American Composers Orchestra Derek Bermel, Artistic Director & George Manahan, Music Director
Performs in the New York premiere of Fellow Travelersby composer Gregory Spears & librettist Greg Pierce
Co-presented with PROTOTYPE Festival and John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Fri., Jan. 12, 2018 at 8pm | Sat., Jan. 13, 2018 at 2pm & 8pm | Sun., Jan. 14, 2018 at 2pm Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice | 524 W. 59th Street | NYC Tickets: $30-$75 at 212.352.3101 or www.prototypefestival.org
American Composers Orchestra (ACO) continues its 2017-2018 season, Dreamscapes, under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel, Music Director George Manahan, and President Edward Yim, with New York premiere performances of Fellow Travelers as part of the PROTOTYPE Festival from Friday, January 12, 2018 through Sunday, January 14, 2018 at John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater. Based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel and directed by Kevin Newbury, composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce’s Fellow Travelers is an extraordinary personal journey through the intriguing, gut-wrenching world of the McCarthy era 1950s American witch-hunts, and the often overlooked “Lavender Scare.”
“We’re so excited to work again with Greg Spears. Several years ago, ACO read, performed, and recorded his hypnotizing orchestral work Finishing, which among other devices employs dog-whistles and microcassette tapes,” said ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel. “We all became instant Spears fans, and the enthusiasm has not waned with time. I’m personally thrilled that ACO will perform the New York premiere of Fellow Travelers; Greg’s lush and dramatic score is a powerful vessel for communicating this moving story. To be collaborating with PROTOTYPE and John Jay College of Criminal Justice supports our belief in collaborating with like-minded partners to produce important work.”
About Fellow Travelers
At the height of the McCarthy era in 1950s Washington, D.C., recent college grad Timothy Laughlin is eager to join the crusade against Communism. A chance encounter with handsome State Department official Hawkins Fuller leads to Tim’s first job, an illicit love affair with a man, and an entanglement that will end in a stunning act of betrayal. This acclaimed Cincinnati Opera productionpairs American Minimalism with Medieval troubadour melodies, reflecting the tension between two men’s professional, public lives and their private, forbidden longings.
“Opera thrives on stories with rich subtext, where characters cannot fully express themselves in words,” states Spears. “Both politicians and gay men and women in Washington, D.C. in the 1950s lived in a world full of coded sensibility – a culture operating under the surface and in counterpoint with the rigid formality of 1950s mores. In both the fraught political world of the McCarthy Era and the private world of Hawk and Tim, dialogue could only tell part of the story. My goal was to craft a musical language for Fellow Travelers that would foreground the undercurrent of clandestine machinations and forbidden longing churning under the surface of Greg Pierce’s elegant adaptation. My hope is that the nuanced machinery of opera might play some small part reminding us of this history, while also preserving in music the sensibility of doubleness that so often defined gay experience in this era.” Photo: Philip Groshong
Gregory Spears (Composer) music work has been called “astonishingly beautiful” (The New York Times), “coolly entrancing” (The New Yorker), and “some of the most beautifully unsettling music to appear in recent memory” (The Boston Globe). In recent seasons, he has been commissioned by The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Cincinnati Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seraphic Fire, The Crossing, and the JACK Quartet among others. Spears’ Fellow Travelers was written with playwright Greg Pierce and premiered in 2016 at Cincinnati Opera in a ten-performance run. It was hailed as “one of the most accomplished new operas I have seen in recent years” (Chicago Tribune) and an opera that “seems assured of lasting appeal” (The New York Times). The premiere of Fellow Travelers was also included in The New York Times’ Best in Classical Music for 2016. Spears’ children’s opera Jason and the Argonauts, written with Kathryn Walat, also premiered in the summer of 2016 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and was subsequently performed on tour the following fall. His opera about space exploration, O Columbia, was written in collaboration with Royce Vavrek and premiered in 2015 at Houston Grand Opera. Spears and Walat’s first opera, Paul’s Case, was described as a “masterpiece” (New York Observer) and was developed by American Opera Projects. It was premiered by Urban Arias in 2013, restaged at the PROTOTYPE Festival in 2014, and presented in a new production by Pittsburgh Opera. Spears has won prizes from BMI and ASCAP as well as awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Vagn Holmboe Competition. His music is published by Schott Music and Schott PSNY.
Greg Pierce(Librettist) grew up in Shelburne, Vermont. His play Slowgirl was the inaugural play of Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater (LCT3). It was subsequently produced by Steppenwolf Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse, among others. His play Her Requiem, a Lincoln Center Theater commission, was also produced by LCT3. The Landing, a musical written with composer John Kander, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre in NYC. His second musical with Kander, Kid Victory, was co-produced by Signature Theatre in Virginia and the Vineyard Theatre. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, co-written with director Stephen Earnhart, based on the novel by Haruki Murakami, premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival, and went on to play the Singapore Arts Festival. The Quarry, with music by Pierce’s brother Randal Pierce was commissioned and produced by Vermont Stage Company. Pierce has received fellowships from the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Yaddo, The Djerassi Institute, the New York Public Library, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. He currently holds commissions from Second Stage Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Foundation. His work has been developed with Naked Angels, The New Group, Atlantic Theatre Company, Asia Society, the Rattlestick Theater, and the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival. He recently wrote a film for Lionsgate. He has a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the WGA.
