Founded by Petr Kotik with Julius Eastman and Jan Williams, the S.E.M. Ensemble is the oldest new music ensemble in the United States today.
On April 15, 1970, a group of musicians under the name S.E.M. Ensemble performed its first concert, music by Cornelius Cardew, John Cage, Petr Kotik, and Rudolf Kamorous. The reviewer of the Buffalo Evening News described it as an "Audience in Retreat": "an audience of 17, including wives and other relatives, remained out of an original 100 attendees, at the conclusion of Wednesday evening's performance of the newly-formed S.E.M. Ensemble."
Since then, the S.E.M. Ensemble have been performing music of our time: new compositions by both established and emerging composers as well as masterpieces from the recent past. In 1992, SEM expanded into a large, 86-piece orchestra, The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, with a concert at Carnegie Hall. There, The SEM Orchestra premiered Atlas Eclipticalis by John Cage in its first complete version, with David Tudor as the pianist in Winter Music. The event attracted audiences and critics from across the United States, Europe, and Japan. Alex Ross wrote about the performance in the New York Times: "highly disciplined and monumental... sonorities shifted, intangible events solidified; collective images began to appear amid shapeless sound... an epiphany rises in the back of the mind."
From small chamber music formations to large orchestral events, SEM has made its mark on contemporary music, not paying much attention to an approval from critics or audiences. From a group of three to a large orchestra - from Morton Feldman's For Philip Guston, to large-scale compositions by Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, Petr Kotik, and others. SEM concerts featured such soloists as Julius Eastman, John Cage, Amina Claudine Myers, David Tudor, Pauline Oliveros, Christian Markley, Maryanne Amacher, Roscoe Mitchell, to name a few.
After relocating to New York City from Buffalo, NY in 1983, S.E.M. Ensemble, started to present yearly concerts at the Paula Cooper Gallery and in its own space, the Willow Place Auditorium in Brooklyn Heights. It also performs concerts at high-profile New York venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Bohemian National Hall, and DiMenna Center for Classical Music, among others.
Composers Julius Eastman, Garret List and Ben Neill were past members of the S.E.M. Ensemble. Among a score of other composers, most of whom created new compositions for the Ensemble while working directly with SEM, are John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Roscoe Mitchell, Phill Niblock, Earle Brown, Alvin Lucier, David Behrman, as well as many young, emerging composers.
