The Feral Hues of Ellie Irons and A Climate Meditation for Solo Drumset with Curt Newton

About the Performance: The Feral Hues of Ellie Irons & A Climate Meditation for Solo Drumset with Curt Newton

Improv Spaces presents an evening artist talk and hands-on workshop to explore the Feral Hues project of Troy-based interdisciplinary artist Ellie Irons, followed by a contemplative performance by Boston-based percussionist Curt Newton, “A Climate Meditation for Solo Drumset,” at Saratoga Arts.

Ellie Irons’s practice spans publicly engaged work — including with the artist collective the Environmental Performance Agency and her collaboration with Anne Percoco as The Next Epoch Seed Library — and the nuanced paintings she makes from colors created from the berries, blossoms, and leaves of plants from urban and disturbed habitats as part of her Feral Hues project. Her project includes an online component and a book that is now on its third printing. She has previously led public walking tours related to Feral Hues and will be offering a hands-on workshop and artist talk to open this special evening program.

The workshop will be followed by a performance by Curt Newton. Newton’s work ranges from free jazz ensemble playing to solo percussion. His performance “A Climate Meditation on Solo Drumset” was previously performed at the MIT Chapel in 2024. His solo drumset work began in 1996 with his adaptation of Witold Lutoslawski’s String Quartet. His recent solo performances are completely improvised and, as he notes, “often with a dedication to our miraculous yet threatened natural world and vibrant web of non-human relations.”

We are excited to bring this performance with Irons’s workshop to the community to share these experiences and to think together about the changing world in which we are enmeshed and our place within it.

About the artists

Ellie Irons is an interdisciplinary artist based in current-day Troy, New York, where the Mahicannituck and Mohawk Rivers converge. She received an MFA from Hunter College and a PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute focused on ecosocial art. She is the Co-Director of NATURE Lab at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Her book Feral Hues was published in 2023 by PS Hudson.

https://ellieirons.com/
https://www.mediasanctuary.org/

Curt Newton, Boston-based percussionist, coaxes whispers from drumsets and resonance from stacks of rattly stuff, weaving varied musical traditions in the spirit of dedicated playfulness. Over four decades, Curt has performed across North America and around the world and appears on recordings with leading figures in improvised music, including Ken Vandermark, Joe Morris, Nate McBride, Pandelis Karayorgis, Charlie Kohlhase, Eric Hofbauer, and Dave Bryant. About one live performance, the Chicago Reader’s Peter Margasak wrote, “Newton dazzles…He exhibited breathtaking restraint, breaking down time with a subtle hand, tapping out painterly splashes of sound.”

Curt studied privately with Bob Gullotti and has a Master’s in Jazz Performance from New England Conservatory. He is active in climate-change community work as an En-ROADS Climate Ambassador, a national convener for the Council on the Uncertain Human Future, and a member of the leadership team of the Boston Green New Deal Coalition. Professionally, he is Director of MIT OpenCourseWare.

https://curtnewton.com