Kevin Newbury (Director) is a theatre, opera, and film director based in New York City. Newbury has directed over sixty original productions and his work has been presented by many opera companies, festivals, and symphonies including the Park Avenue Armory, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, Barcelona Liceu, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, The San Francisco Symphony, L’Opera de Montreal, The Prototype Festival, Urban Arias (DC), Bard Summerscape, Portland Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Cincinnati Opera, The Virginia Arts Festival, and The Wexford Festival in Ireland, among many others. Kevin is especially committed to developing and directing new work. He has directed over two dozen world premiere operas and plays, many of which were subsequently published or recorded. Recent world premiere highlights include Bates/Campbell’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (Santa Fe Opera), Spears/Pierce’s Fellow Travelers (Cincinnati Opera, New York Times Best of 2016), Todd Almond’s Kansas City Choir Boy (starring Courtney Love, PROTOTYPE/NYC and Boston, LA and Miami), Puts/ Campbell’s The Manchurian Candidate and Cuomo/Shanley’s Doubt (Minnesota Opera), and Lopez/Cruz’s Bel Canto (Lyric Opera of Chicago, broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances and recently nominated for the 2016 International Opera Awards: Best World Premiere). Newbury’s first two short films, Monsura Is Waiting and Stag, have screened at a total of forty film festivals and have each won festival awards. Both of his films are now available online. His third short, Epiphany V, a classical music video, will be released in mid 2017. Other upcoming projects include Fairouz/Hanif’s Bhutto (Pittsburgh Opera and Beth Morrison Projects) and Fellow Travelers (Lyric Opera of Chicago).
Sterling Zinsmeyer (Executive Producer and Co-Commissioner) conceived the idea, commissioned, and developed Fellow Travelers into a chamber opera. He spent most of his career in New York City, early on working in classical arts management with Sol Hurok and theater production with producer Saint Subber. This career was interrupted by the AIDS epidemic, in which Zinsmeyer spent twenty years as a leader in developing special needs residences for persons living with HIV/AIDS. Ten years ago, Zinsmeyer resumed his arts career by developing independent films, serving as Executive Producer on the award-winning film Latter Days; other films include Adam & Steve, The Deceptionand Young Blue Eyes. Zinsmeyer and his husband, Louis Bixenman, reside in Santa Fe, New Mexico along with their three adorable critters: Oliver, Marcus and Tyler.
Thomas Mallon (Author) is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author’s crisp wit and interest in the “bystanders” to larger historical events. He is the author of nine books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers, Watergate, and most recently, Finale. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One’s Own), letters (Yours Ever) and the Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine’s Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos, and In Fact). He is a former literary editor of Gentleman’s Quarterly, where he wrote the “Doubting Thomas” column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005-2006. His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
George Manahan (Music Director) The wide-ranging and versatile George Manahan has had an esteemed career embracing everything from opera to the concert stage, the traditional to the contemporary. He is the Music Director of American Composers Orchestra and the Portland Opera (OR), previously served as Music Director of New York City Opera for fourteen seasons, and has appeared as guest conductor with the Opera Companies of Seattle, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Chicago, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera National du Paris and Teatro de Communale de Bologna, the National, New Jersey, Atlanta, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis Symphonies, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. A recipient of Columbia University’s Ditson Conducting Award, he was honored four times by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) for his commitment to 20th-century music during his tenure as Music Director of the Richmond Symphony (VA). Dedicated to the music of our time, he has led premiers of Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne, Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, David Lang’s Modern Painters, Hans Werner Henze’s The English Cat, Terence Blanchard’s Champion, the New York premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner and Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Karpman’s Grammy Award winning Ask Your Mama, a collaboration with soprano Jessye Norman, The Roots, and the orchestra of St. Luke’s. Recent Seasons have included appearances at the Santa Fe Opera, Rose Theater at Lincoln Center in a concert performance of Gluck’s Alceste featuring Deborah Voigt, the Music Academy of the West, and the Aspen Music Festival. The Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of his New York City Opera production of Madame Butterfly won an Emmy Award. Manahan’s discography includes the Grammy Award nominated recording of Edward Thomas’ Desire Under the Elms, with the London Symphony, and Steve Reich’s Tehillim on the EMI-Warner Brothers label. He is Director of Orchestral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music as well as frequent guest conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music.
FELLOW TRAVELERS
Gregory Spears, composer
Greg Pierce, librettist
Kevin Newbury, director
George Manahan, conductor
Braden Toan, assistant conductor
G. Sterling Zinsmeyer, executive producer
with American Composers Orchestra
Cast:
Timothy Laughlin: Aaron Blake
Hawkins Fuller: Joseph Lattanzi
Mary Johnson: Devon Guthrie
Senator Potter & Bartender: Vernon Hartman
Estonian Frank, Interrogator, & Sen. McCarthy: Marcus DeLoach
Potter’s Assistant, Bookseller, & Priest: Christian Pursell
Tommy McIntyre: Paul Scholten
Miss Lightfoot: Alexandra Schoeny
Lucy: Cecilia Violetta Lopez
Fellow Travelers is a Cincinnati Opera Production, developed and co-commissionedby G. Sterling Zinsmeyer and Cincinnati Opera, and co-presented by PROTOTYPE Festival with John Jay College of Criminal Justice and American Composers Orchestra.
About PROTOTYPE
PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now launched in January 2013, unleashing a powerful wave of opera- and music-theatre from a new generation of composers and librettists. Across its first five seasons, PROTOTYPE produced and presented a total of 160 performances of 32 presentations, and shared the work of more than 500 local, national, and international artists. Now in its sixth season, PROTOTYPE, as Opera News proclaimed, “has become a major leader in opera theatre for the twenty-first century.”
