New York Phil to Present CONTACT! as Part of 'Focus on Japan'

The sixth season of CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series, concludes with "Focus on Japan," Friday, June 5, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, led by Jeffrey Milarsky in his Philharmonic debut. The program co-presented with Met Museum Presents, the live arts series at the Metropolitan Museum, will feature modern and contemporary works by Japanese composers and a work influenced by Japan: Takemitsu's Archipelago S for 21 players; Messiaen's Japan-inspired Sept Haikai, with Stephen Gosling as piano soloist; the U.S. Premiere of Misato Mochizuki's Si bleu, si calme; and the World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commission of Dai Fujikura's Infinite String.

"I am extremely happy to write a new piece for CONTACT!," Dai Fujikura said. "I remember when I was very small, around five, there were quite a few New York Philharmonic LPs at my home. I have been spying on their CONTACT! concerts from afar, and I was always impressed by the level of experimentations in their programs. It is a very brave thing to do, and I am honored to take part in this adventure." Philharmonic musicians performed the U.S. Premiere of Dai Fujikura's silence seeking solace on Stephan Balkenhol's Sphaera / Frau im Fels at The Museum of Modern Art in a CONTACT! program as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL, May-June 2014.

The 2014-15 season of CONTACT! features World, U.S., and New York Premieres, as well as seminal works by leading composers, in programs that explore the new-music scene from four different countries. Christopher Rouse, who in 2014-15 is completing his three-year term as The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence, advises the Philharmonic on the CONTACT! series.

Artists
American conductor Jeffrey Milarsky has been hailed for his interpretation of a wide range of repertoire, which spans from J.S. Bach to Xenakis. He has worked with groups such as the San Francisco, Milwaukee, and New World symphony orchestras; Los Angeles and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras; and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, American Composers Orchestra, MET Chamber Ensemble, and Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. In the U.S. and abroad he has premiered and recorded works by contemporary composers in venues such as New York's Carnegie, Zankel, and Alice Tully halls; San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall; Log Angeles's Walt Disney Concert Hall; Boston's Symphony Hall; and Paris's IRCAM. Mr. Milarsky's history of premiering, recording, and performing works by American composers was recognized in 2013 by the Ditson Conductor's Award, the oldest award honoring conductors for their commitment to performing American music; past honorees have included Bernstein, Stokowski, James Levine, and Alan Gilbert. Jeffrey Milarsky's interest and dedication has led to collaborations with composers including John Adams, Babbitt, Cage, Carter, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Druckman, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Steven Mackey, Christopher Rouse, Shapey, Morton Subotnick, and Charles Wuorinen, as well as a generation of young composers. A dedicated pedagogue, Mr. Milarsky is senior lecturer in music at Columbia University, where he is music director and conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. In addition to conducting the Juilliard Orchestra, he is music director of AXIOM, The Juilliard School's critically acclaimed contemporary music ensemble, and serves on Juilliard's conducting faculty. He received his bachelor and master of music degrees from Juilliard, where he was awarded the Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding leadership and achievement in the arts. Also a timpanist and percussionist, Mr. Milarsky has been the principal timpanist of Santa Fe Opera since 2005. He has recorded extensively for Angel, Bridge, Teldec, Telarc, New World, CRI, MusicMasters, EMI, Koch, and London records. He has also performed and recorded with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic; he has collaborated with musicians from the New York Philharmonic in two 1998 Ensembles concerts at Merkin Concert Hall, one as a percussionist, the other as conductor. This performance marks his New York Philharmonic debut.

Pianist Stephen Gosling enjoys a varied career as soloist and chamber musician with a particular focus on the music of our time. He earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees at The Juilliard School, where he was awarded the Mennin Prize and Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship, and appeared as concerto soloist on an unprecedented four occasions. He is a member of New York New Music Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Orchestra of the League of Composers, Perspectives Ensemble, and Ne(x)tworks, and has appeared as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus, Orchestra of St. Luke's, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, eighth blackbird, American Composers Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, among many others. He frequently performs in the Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, and June in Buffalo festivals. His work has garnered critical acclaim, including a New York Times profile. Mr. Gosling has collaborated with composers including Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, Oliver Knussen, Steve Reich, Poul Ruders, Charles Wuorinen, and John Zorn, with whom he has performed worldwide over the past two seasons and released several recent recordings (including the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-nominated Hexentarot); John Psathas, whose music he has recorded on two award-winning albums and whose concerto Three Psalms he premiered with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; and Jorge Villavicencio Grossman, whose Piano Concerto he recently premiered with the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru. Upcoming projects include performances at the Autumn in Warsaw contemporary music festival and Sarajevo Chamber Music Festival, a recital of John Zorn entire solo piano-output at Brooklyn's Original Music Workshop in October, and the principal piano part in Boulez's Sur Incises at Zankel Hall in December, led by James Levine. Mr. Gosling's performances with Philharmonic musicians include Daniel Bjarnason's Bow to String, during the November 2014 CONTACT! "Hosted by John Adams" at SubCulture.

