The New World Symphony Announces New Work Program Line Up

The New World Symphony, America's Orchestral Academy (NWS), will perform its sixth annual New Work program-dedicated to commissioning and premiering new pieces from high-profile and developing artists across a range of genres, intersecting music with theater, dance, poetry, video, lighting, and other art forms-on Saturday, April 29, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. at the New World Center. The program will include a new Michael Tilson Thomas-led and -conceived stage production of Niccolò Castiglioni's Inverno In-Ver, the premiere performance of an orchestral version of Oscar Bettison's Lights in Ashes led by NWS Conducting Fellow Dean Whiteside, and the world premiere of a New World Symphony commission from John Supko, composed for viola and electronics.

Tickets starting at $40 are available from NWS by phone at (305) 673-3331; online at NWS.edu; or in person at the New World Center box office.

Conceived, directed, and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, the new stage production of Italian modernist composer Niccolò Castiglioni's Inverno In-Ver (1973, rev. 1978) forms the centerpiece of the 2017 New Work program. The composition is a series of 11 music poems for small orchestra, and the new production takes full advantage of the New World Center's cutting-edge technology and infrastructure to blend projections (by Clyde Scott), lighting (by Luke Kritzeck), and scenic design inspired by the composition's winter theme. The production will also include new choreography developed by Patricia Birch and featuring dancer Benjamin Holliday Wardell.

In 2013, NWS performed Inverno In-Ver with video accompaniment by British director, designer, and video artist Netia Jones:

NWS will also premiere Oscar Bettison's new orchestral arrangement of his composition Lights in Ashes. In its original chamber version, the piece was composed as the seventh and final movement of an evening-long work titled O Death (2005-07), about which the composer writes:

The idea for O Death started when I heard the folk-song of the same name. In the song, a young person pleads with the character of death not to "take them so soon". I was immediately struck with the parallels between this and parts of the requiem Mass and so I started to think about grafting popular-music elements (particularly the blues) onto a kind of Requiem Mass structure (a structure which is typically rather fluid to begin with.) As the Requiem Mass normally involves sung text, and O Death does not, I like to think of O Death a Requiem Masque. ...

Lights in Ashes begins with Jew's harps. This section gives way to a ... type of clockwork: a slow-moving resonant unison. The movement owes its title to Sir Thomas Browne: Since our longest Sunne sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lay down in darknesse, and have our lights in ashes.

To be conducted by NWS Fellow Dean Whiteside, the new version is arranged for 23 musicians and pre-recorded audio. Mr. Bettison will be in attendance at the concert.

Preceding both of the orchestral works is the world premiere of a New World Symphony commission for viola and electronics by John Supko. The new work's blend of technology and traditional instruments is characteristic of Mr. Supko's work more generally, including his acclaimed recording with media artist Bill Seaman, s_traits (2014), included in "Best Of" lists in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Mr. Supko is a recipient of a Fulbright fellowship (2002) and has won numerous prizes and grants, among them the BMI Student Composer Award, two ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composers Awards (including the 2008 Leo Kaplan Award), and a Meet the Composer "Commissioning Music" commission.

Recitations of new and recent poetry complement the music on the program and are presented in collaboration with O, Miami as part of the organization's annual countywide poetry festival. O, Miami is a community partner of NWS that focuses on democratizing access to literature and re-thinking the role of the literary arts in American society.

The New Work program underscores the New World Symphony's dedication to the commissioning and performance of work by contemporary artists, simultaneously providing an outlet for artists; a forum for audiences to experience new works by those artists; and the ability for NWS Fellows to work alongside contemporaries in a variety of genres, bringing their works to life. Previous New Work events have featured premieres by composers Samuel Carl Adams, Timo Andres, Marcos Balter, Zosha Di Castri, Ian Dicke, Sean Friar, Michael Gordon, TEd Hearne, Bruce Hornsby, Amy Beth Kirsten, Alex Orfaly, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Cynthia Lee Wong; video artists / filmmakers Tyler Adams, Adam Larsen, Bill Morrison, and Pascual Sisto; visual artist Merja Nieminen; audio artist James Andean; poets Malachi Black and Joshua Mehigan; choreographer Justin Peck; and playwrights Joe Tracz and Lauren Yee.