TAK Editions Podcast

Welcome to this special triple episode with three of our Swoonfest artists! Charlotte speaks with Mattie Barbier of Rage Thormbones, Shara Lunon of Blasé and Russell Greenberg of Yarn/Wire about the exciting performances that they are bringing to TAK’s very own festival, Swoonfest, on Sept. 12 and 13! Get tickets for Swoonfest here: https://www.takensemble.com/tickets check out Rage Thormbones’ al...

Welcome to this special double episode with two of our Swoonfest artists! Charlotte speaks with Victoria Cheah and Mobey Lola Irizarry of Las Mariquitas about the exciting performances that they are both bringing to night 2 of TAK’s very own festival, Swoonfest, on Sept. 13. Get tickets for Swoonfest here: https://www.takensemble.com/tickets check out some of Victoria Cheah’s work: https://victori...

Welcome to this special double episode with two of our Swoonfest artists! Charlotte speaks with Levi Lu and Jennae Santos about the exciting performances that they are each bringing to night 1 of TAK’s very own festival, Swoonfest, on Sept. 12 2025 at the Dimenna Center in NYC. To jump to Jennae's interview, go to 38:00 Get tickets for Swoonfest here: https://www.takensemble.com/tickets Check out...

Laura and Charlotte speak with composer, performer, and TAK 2024 season collaborator, Seare Ahmad Farhat about silence, the magic of chamber music, spirituality and poetry. Donate to TAK at www.takensemble.com/support TAK will be premiering Seare’s piece “Bring me your Silence” on December 3rd, 7:30pm at the Dimenna Center in NYC, alongside works by Eric Wubbels, inti figgis-vizueta, and Zeynep To...

Madison and Marina speak with composer, performer, and TAK 2024 season collaborator, Zeynep Toraman. Their conversation goes deep into the nature and motivations of artistic practice, literature, identity, and much more. TAK will be premiering Zeynep's piece "Veils" on December 3rd, 7:30pm at the Dimenna Center in NYC, alongside works by Eric Wubbels, inti figgis-vizueta, and Seare Ahmad Farhat. T...

Charlotte and Laura speak with sound artist, composer and performer Seth Cluett about his new works for TAK, 'irreversible histories of disturbance' and 'the reformation of assemblages.' The conversation includes thoughts about making music at the pace of nature, alternative notation systems, and custom-made instruments. We will premiere these works on Sunday September 22 at 8pm at Roulette Interm...

A very special announcement from TAK Ensemble.

Charlotte and Madison speak with poet, playwright, educator, actor, producer, and director Modesto "Flako" Jimenez about his site-specific theatre work originally inspired by his Bushwick neighborhood, Taxilandia, and multidisciplinary theatrical work Mercedes. for more about ¡Oye! Group: https://www.oyegroup.org/ About Flako: https://www.flakojimenez.com/ Photos from brooklyn gypsy taxi flow seri...

On this episode, Charlotte speaks with composer and performer Kurt Rohde and visual artist Marie Lorenz about the site-specific opera Newtown Odyssey, written for and about NYC's Newtown Creek. for more about the opera: https://www.newtownodyssey.com/ About Kurt Rohde: https://www.kurtrohde.com/ About Marie Lorenz: http://www.marielorenz.com/ Support your artistic ecosystem by donating to TAK 's y...

On this episode, Charlotte speaks with composer and performer Kamala Sankaram about her recent site-specific works. 'The Buried Brook' is a soundwalk that follows the currently buried Tibbets Brook in the Bronx, and 'The Last Stand' is an experimental opera and sound installation for trees. About Kamala Sankaram: https://www.kamalasankaram.com/ Hear the new album Bombay Rickey: https://bombayricke...

On this episode, Charlotte and Laura speak with Bryan Jacobs in advance of TAK’s premiere of his piece ‘Organic Synthesis Volume 2’ on Thursday Dec. 7, 2023. To hear more of Bryan’s music, go to https://soundcloud.com/bryanjacobs-1 Please contribute to TAK’s year-end fundraiser at http://takensemble.com/support Our upcoming concert, Machine Tongue, featuring ‘Organic Synthesis Volume 2’, ‘In a For...

On this episode, Marina speaks with the members of sinonó, who will be joining us in concert this Saturday Oct. 7 at the Dimenna Center in New York City. sinonó is a brief submergence, a string of choices, a container for the communion of rigor and failure. This NYC-based trio, featuring Isabel Crespo Pardo (voice), Lester St. Louis (cello), and Henry Fraser (bass), performs graphic scores and poe...

