ABOUT ICE FEST 2004: POLYPHONIC VOICES, MUSIC BY EMERGING
 COMPOSERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
 
Last year, the musicians, composers and the board of directors of ICE launched an international search for music by composers under the age of 35 written in the 
year 2000 or later. At the time, we had no experience running a call-for-scores, no budget, and very little idea as to what might come of this project. We simply 
put out a call-for-entries announcing our interest in discovering repertoire by emerging composers, and sent it out to hundreds of international listservs, 
e-zines, and educational websites across the US, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Russia, Africa, Asia and Australia.
 
We imagined that we'd receive perhaps 30 or 40 packages, and that we'd select one or two outstanding works for our fall season. 
But four months and hundreds of submissions later, we found ourselves (quite literally!) buried under piles of packages from young composers in 26 different countries. 
We were astonished - and incredibly moved - by the quality, the diversity, and the beauty of so many of these works. For weeks we schlepped suitcases and shopping 
bags full of scores and recordings to and from one other's apartments, to and from Chicago and New York, trying to narrow the selection down. In the end, we weren't 
able to select only one or two pieces. There was simply too much exceptional work, too many touching young voices whose music, we all agreed, simply had to be played 
and heard in the United States.
 
The result of this project is our young organization's largest and most ambitious undertaking to date: a festival devoted entirely to work by young composers. 
We are thrilled to have many of these composers here with us during the week, and we are deeply honored to bring their music to life for you.
 
Welcome to ICE Fest 2004.
Warmest Regards,
The ICE Musicians
 
 
 
ALSO, ANOTHER NOTE TO BE INSERTED INTO THE PROGRAM FROM US,
ABOUT YOUR PIECE IN PARTICULAR:
 
Why "Polyphonic Voices"?
 
At one point during our call-for-entries, a package arrived at our doorstep, beaten, weather-worn, affixed with a dozen exotic stamps, and rolled up into a soggy-looking ball. It had come all the way 
from a young woman in Tbisili, Georgia. We popped the enclosed CD into the boom box and listened to the "Preludia" from her work for four actresses, "Polyphonic Verses". The room grew silent. 
Suddenly, an apartment in the middle of Harlem was filled with the sound of four women's voices speaking a language we did not know - chatting, chanting, arguing, proclaiming, at times plaintively, 
at times angrily, at times passively with words we did not understand. 
 
We played the work at many ICE rehearsals, meetings and get-togethers in the months that followed, and everyone agreed that this piece - and our experience of it - is a metaphor in so many ways for the 
work that our organization aims to do in the world of music. We want to unearth and nurture work that has yet to flower in the world, work that uses words we may not yet understand, but that moves us 
deeply and challenges us to change the way we hear and make music together.
 
Throughout the week, you will hear different movements of "Polyphonic Verses" played on different programs, in different contexts. We hope that it will enchant and touch you as it has 
enchanted and touched us.