Duke Ellington and Kurt Weill Works Featured on New American Composers Orchestra Album

The American Composers Orchestra (ACO) will release its next album, America in Weimar: On the Margins, digitally via Platoon on Friday, July 24, 2026. America in Weimar: On the Margins was part of Carnegie Hall’s Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice, a citywide festival in 2024 exploring the thriving creative period in Germany between World War I and World War II.

Led by conductor and pianist Rei Hotoda, the program features works by American composers George Antheil, Duke Ellington, and Kurt Weill, alongside new works that reflected on parallels and re-directions of the past by John Glover & Kelley Rourke, Tonia Ko, and Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, with performances by mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams and accordionist Felipe Hostins.

The album kicks off with George Antheil’s A Jazz Symphony, in its revised form from 1955. It is a blend of the spirited rhythms of jazz with the structural depth of symphonic music. Originally conceived in the jazz-infused era of the 1920s, this piece underwent revision by Antheil, bringing to the forefront a more polished orchestration and subtle melodic enhancements. It is followed by Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady, and the musical theater work Kurt Weill’s Pirate Jenny, written for The Threepenny Opera in collaboration with playwright Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann. This version is a world premiere arrangement by Felipe Hostins.

Next is John Glover and Kelley Rourke’s Right Now, a piece about being in conversation with other artists, themes, and ideas, and Duke Ellington’s Solitude, composed in 1934. Her Land, Expanded is composer Tonia Ko’s second collaboration with filmmaker Alexandra Cuesta. This was the world premiere of this piece, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall.

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate’s Lowak Shoppala' (Fire and Light) is a work that expresses Chickasaw identity through modern classical music and theater. The entire work is in eight scenes and features orchestra, narration, children’s chorus, traditional Chickasaw and modern dancers, traditional Chickasaw and classical vocalists, and Chickasaw storytellers. This was the NY Premiere of this piece.

America in Weimar: On the Margins marks ACO’s second release with Platoon, part of a two-year commitment to release commercial recordings of ACO’s innovative programming. The first release of the partnership featured the world premiere recording of Huang Ruo's An American Soldier, released on May 23, 2025 to critical acclaim, which was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Performance.

America in Weimar: On the Margins Track Listing

1. George Antheil – A Jazz Symphony (1955 version) [07:53]
Rei Hotoda, piano

2. Duke Ellington – Sophisticated Lady (arr. Morton Gould [03:18]

3. Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht (arr. Felipe Hostins) – Pirate Jenny from The Threepenny Opera (trans. Marc Blitzstein; arr. Felipe Hostins) [04:33] [World Premiere Arrangement] 
Chrystal E. Williams, Mezzo-Soprano; Felipe Hostins, Accordion

4. John Glover & Kelley Rourke – Right Now [19:07] [World Premiere]
Chrystal E. Williams, Mezzo-Soprano; Felipe Hostins, Accordion

     I. grasshopper

     II. cotyledon

     III. petrichor

     IV. mycorrhiza

5. Duke Ellington – Solitude (arr. Morton Gould) [03:59]

6. Tonia Ko – Her Land, Expanded [14:23] [World Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall]

7. Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate – Clans from Lowak Shoppala' [16:59] [NY Premiere]

Photo credit: Alfred Kan

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