Founded by Kristin Marting (of HERE), Beth Morrison (of Beth Morrison Projects), and Kim Whitener (of HERE), and now produced and directed by them along with new co-director Jecca Barry, PROTOTYPE supports and spotlights a diverse range of culturally and socially engaged work from intrepid creators across ethnicity and gender. Half of PROTOTYPE’s lead artists to date have been women, and the Festival has presented work from Belgian, Chinese, Dutch, Egyptian-American, Indian-American, Irish, Kazakh, Korean-American, Lithuanian, Mexican, Russian, and Slovenian lead artists.
American Composers Orchestra’s 40th Birthday Concert & Gala Tuesday, November 7, 2017 at 7:30pm Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall | Broadway at 60th St., NYC
Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate American Composers Orchestra’s 40th Birthday and important contributors to American music:
Ellen and James S. Marcus Francis Thorne Paul Lustig Dunkel Jamie, Nina & Alexander Bernstein Paola Prestini
Video
Learn more about the honorees below
George Manahan, music director & conductor Dennis Russell Davies, conductor Derek Bermel, clarinet Mikaela Bennett, soprano
Jakub Józef Orliński, countertenor
ELIZABETH OGONEK: Sleep and Unremembrance (2015) (U.S. Premiere) LEONARD BERNSTEIN: Clarinet Sonata (1941-42, orchestrated by Sid Ramin 1994) PAOLA PRESTINI: Prelude and Aria from Gilgamesh (2016) (NY Premiere) DUKE ELLINGTON: Black, Brown & Beige (1943) FRANCIS THORNE: Fanfare, Fugue and Funk (1972) Selections from the American Songbook for voice and orchestra including George GERSHWIN: Fascinatin Rhythm Jerome KERN: All The Things You Are Harold ARLEN: Over the Rainbow
Our Honorees:
Mr. and Mrs. Marcus
Ellen and James S. Marcus are dedicated and passionate supporters of classical music. ACO has been fortunate to be among the beneficiaries of their commitment and generosity. Our 40th Birthday Concert & Gala are made possible through their generous sponsorship.
When Mr. Marcus passed away in July 2015, thoughtful tributes were made by The New York Times and WQXR among many others. Their impact and influence on American music is nothing short of incredible, and their legacy is one that continues to enable many artistic visions to thrive today.
Ellen Marcus was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio. After attending the University of Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1959, took courses at the New York Institute of Finance and was registered to sell securities. During this time, she worked on Wall Street for a number of prominent firms. Afterward, Ellen sold residential real estate for Stribling from 1995 until 2012. Ellen met James S. Marcus in 1970 and they married in 1974. A devoted opera-lover, Jim introduced Ellen to the art form and through him she became involved in the life of the Met. Jim served as Met chairman from 1986 to 1993 and as honorary director of the Met until his death in 2015. In 2010, the Marcuses donated $10 million to the Juilliard School to create the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts. Ellen has served on the auxiliary board of Lenox Hill Hospital since 1975 and currently sits on the boards of Young Concert Artists, MasterVoices and the Juilliard School. She is chairman of the patron program at WNET and a member of the Cosmopolitan Club’s board of governors. In addition to Ellen’s interest in opera, she is a lover of Broadway and cabaret music and is an aficionado of the American Songbook.
Francis Thorne
Francis Thorne‘s music has always had a healthy respect for the vernacular, both popular song and jazz. Born in Bay Shore, New York in 1922 into a musical family (his grandfather was Gustave Kobbé who is best known for Kobbé’s Opera Book), he started picking out tunes when he was five years old. By the age of nine he was entertaining his parents’ dinner guests.
His first formal training took place under Paul Hindemith at Yale University. After college came three-and-a-half years in the Navy during World War II, followed by nine years on Wall Street. All this time he kept up his jazz piano which brought him in contact with Duke Ellington whose personal recommendation led to a two-year stint as jazz pianist at Manhattan’s Hickory House – his first professional job as a musician. His return to the world of music reactivated his desire to compose, which brought him to David Diamond and two years of private study with him in Florence, Italy. Shortly thereafter his Elegy for Orchestra was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy conducting three subscription concerts in November, 1964.
The principal founder of American Composers Orchestra, of which he was both President and CEO, he has helped to commission and perform works by numerous other composers. He was also President/Treasurer of the Thorne Music Fund as well as Executive Director of Music Theatre Group, the Naumburg Foundation, and American Composers Alliance. He served on the Boards of Composers Recordings, Inc., American Music Center, the Virgil Thomson Foundation, and the MacDowell Colony, among several others. A member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters, for which he has been Treasurer and has sat on the Music Committee, Thorne’s own music is published by Merion Music, Inc. (BMI) and distributed by Theodore Presser Company–Rosalie Calabrese
Paul Lustig Dunkel
Paul Lustig Dunkel, one of America’s most versatile conductors, has been hailed for his command of the classical repertoire and applauded as a pre-eminent exponent of the music of our time. He served as Music Director and Conductor of the Westchester Philharmonic (WP) from its founding in 1983 to 2008, and has taken his place in the history of American contemporary music as a founder of the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) in 1978 with Dennis Russell Davies, Francis Thorne and Nicholas Roussakis. Until he stepped down in 2000, Mr. Dunkel was instrumental in elevating the ensemble to its position as a leader in American music. He also enjoys an active career as a flutist, noted for his brilliance as a performer and his desire to expand the flute repertory through premieres and commissions. Melinda Wagner’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion was commissioned for him by the Westchester Philharmonic in recognition of his fifteenth year with that orchestra. Premiered and recorded for Bridge Records by the Westchester Philharmonic, the work was performed with Mr. Dunkel as soloist with ACO in Carnegie Hall and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. His recordings for Bridge, Summit, CRI and New World Records have received wide critical acclaim, and his recording of The Early Music of Elliott Carter conducting the ACO was selected as one of the Top 10 recordings of the year by Time and Newsweek.
