Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist originally from the Orkney Islands. He has released several acclaimed albums, including a trilogy inspired by his childhood home and themes of nature, people, place, and time. He performs regularly at the Barbican Centre in London, has been commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic, and created a soundtrack for the Superbloom installation at the Tower of London celebrating The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music, words, and cinematography he takes listeners on a journey through landscape, memory, and identity.

In May 2021, Erland planted the only existing copy of the master tape of his first classical album, Carve the Runes Then Be Content with Silence, in Orkney, deleting all digital files and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label Decca/MKX to search for it. For his debut US tour, Erland will reveal the unearthed tape from the soil, performing the album exactly as it sounds from the earth alongside violin soloist Freya Goldmark and ACME, with additional works from his trilogy of albums inspired by the landscapes of Orkney.

British violinist Freya Goldmark (b.1996) enjoys a busy career as a soloist, chamber musician and director.

Beginning violin lessons aged four, by her mid teens Freya had performed as a soloist across the UK, Europe and Asia, making her concerto debut aged 13 at the Rachmaninov Institute, Russia. Since then, she has enjoyed a burgeoning career performing as a soloist at many celebrated UK venues including Cadogan Hall, Elgar Room Albert Hall, St.John’s Waterloo, Mansion House and The Purcell Room. Her 2023/2024 season includes performances of Mendelssohn, Bruch and Beethoven concertos as well as multiple performances of Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending.

Upcoming performances see Freya travelling to Bogotá, New York, Philadelphia, Burghausen, Berlin, Edinburgh and Norway.

In Autumn of 2022 Freya became the new first violinist of the Ligeti Quartet. The quartet have ​been ​at ​the ​forefront ​of ​modern ​and ​contemporary ​music since ​their ​formation ​in ​2010, ​breaking ​new ​ground ​through ​innovative ​programming ​and championing ​of ​today’s ​most ​exciting ​composers ​and ​artists. 2023 performances included recitals at Southbank Centre, Kings Place, an autumn tour to Canada and multiple performances at Aldeburgh Festival in June featuring fifteen world premieres co commissioned by Britten Pears Arts, BBC Radio 3, Bourgie Hall and the quartet themselves.

As part of the quartet Freya has taught and led performances at Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Chethams School of Music, The Royal Danish Academy and The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto.

Freya enjoys collaborating with many brilliant musicians throughout the UK and further afield. As a chamber musician she has played at Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Festival, Cadogan Hall, Kings Place, West Road Concert Hall, The Purcell Room, and Elgar Room, Albert Hall. Freya is regularly invited to perform with some of the UK’s most exciting groups – she tours often with Scottish Ensemble, leads composer Erland Cooper’s ensemble, and was guest principal of Cambridge Philharmonic for their Spring/Summer 2023 season.

Freya is passionate not only about performing music but also bringing it to as many people as possible and she began organising concerts in her early teens. She now regularly directs and brings together groups of other musicians. Freya founded Stamford International Music Festival when she was only 19. This chamber music festival takes place in the town in which she grew up. From 2019-2021 Freya was director of Cambridge Summer Music Festival, the youngest person to take on this role in the Festival’s 45 year history. Her time with CSM included bringing over 120 musicians to Cambridge for 31 concerts in July 2021.

Freya graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2018 where she studied as a Foundation Scholar with Maciej Rakowski, who taught her from the age of ten.

Freya performs on her Camilli of Mantua violin c1740.

Since 2004, led by cellist and artistic director Clarice Jensen, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) has risen to the highest ranks of American new music through a mix of meticulous musicianship, artistic vision, engaging collaborations, and unwavering standards in every regard. The membership of the amorphous collective includes some of the brightest young stars in the field. NPR calls them “contemporary music dynamos,” and Strings reports, “ACME’s absorbing playing pulsed with warm energy. . . Shared glances and inhales triggered transitions in a flow so seamless it seemed learned in a Jedi temple.” ACME was honored by ASCAP during its 10th anniversary season in 2015 for the “virtuosity, passion, and commitment with which it performs and champions American composers.”

The ensemble has performed at leading international venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAM, The Kennedy Center, Washington Performing Arts, UCLA’s Royce Hall, Stanford Live, Chicago’s Millennium Park, Duke Performances, The Satellite in Los Angeles, STG Presents in Seattle, Melbourne Recital Hall and Sydney Opera House in Australia, and at festivals including the Sacrum Profanum Festival in Poland, All Tomorrow’s Parties in England, Auckland Arts Festival in New Zealand, Summer Nostos Festival in Greece, Boston Calling, and Big Ears in Knoxville, TN.

World premieres given by ACME include Ingram Marshall’s Psalmbook, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Drone Mass (commissioned by ACME in 2015), Caroline Shaw’s Ritornello, Phil Kline’s Out Cold, William Brittelle’s Loving the Chambered Nautilus, Timo Andres’ Senior and Thrive on Routine, Caleb Burhans’ Jahrzeit, and many more. In 2016 at The Kitchen, ACME premiered Clarice Jensen’s transcription of Julius Eastman’s The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc for ten cellos, the score of which had been lost since the premiere in 1981. Jensen transcribed a recording of the work to recreate the score.

ACME’s collaborators have included The Richard Alston Dance Company, Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance, Gibney Dance, Satellite Ballet, Meredith Monk, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, actress Barbara Sukowa, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, Blonde Redhead, Grizzly Bear, Low, Matmos, Micachu & The Shapes, Jeff Mangum, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Roomful of Teeth, Lionheart, and Theo Bleckmann.

In March 2022, ACME released the world premiere recording of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s contemporary oratorio Drone Mass on Deutsche Grammophon, with Theatre of Voices led by Paul Hillier. Gramophone included the album on its list of Best New Classical Recordings. Of the album, Gramophone wrote, “Since Jóhann Jóhannsson’s death in 2018 at the age of only 48, his label DG has done much to promote the Icelandic composer’s posthumous reputation by releasing several soundtrack albums and retrospective collections. One nevertheless senses there exists among the many musical cues and film themes a work of real vitality, power and significance – a jewel in the crown of Jóhannsson’s creative achievements. Drone Mass may well be that work. On one level, this contemporary oratorio for voices, string quartet and electronics – commissioned by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) led by cellist Clarice Jensen, who are superb on this recording – is typically Jóhannssonian in its uncanny juxtaposition of the strange with the familiar and its rich interplay of multiple meanings.”

ACME’s discography also includes its first portrait album, Thrive on Routine, on Sono Luminus; Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Orphée and Max Richter’s eight-hour piece, Sleep (which the ensemble regularly performs live), both on Deutsche Grammophon; Fantasias with thereminist Carolina Eyck on Butterscotch Records; Joseph Byrd: NYC 1960-63, the first commercial recording of the music of rediscovered American Fluxus composer Joseph Byrd, on New World Records; William Brittelle’s electro-acoustic chamber work Loving the Chambered Nautilus, and Jefferson Friedman’s On In Love with vocalist Craig Wedren, both on New Amsterdam Records.

For more information, visit www.acmemusic.org.