ACO Parables part of Symphony Space’s FUSE PROJECT
Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 8 PM
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre @ Symphony Space
JOHN CORIGLIANOTroubadours: Variations for Guitar & Orchestra with Sharon Isbin, guitar
NINA C. YOUNGOut of whose womb came the ice for baritone, orchestra and electronics with David Tinervia, baritone, and R. Luke DuBois, video
(World Premiere – ACO/Jerome Foundation Commission)
CARLOS SIMONPortrait of a Queen with Rehanna Thelwell, narrator
(World Premiere – ACO/Underwood Commission)
Parables, led by guest conductor Rossen Milanov, explores music’s incredible ability to tell stories and weave tales. The program includes John Corigliano’s Troubadours featuring star guitarist Sharon Isbin, for whom the piece was written; the world premiere of Portrait of a Queen by 2016 Underwood New Music Readings commission winner Carlos Simon with narrator Rehanna Thelwell; the world premiere of Nina C. Young’s Out of whose womb came the ice featuring baritone David Tinervia and video by R. Luke DuBois, which tells the survival story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition of 1914-17; and the New York premiere of Postcards by Bright Sheng, with four short movements in a folk music style from different regions of China.
The four composers will be in attendance and will briefly discuss their pieces from the stage. Join us after the concert at Symphony Space for drink specials and conversation.
Symphony Space’s FUSE PROJECT celebrates artistic innovation through new commissions, premieres, vibrant collaborations, and extraordinary performances.
In the Composers’ Own Words:
JOHN CORIGLIANO Troubadours
For me, the compositional process starts well before the generation of actual musical ideas. Troubadours began with guitarist Sharon Isbin nearly 13 years ago. At that time, she asked if I would write her a concerto, and I was decidedly lukewarm about the idea. The challenges of writing for a highly idiomatic instrument that I didn’t fully understand were augmented by my dislike of most “idiomatic” guitar music, as well, as my fear of writing a concerto for an inherently delicate instrument. But Sharon persisted. She sent me scores, tapes, and letters with ideas on the kind of concerto it could be. When I received a letter from her some years ago with articles about the age of the troubadours, and particularly some celebrated women troubadours, I started thinking about the idea of serenading and of song. Slowly the conception of a troubadour concerto began to form. During this process the crystallization of what I love most about the guitar took place: it is an instrument that has always been used to speak directly to an audience. Lyrical, direct, and introspective, it has a natural innocence about it that has attracted amateurs and professionals, young and old. Read full program notes Composer Spotlight Q&A with John Corigliano| Q&A with guitarist Sharon Isbin
CARLOS SIMON Portrait of a Queen Women have always been the pillar in the African-American community. My piece, Portrait of a Queen, will trace the evolution of black people in America from the prospective of the African-American female who represents strength, courage and selflessness. Through four movements, representing different places in time (Africa, Plantation/Slavery, Southern Jim Crow and Present Day), I will express her pride, sorrow, anger, and nurturing character. Each movement will be marked by short poetic statements that depict her emotions during her journey from Africa to present day. Here’s an example of the poetry:
Prologue
I am Queen
Strength rest upon my head: a gold-dipped crown adorned with jewels of Patience, Kindness and Wisdom that shine diamond bright.
Like a baby wrapped on my back in swaddling silk, I first nurtured it in my womb.
Created a love so deep.
