perform with the fearlessness that Brook’s music requires...sensual and unsettling"

- Q2 Music, Album of the Week / Ecstatic Music

“New York’s TAK Ensemble show their range and curiosity on this terrific self-released album, alternating between full quintet pieces and bracing duos—all of them bristling with edge.”

— Best of Bandcamp, Contemporary Classical / Oor

“Over the past six years, New York's TAK Ensemble has emerged as a unique ensemble in contemporary music: the quintet has already released two albums, collaborating with composers Taylor Brook and Mario Diaz de Leon, which show the ensemble's dedication to working directly with composers and artists to create new work.”

— PSNY / Oor

“The music of TAK Ensemble is an impressive, exceptional and organic fusion of contemporary academical music…stunning experiments and wild, free, expressive and driving improvisations.”

— AVANT SCENA / Oor

V I D E O   &   R  E C O R  D I N G

PREMIERED REPERTOIRE

˚ denotes commission

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