Since the inception of his career, Mr. Dunkel has been active in all aspects of classical music, and the depth and range of his talents and experience have taken him around the world. He has been Music Director of the Denver Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Vermont Mozart Festival, and has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras throughout the United States at the Kremlin and in Taiwan. He conducted the Washington Opera premiere of The Postman Always Rings Twice by Stephen Paulus and, at the invitation of Virgil Thomson, a New York City revival of his Four Saints in Three Acts. He has been involved extensively in the dance world, appearing with many companies here and abroad. He also served as Co-Director with pianist Michael Boriskin of Music from Copland House, a chamber music ensemble dedicated to the advocacy of American music based at the long-time home of Aaron Copland.
Maestro Dunkel played a crucial role in the extraordinary success of what Symphony magazine called “the suburban miracle” at the Westchester Philharmonic, where he was largely responsible for performances at the highest level and for its ever-growing audience and subscriber base and public profile until his retirement. He and the orchestra were the recipients of the 2000 Leonard Bernstein Award for Educational Programming from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and the American Symphony Orchestra League for excellence and innovation in music education. “Exploring New Worlds: Music of the Americas” and its ground-breaking program of student commissioning of a new work by a young composer was featured on “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS and recognized by the Westchester Arts Council with a 2001 Award.
Active in all aspects of classical music as conductor, flutist, composer/arranger and educator, Mr. Dunkel, an original member of Speculum Musicae, was principal flute of the American Symphony Orchestra under Stokowski, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble and many others. He has participated in the Spoleto, Casals, Aspen, Stratford Marlboro and Estival Festivals and toured with Music from Marlboro.
He has received the American Symphony Orchestra’s Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award, a Grammy nomination, awards from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, Harriet Ditson Fund, New York State Council on the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Silver Jubilee Award for outstanding alumni from Queens College, and many regional and
local awards for his work in the community.
His has just completed his memoir, Dancing on My Head, exploring his musical education in New York City with witty and penetrating commentary on music, musicians and cultural institutions.
Jamie, Nina & Alexander Bernstein
Jamie, Alexander and Nina photo by Steve Sherman
Jamie Bernstein is a writer, narrator, broadcaster and film maker who has transformed a lifetime of loving music into a career of sharing her knowledge and excitement with others.
Inspired by her father Leonard Bernstein’s lifelong impulse to share and teach, Jamie has devised multiple ways of communicating her own excitement about orchestral music. Beginning 15 years ago with “The Bernstein Beat,” a family concert about her father’s music modeled after his own groundbreaking Young People’s Concerts, Jamie has gone on to design, write and narrate concerts for worldwide audiences of all ages about the music of Mozart, Copland, Stravinsky and many others. Jamie creates and narrates two educational concerts a year with the New World Symphony in Miami; these engaging, informal “Discovery Concerts” are specially designed to attract audiences of all ages who are less familiar with concertgoing.
Jamie travels the world as a concert narrator, appearing everywhere from Beijing to London to Vancouver. A frequent speaker on musical topics, Jamie has presented talks around the world, from conferences in Japan to seminars at Harvard University. In Spanish-speaking locations such as Madrid and Caracas, Jamie narrates en español – thanks to her Chilean-born mother, Felicia Montealegre, who raised her children to be bilingual.
In her role as a broadcaster, Jamie has produced and hosted shows for radio stations in the United States and Great Britain. She has presented the New York Philharmonic’s live national radio broadcasts, as well as live broadcasts from Tanglewood.
Jamie is the co-director of a film documentary, Crescendo: the Power of Music — which focuses on children in struggling urban communities who participate in youth orchestra programs for social transformation inspired by Venezuela’s groundbreaking El Sistema movement. The film has won numerous prizes on the festival circuit, and is now viewable on Netflix. More about Crescendo: the Power of Music can be found at http://www.crescendofilmdoc.com
Jamie has also directed her father’s chamber opera, Trouble in Tahiti, in various locations around the country, including the Moab Music Festival and Festival del Sole in Napa, CA.
Jamie is currently at work on a memoir, title to be announced, which will be published by HarperCollins in the spring of 2018, when her father’s centennial celebrations will be well under way around the world. Jamie and her siblings, Alexander and Nina, will be racking up unprecedented mileage points!
Jamie also writes articles and poetry, which have appeared in such publications as Symphony, DoubleTake, Gourmet, Opera News, and Musical America. She also edits “Prelude, Fugue & Riffs,” a newsletter about issues and events pertaining to her father’s legacy.
More about Jamie’s multifaceted life can be found on her website: jamiebernstein.net
Alexander Bernstein is Leonard Bernstein’s second child. He is president of Artful Learning, Inc., and founding chairman of The Leonard Bernstein Center For Learning. Prior to his full-time participation in the center, Bernstein taught for five years at the Packer-Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, New York, first as a second grade teacher, then as a teacher of drama for the middle school. He has studied acting, performed professionally, and worked as a production associate at the ABC News Documentary Unit. Bernstein holds a Master’s degree in English education from New York University and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.
