Noeplace at the Goethe-Institut Boston

Noeplace recorded live at the Goethe-Institut Boston, May 12, 2024
Noeplace is Nomi Epstein and Laura Cetilia
Video: Wenhua Shi
Audio & Mix: Matthew Azevedo
The music of Boston-based composer/improviser/curator Nomi Epstein centers around her interest in sonic fragility, where structure arises out of textural subtleties. Her works have been performed throughout the US and Europe working with ensembles such as SurPlus, ICE, Wet Ink, Mivos Quartet, Wild Rumpus, Dedalus, Southland, and counter)induction. In 2020, she released her first solo composer album, sounds, on New Focus Recordings including performances by Reinier van Houdt and for Collect/Project, and her “collections for Juliet” was released in a compilation album by Juliet Fraser on the HCR label. Her most recent portrait album of three chamber works, shades, with Apartment House/Vibrant Matter was released on Another Timbre in February 2024. An active practitioner and advocate of experimental music, she is the founder/director of the critically acclaimed, experimental music ensemble a•pe•ri•od•ic, in which she also performs. Her curatorial work includes large scale festivals including the Chicago-area 2012 centennial John Cage Festival, the 2014 Chicago Wandelweiser Festival, the 2017 Galina Ustvolskaya Festival, as well as experimental music concerts in the US and abroad involving guest composers from across the globe. She continues to research, write, and lecture on post-Cagean, notated, experimental music. Epstein currently serves as Associate Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music.
As a daughter of mixed heritage, Mexican-American cellist, Laura Cetilia is at home with in-betweenness, straddling multiple worlds as cellist / composer / educator / artist while working within acoustic / electronic / traditional / experimental sound practices. Her compositions have been described as “unorthodox loveliness” (Boston Globe) and hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” (Sequenza 21). Her works have been performed by TAK Ensemble, loadbang, Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Dog Star Orchestra, a.pe.ri.od.ic, LCollective, and others. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 (established in 2003 with Mark Cetilia, electronics/ modular synth) as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” And in the performer / composer collective Ordinary Affects she has collaborated with, commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Michael Pisaro, Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben, and Magnus Granberg. Laura is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Cornell University and is also a proud mother of one.