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Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble

Based in Allendale, Michigan, The New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley State University is an undergraduate ensemble that promotes the music of our time through commissions, tours, recordings, collaborations, outreach events, and workshops. Founded in 2006 by its director Bill Ryan, the ensemble not only prepares students for careers that include contemporary music, but helps them to become exceptional educators, advocates, and leaders in the field.

The group has been profiled in numerous publications including Newsweek and the New York Times, and featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, All Things Considered, WNYC's Radiolab, and Performance Today. Their albums have been named to year-end best release lists by the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, LA Weekly, Time Out Chicago, and many others. Their recordings have appeared in film and television shows on MTV, Showtime, at over 75 film festivals around the world, and in movie theaters throughout the United States as part of the soundtrack to the 2015 film As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM. Their album of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians spent eleven weeks on the Billboard charts and was named one of the top five classical recordings of the decade by WNYC.

The ensemble has completed eight tours and performed at major cities and venues throughout the country including New York six times, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boulder, Chicago, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and at thirty national parks. With multiple awards from New Music U.S.A. and the National Endowment for the Arts, the ensemble has commissioned 100 compositions from such notable composers as Sarah Kirkland Snider, Rachel Grimes, Nico Muhly, Anna Clyne, Shara Nova, David Lang, and Marc Mellits. Their 134 performance and music videos on YouTube are approaching two million views, all without the aid of a cat or Lady Gaga tune.

Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble: In C Remixed

by John Kelman
November 29, 2009

It's not only one of minimalism's early classics, but Terry Riley's seminal “In C," composed in 1964, could also be described as an early foundation for the modern concept of remix. 53 musical fragments--as brief as three notes and as long as 18--are performed by an ensemble of no fixed size; the only instructions being to begin with the first and end with the last fragment. How many times each one is repeated by each player, where they place the ...

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Album Review

Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble: Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians

Read "Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 31, 2008

When Steve Reich released Music for 18 Musicians (ECM, 1978), it was a consolidation and major leap forward in the pulse-based music that the minimalist progenitor had been exploring on earlier compositions including “Four Organs" (1969), a piece that relied on nothing more than a six-note chord, yet was a near flat-out sonic assault. 18 Musicians was an altogether more complex and sophisticated work, with a broader textural palette based largely on tuned percussion—piano, vibraphone, marimba and xylophone—but also working ...

The Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble is at the forefront of contemporary repertory groups, alongside other established groups including Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, So Percussion, Bang on a Can and Germany's Ensemble Modern. --ALL ABOUT JAZZ

...the music is vivid and beautiful enough to bring the landscape to you. --SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

The players of the Grand Valley ensemble play with giddy exuberance and energy, rhythmic drive and an exceptional tonal blend. --DETROIT FREE PRESS

The members of Grand Valley State's ensemble play with a confident swing…To put it another way, these kids are a trip. --NEWSWEEK

A hyper-propulsive and yet silkily beautiful, entrancing and utterly alive interpretation that more than holds its own. --BILLBOARD

The Michigan musicians play with glistening precision, yet they also bring out the variously jubilant and wistful emotions beneath the surface of Reich’s score