CONTACT! To Return To National Sawdust In Brooklyn, 1/23

Entering its eighth season in 2016-17, CONTACT!, the Philharmonic's new-music series, will return to National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for two chamber programs featuring New York-area composers. This season of CONTACT!complements the Philharmonic's 175th anniversary season celebrations, which highlight the Orchestra's rich history of commissioning and premiering important works and salute its hometown of New York City. Esa-Pekka Salonen, who is in the second year of his three-year tenure as the Philharmonic's Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, continues his advisory role on CONTACT!.

CONTACT!, established by Music Director Alan Gilbert in the 2009-10 season, highlights the works of both emerging and established contemporary composers, performed by smaller ensembles of Philharmonic musicians in intimate venues outside the Lincoln Center campus. Since its inception, CONTACT! has presented 21 World Premieres, including Matthias Pintscher's songs from Solomon's garden, Sean Shepherd's These Particular Circumstances, Carter's Three Controversies and a Conversation, and Dai Fujikura's Infinite String.

Works by David Lang, DRUCKMAN, CARTER, ZOSHA DI CASTRI, and STEVEN MACKEY
January 23, 2017, Co-Presented with NATIONAL SAWDUST

The 2016-17 CONTACT! season opens with a program featuring David Lang's sweet air (1999); Jacob Druckman's Other Voices(1976); Elliott Carter's Quintet for Piano and String Quartet (1997); Zosha Di Castri's La forma dello spazio (2010); and Steven Mackey's Indigenous Instruments (1989). This program takes place January 23, 2017, at National Sawdust.

A longtime fixture of New York's new-music scene, David Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of one of the city's most influential new-music collectives, Bang on a Can. He was inspired to compose sweet air, for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello, after taking his son to the dentist to have a cavity filled. The dentist gave him laughing gas, calling it "sweet air." The composer writes: "My son experienced something - a drug - so comforting that it made him ignore all signs of unpleasantness. This seemed somehow musical to me. One of music's traditional roles has always been to soothe the uneasy. I must say I have never been that interested in exploring this role. It is much easier to comfort the listener than to show why the listener might need to be comforted. My piece sweet air tries to show a little bit of both. In sweet air, simple, gentle musical fragments float by, leaving a faint haze of dissonance in their wake." During the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL, David Lang's where you go was given its New York Premiere, performed by the Yale Choral Artists, and his low resolution was given its World Premiere by violinist Jennifer Koh; the Philharmonic gave the New York Premiere of his Eating Living Monkeys in January 1991, led by Zdenek Macal.

A graduate of The Juilliard School, where he subsequently taught until 1972, Jacob Druckman was the New York Philharmonic's Composer-in-Residence, 1982-86, and in 1983 and 1984 he was Artistic Director of the Orchestra's new-music series Horizons,focusing on "The New Romanticism" (a term he is widely credited as having originated) and "Music and Theater." His son Daniel is Associate Principal Percussion of the Philharmonic. His brass quintet Other Voices was influenced by his experiences in an electronic music studio. Though many of Druckman's instrumental works used pre-recorded tape, Other Voices is acoustic; each instrument plays tape-like parts that play with traditional brass sounds. The Philharmonic gave the World Premieres of Jacob Druckman's Lamia for Soprano and Orchestra (revised) in October 1975, led by Pierre Boulez; Viola Concerto in November 1978, with soloist Sol Greiyzer and led by James Levine; Aureole in June 1979, led by Leonard Bernstein; and Athanor in May 1986, led by Zubin Mehta.

