Commissions to Ann Cleare, Hannah Kendall, & Golnaz Shariatzadeh

TAK Ensemble is commissioning three new works by Golnaz Shariatzadeh, Hannah Kendall, and Ann Cleare that collectively explore environmental grief, reverence, collective mourning, healing, and mysticism through historical and natural processes.

Shariatzadeh’s 40-minute Fur draws on Qazvini’s 13th-century cosmography Wonders of Creation to stage a semi-theatrical drama between an ensemble-driven moving body of sound and a central sculpture featuring live hand-drawn image projections of a healing creature. Ann Cleare’s Revolutions 1 is a 30-minute immersive performance inside two interdependent projected spheres, translating 2026 autumn/winter solar energy data into a dynamic environment of light, motion, and sound. Hannah Kendall’s my heart inside my breast is melting wax engages with Antonio Benítez-Rojo’s concept of the “Plantation Machine” to meditate on the enduring legacies of systemic injustice. The piece incorporates tiny bells, coffee bean percussion, cotton-muted violins, non-resonant music box mechanisms, and distorted walkie-talkie recitations.

The commissions to Cleare, Kendall, and Shariatzadeh are supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Further information:
takensemble.com

Dates

April 16 & 17, 2027 (World Premiere, Ann Cleare & Golnaz Shariatzadeh)
Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn

September 10, 2027 (World Premiere, Hannah Kendall)
DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Brooklyn

June 17, 2028
Wigmore Hall, London