MUSIC
MUSIC
Macie Stewart Featuring:
Girl Stew
Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 8:00 p.m.
Performing Arts Studio
Department of Music
1804 N. Decatur Rd., Atlanta, GA 30322
404.727.6445 | music.emory.edu | music@emory.edu
Cover Design: Lisa Baron | Cover Photo: Mark Teague
Program
The program will be announced from the stage.
Set 1: A mix of songs from Girl Stew’s EP Girl Forget.
Girl Stew: Alex Minovici (guitar, vocals) and Michael Dehn (piano, guitar, vocals) - brief intermission -
Set 2: A selection of songs from Macie Stewart’s When the Distance Is Blue and Mouth Full of Glass.
Macie Stewart (violin, guitar, piano, electronics, and voice) with Jay Hammond (tenor saxophone) and Benjamin Shirley (cello)
Tonight’s concert is supported by the Department of Music, Friends of Music, and ECAS.
Performer Biographies
Macie Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and improviser based in Chicago, IL. Heralded for her versatility, Stewart works with piano, violin, guitar, voice, and synthesizers, effortlessly traversing styles and scenes. A distinguished, go-to collaborator who Pitchfork credits with “making some of the best tracks of the past five years transcendent,” Stewart’s deeply humanist and often otherworldly capacities in deep listening have shaped each collaboration as much as her technical prowess and ingenuity. Aptly called a “master of equilibrium” by DownBeat magazine, she has an uncanny ability to meet the needs of the music with precision and taste.
As a composer, Stewart’s work continues to dissolve the boundaries between disciplines. In 2021, she composed a piece for Hubbard Street Dance’s film, “Half of Us,” alongside Sima Cunningham. That same year, she worked with Sima Cunningham and Alex Grelle to produce a performance piece paying homage to Kate Bush. In 2022, Stewart/Cunningham composed the score for a 50-piece orchestra premiering the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Before I Was.” And in 2023, choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams enlisted Stewart to create a sound installation for her dreamlike performance piece, Hisako House. Most recently, Stewart was invited to compose a site-specific piece for the ESS Florisonic Installation at Lincoln Park Conservatory. As part of the longest running sound installation in North America, their twenty-minute composition titled “The World Doubles in Size” played in the conservatory’s fern room from September through November of 2024.
Currently a senior at Emory majoring in Music Performance and minoring in Anthropology, saxophonist Jay Hammond is from Atlanta, GA. He has been a professional jazz saxophonist for about 12 years, and is deeply interested in exploring the intersections between musical improvisation and civil and human rights as he continues his musical career post-graduation.
Benjamin Shirley is a musician, composer, educator, and organizer based in Atlanta, GA. Primarily a cellist, Benjamin has sought to incorporate his love of avant-garde jazz, old-time fiddle, and experimental music into a dynamic, creative, and personal vernacular, and has played with Whispers of Night, Faun and a Pan Flute, Mute Sphere, BASrelief, Artifactual String Unit, and a duo with saxophonist Jeff Crompton. In addition to co-leading the Atlanta Improvisers Orchestra, he has performed with ensembles such as Bent Frequency, Atlanta Contemporary Ensemble, and the Albany, GA Symphony Orchestra, and at festivals such as Big Ears in Knoxville, TN and Black Mountain College’s {Re] Happening. A devoted student and teacher of music, Benjamin continues to garner inspiration from the music traditions of the past, while pursuing a musical life aimed at the future horizons of creativity.
Girl Stew is an Atlanta-based indie folk band led by Emory seniors Alex Minovici and Michael Dehn, who also releases music as mj dehn. Their debut EP “Girl Forget,” was released in November 2024, with future releases on the horizon.
Music at Emory brings together students, faculty, and world-class artists to create an exciting and innovative season of performances, lectures, workshops, and master classes. With more than 150 events each year across multiple Emory venues, audiences experience a wide variety of musical offerings.
We hope you enjoy sampling an assortment of work from our student ensembles, community youth ensembles, artists in residence, professional faculty, up-and-coming prodigies, and virtuosos from around the world.
music.emory.edu
