Review Roundup: American Composers Orchestra's PAST FORWARD at Zankel Hall

American Composers Orchestra (ACO), under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel and Music Director George Manahan, continued its 40th Anniversary Season on Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30pm with Orchestra Underground: Past Forward at Carnegie Hall's subterranean Zankel Hall. Now in its 13th year, Orchestra Underground continues as ACO's subversive and entrepreneurial redefinition of the orchestra as an elastic ensemble. Led by Manahan, Past Forward illustrates the role the past plays in the present, from composers' own personal explorations of their roots, to broader investigations of the universal role of memory and recollection.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

ANTHONY TOMMASINI, NY Times: Mr. Thorne's own works reflected his wide musical interests, like his Piano Concerto No. 3 (1989), which merges Neo-Classical and modernist elements with hints of jazz. From the start his orchestra has fostered composers of all stylistic bents and ages. Friday's program certainly met those goals, offering four diverse works by composers ranging in age from David Hertzberg, 27, to Mr. Reich, whose 80th birthday is being celebrated at Carnegie Hall and beyond this season.

George Grella, NY Classical Review: Prestini's graceful, lovely composition was an exploration of invented memory, her thoughts about the Palmyra Hotel in Lebanon, a place she has experienced only via video. Kosemura's own video was of a place too, a keyhole view of an interior, with the camera sweeping slowly back and forth. The artist also added some editing and distortion effects, but the visual were only mildly interesting and were subsumed by the colorful music and the fine performance. That The Hotel That Time Forgot was fundamentally about something unreal made the music more expressive and intriguing.

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