Press contacts: Christina Jensen PR, ACO/EarShot
646.536.7864 | [email protected]
Katherine E. Johnson, New York Philharmonic Director, Public & Media Relations
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THIRTEEN EMERGING COMPOSERS SELECTED TO HAVE THEIR SCORES
READ AND PERFORMED BY
AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA AND THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC
As Part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL
A Collaboration with AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA’s
EARSHOT: THE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA COMPOSITION DISCOVERY NETWORK
Three Selected Works to be Given Premieres by the New York Philharmonic in Concerts Conducted by Alan Gilbert and Matthias Pintscher
June 5, 6, and 7 at Avery Fisher Hall
American Composers Orchestra led by George Manahan
23rd Annual Underwood New Music Readings
June 6 and 7, 2014 at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music
One Composer to Win $15,000 Commission, Another to Win Audience Choice Award
April 24, 2014, New York, NY – The New York Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra (ACO), in collaboration with ACO’s EarShot: the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network, announce the selection of 13 emerging composers from an international pool of more than 400 applicants from seven countries and 37 states ranging in age from 9 to 84, whose original scores for orchestra have been chosen for readings and performances by the Philharmonic and ACO as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL.
Three works will be selected to receive premieres on public concerts with the New York Philharmonic as part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL: one work on June 5 and the second on June 7 will be conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, and the third work will be featured on the June 6 program conducted by Matthias Pintscher. The three works will be selected following a private reading of six works by the Philharmonic on June 3.
On June 6 and 7, American Composers Orchestra will hold its 23rd annual Underwood New Music Readings conducted by Music Director George Manahan at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, also as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL. The Underwood Readings will feature new, stylistically diverse music from seven composers at the early stages of their careers. ACO’s Readings include two public events – a working rehearsal on June 6 at 10am, and a run-through on June 7 at 7:30pm. Both events are free and open to the public, giving audiences a chance to look behind the scenes at the process involved in bringing brand new orchestral music to life. One composer from the Underwood New Music Readings will be chosen to receive a $15,000 commission to write a new piece for ACO, to be premiered during the orchestra’s 2015-2016 season.
Writing for symphony orchestra remains one of the supreme challenges for emerging composers. The subtleties of instrumental balance, timbre, and communication with the conductor and musicians are critical skills, but opportunities for composers to gain hands-on experience working with professional orchestras are few. The New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings and the ACO Underwood New Music Readings will provide invaluable knowledge for the participating composers during the NY PHIL BIENNIAL.
“The New York Philharmonic’s presentation of works discovered through the EarShot composition discovery program is a particularly important and gratifying element of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL,” Alan Gilbert said. “Our goal for this project is to share with our audience the freshest music from new voices today. When we announced the call for scores we had no idea what it would yield. We were overwhelmed by the more than 400 submissions we received, and it was quite a challenge to hone them down to six for the Orchestra to read — I can honestly say that I have no idea which three will be selected to be performed on our concerts. Supporting new compositions and composers is imperative in keeping orchestras and classical music vital, and on a personal level, it fills me with great joy to be able to work with emerging composers to give them a platform for discovery.”
Michael Geller, president of ACO, adds: “American Composers Orchestra is excited to extend our role as a catalyst for emerging American composers by collaborating with the New York Philharmonic, whose NY PHIL BIENNIAL has a mission kindred to our own. For 23 years, through our Underwood New Music Readings, we have given emerging composers a hands-on opportunity to work directly with a professional orchestra, many of them for the first time. We are also delighted to partner with the Philharmonic in its own readings program under the auspices of EarShot, the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network. The New York Philharmonic is joining a growing roster of orchestras across the country in working with EarShot to connect to the next generation of great new composers and bring their music to their musicians and audiences.”