NINA C. YOUNG Out of whose womb came the ice Out of whose womb came the ice creates a sonic and visual glimpse of a segment of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17). In August 1914, at the onset of WWI, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton gathered a crew of 27 men and set sail for the South Atlantic. They were in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize of the Heroic Age of Exploration: to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent by foot. Upon entering the Weddell Sea, they encountered unusually foul weather. Weaving south through the treacherous seas of ice, their ship, the Endurance, became trapped only 85 miles from their destination. After months of waiting for the ice to break, the ship was crushed and sank, leaving the crew stranded upon the ice floes without any means of contacting the outside world. In pursuit of survival, Shackleton and his crew endured 22 months traversing ice floes up the Antarctic Peninsula. The final leg included a deadly 800-mile open boat journey in their lifeboat, the James Caird, in hopes of reaching South Georgia Island. The crew was rescued on August 30, 1916; everyone survived. Though this expedition failed, it remains one of the most miraculous stories of polar exploration and human survival. Read full program notes
BRIGHT SHENG Postcards In 1997, I was approached by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for a commission. I was told that I was selected from 10 composers by the commissioner Ruth and John Huss, who were the patrons of the orchestra and chose me to write a work in celebration of their silver wedding anniversary. I subsequently had a nice conversation with the Husses and was told that they chose me because my music reminded them of their fantastic trip to China a few years earlier. So I thought a selection of music postcards from various places in China would be appropriate for the occasion. Thus I based each of these four short movements on a folk music style from different regions in China: Movement 1 is from Qinghai (Eastern Tibet), Movement 2 is from Sichuan, Movement 3 is from the southern China (nearby Shanghai), and last movement is based on a folk song from Shaanxi Province. For those who have been to China, I hope the music reminds them of their trip. For those who have not, maybe the listening will whet their appetite to visit China. Postcards was premiered on January 22, 1999 in St. Paul’s Ordway Theater by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff, and is dedicated to Ruth and John Huss.
Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30 PM
Zankel Hall @ Carnegie Hall
STEVE REICHTehillim with vocal ensemble: Elizabeth Bates, Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes, Rachel Calloway DAVID HERTZBERGChamber Symphony
(World Premiere – ACO/Underwood Commission)
TREVOR WESTONFlying Fish (World Premiere – ACO/Carnegie Hall Commission)
PAOLA PRESTINIThe Hotel That Time Forgot for Video Artist & Orchestra
(World Premiere – ACO/Toulmin Commission)
Led by George Manahan, Past Forward illustrates the role the past plays in the present, from composers’ own personal explorations of their roots, to broader investigations of the universal role of memory and recollection.
The concert celebrates Steve Reich’s 80th birthday with a performance of his Tehillim, presented as part of Reich’s season-long residency as holder of Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair; the world premiere of Paola Prestini’s The Hotel that Time Forgot with video by Mami Kosemura; the world premiere of Trevor Weston’s Flying Fish, which honors the composer’s Barbadian heritage; and the world premiere of 2015 Underwood New Music Readings commission winner David Hertzberg’s Chamber Symphony.
Photo from the Tehillim rehearsal at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1981 – George Manahan conducting Steve Reich & Musicians | George Manahan conducting Steve Reich & Musicians at the recording session | Courtesy of the Steve Reich Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation – Photos by Deborah Feingold
Listen to this excerpt from Steve Reich’s radio interview aboutthe 1981 New York premiere of Tehillim, which George Manahan conducted:
STEVE REICH Tehillim Tehillim will probably strike most listeners as quite different from my earlier works. There is no fixed meter or metric pattern in Tehillim as there is in my earlier music. The rhythm of the music here comes directly from the rhythm of the Hebrew text and is consequently in flexible changing meters. The use of extended melodies, imitative counterpoint functional harmony and full orchestration may well suggest renewed interest in Classical or, more accurately, Baroque and earlier Western musical practice. The non-vibrato, non-operatic vocal production will also remind listeners of Western music prior to 1750. However, the overall sound of Tehillim and in particular the intricately interlocking percussion writing which, together with the text, forms the basis of the entire work, marks this music as unique by introducing a basic musical element that one does not find in earlier Western practice including the music of this century. Tehillim may thus be heard as traditional and new at the same time. Composer Spotlight Q&A
