John Aylward News

On Friday, September 22, 2023, composer and librettist John Aylward will release the soundtrack for his one-act chamber opera Oblivion on New Focus Recordings, with a feature-length film through Graham Swon's Ravenserodd Productions scheduled to follow in fall 2023.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project begins its 26th season at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, October 7, 2023, at 8:00 p.m. The ambitious program celebrates three world premieres and one East Coast premiere all commissioned by BMOP and written during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Learn more about the performance how to get tickets here!

Contemporary new music ensemble Ecce will host its annual music festival Etchings from Monday, June 26 – Sunday, July 2, 2023 in New York City, culminating in a weekend of public celebrations and concerts.

Contemporary new music ensemble Ecce will host its annual music festival Etchings from Monday, June 26 - Sunday, July 2, 2023 in New York City, culminating in a weekend of public celebrations and concerts.

According to Deadline, actor John Aylward has died at 75. Aylward was best known for his performances as Dr. Donald Anspaugh on the hit NBC medical drama series ER, which ran from 1994 through 2009. The Seattle-native joined the series during its third season. 

Described by The Boston Globe as “a composer of wide intellectual curiosity,” John Aylward today announced the release of his latest album Celestial Forms and Stories (New Focus Recordings).

Hailed as “virtuosic (WBUR Radio) for its “creative, sympathetic players…and cornucopia of unusual, extended-technique sounds (The Boston Globe),” the Ecce ensemble today announced the release of its latest album Angelus (New Focus Recordings, TBR April 24, 2020). A 45-minute monodrama by composer John Aylward, Angelus takes its name from Paul Klee's painting Angelus Novus. 

The Ecce ensemble continues its 11th season with a one-night only concert spotlighting the innovative French composer Phillipe Leroux. Program includes the American premiere of Leroux's triptych for chamber ensemble, L'épais, as well as a special performance of Anima (2012) for quintet in tribute to Swiss composer Dominique Schafer.

The Ecce ensemble today announced its 2019-20 season.The Ecce ensemble today announced its 2019-20 season. Ecce's 11th season includes performances of chamber masterworks by today's most innovative composers including Toshio Hosokawa and Christophe Bertrand and multimedia artist Laine Rettmer. In addition, Ecce celebrates its debut recording of John Aylward's monodrama Angelus Novus (New Focus, TBR April 2020). Ecce culminates the season with three residencies: AREA Gallery in Boston, MA (February 2020), Clark University (March 2020), and its 11th annual international Etchings Festival in France (July 2020). 

From supporting the war effort to supporting the NHS, Royal Voluntary Service is marking 80 years of helping others by telling its remarkable story through the power of photographs in a new exhibition, The Gift of Time.

ECCE and Court-circuit unite to present French/American Music in Dialogue: premieres and works from Christophe Bertrand, Philippe Hurel, David Felder, Philippe Leroux, and John Aylward led by conductor Jean Deroyer. Court-circuit is currently on tour from Paris in the U.S. with dates in New York, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Worcester. The invitation comes at the behest of ECCE Director and Clark University Professor John Aylward, 2017-18 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and winner of the 2018 Walter Hindrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

ECCE presents Italian/American showcasing premieres and works from Elliott Carter, John Aylward, Clara Iannotta, and Salvatore Sciarrino conducted by Nicholas DeMaison.

As the 2016-17 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble completes its French-inspired season with a diverse program juxtaposing American and French music. The concert features chamber performances of masterworks by French composer Philippe Hurel and by American composer John Aylward. The event is also a program of memorials, featuring two of Hurel's significant homage works, Pour Luigi and In Memoriam a Berio, and the world premiere of Aylward's Angelus Novus, an homage to Lee Hyla. 

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 4.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble completes its season with a diverse program of new chamber works by six emerging compositional voices. Inspired by Le Lab's current Random International installation, 150 Milliseconds, the concert's repertoire evokes a panoply of physical and psychological states both human and seemingly otherworldly. Performed by seven-member Ecce Ensemble and special guest vocalist Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, the program includes the world premiere of Already Root by Maxwell Dulaney, New England premieres by Erin Gee, Hillary Zipper, and Anna-Louise Walton, as well as works by Ecce's executive director John Aylward, and the winner of Ecce's 2016 International Call for Scores, Nuno Costa. (Program details are below.)

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 4.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble completes its season with a diverse program of new chamber works by six emerging compositional voices. Inspired by Le Lab's current Random International installation, 150 Milliseconds, the concert's repertoire evokes a panoply of physical and psychological states both human and seemingly otherworldly. Performed by seven-member Ecce Ensemble and special guest vocalist Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, the program includes the world premiere of Already Root by Maxwell Dulaney, New England premieres by Erin Gee, Hillary Zipper, and Anna-Louise Walton, as well as works by Ecce's executive director John Aylward, and the winner of Ecce's 2016 International Call for Scores, Nuno Costa. (Program details are below.)

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Cambridge, MA (FOR RELEASE 1.11.16) — As the 2015-16 contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Cambridge's Le Laboratoire, the Ecce Ensemble premieres Switch, a contemporary opera written and composed by John Aylward, directed by Laine Rettmer (Loft Opera), and conducted by Jean-Philippe Wurtz (Ensemble Linea). Featuring two vocalists—Amanda DeBoer Bartlett (soprano) and Mikhail Smigelskii (bass-baritone)—backed by the Ecce Ensemble, Switch explores the relationship between an artist and his muse. In addition to two consecutive weekends of performances, Ecce hosts two free, complementary events open to the public at Le Lab: Re-Imagining Contemporary Opera, an artist talk with Aylward and Rettmer on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m.; and Composers' Reading Session, a workshop/presentation of young local composers' chamber works led by Wurtz on February 15th at 12:00 p.m.

Broadway-bound new musical, Come From Away, presented by Seattle Repertory Theatre, wins four Gypsys, tying with another new musical, Lizard Boy, also produced by Seattle Repertory Theatreand also with four Gypsys, a company that has been known for years as a powerhouse dramatic straight-play playhouse!