The composers selected to participate in the New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings and their works are:
Julia Adolphe: Dark Sand, Sifting Light
Julia Adolphe was born in 1988 in New York and is now based in Los Angeles. She is a composer, writer, and soprano whose music embraces diverse artistic and sociological influences, unfolding intricate emotional narratives. Adolphe has received the Theodore Front Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music, the Jimmy McHugh Composition Prize, John James Blackmore Prize, and John S. Knight Prize. She is currently pursuing a DMA from the USC Thornton School of Music studying composition with Stephen Hartke, and holds a MM in music composition from USC and a BA in music composition and literary theory from Cornell University. Hartke calls Adolphe, “a very promising composer.” Her work Dark Sand, Sifting Light is her first for professional orchestra, and imagines a piano playing in the distance, overheard through an open apartment window. As the listener poised beneath the window begins to daydream, the piano sounds take on larger orchestral colors.
William Dougherty: Into Focus
William Dougherty was born in 1988 in Philadelphia and currently resides in Basel, Switzerland. His works have been performed by ensembles including the Orchestre National de Lorraine, the BBC Singers, the London Chorus, the Lontano Ensemble, the Nemascae Lemanic Modern Ensemble, and the Ligeti String Quartet. Dougherty earned his BM in composition from Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in 2010 where he studied with Richard Brodhead and Jan Krzywicki. As a Marshall Scholar, Dougherty earned his MM in composition with distinction from the Royal College of Music, London in 2012 working with Mark-Anthony Turnage and Kenneth Hesketh. That same year, he pursued complementary studies with Georg Friedrich Haas at the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, where he still attends. In fall 2014, Dougherty will continue his studies with Haas as a doctoral student at Columbia University. Of his work, Haas says, “His music is fragile, expressive, and full of deep love of the qualities of sound.” In his piece Into Focus, Dougherty seeks to aurally explore the three areas of visual perception known as the focus, fringe, and margin.
Max Grafe: Bismuth: Variations for Orchestra
Max Grafe was born in 1988 in Poughkeepsie and now lives in New York. His work has been performed by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, bassoonists Elizabeth Garrett and Sasha Gee Enegren, pianist Han Chen, and saxophone-percussion duo Patchwork. Grafe has received several scholarships for graduate study at the Juilliard School, a fellowship for study at the 2012 Aspen Music Festival and School, a 2011 Jacobs School of Music Dean’s Prize, and a 2007 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He is currently pursuing a DMA in composition as a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow of the Juilliard School, where he also received a MM in composition in 2013. He received a BM in composition with a concentration in bassoon from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2011. Grafe’s work Bismuth: Variations for Orchestra is the result of the composer’s desire to write a piece with a high degree of abstraction, in contrast to his previous works informed by extramusical sources. The work is named for the kaleidoscopic patina and geometric edges of a pure bismuth crystal. Mentor composer Christopher Rouse describes Grafe’s music as “elegant and imaginative.” This is Grafe’s first reading by a professional orchestra.
Jesse Jones: …innumerable stars, scattered in clusters
Jesse Jones was born in 1978 in Flora Vista, New Mexico and now resides in Columbia, South Carolina. His music has been performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Muziekgebouw, Seiji Ozawa Hall, the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater, the Aspen Music Festival, and the American Academy in Rome. He was a 2009 participant in ACO’s Underwood New Music Readings, and has received the Elliott Carter Rome Prize in Composition from the American Academy in Rome, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Heckscher Foundation Prize in Composition, Cornell’s Sage Fellowship, a Barlow Endowment Commission, the Peter Tommaney Fellowship of the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Jones holds a DMA in music composition from Cornell University where he studied with Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, and Kevin Ernste. He earned his MM in composition from the University of Oregon and his BM from Eastern Oregon University. Jones is currently Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of South Carolina. Steven Stucky described Jones’ work as having, “a very special, very personal voice, shaped by his upbringing in New Mexico and Oregon. It is spell-binding music.” Jones’ …innumerable stars, scattered in clusters was inspired by the experience of sharing the same view of the heavens that Galileo Galilei saw in 1609 from the tallest hill in Rome, during his residency at the American Academy in Rome.