DAVID HERTZBERG Chamber Symphony
In writing my Chamber Symphony (2017), I sought to create something essential, pared down. In the argument, voices speak to one other across vistas, from different sides of time, finding resonances both sympathetic and volatile. The music breathes with stoic indifference; silence turns space to sound like organ bellows. Though I conceived this work abstractly, the following lines of the American poet Wallace Stevens often came to my mind while composing:
Of Mere Being
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down. Composer Spotlight Q&A
TREVOR WESTON Flying Fish Images of flying fish have been ubiquitous in my life. As a national symbol and cuisine of Barbados, this animal has always intrigued me. Most of my family comes from Barbados so I do not remember a time before knowing about flying fish. My grandfather’s restaurant and bar in Speightstown, now owned by my cousin, uses the image of flying fish in its logo. When I was a child, I thought that flying fish were magical, mythical creatures moving through water and air at great speeds. Visiting the island of Barbados reminds me how much of my life resonates the culture of Bimshire (Barbados). Every time I visit Barbados, I feel like I am walking with my ancestors and with the vast history of the African presence in the Americas and the Caribbean. On the island, I feel like I am figuratively visiting the sound source of the resonance that I live. Flying Fish honors the African roots of Bajan (Barbadian) culture and African diasporic expression. Composer Spotlight Q&A
PAOLA PRESTINI The Hotel That Time Forgot for Video Artist & Orchestra
Across the border from Syria, in a forgotten Lebanese city, sits an unexpected building, The Grand Hotel Palmyra. The hotel hasn’t closed since its opening in 1874, even as war has raged just outside its doors. The owner Rima Husseini says, “No one has a right to touch hotel Palmyra, except for time.” I became fascinated with the hotel when I first came upon a video showing its interior. It became clear that I wanted to create a sonic orchestral world to relive its memories. In her new eponymous video installation, Pendulum, Mami Kosemura sought to create a mysterious and unrealistic atmosphere, while using a real structure as its basis. This structure is the main salon of the Dillon + Lee townhouse, where Kosemura spent the summer. As it relates to The Hotel that Time Forgot, this room is meant to represent a room in The Grand Hotel Palmyra and is filled with every day actions. The pendulum gives the viewer the sense of loss of time, and blurred memories. Composer Spotlight Q&A
Watch the short documentary on the Hotel Palmyra that inspired Paola to write this piece:
ACO has awarded composer Carlos Simon its 2016 Underwood Commission, bringing him a $15,000 purse for a work to be premiered by ACO on May 23, 2017, at Symphony Space in New York City. Chosen from seven finalists during ACO’s 25th Underwood New Music Readings on June 13 and 14, 2016, in one of the most coveted opportunities for emerging composers in the United States, Carlos won the top prize with his work Plagues of Egypt.
Carlos says, “I am extremely grateful to be chosen for this prestigious opportunity. As a composer, there is no greater honor than to express my gifts through such amazingly talented musicians. I cannot wait to work with Maestro Manahan and ACO.”
Listen to an excerpt of Plagues of Egypt by ACO from the Underwood Reading on June 14, 2016:
Carlos gets feedback on the reading of his music
Carlos is a versatile composer, arranger and musician, combines the influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism in his music. He was named the winner of the 2015 Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Contest. Serving as music director and keyboardist for GRAMMY Award winner Jennifer Holliday, he has performed with the Boston Pops Symphony, Jackson Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony. Carlos is currently earning his Doctorate at the University of Michigan, where he has studied with Michael Daugherty and Evan Chambers. He received his master’s degree from Georgia State University and his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College. He taught music theory at Morehouse. For the 2015-2016 season, Carlos served as the young composer-in-residence for the Detroit Chamber Strings and Winds.
The other 2016 Underwood Readings participants were:
Katherine Balch, who is currently pursuing her master’s degree at Yale School of Music, studying with David Lang.
Lembit Beecher, a graduate of Harvard, Rice University and Univ. of Michigan, whose recent awards include a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a residency at the Penn Museum, and a grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.
Paul Frucht, a 2015 recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Paul is currently a D.M.A. candidate at Juilliard. Read the ’15 Questions’ interview with Paul
Sarah Gibson, a Los Angeles-based composer won the Victor Herbert ASCAP award, and received her Doctorate from University of Southern California.
