Release (2005/11/11)

“Music in Motion” Opens ACO’sOrchestra Underground
at Zankel Hall
Friday, November 11, 2005
Pilobolus Collaborates with ACO in “Lucid Dreams” Premiere

American Composers Orchestra opens its 2005-06 season with a program entitled“Music in Motion,”part of its provocative Orchestra Underground series at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. Along with a unique collaboration between composer Edward Bilous, choreographer Alison Chase, and members of Pilobolus Dance Theater, the concert features world premieres by José Serebrier and Michael Torke and a rare hearing of Conlon Nancarrow’s Study No. 7 orchestrated by Yvar Mikhashoff;”The Music in Motion program is an ideal example of our intentions for Orchestra Underground,” says Music Director Steven Sloane. “It combines a range of collaborative efforts, different styles of music, different musical influences exploring how music moves practically, intellectually and emotionally. And literally, as we will be taking the concert program to Philadelphia, too!”

Orchestra Underground is a new programming and performance initiative designed to stretch the definition of the symphony orchestra through non-traditional instrumentation and spatial orientations, technological innovation, and multimedia collaborations. Since its inception, the series has made good on its intentions to go where no symphony orchestra has gone before, focusing an eclectic mixture of today’s composers and artists, attracting new listeners, and playing to sold-out houses. Artistic Director Robert Beaser says of Orchestra Underground, “The innovation of Orchestra Underground is analogous to the innovation of the original idea behind creating the American Composers Orchestra, it is a logical extension of our work and, along with the New Music Readings, is designed to bring opportunity and attention to the next generation of American orchestral composers.”

Edward Bilous: Lucid Dreams (World Premiere)
with choreography by Alison Chase; video by Mirra Bank

Lucid Dreams by Edward Bilous with choreography by Alison Chase, the Founding Artistic Director of Pilobolus Dance Theater, and a high definition video by Mirra Bank, is a multimedia exploration of superstring theory exploring the fringe of human awareness and the simultaneity of the strands of life. Lucid Dreams, the state of being aware of the progress of a dream while asleep and dreaming it, is the fourth collaboration between Bilous and Chase and the first to be written for the concert stage. The visual images created by Bank, “using the landscape of the dancers’ bodies,” are suspended in a soundscape created by chamber orchestra with voice, a trio of electric strings (violin, viola, and bass), two saxophones, five drummers, and live and prerecorded electronics. The colliding emotional realms and physical realms evoke the “multiverse” of dimensions imagined by contemporary physicists.

Acclaimed for its non-traditional but powerful and deeply collaborative approach to choreography and dance, Pilobolus Dance Theater is recognized as a major American dance company of international influence. The New York Times calls Pilobolus, “a much-needed breath of fresh air in the somewhat solemn climate of modern dance.”

Filmmaker Mirra Bank has collaborated with Pilobolus on several projects, most notably her award-winning documentary Last Dance, released in 2002 and short-listed for an Academy-award nomination.

Conlon Nancarrow: Study No. 7
(orch. Mikhashoff)

Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies were composed for player piano with the idea that the physical movement required to create the sounds the composer desired could be achieved only by the mechanical player. Many of the studies have been arranged for orchestra, creating the wonderful contradiction of a work unplayable by a human now being played by a whole group of humans. Offering a contrasting view of the connection between sound and motion, Nancarrow is increasingly recognized as having one of the most innovative musical minds of the past century. His work is known for its rhythmic complexity with intricate contrapuntal systems consisting of up to twelve different tempos at the same time. At a duration of approximately 10 minutes, Study No. 7, written between 1948-60, is the longest of the early studies and a tour-de-force. The arrangement is by the late pianist and performer/curator Yvar Mikhashoff, known for his devotion to 20th century works.

