String quartet ETHEL, known for its enlivened playing and consistently groundbreaking redefinition of concert music, announces their landmark 20th anniversary season. Described as "an adventurous quartet with a rock band's zest" by The New York Times and deemed "a genre unto itself" by the Village Voice, ETHEL continues to set the standard for contemporary concert music. Celebrations begin with a June 20th benefit gala hosted by New Sound's John Schaefer, honoring ETHEL as well as fellow new music champions: Bang on a Can founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe. ETHEL's 2018-19 season offers the New York premiere of Circus: Wandering City at the 2018 BAM Next Wave Festival, along with continued touring of the group's signature works: The River and Documerica. (Please scroll below for more details and complete 2018-19 schedule of events.)
The Young People's Chorus of New York City (YPC) partners with Yale Choral Artists for two concerts in New Haven and New York that explore the theme of citizenship-Saturday, June 16 at 2:00 p.m. at the Yale School of Music's Morse Recital Hall and Monday, June 18 at 8:00 p.m. at Merkin Concert Hall, respectively.
Eliot Feld's KIDS DANCE, 40 whizkids aged 11 to 18, returns to the Joyce for six performances, including the premieres of Feld's Pointing 2 and Pointing 3, three of Feld's masterworks: The Jig is Up, Meshugana Dance, and Apple Pie, and a repeat of last season's It's the Effort That Counts, with choreography by Stephanie Terasaki, Conner Bormann and Riley O'Flynn, all graduates of Juilliard. June 7-10 at The Joyce Theater.
Peak Performances, having just concluded a groundbreaking, highly acclaimed season of works by women, announces its 2018-2019 season, providing renegade artists from around the globe with abundant resources and the state-of-the-art platform that is Montclair State University's Alexander Kasser Theater, to obliterate conventions of both the stage and society.
The Crossing, winner of the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance, presents its ninth annual festival of new music, The Month of Moderns, June 9, 17, and 30, 2018, in Philadelphia at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Donald Nally conducts the 24-voice ensemble in new music that addresses our lives and speaks to our current political environment.
A chorus of some 800 experienced and amateur singers will premiere John Luther Adams's In the Name of the Earth in Central Park's Harlem Meer. The performance builds on two highly acclaimed outdoor world premieres commissioned previously for the Mostly Mozart Festival: 2014's Sila: The Breath of the World, also by John Luther Adams, and David Lang's the public domain, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2016. Simon Halsey, who led the performance of the public domain, returns to the festival to conduct In the Name of the Earth.
Grand Band, a New York-based "supergroup" (New York Times) formed by pianists Erika Dohi, David Friend, Paul Kerekes, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore and Isabelle O'Connell, makes its Midwest debut at the Ordway Concert Hall today, May 16. Their performance features the world premiere of Three Fragile Systems by Missy Mazzoli alongside music by Julius Eastman, Michael Gordon, Paul Kerekes and Kate Moore.
A pillar of the choral repertoire, Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45, is paired with contemporary works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers David Lang and Caroline Shaw in the Los Angeles Master Chorale's final concerts of its 2017/18 season on Saturday, June 9 at 2 PM and Sunday, June 10 at 7 PM at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The concerts will feature the West Coast premiere of Lang's where you go and open with Shaw's Fly Away I. The performances will be conducted by Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director, and feature the full 100-voice chorus and LA Master Chorale Orchestra.
American Composers Orchestra continues its commitment to the creation and development of new orchestral music with the 27thAnnual Underwood New Music Readings on June 21-22, 2018 at NYU's Loewe Theater (35 West 4th Street).
American Composers Orchestra continues its commitment to the creation and development of new orchestral music with the 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings on June 21-22, 2018 at NYU's Loewe Theater (35 West 4th Street).
LA Opera Off Grand presents the West Coast premiere of Matthew Aucoin's Crossing in two concert performances on May 25 and 26. Crossing will be presented at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (The Wallis), located at 9390 North Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Mr. Aucoin, now in his second season as Artist in Residence with LA Opera, is both composer and librettist of the opera; he will also conduct the performances.