Nina Bernstein Simmons is Leonard Bernstein’s youngest daughter. After several years working as an actress, initially at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, she turned her attention to tending her late father’s legacy. In the earliest days of the internet, she worked with the Library of Congress on making the Bernstein Archives digitally available to the public. The fruits of that collaboration can be seen at the Library’s American Memory website. From 2000 until 2005, Nina worked on a film about her sister, Jamie, and her remarkable journeys around the world bringing Bernstein’s music and teaching legacy to new audiences. Leonard Bernstein: A Total Embrace premiered in Germany in December of 2005. Since 2008, Nina has been working as a food educator in underserved communities.
Paola Prestini
Paola Prestini is “the enterprising composer and impresario” (The New York Times) behind the new Brooklyn venue National Sawdust and the “Visionary-In-Chief” (Time Out NY) of the production company VisionIntoArt (VIA), home to VIA Records. Named one of NPR’s “Top 100 Composers in the World under 40,” her compositions are deemed “radiant… amorously evocative” by The New York Times, and “luminously involving” by The LA Times. She has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, and the Kronos Quartet and creates large scale multimedia works including The Hubble Cantata (a Virtual Reality space operatic experience), Aging Magician, and the opera Gilgamesh with Michael Counts, Cerise Jacobs and Beth Morrison Projects. Other recent works include Two Oars with Robert Wilson, The Hotel That Time Forgot for the ACO at Zankel Hall, and The Colorado, an eco-film cantata currently on tour in halls and film festivals.
Photo Gallery
(click on images for full slideshow)
Photo Credit: Noah Stern Weber
American Composers Orchestra Announces 2017-2018 Season: Dreamscapes Derek Bermel, Artistic Director & George Manahan, Music Director
40th Birthday Concert & Gala
November 7, 2017 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall
Music by ACO Co-Founder Francis Thorne, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington,
George Gershwin, Paola Prestini, and Elizabeth Ogonek
Two Performances at Carnegie Hall December 8, 2017 and April 6, 2018 at Zankel Hall
Music by Philip Glass, Pauchi Sasaki, Bryce Dessner, Ethan Iverson, Clarice Assad,
Steve Lehman, TJ Anderson, and Hitomi Oba
Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears at the PROTOTYPE Festival
January 12-14, 2018 at Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
co-presented with PROTOTYPE Festival and John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings on June 21 & 22, 2018
ACO’s annual roundup of the country’s brightest young and emerging composers at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music
American Composers Orchestra (ACO) announces its complete 2017-2018 season, Dreamscapes, under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel, Music Director George Manahan, and President Edward Yim, featuring ten world, U.S., and New York premieres by a diverse set of composers. ACO continues its concerts at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall (December 8, 2017 and April 6, 2018) while expanding its presence in New York to include performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center (November 7, 2017) and as part of the 2018 PROTOTYPE Festival (January 12-14, 2018). ACO continues to take its commitment to fostering new work beyond the stage in its annual Underwood New Music Readings (June 21 and 22, 2018) for emerging composers, now in its 27th year, and through EarShot, the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network, which brings the Readings experience to orchestras across the country.
In 2017-2018, ACO celebrates 40 years as the only orchestra in the world wholly dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promotion of music by American composers. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works. This season explores the overarching theme of dreams as an inspiration for both music itself and community created through music – celebrating ACO co-founder Francis Thorne’s dream of an orchestra to champion the American composer; iconic composer Philip Glass’ dream for the next generation; and the American dream of inclusiveness reflected in the infinite ways American orchestral music illustrates geographic, stylistic, gender, and racial diversity.
“I am particularly excited by the breadth and depth of American music that ACO will explore – classic American works by Gershwin, Ellington, and Bernstein, music by modern masters like Philip Glass and T.J. Anderson, and compositions by a wide range of young composers fluent in styles ranging from contemporary jazz to indy-rock to samba to performance art and opera,” said ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel. “Featuring four world and U.S. premieres and six New York premieres, as well as our annual readings of emerging compositional voices, ACO’s season offers a vital and eclectic mix that is quintessentially American.”
“In my first full season with ACO, the upcoming year fills me with excitement and hope for what this organization can contribute to the musical landscape,” said ACO President Edward Yim. “In addition to concerts with our wonderful and long-time collaborators at Carnegie Hall, we are particularly happy to work for the first time with the visionary team at the PROTOTYPE Festival and to celebrate our 40th anniversary with a tribute to American composers and those who support them at our fall gala.”
In addition to performances by the orchestra in New York, throughout the 2017-2018 season, ACO will partner with other orchestras in EarShot, a nationwide network that takes the ACO New Music Readings experience across the country, designed as an opportunity for emerging composers to develop their works with a professional orchestra. To date, over fifty composers have been selected for New Music Readings with orchestras. EarShot partnerships have included the New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Pioneer Valley Symphony (MA), New York Youth Symphony, and the San Diego Symphony. EarShot is a partnership among American Composers Orchestra, League of American Orchestras, American Composers Forum, and New Music USA.
The deadline for composers interested in applying to both the Underwood New Music Readings and the EarShot Readings is October 16, 2017. Application guidelines and information are available at www.americancomposers.org/composers/calls-for-submissions.
ACO also continues its thriving education program, Music Factory, which since 1999 has brought composers into New York City’s public schools, reaching over 3,000 students every year. Music Factory is a hands-on and minds-on creativity-based initiative, designed to maximize learning and develop a diversity of transferable skills among children from fourth grade through high school through in-school and after-school programs with partner schools and community organizations. During the 2017-2018 school year, Music Factory will partner with a dozen schools and community organizations throughout Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. ACO’s Compose Yourself program provides in-depth study, including group lessons and readings, for promising high school composers. Compose Yourself students compiled an impressive list of honors in national young composers’ competitions in 2017, and all the program’s graduates have gained seats in conservatory composition departments.
