The Next Festival of Emerging Artists Reveals Details of 13th Season

The Next Festival of Emerging Artists has reveealed the details of its 13th season, taking place from June 6 to 19, 2025 in Chatham and New York City, NY. A trailblazing arts immersion program for early-career string musicians, composers, and choreographers from around the world, Next Fest welcomes the multiple GRAMMY Award-winning Kronos Quartet as 2025 Festival Guest Artist.

Highlights of the 2025 Festival include world premieres by Jungyoon Wie, inti figgis-vizueta, and Founding Artistic Director Peter Askim, performed by Kronos Quartet and Next Festival Artists in Chatham and NYC; a celebration of Terry Riley's 90th birthday including a performance of Riley's The Sands; and a collaboration with Music at the Anthology (MATA) in the second week of the Festival for a choreographer/composer workshop with Pulitzer Prize and GRAMMY-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis and Choreography Mentor Sidra Bell at Gibney Dance Center in NYC.

On Friday, June 12, 2025 at 7:30 pm at PS21/Center for Contemporary Performance in Chatham, NY and Saturday, June 13, 2025 at 8:00 pm at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center in NYC, Peter Askim leads a string orchestra of talented early-career string players in Terry Riley's The Sands, composed for Kronos Quartet in 1991, and the world premieres of Jungyoon Wie's Starlings, inti figgis-vizueta's music by yourself for string orchestra, and Askim's own Songs My Mother Taught Me. The evening also includes Transition Behavior by GRAMMY-winning composer Pascal Le Boeuf and Jan Radzynski's Serenade for Strings.

Written for the Shattered Glass string orchestra, Pascal Le Boeuf's Transition Behavior is a reference to the structural properties of glass as a substance, solid yet flowing, and malleable as temperatures rise. The piece highlights how individual autonomy within the group creates a dynamic musical experience, Le Boeuf explains, "As a conductorless orchestra, the members of Shattered Glass have no unifying leader but perform as an amorphous solid despite their outward appearance as a traditional ensemble. This allows for certain freedoms that would not otherwise be available to a string orchestra. Transition Behavior utilizes these freedoms to highlight the autonomy of the many individuals that form the larger structure of the ensemble - the rich sound of many simultaneous amorphous gestures that combine to reflect a musical representation of Shattered Glass."

inti figgis-vizueta's music by yourself reflects on the intimate experience of listening to music and performing alone, particularly in darkness. The composer says, "I love the focus of a dark space, with sounds emerging almost alive (even in earbuds). Memory springs forth too, I have found. In live performance, this dark feels like another material to play through and around. Its presence asks for a trust that there are other people really out there, while giving the intimate gift of music alone, closeness in distance. In forms unfolding from memory and shared motion, music by yourself is about connecting to people who are and aren't still here."

Jan Radzynski's Serenade for Strings was commissioned by NYC's Concertante Ensemble, which premiered the work at Merkin Hall in New York in September 2000. Comprising four movements - Preludio, Minuetto; Trio å la Musette; Minuetto, Sarabanda; and Tarantella - the piece is a response to the fragmentation of modern life, urging listeners to return to a deep and intentional state of listening, a full immersion in the power of music as an art form. "In every sense this music belongs to the present, here and now," the composer wrote of the piece. "The musical vocabulary of Serenade integrates contemporary techniques with stylistic elements from the past; thus, the music rejects easy labeling, for it is both timely and timeless."

Peter Askim's Songs My Mother Taught Me takes its name from Dvořák's song, based on the Adolf Heyduk poem of the same name. Askim writes: "This work was inspired by the lessons in compassion, humility, and kindness that I learned from my mother. She worked tirelessly with refugees, immigrants, and victims of domestic violence from around the world. Learning their stories and 'songs' of suffering, dignity, resilience, and humanity was formative for me, and became the foundation of my lifelong sense of right and wrong."

Jungyoon Wie's Starlings captures the beautiful sight of starlings traveling in a flock, exploring the ideas of unity, responsiveness, and collective harmony as the birds respond instinctively to the movements of one another. The composer says, "Their flocking behavior creates cloud-like shapes in the sky which are constantly moving and transforming. There is no leader; The Starlings simply watch for their neighbors and imitate one another."

Terry Riley's The Sands is a reflective piece that expresses the emotional turmoil and tragedy of the Gulf War. Riley shares, "I essentially improvised the first movement into a music software program on the eve of the first Gulf War launched by Bush the Greater and then spent months transcribing and arranging, and recomposing sections into a structure with two alternating, contrasting thematic areas. The quartet is the driving force of the first movement, and its energetic opening theme is propelled into existence by the soloists and then taken up by the orchestra."

The following week, String Fellows take up residence in New York City's Gibney Dance Studio, where they are joined in a collaboration with MATA for Composer/Choreographer Workshops with selected composers Diallo Banks and Danae Venson, drawn from MATA's alumni and international call for scores, as well as composer Luke Haaksma, currently based at Yale University. The young composers and choreographers will be guided by Sidra Bell, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Peter Askim in a week-long workshop consisting of rehearsals, collaboration, and spontaneous creation, culminating in a free public showing at Gibney Dance on Wednesday, June 18, 2025 at 7:30pm.

The Next Festival 2025 Program Information

Friday, June 12, 2025 at 7:30pm

PS21/Center for Contemporary Performance | 2980 NY-66, Chatham, NY 12037
Tickets: $17.50-$30
Link: www.ps21chatham.org/event/the-next-festival-of-emerging-artists/

Program:
Pascal LeBoeuf - Transition Behavior (2023)
inti figgis-vizueta - music by yourself [World Premiere]
Jan Radzynski - Serenade for Strings (2000)
Peter Askim - Songs My Mother Taught Me [World Premiere]
Jungyoon Wie - Starlings, for String Quartet and String Orchestra [World Premiere]
Terry Riley - The Sands, for String Quartet and Orchestra (1991)

The Next Festival of Emerging Artists
Peter Askim, Artistic Director and Conductor
Kronos Quartet, Guest Artist

Saturday, June 13, 2025 at 8:00pm

Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | 129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023
Tickets: $20-$35
Link: www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/the-next-festival-with-kronos-quartet/

Program:
Pascal LeBoeuf - Transition Behavior (2023)
inti figgis-vizueta - music by yourself [New York Premiere]
Jan Radzynski - Serenade for Strings (2000)
Peter Askim - Songs My Mother Taught Me [New York Premiere]
Jungyoon Wie - Starlings, for String Quartet and String Orchestra [New York Premiere]
Terry Riley - The Sands, for String Quartet and Orchestra (1991)

The Next Festival of Emerging Artists
Peter Askim, Artistic Director and Conductor
Kronos Quartet, Guest Artist

Composer / Choreographer Workshop Open Showing

Wednesday, June 18, 2025 at 7:30pm

Gibney Dance Studio, Studio H | 53A Chambers St, New York, NY 10007
Tickets: Free
Link: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-next-festival-of-emerging-artists-composerchoreographer-workshop-tickets-1338874402379

Mentors:
Sidra Bell, Choreographer
Aaron Jay Kernis, Composer
Peter Askim, Artistic Director