Wang Lu: Scenes from the Bosco Sacro
Composer and pianist Wang Lu was born in Xi’an, the ancient capital of China, in 1982 and now lives in Chicago. She grew up in a musical family with strong Chinese opera and folk music traditions, and her works reflect a natural identification with those influences through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities. Wang Lu is a past participant in the ACO Underwood New Music Readings, and her work Flowing Water Study II was commissioned and premiered by ACO at the opening concert of the orchestra’s SONiC Festival in 2011. She won the first prize at Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s Young Composers Forum in 2010 and shared the Tactus International Young Composers Orchestra Forum Award in 2008. She was selected for a Tremplin commission by IRCAM/Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2010, the International Composition Seminar with the Ensemble Modern in 2012, and has also received two ASCAP Morton Gould awards. Wang Lu received her doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University in 2012, after graduating with highest honors from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music in 2005. Her composition teachers have included Fred Lerdahl, Tristan Murail, George Lewis, and Chou-Wen Chung. Of her music, Fred Lerdahl says, “Lu is a gifted composer who is on her way to a major career . . . a distinctive melodic and instrumental amalgam of Chinese and Western stylistic traits.” Her work Scenes from the Bosco Sacro, is written in response to the bizarre Mannerist garden complex, the Bosco Sacro (Sacred Grove), in Northern Lazio outside of Rome.
Andrew McManus: Strobe
Andrew McManus was born in 1985 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and is now based in Chicago. His music mixes strange sounds and irregular rhythms to find new ways of exploring spirituality, surrealism, and theatrical drama. In May 2014 his opera Killing the Goat will be premiered by eighth blackbird, the Pacifica Quartet, and members of the Contempo Chamber Players at the University of Chicago. In 2013 Ancient Vigils, a New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, was premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York. His previous works include Identity, which was premiered at the 2008 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute and The Concerto of Deliverance (2010), which was read by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and premiered by the University of Oklahoma Symphony. McManus is currently a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, where he studies with Augusta Read Thomas, Marta Ptaszynska, Shulamit Ran, and Howard Sandroff. He also holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Yale University. His honors include a BMI Student Composer Award and honorable mentions from ASCAP. McManus’ piece Strobe explores the connotations and images associated with the word, through sharp, pointed, scattershot rhythmic textures, erratic shrieks of brilliance and the occasional thumping kick drum. Composer and University of Chicago professor Marta Ptaszynska says, “[McManus’] compositions are imaginative, with a very good sense of structure and timbre.”
A private reading session of these six works by the Philharmonic will take place on June 3, at which the participants and mentor composers will be present. Three pieces will be selected to be performed on NY PHIL BIENNIAL concerts on June 5 and 7, with Alan Gilbert conducting, and on June 6, with Matthias Pintscher conducting, at Avery Fisher Hall. Alan Gilbert will meet with the participating composers, taking part in feedback meetings along with Philharmonic musicians and mentor composers and working individually with the composers whose works are selected. The mentor composers for the New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings are Christopher Rouse, Steve Mackey, Derek Bermel, Robert Beaser, and Matthias Pintscher. Rouse, Pintscher and Mackey will all have works performed as part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL.
The New York Philharmonic Readings are organized in partnership with EarShot, a program of the American Composers Orchestra in collaboration with the American Composers Forum, League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA. EarShot helps orchestras around the country to identify and support promising composers in the early stages of their careers. EarShot advises organizations on the programs that would best suit their new-composer needs — from new-music readings to composer residencies and competitions — and assists with planning, identifying composers through its extensive nationwide calls, and program design and execution. For more information, visit www.earshotnetwork.org.
The composers chosen for ACO’s 23rd Underwood New Music Readings and their works are:
Andy Akiho: Tarnished Mirrors
Andy Akiho was born in 1979 in Columbia, South Carolina and now resides in New York. His musical interests run from steel pan to traditional classical music. Recent engagements include commissioned premieres by the New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble ACJW, a performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and three concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC featuring original works. His rhythmic compositions have been recognized with awards including the 2014-15 Luciano Berio Rome Prize, a 2012 Chamber Music America Grant with Sybarite5, the 2011 Finale & ensemble eighth blackbird National Composition Competition Grand Prize, the 2012 Carlsbad Composer Competition Commission for the Calder Quartet, the 2011 Woods Chandler Memorial Prize (Yale School of Music), a 2011 Music Alumni Award (YSM), the 2010 Horatio Parker Award (YSM), three ASCAP Plus Awards, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, and a 2008 Brian M. Israel Prize. Akiho is a graduate of the University of South Carolina (BM, performance), the Manhattan School of Music (MM, contemporary performance), and the Yale School of Music (MM, composition). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Princeton University. His compositions have been featured on PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” and by organizations such as Bang on a Can, American Composers Forum, and The Society for New Music. Of him, Bang on a Can co-founder David Lang says, “His music is attractive and smart and full of invention. One of the hardest working composers I have ever met.” Akiho describes his new piece, Tarnished Mirrors, as an opportunity to write for a large ensemble with infinite timbral palettes. This is his first non-concerto work for orchestra.