ACO launches its Commissioning Club with the 2017-2018 season, through which members invest in the lifespan of a commission: from the composer’s first kernel of artistic inspiration to the realization of the music as a printed score, the early rehearsals and through the premiere performance. Members of the Commissioning Club support all expenses in the commission process including fees paid to the composer, printing and engraving costs, as well as rehearsal and production costs related to the concert premiere. Throughout the season, members are invited to exclusive preview events with the composer to learn about the composer’s vision, hear excerpts of the work in-progress, and experience a full orchestral rehearsal of the piece before its premiere. In its inaugural season, ACO’s Commission Club will support Ethan Iverson as he creates a new piano concerto, which he will perform with ACO on April 6, 2018 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. For more information about ACO’s Commissioning Club, contact Lyndsay Werking at Lyndsay@americancomposers.org, or 212.977.8495 x204.
We kick off the season with the world premieres of Milica Paranosic’s multimedia The Tiger’s Wife: Prologue based on the bestselling novel by Téa Obreht along with Narong Prangcharoen’s The Migration of Lost Souls. We are also excited to bring the US premiere of José Serebrier’s Flute Concerto with Tango featuring Sharon Bezaly & Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 3 (“Camp Meeting”). Jose Serebrier will also preside over the entire concert as our distinguished guest conductor.
American Composers Orchestra (ACO) kicks off its 2012-13 concert season with Orchestra Underground: Dreams & Dances on Friday, October 26, 2012 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. The concert, led by guest conductor José Serebrier, features music that draws inspiration from around the world – from the Balkans to Thailand, from South America to nostalgic New England – and includes two world premieres by up-and-coming composersMilica Paranosic
(The Tiger’s Wife: Prologue) and Narong Prangcharoen (The Migration of Lost Souls). The program also includes the US premiere of Serebrier’s own Flute Concerto with Tango featuring Sharon Bezaly and Charles Ives’ iconic Symphony No. 3 (“Camp Meeting”) from 1910. (Gabriela Frank’s Manchay Tiempo, previously announced as part of this concert, has been postponed.).
This concert program features:
Milica Paranosic: The Tiger’s Wife: Prologue (World Premiere, ACO/LVMH Commission)
photo: Gorazd Poposki
Milica Paranosic (b. 1968) is a New York City-based composer, sound designer, music educator, and producer. A 2002 participant in ACO’s New Music Readings, she is also a regular teaching artist in ACO’s educational outreach program in New York City public schools – Music Factory. She has received grants from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, Soros Foundation, Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg, among many others. She is the resident composer and multimedia director of VisionIntoArt, an interdisciplinary performance and production team; founder and executive director of Give to Grow, an education and cultural exchange project that brings technology to children in underdeveloped communities; and co-founder of Beyond the Machine, a festival of electronic and interactive music at Juilliard.
Paranosic’s new work, The Tiger’s Wife: Prologuefor Orchestra, Voice, Electronics and Visuals, takes as its inspiration a bestselling novel of the same title by Téa Obreht, who, like Paranosic, was born in Belgrade. Paranosic says, “Apart from obvious cultural and geographical connection between Obreht and myself, there are numerous parallels in our aesthetics, including mixing real and imagined, old and new, fantasy and history, folk and pop, Serbian and English languages, and the use of symbols.” Paranosic has partnered with librettist David Chambers on the text; videographer Carmen Kordas and photographer Beowulf Sheehan contribute original projections of imagery from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
The Tiger’s Wife: Prologue is commissioned and premiered by ACO with the support of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc.
Milica Paranosic: Zvrk for Violin, Cello and Electronics
Zentripital Duo: Lynn Bechtold, violin; Jennifer DeVore, Cello
Lori Cotler, vocals
photo: Henrik Olund
Described by The New Yorker as “using her voice in mystically percussive ways” and by The New York Times as “explosive…exuberant,” Lori Cotler is quickly gaining an international reputation as one of the most captivating and original vocalists of our time. Using exotic rhythms as her muse, she is able to execute with the human voice phrases that do not seem possible in their rhythmic speed and clarity. Cotler’s combination of world and jazz stylings has propelled her to performances in venues around the world. Cotler has just released the first drum language ringtone of its kind for iPhone called TAKA MOSHI available on iTunes. She is currently in the studio recording her solo album featuring repertoire from her new project RHYTHM VOICE. For more information, visit www.loricotler.com.
Carmen Kordas, videographer
Carmen Kordas was born in Germany and has been based in New York since 1998. Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe. Coming out of video installations, her work has now developed into a wide range of disciplines: multimedia art and video projection for theater, opera and performance. Her work has been exhibited in VideoFestival in Munich, Freiberg, Berlin, Bochum, Dresden, and Arnheim, Netherlands. Ms. Kordas holds a MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin where she studied visual communication, digital editing, and three dimensional video sculpting with Valie Export.
Beowulf Sheehan, photographer
Beowulf Sheehan is a New York-based photographer of the arts and humanities, making commercial and conceptual images of compelling figures and their stories. His work has been published in the likes of Elle France, Esquire, L’Uomo Vogue, The New Yorker, and Spin, made for Audi, Furla, Godiva, and Random House, and exhibited at the International Center of Photography. You are welcome to view his work at www.beowulfsheehan.com. Beowulf is grateful to his artist colleagues, to American Composers Orchestra, and to Téa Obreht and her representatives for the opportunity to celebrate her brilliant work.
