UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center

UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center

New Amsterdam is pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The Center will present concerts featuring New Amsterdam artists in each of its coming seasons, while increasingly incorporating those artists into the broader cultural and curricular life of the UMass community. This includes the broader Five College Consortium of which UMass is a part, also featuring Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College.

To kick off the collaboration, the Fine Arts Center and New Amsterdam will present a double bill featuring two acclaimed ensembles from the NewAm roster: saxophone ensemble Battle Trance & percussion trio Tigue. Battle Trance is the brainchild of Travis Laplante, who leads the group through ritualized practice involving circular breathing and deep listening, built around his viscerally moving, extremely detailed scores, while Tigue is a group of three percussionists with a fluid musical identity, making their own kinetic and hypnotic blend of instrumental minimalism while opening up the possibilities of their instrumentation through commissioning and collaboration.