American Composers Orchestra Announces Spring 2022 Programming

American Composers Orchestra continues its 2021-2022 season, under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel and President Melissa Ngan, with new and ongoing partnerships with the Apollo, National Black Theatre, and Carnegie Hall in spring 2022.

ACO remains committed to the creation, performance, preservation, and promotion of music by American composers with programming that sparks curiosity and reflects geographic, stylistic, racial, and gender diversity. This season's slate of performances includes eleven premieres of new works by American composers.

ACO's two large-scale performances in spring 2022 are Sanctuary on Friday, March 25, 2022 at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, led by conductor Marin Alsop; and The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout on Saturday, May 7, 2022 at the Apollo, co-presented by ACO and the Apollo and co-curated with National Black Theatre in partnership with Gateways Music Festival and Harlem Chamber Players, directed by National Black Theatre's Executive Artistic Director Jonathan McCrory and conducted by Chelsea Tipton.

"ACO's 2021-22 season reflects a complex web of musical expression as we emerge from a year of lockdowns into a future that is uncertain yet defined by a determined, collective consciousness," says ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel. "Sanctuary can reflect our common desire for safety and self-care, and The Gathering touches upon the yearning for community and healing."

On Friday, March 25, 2022, ACO returns to Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall for Sanctuary, a concert that explores the places, company, and states of mind in which composers seek inviolable refuge, led by conductor Marin Alsop and featuring violin soloist Jennifer Koh. The program includes the New York premiere of Lisa Bielawa's Sanctuary, a concerto written for Koh. Bielawa's Sanctuary is an extraordinary historical research project around this powerful word, documenting the rhetoric around founding American principles and every important struggle along the way. Anna Clyne's Restless Oceans from 2018 is inspired by a poem by Audra Lorde; the musicians raise their voices in song and use their feet to stand united in a defiant work that embraces the power of women. Hannah Kendall's alternately buoyant and serene Tuxedo: Vasco 'de' Gama takes its title from Jean-Michel Basquiat's iconic collection of diagrammatic block pieces. With a nod to the traditional African American spiritual "Wade in the Water," the work conjures both the majesty and elegance highlighted by the artist as well as Kendall's own reflective take on the history of globalization and multiculturalism ushered in by the Portuguese explorer. Newly commissioned works by Dai Wei and Paula Matthusen complete this rich musical odyssey. Read more background about the program and composers >

The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout on Saturday, May 7 at the Apollo is a sonic quest rooted in the African and African American ritual of the Ring Shout, co-presented by ACO and the Apollo and co-curated with National Black Theatre in partnership with Gateways Music Festival and Harlem Chamber Players. Directed by National Black Theatre's Executive Artistic Director Jonathan McCrory and conducted by Chelsea Tipton with choirmaster Gregory Hopkins, the program features the New York premieres of Carlos Simon's Amen! (orchestral version) and Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson, plus Courtney Bryan's Sanctum. These works are in conversation with new commissions from Herb Alpert Award-winner Toshi Reagon and Tony Award-winner Jason Michael Webb created to honor the present need for a collective space of remembrance. The performance is anchored by a 70-member orchestra and a 60-voice choir composed of singers, professional and amateur, from multiple African American churches and choral ensembles in New York including Abyssinian Baptist Church Choir, Broadway Inspirational Voices, Convent Avenue Baptist Church Choir, and Sing Harlem Choir. Read more background about the program and composers >

The Gathering collaboration includes an array of powerful community engagement activities at the Apollo leading up to The Gathering, with the intent of creating space for hope, healing, and the collective exhale:

• On Sunday, January 9, the Apollo and WNYC, in collaboration with the March on Washington Film Festival, present Uptown Hall: MLK - Activism, Athletics, and the Arts, which will include in a preview performance from Joel Thompson's Seven Last Words of the Unarmed performed by The Gathering Quartet (Manna KnJoi, soprano; Patrice Eaton, mezzo-soprano; Ronald Smith, tenor; Victor Chapman, baritone) led from the piano by music director Gregory Hopkins, among many other performances and panel discussions with esteemed guests. The event will be broadcast online on the Apollo Digital Stage and WNYC Facebook on January 17 at 11am and 7pm ET.
  
• On Thursday, February 3, the Apollo, WQXR and ACO present Deep River: Black Currents in Classical Music at The Greene Space. Dr. Howard Watkins, renowned pianist and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, curates a recital delving into the rich repertoire by Black American composers. It will feature internationally acclaimed soprano Karen Slack and baritone Kenneth Overton. The performance will be followed by a panel discussion about the over 100-year tradition of Blacks as creators, conductors, and patrons of classical music.
  
