Icebreaker (band)

Icebreaker
Icebreaker live at QEH 2010
Background information
Origin	London, England
Genres	Post-minimalism, minimalism, totalism
Years active	1989-
Labels	Cantaloupe Music Orange Mountain Music New Tone Records Donemus Argo
Members	James Poke Rowland Sutherland Christian Forshaw Bradley Grant Dominic Saunders Andrew Zolinsky Walter Fabeck Emma Welton Audrey Riley Dan Gresson James Woodrow Pete Wilson Mel Ernst Zettl
Past members	(selected:) John Godfrey Damian LeGassick Arun Bharali Ian Watson Richard Craig Katherine Pendry Tom Armstrong Joanna Parker Tracey Goldsmith Darragh Morgan

Icebreaker is a UK-based new music ensemble founded by James Poke and John Godfrey. The group have established themselves as one of the UK's leading new music interpreters specializing particularly in post-minimal and "totalist" repertoire. They always play amplified and have a reputation for playing, by classical standards, "seriously loud". More recently they have also incorporated more ambient repertoire, particularly in their version of the Brian Eno album Apollo.

Icebreaker was formed in 1989 to play at the new Dutch music festival in York. The group consists of 12 musicians, with an instrumentation that includes pan-pipes, saxophones, electric violin and cello, guitars, percussion, drums, accordion and keyboards as well as a sound engineer and production manager. Richard Witts is consultant to the ensemble.

Their repertoire encompasses music by a variety of well-known composers, including Louis Andriessen, Julia Wolfe, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon, Yannis Kyriakides, David Lang, Steve Martland, Michael Nyman, Steve Reich, Donnacha Dennehy, and Diderik Wagenaar. Icebreaker's unusual instrumentation gives the band's music a distinctive sound and allows the blending of contemporary classical, rock and alternative music. The instrumentation evolved from the line up of the Dutch group Hoketus, who had operated between 1977 and 1987, and served as an inspiration and model for the formation of the group. The presence of pairs of pan-pipes and saxophones derives from Icebreaker's performances of several works from the by now defunct Hoketus's repertoire, including the eponymous work by Louis Andriessen.