Elliott Carter was born in Manhattan in 1908, spent much of his career teaching at The Juilliard School, and lived in the same Greenwich Village apartment from 1945 until his death in 2012 at the age of 103. He wrote of his Quintet for Piano and String Quartet: "The work is in one movement of many changing characters and contrasts. The moods and materials of the piano are contrasted with those of the string quartet, which, itself, is a combination of four different strands that maintain somewhat independent existences, played by the four strings." Carter's association with the New York Philharmonic dates back to 1957, and includes Laureate Conductor Leonard Bernstein's leading the World Premiere of Carter's Concerto for Orchestra - which the Philharmonic commissioned for its 125th anniversary, and which Carter described as his favorite of his works - in February 1970. Philharmonic musicians performed the World Premiere of Carter's Two Controversies and a Conversation on the June 2012 CONTACT! concerts, which the composer attended, and the Orchestra gave the New York Premiere of Carter's Instances, his last completed work, during the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL in June 2014, led by Matthias Pintscher.

New York-based composer Zosha Di Castri is assistant professor of music at Columbia University, where she received her doctorate in composition. Her La forma dello spazio (borrowed from an Italo Calvino short story and translating to "The Form of Space") was inspired by her love of Lee Bontecou and Alexander Calder's mobile sculptures, placing an ensemble of flute, cello, piano, violin, and cello throughout the concert hall. Ms. Di Castri says: "I wanted to create a composition in which musical gestures appear to be fairly static, yet are permitted a certain flexibility to move freely within a given space. Alluding to the idea of mobiles, La forma dello spazio has the musicians spatialized around the hall in a particular configuration. The piece begins with a solo by the violin, while the other instruments provide resonance, holding certain notes in unison, and echoing passages. Gradually the fragments accumulate and are set into orbit around the concert hall."

Steven Mackey has been an influential part of the New York-area music scene since joining the Princeton University faculty in 1985. He writes that he thinks of his Indigenous Instruments, for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello, as "vernacular music from a culture that doesn't actually exist. I fantasized about a culture and their uses for music, did thought experiments to invent the kind of instruments they might play, and wrote 'folk melodies' idiomatic to those instruments. The exercise was silly but did in fact succeed in leading me to sounds and textures that I would never have thought of in my mode as a serious concert-music composer." The composer asks the ensemble to re-tune or de-tune, inspired by mbira (African thumb piano) transcriptions and the moan and pitch-bend of a UPS truck. The Philharmonic gave the New York Premiere of Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse in 2014 during the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL, led by Jayce Ogren.

WORLD PREMIERE-New York Philharmonic COMMISSIONS by
DAVID FULMER and SAM PLUTA
Works by ALEXANDRE LUNSQUI and ERIC WUBBELS
May 22, 2017, Co-Presented with and at NATIONAL SAWDUST

The season's second and final CONTACT! concert will feature the World Premieres of New York Philharmonic Commissions by David Fulmer and Sam Pluta, as well as Alexandre Lunsqui's Glaes (2007) and Eric Wubbels's katachi (2011). This program takes place May 22, 2017, at National Sawdust.

Composer, violinist, and conductor David Fulmer moved to New York City in 2004, received his doctorate from The Juilliard School (where he studied composition with Milton Babbitt and violin with Robert Mann), and was appointed to the faculty of Columbia University in 2009. He has scored his World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commission for a quintet of percussion, harp, piano, bass, and flute. "An ensemble of unusual percussion establishes a delicate sonic environment where each member of the quintet speaks and sings antiphonally to one another. Fragile textures, explosive gestures, and warm colors surface in a labyrinth at once roiling and tender." At the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL, David Fulmer conducted works by Alexandre Lunsqui, Unsuk Chin, Dai Fujikura, and Grisey on a Ligeti Forward program, performed by the Ensemble of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI.

Sam Pluta studied composition and electronic music at Columbia University, from which he received his doctorate in 2012. He is the technical director, member composer, and principal electronics performer for the New York-based Wet Ink Ensemble. His binary/momentary: flow state/joy state ii, commissioned by the Philharmonic and receiving its World Premiere in these performances, is composed for piano, percussion, trumpet, and two trombones. Having spent the last decade-plus pursuing both composition and improvisation, he writes that much of his recent work "explores the intersections between these two often different ways of thinking. Though all of the notes and rhythms will be on the page in this piece, my goal in writing it is to tap into the mental state of improvisation, one where I am fully engaged with my non-conscious mind. This process, which I have explored in recent works, results in a music that freely moves between material, is highly expressive, and hopefully conveys to the audience the state of sheer joy in sharing sound with my listeners."