Joel Rust, a Doctorate candidate at New York University, with a master’s degree from Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Michael Small, who received his bachelor’s degree from the Royal Northern College of Music, before moving the United States to study with Steven Stucky at Cornell University.
2016 Composers and Mentors at Columbia University
Audience members at the Underwood New Music Readings also made their voices heard through the Audience Choice Award. The winner this year was composer Paul Frucht (first on left in above pic), for his piece Dawn, written for his middle school assistant principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed in the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. As the winner, Paul will compose an original mobile phone ringtone that will be available, free of charge, to everyone who voted.
Lead support for the Underwood New Music Readings comes from Mr. and Mrs. Paul Underwood. Support of Readings also comes from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Fromm Music Foundation. Additional funding provided by the League of American Orchestras with support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
EarShot Naples Philharmonic to take place May 25-26, 2016
Artis–Naples’ Hayes Hall
The JCOI Readings by the Naples Philharmonicwill take place at Artis-Naples Hayes Hall, with mentor composers Vincent Mendoza (composer/arranger), James Newton (JCOI Director; University of California, Los Angeles), and Derek Bermel (Artistic Director, ACO), conducted by Naples Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Yaniv Segal.
These composers were selected from a field of 34 nationwide based on their excellent musicianship, originality, and potential for future growth in orchestral composition. Each of the 34 participated in JCOI’s first phase, a summer intensive last August at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where they studied new scores and compositional techniques, as well as best practices in orchestration, notation, score preparation, and contemporary performance. Over the course of the last year, sixteen of these composers have been writing new works, taking what they learned in the first phase and putting it into practice. Their pieces will be played and rehearsed, and refined through a series of workshops and critical feedback sessions with the orchestra players, conductors, and mentor composers.
The EarShot Naples Philharmonic New Music Readings are the first of three such Readings programs taking place around the country through EarShot, the National Orchestral Composition Discovery Network. In addition to the four composers in tonight’s Reading, a dozen composers will have their music workshopped and performed by American Composers Orchestra this June and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in September.
JCOI is a new development in the jazz field. While many jazz composers seek to write for the symphony orchestra, opportunities for hands-on experience are few. JCOI provides new resources for both jazz and classical music, promoting the emergence of composers trained in both jazz and new orchestral techniques. The program broadens the scope of jazz education and presents opportunities for career development—and what’s more, audiences are presented with exciting new models for musical exchange. The Readings represent not only the culmination of the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, but also a glimpse into a future of new possibilities—a future where “jazz” composers embrace the “symphony” orchestra, and the orchestra embraces them.
The Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Continuing Innovation Program, with additional funding provided by The Herb Alpert Foundation and the Fromm Music Foundation. EarShot is a partnership of American Composers Orchestra in cooperation with American Composers Forum, the League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA. EarShot is made possible with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Additional support comes from the League of American Orchestras with a grant from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
This event was a preview for Black Moon premiering at Zankel Hall on Oct. 28, 2016.
Composer Judith Shatin will be joined by George Manahan and members of the orchestra in a demonstration of Kinect, a motion sensing input device for computer controlled electronics. This will be demonstrated musically through a sketch entitled Red Moon of how this technology will be used for her ACO commission Black Moon, to be premiered in our October 28, 2016 concert at Zankel Hall (Carnegie Hall). Also, Judith’s For The Birds for amplified cello and electronics with birdsong from the Yellowstone region will be performed.
Workshop and performance starting at 2:00pm, followed by a hands-on demonstration for audience members
Tickets are free, but space is limited!
CoLABoratory, is the world’s only “R & D” lab for experimental new music. CoLABoratory is a high tech incubator where composers bring fantastic new ideas to ACO that are workshopped, refined and developed into new works over the course of a season, before they are premiered by ACO at Carnegie Hall.
Watch Judith test the Kinect for her earlier piece Being In Time
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with David Tinervia, baritone, and R. Luke DuBois, video
STEVE REICH Tehillim
