S.E.M. Ensemble Brings Kotik's 'Master-Pieces' to Paula Cooper Gallery

The S.E.M. Ensemble will present scenes from Petr Kotik's opera "Master-Pieces" on Dec. 16 at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. local time. Kotik, the ensemble's director, conducts.

The evening centers on excerpts from "Master-Pieces," the opera by the ensemble's founder and director. Soprano Kamala Sankaram joins the performance as vocal soloist. Three narrators complete the cast: Sam Boston, James Falzone and Emma Mistele. The combination of voice, spoken text and instrumental ensemble signals the work's hybrid character, and it places Kotik's own composition at the heart of a program he both wrote and leads from the podium.

What else is on the program?

The concert reaches well beyond a single opera. Five additional works frame the scenes from "Master-Pieces," spanning more than two decades of contemporary composition and several premieres still ahead on the calendar.

• Julie Kim's "What if trains had wings like butterflies" (2024)
• Phill Niblock's "Disseminate" (2001)
• James Falzone's "Equinocturn II" (2026)
• Petr Kotik's "Viola & Percussion" (2026)
• Morton Feldman's "Why Patterns?" and "Piano (Three Hands)"

The list maps the ensemble's territory. Niblock's "Disseminate" anchors the program in the minimalist drone tradition of the early 2000s. Feldman's two pieces extend that lineage further back, toward a composer whose slow, spare textures have long shaped the experimental music world the S.E.M. Ensemble inhabits. The 2026 dates on works by Falzone and Kotik mark the concert as a platform for music audiences have not yet heard.

Falzone appears twice in the evening. He performs as one of the three narrators in the "Master-Pieces" scenes, and the program includes his forthcoming "Equinocturn II." Kotik likewise doubles as conductor and composer, with "Viola & Percussion" joining the lineup alongside his opera.

Is there a chance to hear it early?

Yes. A preview of the full program takes place two days before the gallery performance. It is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 14, at 7:30 p.m. at Willow Place Auditorium in Brooklyn Heights. The preview gives listeners in Brooklyn a first pass at the same repertoire.

What does this change for New York's new-music audience? It offers a single evening that connects three generations of experimental composition, from Feldman's pattern pieces to works written for 2026, under the direction of one of the field's longstanding figures. For those tracking Kotik's operatic output, the Dec. 16 performance at Paula Cooper Gallery is the date to watch: it brings "Master-Pieces" before the public in the Chelsea gallery setting the ensemble has long favored for its concert presentations.