David Chambers, librettist
David Chambers is a producer, director, and writer of theatre and opera. His productions have been seen in theaters in Europe, throughout the US, and in New York on and off Broadway, in the BAM Next Wave Festival, at Bard Summerscape and PS 122. He is Professor of Directing at The Yale School of Drama, has taught extensively in Russia and eastern Europe and holds an honorary degree from The University of the Lower Danube in Romania.
Narong Prangcharoen:
The Migration of Lost Souls (World Premiere, ACO/Underwood Commission)
Narong Prangcharoen (b. 1973) studied with Chen Yi and received his doctoral degree from University of Missouri-Kansas City. His music has been called “absolutely captivating” by the Chicago Sun Times and has been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe and the US. Prangcharoen is the 2011 winner of ACO’s Underwood Emerging Composer Commission. Of Prangcharoen’s winning piece Pubbanimitta (“Foreboding”), Underwood mentor composer Paul Chihara said, “Mr. Prangcharoen writes music that reaches and moves his listeners with soaring melodies and intense rhythmic dance patterns.” His works have been heard at the Beijing Modern Music, MoMA Music and Grant Park Festivals, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Library of Congress. In 2007, the Thai government named Prangcharoen a Contemporary National Artist and awarded him the Silapathorn Award.
The Migration of Lost Souls is commissioned by ACO with the support of Paul Underwood.
Narong Prangcharoen: Pubbanimitta (excerpt)
American Composers Orchestra
Charles Ives: Symphony No. 3 (Camp Meeting) Charles Ives (1874-1954) is one of the most remarkable composers America has produced. Ives studied the organ and was a composition pupil of Horatio Parker at Yale University, from which he graduated in 1898. At an early age, he decided that he would not make music the means of earning his livelihood; he realized that it might be too difficult not to compromise his artistic ideals if his livelihood depended on his music. Accordingly, he entered the insurance business and made a fortune. His Yankee refusal to accept the usual way of combining sounds left him to explore many novel and often descriptive ways of putting sounds together, placing him far ahead of his time. Many of Ives’ explorations into new harmonic and contrapuntal possibilities antedated the work of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. A long list of compositions, most written before 1920, includes four symphonies, chamber music, two piano sonatas, five violin and piano sonatas, and many songs and choral pieces, as well as a number of other orchestral works. Ives described his Symphony No. 3 in his autobiographical notes: “The themes are mostly basedaround hymnsand from organ pieces played in Central Presbyterian Church around 1901.”
Jose Serebrier:
Flute Concerto with Tango
(US Premiere)
Conductor and composer José Serebrier (b. 1938) is one of the most recorded classical artists. He has received 37 Grammy nominations in recent years. Serebrier has composed more than 100 works, and has won numerous awards including two Guggenheims, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Flute Concerto with Tango was commissioned for flutist Sharon Bezaly, who performed and recorded it with the Australian Chamber Orchestra for the BIS label. Serebrier explains the title, saying, “The fourth movement justifies the title of the work. Traditionally, tangos end with a strong dominant chord followed by a brief, barely audible tonic chord. I take this idea further, leaving my tango up in the air in the middle of a phrase, so that the listener can make his own conclusion.”
Jose Serebrier: Flute Concerto with Tango (excerpt)
Sharon Bezaly with The Australian Chamber Orchestra (courtesy of BIS Records)
Sharon Bezaly, flute
Sharon Bezaly gave her début concert as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta when she was 14. Sharon went on to study at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris under Alain Marion, Raymond Guiot and Maurice Bourge, winning the Academy’s first prizes for flute and chamber music.
To date Sharon Bezaly has seven dedicated concertos which she performs around the world. Sharon has commented: ’In recent years my sights have been turning towards a wider horizon and I hope that, by inspiring challenging composers to create new works, it could propel the flute further into the spotlight as well as provide standard repertoire for generations to come“.
Tickets & Info
ACO performs at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall Friday, October 26, 2012, at 7:30pm. Tickets are $40 and $50, 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.
Derek Bermel Named Artistic Director & Music Director George Manahan Re-Ups
Derek Bermel has been named ACO’s new Artistic Director, becoming the top composer in ACO’s artistic leadership. Meanwhile, conductor George Manahan has renewed his commitment as Music Director, with a new five-year contract.
Bermel has been ACO’s Creative Advisor since 2009, and succeeds composer Robert Beaser who has been served as an artistic leader with ACO since 1993.
Departing Artistic Director Robert Beaser has dedicated over twenty years to the orchestra, and will continue as ACO’s Artistic Advisor Laureate. Executive Director Michael Geller said, “ACO and the entire community of composers owe a great debt to Bob. He has been a key member of ACO’s artistic team for over 20 years, and helped shape programs during the tenures of three ACO principal conductors. His work in launching and guiding our New Music Readings for 22 years has provided mentorship and career-building experience to over 100 young composers. I am thrilled that Bob will continue to play an integral role on ACO’s board, as artistic advisor laureate.”
Derek also just finished his residency at the Institute for Advanced Study, and as Director of Copland House’s Cultivate. Bermel, an “eclectic with wide open ears” (Toronto Star), has become recognized as a dynamic and unconventional curator of concert series that spotlight the composer as performer. Alongside his international studies of ethnomusicology and orchestration, an ongoing engagement with other musical cultures has become part of the fabric and force of his compositional language, in which the human voice and its myriad inflections play a primary role.
