Icebreaker

England's Icebreaker, frequently labeled a minimalist jazz ensemble, actually fuses contemporary classical elements with rock and alternative approaches, drawing on a dozen musicians who play pan pipes, saxophones, electric violin, cello, guitars, percussion, and keyboards. James Poke and John Godfrey launched the band in 1989 with the explicit aim of creating "contemporary music with balls," which led them to amplify every instrument. Since then the group has maintained a heavy touring schedule that has taken them to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Vienna's Wiener Musik Galerie, Estonia's NYYD Festival, New York's Bang on a Can Festival, and Carnegie Hall, where they shared the stage with the American Composers Orchestra. Although live performance remains their primary medium, Icebreaker has released several albums, among them Terminal Velocity in 1994, the 1996 collaboration Trance with composer Michael Gordon, 1997's Rogue's Gallery featuring pieces by Michael Torke, David Lang, and Godfrey, plus the 2002 projects Extraction and Diderik Wagenaar; the ensemble has also contributed to compilation albums such as Century XXI UK: A-M. Their compositions have been danced by the West Australian Ballet and Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet, and in 1998 the musicians joined the Royal Ballet for Ashley Page's Cheating, Lying, Stealing as part of the centenary tribute to Dame Ninette de Valois. Further opportunities arose in 2002 when Icebreaker performed with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and joined the Dutch group Orkest de Volharding for a tour of works by Diderik Wagenaar, Cornelis de Bondt, Yannis Kyriakides, and Joe Culter, the last of these a BBC commission.