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Playing It UNsafe is the first and only professional research and development lab to support the creation of cutting-edge new American orchestral music through no-holds-barred experimentation, encouraging composers to do anything but “play it safe.”Selected from a national search for their willingness to experiment and stretch their own musical sensibilities, these composers test the limits of the orchestra. Playing It UNsafe grew out of ACO’s ongoing mission to commission and perform new music that expands the range of possibilities for – and challenges convention notions about – orchestral music.
The culminating performance of ACO’s season-long collaborative musical laboratory. Composers pursuing no-holds-barred explorations that challenge their creative capacities and stretch the limits of what is possible with an orchestra. New pieces selected through a nationwide search and born from a unique incubation process of workshops, public readings, and collaborative feedback.
Friday, April 5, 2013 Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
Orchestra Underground: coLABoratory: Playing It UNsafe George Manahan, Music Director & Conductor Morton Subotnik, mentor composer Robert Beaser, mentor composer Derek Bermel, mentor composer RAYMOND J LUSTIG: Latency Canons DAN VISCONTI: Glitchscape DU YUN: Slow Portraits JUDITH SAINTE-CROIX: Vision V TROY HERION: New York City Symphony.
Orchestra Underground: Playing it UNsafe
Lab Workshops
Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 at 2 pm
Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010 at 2pm
JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave at 76th St., NYC
Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011 at 2pm
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at 2pm
Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 2pm
Aaron Davis Hall, Theater B
ACO’s next musical laboratory. Composers pursuing no-holds-barred explorations that challenge their creative capacities and
stretch the limits of what is possible with an orchestra. This open rehearsal offers the second in a series of glimpses of the works-in-progress. Music by Henry Threadgill, Sean Friar, Joan La Barbara, David Heuser, and Laura Schwendinger. Admission is free with reservation.
Orchestra Underground: Playing it UNsafe
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
Fri., March 4, 2011 at 7:30pm
George Manahan, Music Director & Conductor
Joan La Barbara, voice
Line C3 Percussion
Sean Friar: Clunker Concerto
(World Premiere)
Joan La Barbara: In solitude this fear is lived
(World Premiere)
Laura Schwendinger:Shadings
(World Premiere)
Henry Threadgill: No Gates, No White Trenches, Butterfly Effect
(World Premiere)
Wednesday & Thursday, April 23 & 24, 2008
Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU
Friday, April 25, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 7:30 pm.
Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia
Orchestra Underground: Playing It UNsafe
What happens when today’s most innovative musical thinkers pour their creative energies into no-holds-barred experiments designed to stretch the limits of what’s possible with an orchestra? The results of this nationwide search are brought together in an “on-the-edge” display of uncharted musical territory.
Jeffrey Milarsky, Conductor
Jeremy Flower, laptop
Ned McGowan, contrabass flute
Joshue Ott, superDraw
Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk)
ANNA CLYNE: TENDER HOOKS
a multimedia concerto for theremin, laptop & orchestra
JONATHAN DAWE: Overture & Ballet Music from Armide
fractal geometry & hip-hop meet in postwar Iraq
CHARLES MASON: Additions
time and place redefined in music for “porous” architecture
NED McGOWAN: Bantammer Swing
sonic extremes for amplified contrabass flute & orchestra
DAN TRUEMAN: Silicon/Carbon: an anti-Concerto-Grosso
for a hybrid laptop-acoustic orchestra