Bermel first came to ACO’s attention as a participant in the Whitaker Emerging Composers Readings with his piece Dust Dances in 1994. ACO has provided Bermel with numerous commissions and premieres including his first professional orchestral commission, and his Carnegie Hall debut, with his clarinet concerto Voices, which premiered in 1998; the commission and premiere of A Shout, A Whisper, and a Trace (2009); Elixir (2006); and The Migration Series with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which premiered to sold-out audiences in 2006. Bermel was ACO’s Music Alive Composer-in-Residence from 2006-09 and later joined ACO’s board and became the orchestra’s Creative Advisor in 2009.
Among his major accomplishments, Bermel excels at programming the innovative Orchestra Underground series at Carnegie Hall which has reinvented and reinvigorated the orchestra with dozens of premieres featuring new technology, multidisciplinary collaborations, and new influences not often encountered in the symphonic concert hall; and SONiC, Sounds of a New Century Festival (2011) that featured 21st century music by 120 emerging composers. Bermel has also been active in several of ACO’s composer development initiatives including serving as a mentor for the Underwood New Music Readings and EarShot programs, and serving as an artist-faculty member for the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute.
In addition to his commissions from American Composers Orchestra, he has received commissions from the Pittsburgh, National, Saint Louis, and Pacific Symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, WNYC Radio, eighth blackbird, the Guarneri String Quartet, Music from Copland House and Music from China, De Ereprijs (Netherlands), Jazz Xchange (U.K.), violinist Midori, electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans among others. Bermel’s clarinet playing has been hailed by The New York Times as “brilliant,” “rhythmically fluid, rich-hued” and “first-rate.”
George Manahan, Music Director
Music Director George Manahan, who joined ACO in 2010, said of his five-year renewal with the orchestra, “Nothing could make me happier than to be continuing as Music Director of ACO. For me the work is one of constant discovery and enjoyment. In no other conducting job do I get to explore so much new work. It certainly keeps me on my toes! And the ACO musicians are phenomenal. Nowhere else have I experienced the level of collaboration, commitment and experience that our players bring to new music. I can’t wait to see what surprises next season brings.” In addition to his work with ACO this season, Manahan continues his commitment to working with young musicians as Director of Orchestral Studies at the Manhattan School of Music as well as guest conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Manahan was Music Director at New York City Opera for fourteen seasons. There he helped envision the organization’s groundbreaking VOX program, a series of workshops and readings that have provided unique opportunities for numerous composers to hear their new concepts realized, and introduced audiences to exciting new compositional voices. In addition to established composers such as Mark Adamo, David Del Tredici, Lewis Spratlan, Robert X. Rodriguez, Lou Harrison, Bernard Rands, and Richard Danielpour, through VOX Manahan has introduced works by composers on the rise including Adam Silverman, Elodie Lauten, Mason Bates, and David T. Little.
In May 2011 Manahan was honored by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) for his “career-long advocacy for American composers and the music of our time has enriched and enabled Concert Music both at home and abroad.” His recent Carnegie Hall performance of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra was hailed by audiences and critics alike. The New York Times reported, “the fervent and sensitive performance that Mr. Manahan presided over made the best case for this opera that I have encountered.”
George Manahan’s wide-ranging recording activities include the premiere recording of Steve Reich’s Tehillim for ECM; recordings of Edward Thomas’s Desire Under the Elms, which was nominated for a Grammy; Joe Jackson’s Will Power; and Tobias Picker’s Emmeline. His enthusiasm for contemporary music continues today; he has conducted numerous world premieres, including Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, David Lang’s Modern Painters, and the New York premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner. As music director of the Richmond Symphony (VA) for twelve years, he was honored four times by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) for his commitment to 20th century music.
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Narong Prangcharoen (b. 1973) studied with Chen Yi and received his doctoral degree from University of Missouri-Kansas City. His music has been called “absolutely captivating” by the Chicago Sun Times and has been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe and the US. Prangcharoen is the 2011 winner of ACO’s Underwood Emerging Composer Commission. Of Prangcharoen’s winning piece Pubbanimitta (“Foreboding”), Underwood mentor composer Paul Chihara said, “Mr. Prangcharoen writes music that reaches and moves his listeners with soaring melodies and intense rhythmic dance patterns.” His works have been heard at the Beijing Modern Music, MoMA Music and Grant Park Festivals, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Library of Congress. In 2007, the Thai government named Prangcharoen a Contemporary National Artist and awarded him the Silapathorn Award.
Conductor and composer José Serebrier (b. 1938) is one of the most recorded classical artists. He has received 37 Grammy nominations in recent years. Serebrier has composed more than 100 works, and has won numerous awards including two Guggenheims, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts.Mark%20Harrison.jpg)
Bermel has been ACO’s Creative Advisor since 2009, and succeeds composer Robert Beaser who has been served as an artistic leader with ACO since 1993.
Music Director George Manahan, who joined ACO in 2010, said of his five-year renewal with the orchestra, “Nothing could make me happier than to be continuing as Music Director of ACO. For me the work is one of constant discovery and enjoyment. In no other conducting job do I get to explore so much new work. It certainly keeps me on my toes! And the ACO musicians are phenomenal. Nowhere else have I experienced the level of collaboration, commitment and experience that our players bring to new music. I can’t wait to see what surprises next season brings.” In addition to his work with ACO this season, Manahan continues his commitment to working with young musicians as Director of Orchestral Studies at the Manhattan School of Music as well as guest conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music.