Marina and Charlotte speak with Phong Tran about growing up on the internet, collaboration and simulation theory. Phong opened SWOONFEST, our tenth anniversary festival, one month ago today with a set of brand new original music created live on analog and modular synthesizers. The music from this episode is from Phong’s album The Computer Room, hear the whole thing here: https://phongtran.bandcamp...

This week, Madison and Marina speak with Michelle Lou. TAK will be premiering Michelle's new work "In a Forest" on night 2 of SWOONFEST, May 5 + 6 at The Clemente on Manhattan's Lower East Side. For more information and to reserve your tickets, visit www.takensemble.com/swoonfest The music from this episode is a live recording of Michelle's piece "Different Furs," performed by Yarn/Wire. You can h...

This week on the podcast, Madison and Ellery interview Rodnie King and Riot Dent of Sour Spirit, a chaos noise rock duo based in Philadelphia. Sour Spirit will close out night 2 of SwoonFest, TAK’s festival celebrating our 10th anniversary, May 5th and 6th at The Clemente in NYC. For tickets, visit www.takensemble.com/swoonfest – if you get your tickets by April 20th, you can take advantage of a v...

On this episode composer and performer Natacha Diels speaks with Ellery and Charlotte about electronics, collaboration, friendship, AI, fun and high stakes. Natacha will play her solo set Somewhere Beautiful (with assistance from TAK) on SWOONFEST, celebrating TAK’s tenth anniversary, happening May 5 and 6 at The Clemente Center! Buy tickets and learn more about SWOONFEST here: https://www.takense...

On this episode, Chris Williams speaks with Marina and Madison about time travel, the ethics of collaborating with the dead, and the spirituality of building a practice of breathing as a wind player. Chris will perform a solo set at SWOONFEST, a festival celebrating TAK’s tenth anniversary, happening May 5 and 6 at The Clemente Center. Buy tickets and learn more about SWOONFEST here: www.takensemb...

On this episode, gabby fluke-mogul speaks with Laura and Charlotte about their work as an improviser, and how it relates to embodiment, infinite matrices of time and space, form, feeling, and boundaries. gabby will play in a trio with Tcheser Holmes and Mara Rosenbloom on SWOONFEST, a festival celebrating TAK’s tenth anniversary, happening May 5 and 6 at The Clemente Center! Buy tickets and learn...

In this episode, Madison speaks with Johnny Chang and Keir GoGwilt about their album ‘hope lies fallow’, which was released on Another Timbre. The conversation encompasses their recompositions of Orlando di Lasso and Hildegard von Bingen, the sociological resonances of chamber music, instant ramen as a metaphor for art making, amidst much more. hear the full album at: https://anothertimbre.bandcam...

“My belief is that music was sort of a mediation between humanity and the wild world; a way of speaking back to the world that speaks so many languages.” In this week’s episode, Charlotte and Laura speak with Nina Dante and Bethany Younge about their album Lizard Tongue, released a year ago on TAK Editions. We talk about intimacy with collaborators, listeners and nature; what fulfilling collaborat...

“It is the act of people being together, and finding that space together that I find most fascinating, and it’s the most difficult thing, I feel like I’m still learning how to do that and will be trying to do that for the rest of my life”. In this week’s episode, Marina and Madison speak with Catherine Lamb about her extensive practice of composing and performing in rational intonation, Erv Wilson...

Charlotte and Laura speak with Eric Wubbels about the piece he's writing for TAK, titled 'Interbeing'. They talk about making music that responds on a deep level to what's going on in the world, about how debating with friends helps you to forge your own creative voice, how food relates to music, and many other things. We're giving the first public performance of 'Interbeing' this Saturday, May 21...

Announcing TAK's newest release, Love Crystal and Stone! Ashkan Behzadi’s composition 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. This concert length work is a sensual, intricately interwoven, and deeply philosophical setting of the poetry of Federico García L...

In this week's episode, Marina and Madison interview Weston Olencki about his upcoming album "Old Time Music," coming out this spring on Tripticks Tapes. They also talk about Weston's relationship to country music, AI and machine learning, and more. The music on today's episode is from "Old Time Music," as well as Weston's piece "Virtual Chamber Music," performed live by Laura Cocks with an AI ver...

In this episode, we’re continuing a series of episodes focused on tuning practices, in celebration of Star Maker Fragment’s first birthday! Today, Marina and Taylor speak with musicologist Jatin Mohan. Jatin is a Fulbright Scholar from New Delhi, India, studying at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research focuses on comparing tuning practices in Hindustani classical music and western music. The musi...