José Serebrier: Symphony No. 3
(World Premiere Performance)

It seems almost like a commentary on the debate between live concert goers and stay-at-home recording enthusiasts that José Serebrier’s Symphony No. 3, Symphonie Mystique, for string orchestra, was composed for a recording by the Toulouse National Chamber Orchestra in 2003, released and now available on the Naxos label. ACO’s program marks the world premiere live performance of the work. Marked by a Slavic-sounding melody that reappears throughout the piece in several disguises, more as a memory of things past than as a leitmotiv, the work includes a rhapsodic fantasy in the second and third movements interrupted by a sad, cryptic obsessively returning waltz. Symphonie Mystique then returns to its original haunting undercurrent, with the texture of the entire work enhanced by an off-stage soprano voice, performed by Carole Farley.

Ms. Farley continues to be one of the most sought-after soprano voices today, both for the concert and opera stage. She regularly appears in the world’s foremost opera houses, including the Chicago Lyric, New York City Opera, Cologne Opera, Zurich Opera, Welsh National Opera, Teatro Regio Turino, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Opera de Lyon, Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Opera de Nice and Teatro Communale Florence for Maggio Musicale.

Michael Torke: Four Proverbs
(World Premiere, chamber orchestra version)

In Four Proverbs, for female voice and ensemble, Michael Torke manipulates words in the same way that he has manipulated thematic cells in his earlier works, creating unique relationships between text and music. The original instrumentation for the work is expanded for this premiere, transcribing the synthesizer part for flutes, bassoons and horns to create a richer and more complex sound. The ACO performance features soprano Margaret Lloyd, a singer often associated with the composer’s music. Torke writes that he is interested in clarity and in one-to-one relationships between a word and a note. What happens when the notes begin to move around within this strict arrangement results in the composer’s characteristic stamp of restless rhythmic energy and humor while creating a bit of a house of mirrors with the text, until it is all sorted out again. Torke has created a substantial body of work in virtually every genre and his music has been called “some of the most optimistic, joyful and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years.”

Margaret Lloyd is one of America’s emerging young soprano voices. In addition to numerous opera appearances across the country, Ms. Lloyd has recorded Michael Torke’s Central Park with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. She was also the first prize winner of the district Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Judith Raskin Memorial Award.

Orchestra Underground Takes the Bus to Philadelphia

Following the premiere performances in New York, ACO takes Orchestra Underground on the road on Sunday, November 13, 2005 at 7:30pm at the Zellerbach Theatre at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Inquirer lists this “Music in Motion” performance among its top dozen not-to-be missed fall performances in Philadelphia.

ACO will bring both 2005-06 Zankel Hall Orchestra Underground concerts to the Annenberg Center (November 13, and March 18) along with a made-for-Philadelphia-only concert on February 4, and three performances in the following season. This series is made possible by The Philadelphia Music Project, an Artistic Initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts, administered by The University of the Arts.

Tickets & Information

ACO performs at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall Friday, November 11, 2005 at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $27 and $35, and may be purchased through CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, by visiting Carnegie Hall’s website at www.carnegiehall.org, or at the Carnegie Hall box office, 57th Street at 7th Ave. Discount subscription packages are also available.

Major support of American Composers Orchestra is provided by American Symphony Orchestra League, Amphion Foundation, Anncox Foundation, The Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, Arlington Associates, ASCAP, The Bagby Foundation for the Musical Arts, Bodman Foundation, Booth Ferris Foundation, BMI, BMI Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Citigroup Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Consolidated Edison, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, Fidelity Foundation, Fromm Music Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, The Estate of Francis Goelet, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Irving Harris Foundation, Henfield Foundation, Victor Herbert Foundation, Christian Humann Foundation, Jephson Educational Trust, Jerome Foundation, John and Evelyn Kossak Foundation, Helen Sperry Lea Foundation, Meet the Composer, Neil Family Fund, The New York Community Trust, Bay and Paul Foundations, PricewaterhouseCoopers, The Rodgers Family Foundation, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Susan and Ford Schumann Foundation, Smith Barney, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, The Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation, Paul Underwood Charitable Trust, The Watchdog and Sonata Charitable Trust and The Helen F. Whitaker Fund. ACO programs are also made possible with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.