Repertoire
Toru Takemitsu (1930-96) composed Archipelago S (1993) for 21 players performing in five groups comprising three ensembles plus each of the two clarinets positioned on either side of the performance space. The composer himself explained the title and requested setup: "'S' means also the initial of Seto Inland Sea of Japan, Stockholm, and Seattle, which has beautiful islands. This work was inspired by these seascapes. The orchestra is divided into five groups and dispersed about the hall like an archipelago." With spare textures and unusual instrumental effects, he imagined the islands calling out to each other over the vast distances separating them, an arrangement he felt was a metaphor for our universe. Toru Takemitsu encountered Western music during the post-war years through radio broadcasts by the American occupying forces, and was influenced by the European avant-garde of Messiaen, Nono, and Stockhausen, as well as Fumio Hayasaka, who introduced him to film music and to the film director Akira Kurosawa, for whom Takemitsu would produce cinematic several scores. Alan Gilbert conducted the Philharmonic in Takemitsu's Requiem for String Orchestra in March 2011, performed in sympathy and admiration for the Japanese people following the earthquake and tsunami. Takemitsu was one of the composers commissioned by the Philharmonic to write a work in honor of its 150th anniversary; the Orchestra premiered his commission, Family Tree, in April 1995, led by Leonard Slatkin.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-92) composed his Sept Haïkaï, seven small works for solo piano and small orchestra, in 1962. The work combines Japanese sensibility and gagaku (seventh-century Japanese court music with Messiaen's own richly chromatic musical language. An ornithologist as well as a composer, Messiaen said that Sept Haikai was enriched by the song of 25 Japanese birds, each of which he identifies in the score. The first and final movements, which he explains resemble "the two guardian gods flanking the entrance of Buddhist temples," frame the piece; the second and fifth movements evoke Japanese locations: Nara Park, with its four Buddhist temples, and Miyajima, "perhaps the most beautiful landscape in Japan." One of the most influential composers of the 20th century, Olivier Messiaen is noted for his music's rhythmic complexity, his unique approach to melody and harmony, and the profound spirituality that informed his compositions - interests that were influenced by his visits to Japan, where he notated Japanese bird song and experienced gagaku. The Philharmonic has performed Messiaen's music numerous times since 1947, when the Orchestra premiered his Hymne pour grand orchestra, led by Leopold Stokowski. The Philharmonic's performance history of Messiaen works also includes the World Premiere of Éclairs sur l'au-delà... (Illuminations of the Beyond...), a Philharmonic commission, in November 1992, led by then Music Director Zubin Mehta.

Misato Mochizuki (b. 1969) found inspiration for her 16-player 1997 work Si bleu, si calme in the natural cycles of water and air (condensation and evaporation, winds, and currents): "Bleu" (blue) represents air and water and focuses on development and complexity; "Calme" (calm) represents space and silence and explores the simplification of intervals and rhythmic figures. Musically, "Bleu" grows and develops into something ever more complex, while "Calme" explores the process of simplification of intervals and rhythmic figures. Combining Western tradition with the Asian sense of breath, Mochizuki's works have been performed around the world at venues and festivals including the Salzburg Festival, the Venice Biennale, Tokyo's Folle Journée and Suntory Hall, and Paris's Festival d'Automne and the Louvre. She also writes a column about music and culture for the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Dai Fujikura's Infinite String, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, is one of his many compositions inspired by his wife's experiences during and after pregnancy. These include my butterflies (what she felt at three months), Rare Gravity (six months), Mina (at birth), Three Miniatures (two days old), and Poyopoyo (four months old). Mr. Fujikura writes that Infinite String "is about the very beginning of life. After fertilization, cells are multiplying, rapidly replicating the DNA. I was interested in exploring how the string sound rapidly changes its shape; each little piece of information is passed onto the next little section, and overall the sound is going somewhere to start forming some sort of 'body.'" In May 2014, the New York Philharmonic gave the U.S. Premiere of his silence seeking solace on Stephan Balkenhol's Sphaera / Frau im Fels at The Museum of Modern Art as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL.

Tickets

Tickets for CONTACT! at The Metropolitan Museum of Art start at $25. Tickets may be purchased online at metmuseum.org/tickets and by calling the Met Museum Presents Box Office at (212) 570-3949. [Ticket prices subject to change.]

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