Born in Brazil, Alexandre Lunsqui pursued his doctorate in composition at Columbia University and remained in New York City for another decade. His Glaes, for prepared piano and percussion, explores the microscopic possibilities of blending instrumental timbres. Both musicians perform complex rhythmic patterns from the composer's native Brazil inside the piano, and the percussionist plays a modified berimbau (an Afro-Brazilian single-stringed percussion instrument) and a selection of glass bottles, mixing bowls, and ceramic pots. The Philharmonic gave the World Premiere of Alexandre Lunsqui's Fibers, Yarn, and Wire during the 2011-12 season of CONTACT!, led by Alan Gilbert. His Three Short Pieces and Kinetic Study 2 were performed at the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL on a Ligeti Forward program, led by David Fulmer and performed by the Ensemble of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI.

Eric Wubbels received his master's and doctorate degrees from Columbia University, and is currently co-director of the New York-based Wet Ink Ensemble - for which he wrote katachi, for flute, tenor saxophone/bass clarinet, voice, violin, percussion, piano, and live electronics. He writes that it is "a hybrid between a book of études and a variation set." "Katachi" is the Japanese word for "form; posture of the body," and "the piece puts the ensemble through a series of focused contexts ('postures') in which a given restriction produces a specific kind of acoustic fusion within the group.... These contexts include a polyphony of 'gestalts,' each passed from one instrument to another, like a skein of yarn that continually changes color." This concert marks the first time that the New York Philharmonic has presented a work by Eric Wubbels.

About National Sawdust
Located in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the non-profit National Sawdust is a dynamic home for artists and new music of all kinds. It is a place for exploration and discovery - where emerging and established artists can share their music with serious music fans and casual listeners alike. In a city teeming with venues, National Sawdust is a singular space founded with an expansive vision: to provide composers and musicians across genres with a setting in which they can flourish, and a place where they are given unprecedented support and critical resources essential to create, and then share, their work. A diversity of world-class artists, arts organizations, and institutions are collaborating with National Sawdust's Creative and Executive Director, the composer Paola Prestini, as curators. In addition to hosting rehearsals, performances, recordings, and broadcasts in state-of-the art facilities, National Sawdust commissions new works and arranges workshops and residencies. It aims to be a resource not only for the community of musicians, but also for audiences in search of remarkable musical experiences at accessible ticket prices. For the local community, National Sawdust creates progressive public programs and educational initiatives. Other offerings include talks, publications, and mentorship programs for composers and musicians, and for related fields. Designed by Brooklyn's Bureau V, National Sawdust is constructed within the existing shell of a century-old sawdust factory, preserving the authenticity of Williamsburg's industrial past while providing a refined and intimate setting for the exploration of new music. At the venue's core is a flexible chamber hall, acoustically designed by renowned engineering firm Arup to provide the highest-quality experience of both unamplified and amplified music.

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CONTACT! is made possible with support from Alan Gilbert, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jaap van Zweden, and Matthew VanBesien.

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Esa-Pekka Salonen is The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, beginning in the 2015-16 season and through 2017-18.

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Citi. Preferred Card of the New York Philharmonic.

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Emirates is the Official Airline of the New York Philharmonic.

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Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Tickets
Tickets for CONTACT! at National Sawdust start at $35 and may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the David Geffen Hall Box Office. The Box Office opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings, the Box Office closes one-half hour after performance time; other evenings it closes at 6:00 p.m. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic's Customer Relations Department at (212) 875-5656.Ticket prices subject to change.