On the occasion of the 20-year mark of Matthew Shepard's tragic death, the Ford Theatres presents Considering Matthew Shepard, on Friday, June 15 and Saturday June 16 at 8:30pm, in association with Chris Isaacson Presents. Part of the 2018 Season and the IGNITE @ the FORD! series, Considering Matthew Shepard is performed by the 30-member GRAMMY Award-winning Conspirare choir, and composed and conducted by its GRAMMY Award-winning artistic director, Craig Hella Johnson.
Strathmore and Beth Morrison Projects will present the world premiere of Iron & Coal, a multi-media rock opera by composer/lyricist Jeremy Schonfeld and director Kevin Newbury, in the Music Center at Strathmore on Thursday and Friday, May 3 and 4, 2018 at 8 p.m.
Grand Band, a New York-based "supergroup" (New York Times) formed by pianists Erika Dohi, David Friend, Paul Kerekes, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore and Isabelle O'Connell, makes its Midwest debut at the Ordway Concert Hall on Wednesday, May 16. Their performance features the world premiere of Three Fragile Systems by Missy Mazzoli alongside music by Julius Eastman, Michael Gordon, Paul Kerekes and Kate Moore.
Peak Performances presents the world premiere of Spinning, a collaborative musical work written and composed by Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow Julia Wolfe (Anthracite Fields, 2015), and conceived with "cello goddess" (The New Yorker) Maya Beiser, with multimedia projections by innovative artist Laurie Olinder (May 10-13). Commissioned by Peak Performances and culminating their season of works by women, Spinning considers the essential labor of spinning thread-work once performed by hand by women-paying homage to the human dignity of this "women's work."
California Symphony presents season finale SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek on Sunday May 6th at 4pm. The concert sees Music Director Donato Cabrera reunite with internationally acclaimed and award-winning pianist Haochen Zhang, who performs the grand and virtuosic Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2. Also on the program is Sibelius' Symphony No. 3, plus the debut of Composer-in-Residence Katherine Balch's first commission for the California Symphony, like a broken clock. This is the final concert in the Symphony's 2017-18 Larger Than Life season, which has seen the California Symphony continue to buck industry trends, expanding audiences by 16% and increasing subscription sales by 14% over last year.
Bang on a Can and the Jewish Museum's 2017-18 concert season, which focuses on pioneering female artists, concludes on Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 7:30pm with a performance by cellist, composer, and improviser Tomeka Reid. Reid will perform with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, her own collection of leading Chicago and New York-based musicians, including Jason Roebke, bass; Mary Halvorson, guitar; and Tomas Fujiwara, drums. The ensemble will perform new compositions, combining her love of groove along with freer concepts, inspired by the themes in Scenes from the Collection, a new, major exhibition of the Jewish Museum's unparalleled collection featuring nearly 600 works from antiquities to contemporary art.
The GRAMMY Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus presents Silent Voices: If You Listen, the second installment of its multimedia, multi-composer, and multi-year Silent Voices series of concert works with spoken word, conceived, produced and performed by Brooklyn Youth Chorus (April 27-28, at National Sawdust). Silent Voices: If You Listen builds on the success of Silent Voices' 2017 premiere at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House. Here, eight composers, all women, collaborate with the choristers in amplifying the voices of the marginalized and confronting the challenges of division and categorization, racism, sexism, social and economic disparity, immigration, our environment, and threats to our understanding of truth. Commissioned composers for Silent Voices: If You Listen include Julia Adolphe, Olga Bell, Anna Clyne, Paola Prestini, Toshi Reagon, Shelley Washington, Bora Yoon, and Pulitzer winner Du Yun; the concert will also feature a work with guest artist Shaina Taub. Unifying this work is the distinctively versatile and beautiful sound of the rigorously-trained singers - a chorus of culturally and socioeconomically diverse New York City young people, ages 12-18 - joined by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). These are young voices set on resisting the socio-politically retrograde elements of the present in a move towards a more inclusive and compassionate vision of the future.
American Composers Orchestra continues its commitment to the creation and development of new orchestral music with the announcement of sixteen emerging composers who will participate in its catalytic programs. Six emerging composers will participate in the 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings on June 21-22, 2018 at a location to be announced. Ten emerging composers receive 2018 EarShot New Music Readings presented by Fort Wayne Philharmonic (February 7, 2018), Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (March 1, 2018), and Jacksonville Symphony (April 20, 2018). EarShot is a partnership between American Composers Orchestra, League of American Orchestras, American Composers Forum, and New Music USA.