Melody Eötvös: Beetles, Dragons, and Dreamers
Melody Eötvös was born in 1984 in Australia and is now based in Bloomington, Indiana. Her work draws on both multimedia and traditional instrumental contexts, as well substantial extra-musical references to a broad range of philosophical topics and late 19th century literature. She has studied with composers including Gerardo Dirié, Simon Bainbridge, Claude Baker, Jeffrey Hass, John Gibson, and Alicyn Warren. Eötvös has been the recipient of various awards including the 3MBS National Composers Award (Australia 2009), an APRA PDA (Australia 2009), and the Soundstream National Composer Award (2012). She has had her music performed by ensembles and orchestras including the London Sinfonietta, BBC Singers, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and the Australian String Quartet. She holds a DM (2014) from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and a MM (2008) from the Royal Academy of Music, London. Her piece Beetles, Dragons, and Dreamers draws its inspiration from the concept of four Mythological or Ancient relics that, over the ages, have been carried into the present time but with transformed meanings. Claude Baker said of her work, “She is to be admired for her fluency, imagination and craft.”
Robert Honstein: Rise
Robert Honstein was born in 1980 in Syracuse, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. His works have been performed throughout North America by ensembles such as the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble ACJW, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Mivos quartet, the Del Sol Quartet, Concert Black, TIGUE, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. He has received an Aaron Copland Award, multiple ASCAP awards and other honors from SCI, Carnegie Hall, and New Music USA. He has also received residencies at Copland House, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, I-Park, the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Honstein studied composition at the Yale School of Music with Martin Bresnick, Christopher Theofanidis, and David Lang. Bresnick describes Honstein’s music as, “Always rich in rhythmic vitality and a sure feel for instrumental capabilities.” Honstein’s new work, Rise, is a meditation on the idea of the pastoral, placed in the current post-industrial, climate-changing 21st century.
Jared Miller: Contrasted Perspectives – Two Surrealist Portraits
Jared Miller, born in 1988 in Los Angeles and raised in Vancouver, Canada, now lives in New York. He has worked in collaboration with many ensembles including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, the Sneak Peek Orchestra, Latitude 49 Ensemble and with soloists including pianists Sara Davis Buechner, Ang Li and Imri Talgam and violinist Francisco Fullana. Miller has won numerous awards for composition including a 2012 ASCAP Morton Gould Award, the 2011/12 Juilliard Orchestra Competition and the 2011 SOCAN Competition for Young Composers. He is currently a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School where he studies with John Corigliano and Samuel Adler. Corigliano says of Miller, “[He has] imaginative ideas, impressive technique, and a perfect ear. I predict he will be an important musical force in North America and internationally.” Miller’s work Contrasted Perspectives takes as its starting point the Surrealist art of Dalí and the films of Fellini.
Kyle Rotolo: Apophis
Kyle Rotolo was born in 1986 in River Vale, New Jersey where he still resides. He has been awarded the Ada Arens Morawetz Memorial Award in Composition, third prize in the Prix d’Ete chamber music composition competition (both from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University), and was a finalist in both the BMI Student Composer Awards and the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Rotolo is an alumnus of the Peabody Institute (MM, 2013), the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, the Brevard Music Center, and a member of Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society. In 2012, Rotolo’s mini-opera Marilyn’s Room was premiered by the Peabody Opera Company, and his work for solo guitar Le crâne a lá cigarette qui fume was released on the album Epitaphios by the lauded guitarist Anastasios Comanescu. In 2013, his String Quartet No. 1: Macchiato was recorded by the New England String Quartet and released on the album Perceptions: Points of View for Small Ensemble (Navona). Rotolo’s mentors have been Kevin Puts, Liviu Marinescu, and N. Lincoln Hanks. He has also studied privately with Samuel Adler, Francois Paris, and David Dzubay. Rotolo’s work Apophis is a music reaction to the 2004 discovery of a half-mile wide asteroid that was then thought to be on a collision course with Earth. The asteroid was named Apophis after the mythological enemy of the Egyptian sun-god Ra. This is Rotolo’s first experience working with a professional orchestra.
