
Ars Nova today announced Spring Into The Nova, a benefit to support emerging artists. The concert features the music of composers Tom Kitt (Pulitzer Prize-winner, Next to Normal), Dave Malloy (Obie Award-winner, Three Pianos), and The Spring Standards (SXSW 2012), as well as Ars Nova's 2012 Composer-in-Residence Shaina Taub. This intimate evening of new songs offers Ars Nova the opportunity to showcase talented musicians who have participated in its various development programs for emerging composers. Alex Timbers (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) helms the evening, which will also feature a host of Broadway and Off-Broadway talent to be announced.
The concert will take place at
Ars Nova on Monday, April 30 at 7:00pm. Proceeds from the evening will help support
Ars Nova’s extensive artistic development initiatives and programming. Tickets to the concert range from $250 to $500 and include an invitation to an exclusive artist cocktail party in the Ars Nova Loft immediately following the performance. Tickets are available at
www.arsnovanyc.com or by contacting Development Manager Cameron Kroll at
ckroll@arsnovanyc.com or
(212) 489-9800 ext. 131.
Tom Kitt (Composer) has presented his music in
Ars Nova’s Uncharted series, as well as composed music for
Ars Nova and MTC’s co-production of Liz Flahive’s play,
From Up Here. He received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as two Tony awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations (with Michael Starobin) for
Next to Normal. His music for
Next to Normal also received the 2009
Frederick Loewe Award for dramatic composition and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Score. Tom is responsible for the music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations for
Green Day's
American Idiot on Broadway and the show’s Grammy Award-winning cast album, and was also the string arranger on their most recent album,
21st Century Breakdown. Tom is also the composer of
High Fidelity (Broadway),
The Winter's Tale and
All’s Well That Ends Well (The Public's NYSF),
The Retributionists (
Playwrights Horizons), and is the co/composer with
Lin-Manuel Miranda for
Bring it On, The Musical (National Tour). As a musical director, conductor, arranger, and orchestrator for Broadway, Off-Broadway and beyond, his credits include
13,
Debbie Does Dallas,
Everyday Rapture,
Hair,
Laugh Whore,
Pippin (Deaf West) and
Urban Cowboy. He is the proud leader of the
Tom Kitt Band, whose songs have been featured in film and TV.
Dave Malloy is a composer/performer/sound designer. He was the 2011 Composer-in-Residence at
Ars Nova, and his new rock/electronic opera,
Natasha, Pierre and the Comet of 1812, will premiere there in October 2012. He is the winner of an OBIE award, a 2009
Jonathan Larson Grant, and a recipient of the 2009-11 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Designers. He is one of the co-creator/performers of
Three Pianos, a drunken romp through Schubert’s
Winterreise (
Ontological-Hysteric Theater, NYTW, Special Citation
OBIE), and the composer for the Brooklyn based ensemble Banana Bag & Bodice. He has written six full-length musicals, including BB&B’sBeowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage (2008 Glickman Award, New Yorker Best of 2009), Sandwich, Clown Bible (Ten Red Hen, “Best Play of the Year,” East Bay Express 2007) and Beardo (Shotgun Players). Other notable shows include (The 99-cent) Miss Saigon, a shoe-string adaptation complete with a toy helicopter on a zip line, for which he was musical director, pianist and Chris.
The Spring Standards
are an energetic force of three-part harmony circling over a rock n' roll sound with an old country aftertaste. They first played at
Ars Nova in 2006, and are currently developing their first musical with
Ars Nova. From small towns to big cities, they explode on stage with spirit, spontaneity and a style all their own. They are, in no particular order:
James Cleare,
James Smith and
Heather Robb. Each member of the band is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and they use their strengths as a trio to create a sound that
listeners might expect from a band twice their size. With an emphasis on three-part harmony and a variety of instrumental switching, their range and energy make each live show a unique event. Paste Magazine chimes, "It's no easy task to find a country/folk haystack buried amongst noisy New York needles, but this winsome three piece rewards the hunter." The band?s debut full-length album Would Things Be Different, produced by Bryce Goggin, was released last year and they have recently finished recording a double-EP to be released this spring.