Goddard Lieberson News

American Composers Orchestra (ACO), under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel and Music Director George Manahan, continues its 40th Anniversary Season on Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30pm with Orchestra Underground: Past Forward at Carnegie Hall's subterranean Zankel Hall.

The Sylvan Winds announce the second concert of the 2016-17 Season celebrating music, culture, and history. Performing in historic and notable New York City buildings and performance venues, the ensemble creates imaginative and informative programs that complement the environs of each space.

American Composers Orchestra (ACO), under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel and Music Director George Manahan, continues 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.

The Sylvan Winds announce the second concert of the 2016-17 Season celebrating music, culture, and history. Performing in historic and notable New York City buildings and performance venues, the ensemble creates imaginative and informative programs that complement the environs of each space.

Tickets are now on sale for American Composers Orchestra's (ACO) 40th Anniversary Season, under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel and Music Director George Manahan. This season includes eight world premieres by a diverse set of composers performed by ACO at Carnegie Hall and Symphony Space, and continues the orchestra's commitment to serve as a catalyst for the creation of new orchestral music, providing unprecedented opportunities for American composers to create new work and for audiences to discover it. Founded in 1977, ACO remains the only orchestra in the world dedicated exclusively to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works. ACO takes its commitment to fostering new work beyond the stage in its annual Underwood New Music Readings for emerging composers, now in its 26th year in New York, and through its program EarShot, the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network, which brings the Readings experience to orchestras across the country in partnership with American Composers Forum, the League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA.

Spectrum proudly presents a festival of music by composer Michael Hersch on September 7th, 8th and 11th. Featured performers include Michael Hersch, Miranda Cuckson, Mariel Roberts, Ah Young Hong, Jacob Rhodebeck, Gary Louie, Sophie Shao, and Michael Atkinson. Works include two New York premieres, a world premiere, and only the third-ever complete performance of his landmark "The Vanishing Pavilions" of 2005.

Many people are calling theatre cast albums soundtracks these days, but they are two very different things.

Masterworks Broadway releases A Chorus Line 40 th Anniversary Celebration, a definitive, newly remastered edition of the best-selling 1975 Original Broadway Cast Recording.

On October 23 & 24, Persona, a new opera from composer Keeril Makan and adaptor / librettist / director Jay Scheib, will make its world premiere at National Sawdust. Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and National Sawdust, and adapted by Scheib from Ingmar Bergman's film of the same name, Persona is a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty and identity. These world premiere performances—which represent the first opera staged at National Sawdust—feature music direction by Evan Ziporyn and music by the ensemble Either/Or.

On October 23 & 24, Persona, a new opera from composer Keeril Makan and adaptor / librettist / director Jay Scheib, will make its world premiere at National Sawdust. Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and National Sawdust, and adapted by Scheib from Ingmar Bergman's film of the same name, Persona is a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty and identity. These world premiere performances-which represent the first opera staged at National Sawdust-feature music direction by Evan Ziporyn and music by the ensemble Either/Or.

On October 23 & 24, Persona, a new opera from composer Keeril Makan and adaptor / librettist / director Jay Scheib, will make its world premiere at National Sawdust. Commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and National Sawdust, and adapted by Scheib from Ingmar Bergman's film of the same name, Persona is a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty and identity. These world premiere performances—which represent the first opera staged at National Sawdust—feature music direction by Evan Ziporyn and music by the ensemble Either/Or.

Masterworks Broadway releases A Chorus Line - 40th Anniversary Celebration, a definitive, newly remastered edition of the best-selling 1975 Original Broadway Cast Recording. The reissue features eight bonus tracks that - for the first time - allow the listener to eavesdrop on the creative process of composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Edward Kleban, including songs that did not make it into the final version of their acclaimed score. A Chorus Line - 40th Anniversary Celebration will be available October 23, 2015 on CD,downloads in enhanced audio formats and via streaming audio providers.

National Recording Registry To “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive”. Joan Baez, Sly Stone, Steve Martin Recordings Named American Treasures

A collection of rarely seen and absorbing photos depicting the original Broadway and first revival production of multi-Tony Award-winning modern musical masterpiece SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET are now available to view courtesy of the New York Public Library For The Performing Arts.

Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has been an essential part of American theater - even more to the point, American culture - for over half a century. When we talk about long-ago stage productions of great plays, most of us have to imagine. In the case of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, we have something far better: in the winter of 1963, a few months after the play opened, Columbia Records took the unusual step of bringing the original cast - Uta Hagen, Arthur Hill, Melinda Dillon and George Grizzard - into the studio to perform the entire play for an audio recording. It has been unavailable since the LP era, but now Masterworks Broadway proudly releases this important recording for the first time in the digital era. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?will be available for purchase exclusively via MasterworksBroadway.com on February 18 in a limited quantity of 2-CD-R sets as well as digital download. The 2-CD-R sets will be available through Arkiv Music on March 18, plus downloads through digital service providers the same day.

Masterworks Broadway rings in 2014 with the release of three long requested albums previously unavailable on CD - Li'l Abner (January 14), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (February 18), Brigadoon / Kiss Me, Kate (March 18).

A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the legendary original cast of the iconic Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents musical WEST SIDE STORY recording the show's classic cast album is now available to view.

Peer behind the scenes of the creation of the legendary original Broadway cast recording of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's romantic musical A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC in 1973 with a vivid series of new photographs just released.

To celebrate the publication of The Untold Stories of Broadway on November 12 by Dress Circle Publishing, Jennifer Ashley Tepper will be sharing three short excerpts about each of the Broadway theaters featured in the book-countdown style! Today: The Al Hirschfeld Theatre!

A plethora of new photos depicting the recording sessions for the original Broadway cast recording of the short-lived 1965 musical DO I HEAR A WALTZ? written by Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents are now available to view courtesy of Masterworks Broadway.