Harry Stafylakis: Brittle Fracture
Harry Stafylakis was born in 1982 in Montreal, Canada and now lives in New York. With a background in progressive metal and traditional Greek music, Stafylakis has developed a unique conception of musical temporality and rhythm, infusing his compositions with a characteristic vitality and drive. Stafylakis’ works have been performed internationally by the Israel Chamber Orchestra, McGill Symphony Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Mivos Quartet, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Cygnus Ensemble, Alea III, Lorelei Ensemble, Architek Percussion, and American Modern Ensemble. His awards include the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and four SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers. Stafylakis holds a BM from McGill University, where he studied with Chris Paul Harman, Jean Lesage, and John Rea. He is a doctoral candidate and Graduate Teaching Fellow at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, studying with Jason Eckardt and David Del Tredici. Eckardt says Stafylakis’ music “subtly integrates aspects of heavy metal into unique concert music. The result is a stylistic fusion that I have never heard accomplished so convincingly.” His work Brittle Fracture attempts to depict an unusual type of material structural failure in musical terms, and is inspired by techniques commonly employed in pop music production.
Wang A-Mao: Characters in Theatre
Wang A-Mao was born in 1986 into a musical family in Beijing, China and is currently based in Kansas City, Missouri. Wang’s awards include second prize in the Palatino Composition Competition (2007) for her piano solo work Sheng Dan Jing Mo Chou, the 2014 Missouri Music Teachers Association Composition Commission, and the Young Composer Project winner of the Beijing Modern Music Festival for her chamber music work The Vox of Swallow and Nightingale. Her East-West instrumentation chamber work The Feeble Breeze, The Sullen Spring was premiered by Music From China at Symphony Space in New York in 2013 and her Chinese chamber music work, The Battle Between Zhong Kui and Ghosts, was performed at the Music Festival of the Central Conservatory of Music in 2008. Her orchestral work Plantains in the Rain was read by the Kansas City Symphony in 2012. From 2004-2009, Wang studied composition under Professor Tang Jianping at the Central Conservatory of Music, where she received her BA in music composition. She is now a second-year DMA composition student at the UMKC Conservatory of Musc and Dance, studying composition with Professors Chen Yi, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, and Paul Rudy. Chen Yi describes her as an “exceptional talent with rich sonority and keen sense of drama.” Wang’s work Characters in Theatre takes material from Bejing Opera, a form of traditional Chinese theater which combines singing, reciting, performing, acrobatics, acting, and instrumental music.
Since 1991 ACO’s Underwood New Music Readings have provided invaluable experience for emerging composers while serving as a vital resource to the music field by identifying a new generation of American composers. To date, more than 130 composers have participated in the Readings, including such award-winning composers as Melinda Wagner, Pierre Jalbert, Augusta Read Thomas, Randall Woolf, Jennifer Higdon, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Sebastian Currier, Kate Soper, and ACO’s own Artistic Director, Derek Bermel. Readings alumni have gone on to win every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, American Academy of Arts & Letters, and Rome Prizes, and orchestras around the globe have commissioned ACO Readings alumni.
The 23rd Annual Underwood New Music Readings are under the direction of ACO’s Artistic Director, composer Derek Bermel, and will be conducted by ACO Music Director George Manahan, with ACO’s Artistic Director Laureate Robert Beaser, Olly Wilson, and Julia Wolfe as mentor composers. The conductors, mentor composers, and principal players from ACO provide critical feedback to each of the participants during and after the sessions, which will be professionally recorded. One composer from the Underwood New Music Readings will be chosen to receive a $15,000 commission to write a new piece for ACO, to be premiered during the orchestra’s 2015-2016 season. In addition, on both June 6 and 7, audience members will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite pieces, and the composer chosen as the “Audience Choice” winner will be commissioned to compose an original mobile phone ringtone. The ringtone will be available free of charge to everyone who voted.
