Dinosaur Scar

Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun's collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble traces back to the group's formation at Oberlin Conservatory and the composer's budding early years. This new release on ICE's Tundra imprint chronicles that fruitful relationship with dynamic ensemble works, solos with and without electronics, and improvisations. Dinosaur Scar captures the synergy that can only come as a result of musicians who have absorbed a composer's language over many years, and a composer writing specifically with specific performers in mind. Du Yun writes: "It feels as though I grew up with the International Contemporary Ensemble. It has been 20 years that I have known many of them individually, half of my lifetime. Friendship ebbs and flows like the river. It washes and takes you over. Perhaps more than that, it transfigures and defines you in a subtle, intense and poignant way. There are so many metaphors about water as the method of being reborn in life. For me, ICE and I are like that flowing river, from the streaming start, the dramatic gorges, and to the currents that flood into the ocean. And this album is, precisely, a testament to that."