Mark DeChiazza News

Kronos Quartet, tenor Rinde Eckert, and Vietnamese musician Van-Ahn Vo are bringing Jonathan Berger's acclaimed monodrama My Lai to BAM's 2017 Next Wave Festival for the work's East Coast premiere.

Eighth Blackbird is pleased to announce that 30 early-career musicians have been chosen to receive Fellowships to the inaugural Blackbird Creative Lab, a two-week summer training program taking place June 11 - 24 at the Besant Hill School in Ojai, California. The Fellows comprise eighteen performers, six composers, and two ensembles. In addition to Eighth Blackbird, the Blackbird Creative Lab Faculty includes composers Jennifer Higdon and Ted Hearne, and director/filmmaker Mark DeChiazza. During the session, a stellar array of Guest Artists will rotate through The Lab: composer Steve Reich, composer/performer Pamela Z, flutist/composer Ned McGowan, and from the Ojai Music Festival, curator Tom Morris and producer Elaine Martone, who also serves as Director of the Blackbird Creative Lab.

Peak Performances will present the world premiere of Quixote, from composer-librettist Amy Beth Kirsten and director-designer Mark DeChiazza, March 23-26.

Peak Performances will present the world premiere of Quixote, from composer-librettist Amy Beth Kirsten and director-designer Mark DeChiazza, March 23-26.

Eighth Blackbird today has been named Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, adding to the shower of accolades the group has enjoyed throughout its 20th anniversary (2016). Earlier this month, Eighth Blackbird was named recipient of Chamber Music America's first-ever Visionary Award, and last February the group picked up its fourth Grammy Award along with a prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Ever in creative motion, Eighth Blackbird propels itself forward from this 20th anniversary milestone by investing its vision, talent, and experience in an ambitious new initiative for the next generation: The Blackbird Creative Lab.

A volatile combination of music, imagery and dance take on the operatic form in Orpheus Unsung, composed by Steven Mackey with Jason Treuting (S? Percussion) in a production conceived and directed by Mark DeChiazza. Copresented with the Guthrie Theater June 16-18 at the Guthrie's Dowling Studio, Orpheus Unsung casts the electric guitar as the disembodied voice of Orpheus, who seeks to reverse fate and regain an irrevocably lost Eurydice. In this wordless opera, the myth is shattered and ultimately re-made within a space that fragments story and identity, and hangs in teetering balance between solidity and hallucinatory illusion. Orpheus's journey is illuminated in new language, as music collides and fuses with the expression of the body, cinematic imagery, and transformations of physical space. Alongside an ensemble of three dancers, Mackey and Treuting perform live in Orpheus Unsung, which will be presented alongside Mackey's engaging and personal string quartet Ars Moriendi, performed by musicians of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

The world premiere of the staged version of My Lai, Harris Theater's brand new commission for the Kronos Quartet composed by Jonathan Berger, will make its debut on Friday, January 29 at 7:30 PM. After outstanding reviews at the concert premiere of My Lai at Stanford University in October, the Harris looks forward to welcoming this deeply emotional and important story to Chicago.

Composer Paola Prestini, the Creative and Executive Director of National Sawdust (NS), today announced programming for the non-profit's inaugural fall season in its new home-a $16 million, 13,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art chamber hall in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The performance and recording venue, designed by Brooklyn-based architecture firm Bureau V in the shell of century-old former sawdust factory, will provide composers and musicians a setting in which they can flourish, and a place where they are given commissioning support, mentoring and other critical resources essential to create, and then share, their work. For audiences-serious fans and casual listeners alike-the venue will be a place to discover genre-spanning music at accessible ticket prices.

Miller opens its fall season with a captivating new production. Sparking a music dialogue across centuries, Heart & Breath deftly combines modern arrangements of music by Gesualdo and Monteverdi with contemporary works that blend music, dance, and theater, including composer Amy Beth Kirsten's 'wildly imaginative' (Washington Post)Colombine's Paradise Theatre. The six musicians of eighth blackbird play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing theatrical life into the timeless characters of thecommedia dell'arte in this uniquely immersive concert experience.

Miller opens its fall season with a captivating new production. Sparking a music dialogue across centuries, Heart & Breath deftly combines modern arrangements of music by Gesualdo and Monteverdi with contemporary works that blend music, dance, and theater, including composer Amy Beth Kirsten's "wildly imaginative" (Washington Post)Colombine's Paradise Theatre. The six musicians of eighth blackbird play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing theatrical life into the timeless characters of thecommedia dell'arte in this uniquely immersive concert experience.

viously announced program updates for the 48th season of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, New York's acclaimed annual summer celebration of classical music, which runs from today, July 25 - August 23, 2014. The changes and updates include new singers, additional works to be performed, as well as artists and programs for pre-concert events. This information updates details announced on April 9, 2014.

The 2014 Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, New York's acclaimed annual summer celebration of classical music, gets underway with an opening week of performances featuring the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, late night recitals and contemporary music, including two free events.

Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director, today announced program updates for the 48th season of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, New York's acclaimed annual summer celebration of classical music, which runs from July 25 - August 23, 2014. The changes and updates include new singers, additional works to be performed, as well as artists and programs for pre-concert events. This information updates details announced on April 9, 2014.

The schedule for this summer's Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival, which runs from July 20 to August 10, was announced today by Bill Bragin, Lincoln Center's Director of Public Programming. Nearly 100 free performances will take place across the plazas of Lincoln Center during three weeks. A special Memorial Concert for Pete and Toshi Seeger on July 20 will be followed by the official opening concert on July 23 with Larry Harlow's Hommy: A Latin Opera, the landmark work's first performance in 40 years. Complete festival details and a chronological listing of events follow.

Transient Glory, the Young People's Chorus of New York City's groundbreaking, 21st-century commissioning series of choral music for young people, returns with a Composer Spotlight on Missy Mazzoli tonight, April 25, at 8 p.m. at the 92nd Street Y.

Transient Glory, the Young People's Chorus of New York City's groundbreaking, 21st-century commissioning series of choral music for young people, returns with a Composer Spotlight on Missy Mazzoli on Friday, April 25, at 8 p.m. at the 92nd Street Y. Conducted by YPC Artistic Director and Founder Francisco J. Nuñez, the evening focuses on a musical world of Missy Mazzoli. It encompasses an entire evening of premieres of specially selected music from Missy's acclaimed collection of genre-bending works interpreted, set, and adapted for the first time for an ensemble of young voices and Victoire, Missy's all-female band. It also includes the world premiere of a new YPC Transient Glory commission, New New York Songs.

New York Polyphony, the acclaimed male vocal quartet behind one of The New Yorker magazine's “Top Ten Notable Classical Music Recordings of 2012,” has received a GRAMMY® nomination in the Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance category .

New York, NY – American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is pleased to announce that Kendall Williams will be the orchestra's Van Lier Emerging Composer Fellow for the 2013-2014 season. The Fellowship, established in 1999, offers a comprehensive and multi-faceted program that equips emerging composers with the full range of professional skills and tools necessary for building a successful career as a composer of orchestral music. This year's Fellow, Kendall Williams, received his B.A. in Music from Florida Memorial University and M.M. in Music Theory & Composition from NYU Steinhardt, studying with Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, and Rich Shemaria. His main instrument is the steel pan.