The Underwood New Music Readings also offer composers, students, or anyone interested in learning more about the business of being a composer a Career Development Seminar on Saturday, June 7 from 10am-4pm at the DiMenna Center. Workshop topics include Intellectual Property and Copyright Law, Engraving and Self-Publishing, Support and Fundraising for Composers, and Publicity and Promotion. The cost for the Seminar is $25, which includes lunch. Reservations for the Readings and the Seminar can be made at www.americancomposers.org/tickets.
About American Composers Orchestra
Now in its 37th season, American Composers Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. ACO makes the creation of new opportunities for American composers and new orchestral music its central purpose. Through concerts at Carnegie Hall and other venues, recordings, broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and commissions, ACO identifies today’s brightest emerging composers, champions prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and talent; as a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras; and as an advocate for American composers and their music. Some of ACO’s recent initiatives include the 2011 New York City-wide SONiC Festival with new works by 120 composers age 40 and under, the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, and coLABoratory: Playing It UNsafe, a research and development lab for new orchestral music. ACO has performed music by more than 700 American composers, including 300 world premieres and newly commissioned works. More information about American Composers Orchestra is available online at www.americancomposers.org.
About the New York Philharmonic
Founded in 1842, the New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world; on May 5, 2010, it performed its 15,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world. The Orchestra has always played a leading role in American musical life, championing the music of its time, and is renowned around the globe, having appeared in 432 cities in 63 countries — including its October 2009 debut in Vietnam and its February 2008 historic visit to Pyongyang, DPRK, earning the 2008 Common Ground Award for Cultural Diplomacy. The Philharmonic’s concerts are broadcast on the weekly syndicated radio program The New York Philharmonic This Week, streamed on nyphil.org, and have been telecast annually on Live From Lincoln Center on U.S. public television since the series’ premiere in 1976. The Philharmonic has made almost 2,000 recordings since 1917, with more than 500 currently available. The first major American orchestra to offer downloadable concerts, recorded live, the Philharmonic released the first-ever classical iTunes Pass in 2009–10; the self-produced recordings continue with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: 2013–14 Season. The Orchestra has built on its long-running Young People’s Concerts to develop a wide range of education programs, including Very Young People’s Concerts, for pre-schoolers; School Day Concerts, with supporting curriculum for grades 3–12; the School Partnership Program, enriching music education in New York City; Very Young Composers, enabling students to express themselves through original works; Learning Overtures, fostering international exchange among educators; and online resources used in homes and classrooms around the world. Alan Gilbert became Music Director in September 2009, succeeding a series of 20th-century musical giants that goes back to Gustav Mahler and Arturo Toscanini. Credit Suisse is the New York Philharmonic’s exclusive Global Sponsor.
About the NY PHIL BIENNIAL
A flagship project of the New York Philharmonic envisioned by Music Director Alan Gilbert, the NY PHIL BIENNIAL is a kaleidoscopic exploration of today’s music showcasing an array of curatorial voices through concerts presented with cultural partners throughout New York City. Modeled on the great visual art biennials, the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL, taking place May 28–June 7, 2014, brings the public together with a diverse roster of more than 50 composers, ranging from elementary school students to icons, for concerts of symphonies, concertos, staged opera, chamber music, and solo works, many of which will be premieres. Meet-up events, lectures and panel discussions, and online interactivity are planned to encourage audience members to directly engage with composers, scholars, and artists. The 2014 NY PHIL BIENNIAL partners include 92nd Street Y, The Museum of Modern Art, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Juilliard School, Gotham Chamber Opera, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Bang on a Can, American Composers Orchestra, and Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School High School. For more information, visit www.nyphil.org/biennial.
About EarShot
EarShot is a nationwide network of new music readings and composer-development programs. As the nation’s first ongoing, systematic program for identifying emerging orchestral composers, EarShot provides professional-level working experience with orchestras from every region of the country and increases awareness of these composers and access to their music throughout the industry. The program is administered by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) with partner organizations the American Composers Forum, League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA.
In addition to the New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings, EarShot partnerships during the 2013-2014 season included La Jolla Symphony (September 2013), Berkeley Symphony (Readings on February 2-3, 2014 and May 4-5, 2014), and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra New Music Readings for African-American Composers (March 9-10, 2014). Since the network’s founding more than three-dozen composers have been selected for EarShot new music readings with orchestras across the country including the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Pioneer Valley Symphony (MA), New York Youth Symphony, and the San Diego Symphony. For more information, visit www.earshotnetwork.org.
Tickets and Information
Thursday, June 5, 2014, 7:30pm; Open Rehearsal, 9:45am
Saturday, June 7, 2014, 8pm
Alan Gilbert Conducts World Premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 4
A Presentation of the New York Philharmonic
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Midori, violin
New York Philharmonic
TBD: Work to be selected through New York Philharmonic EarShot New Music Readings
Peter Eötvös: DoReMi (New York Premiere)
Christopher Rouse: Symphony No. 4 (World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Commission)
Play Date with composers/performers following the Saturday performance at Bar Biennial located in Avery Fisher Hall. Pre-Concert Talk (one hour before each concert) with violist and Philharmonic Senior Teaching Artist David Wallace.
Friday, June 6, 2014, 8pm; Open Rehearsal, 9:45am
Matthias Pintscher Conducts Two New York Premieres:
His Own Reflections on Narcissus and Carter’s Instances
A Presentation of the New York Philharmonic
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center
Matthias Pintscher, conductor
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
New York Philharmonic
TBD: Work to be selected through New York Philharmonic EarShot New Music Readings
Carter: Instances (New York Premiere)
Matthias Pintscher: Reflections on Narcissus (New York Premiere)
Play Date with composers/performers following the performance at Bar Biennial located in Avery Fisher Hall. Pre-Concert Talk (one hour before the concert) with violist and Philharmonic Senior Teaching Artist David Wallace.
New York Philharmonic Ticket Information:
Tickets for these performances start at $31. Biennial Passes are $95 each and are available by calling 212.875.5656. All tickets may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling 212.875.5656, 10am to 6pm Monday through Friday, 1pm to 6pm on Saturday, and noon to 5pm on Sunday. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic’s Customer Relations Department at 212.875.5656. Ticket prices subject to change. For more information about all NY PHIL BIENNIAL events, visit nyphil.org/biennial.
For press tickets, call Lanore Carr in the New York Philharmonic Marketing and Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at [email protected].
Friday, June 6, 2014, 10am – Working Rehearsal
Saturday, June 7, 2014, 10am-4pm – Career Development Seminar
Saturday, June 7, 2014, 7:30pm – Run-Through
American Composers Orchestra’s 23rd Annual Underwood New Music Readings
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37th Street, NYC
George Manahan, conductor
American Composers Orchestra
Andy Akiho: Tarnished Mirrors
Melody Eötvös: Beetles, Dragons, and Dreamers
Robert Honstein: Rise
Jared Miller: Contrasted Perspectives – Two Surrealist Portraits
Kyle Rotolo: Apophis
Harry Stafylakis: Brittle Fracture
Wang A-Mao: Characters in Theatre
ACO’s Underwood New Music Readings Ticket Information:
Admission to ACO’s Underwood New Music Readings is free, but reservations are required. The cost for the Career Development Seminar is $25, which includes lunch. Reservations for the Readings and the Seminar can be made at www.americancomposers.org/tickets.
For press passes, contact Christina Jensen at [email protected] or 646.536.7864.
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The New York Philharmonic EarShot New Music Readings are made possible with the support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music and with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Support for the Underwood New Music Readings comes from Paul Underwood, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation and the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University. The project also receives public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Additional funding for both provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Major support for the NY PHIL BIENNIAL is provided by The Francis Goelet Fund, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Susan and Elihu Rose Foundation, and The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation.
The June 7 New York Premiere of Peter Eötvös’s DoReMi is made possible in part with underwriting support from Julia Lanigan.
Christopher Rouse is The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence.
Additional Press Contact:
Julia Kirchhausen, NY PHIL BIENNIAL National Press Representative
917.453.8386 | [email protected]