• On Tuesday, March 8, the Apollo and CUNY School of Medicine present Healing, Liberation and Joy: A Conversation on Mental Health and the Arts. Thought leaders and creatives will advocate community healing through honest conversations about trauma, its effects, and how to transmute those feelings into opportunities for introspection, creation, and celebration. Audiences will learn how to get, keep, and spread joy in this conversation with panelists composed of mental health experts and artists.
  
• On Sunday, April 24, the Apollo, ACO, and the National Black Theatre present Resistance and Healing: Engaging The Ring Shout. First practiced by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and in the United States, a Shout (or Ring Shout) is an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual in which worshipers move in a circle while stomping, shuffling, and clapping to open a space to collectively grieve, awaken joy as a source of liberation, and find love as a form of resistance. A panel of experts, thought leaders, and the creative team for The Gathering explore the historic origins and significance of the Ring Shout, and will then lead audiences through a communal ring shout.
  
• On Thursday, May 5, Live Wire: The Social Justice Playlist will discuss how Black artists have been utilizing their musical abilities to bring Black communities together for decades in a myriad of ways. The Apollo will explore the timeline of political performance and discuss Black artists and their musical contributions beginning in the 19th century to the present day. As the conversation focuses on our current moment, a panel will consider what these performances and performers reveal about the systems within which Black entertainment must exist.

For a complete schedule of community engagement activities for The Gathering, visit: https://bit.ly/ACOApolloGatheringCommunity

ACO will hold its 30th EarShot New Music Readings (formerly Underwood New Music Readings) on June 16 and 17, 2022 in New York City, conducted by ACO Music Director Emeritus George Manahan. Through these Readings and EarShot partnerships with orchestras across the country, ACO is dedicated to cultivating the next generation of composers. In what has become a rite of passage for aspiring orchestral composers, eighteen composers from throughout the United States will be selected to receive a reading of a new work. As in the past, commission opportunities will be available to the participants. This season, ACO also partners with the Houston Symphony with mentor composers Derek Bermel, Jimmy Lopez, and Gabriela Ortiz (March 29-30, 2022), Oregon Symphony conducted by Raúl Gómez-Rojas (April 18-20, 2022), and Tucson Symphony with mentor composers Billy Childs, Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, and Melinda Wagner (May 17-21, 2022) for EarShot Readings, in collaboration with the League of American Orchestras, New Music USA, and American Composers Forum. ACO Readings composers have gone on to win every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, Guggenheim, American Academy of Arts & Letters, and Rome Prizes. Read more about ACO's EarShot Readings program >

In 2022, ACO opens its EarShot Professional Development Sessions to the public as a series of free, virtual programs. Presented in partnership with the American Composers Forum, last season's virtual Professional Development Sessions reached over 1,100 participants since spring 2020. Orchestral Unions 101 (January 19) will cover the basics of orchestra unions and how their procedures affect composers, with ACO President and CEO Melissa Ngan and business management consultant WolfBrown's Joe Kluger. In "Tricks of the Trade (January 26), ACO's Artistic Director Derek Bermel leads a session on orchestration rooted in ideas explored in Steven Gerber's 2003 article for New Music Box. In Creating Meaningful Creative Relationships (February 9), ACO's Melissa Ngan and New Music Gathering organizers Lainie Fefferman and Mary Kouyoumdjian discuss practical approaches to collaboration in new music and how to nurture those creative relationships. In Self-Publishing Nuts & Bolts (February 16), Ngan and composer Dan Visconti present a practical guide to self-publishing for composers. Ngan and ACO Director of Development Lyndsay Werking discuss topics related to fundraising tailored to small ensembles and other artist-led performing groups in Fundraising for Small Ensembles (March 2). ACO President & CEO Melissa Ngan discusses the basics of contracts and procedures for new orchestral commissions and commissioning consortia, focusing on the composer's perspective, in Commissioning and Consortia Contracts 101 (March 9). This expanded series is made possible through a first-time, multi-year commitment from the Steven R. Gerber Trust in support of EarShot this season. Read more about ACO's EarShot Professional Development Sessions and Enroll >

ACO's Sonic Spark education programs will reach at least 500 students in New York City this season. Sonic Spark, led by ACO's Education Director Kevin James, uses composition as a platform to unlock students' creativity. Sonic Spark Lab is offered for middle and high school students. These courses teach students to engage with their creativity, harness their curiosity, and collaborate to complete original musical works. Four composer teaching artists teach the curriculum, including Jess Marlor, Lucy Yao, Trevor New, Madison Greenstone, Fabian Beltran. Sonic Spark Ensembles engage students with active music-making, whether through song, percussion, or other instruments. This school-based program is customized to enhance and magnify the educational and social objectives of the school and is taught by a dedicated team of accomplished professional Teaching Artists. Compose Yourself provides advanced curriculum both in-school and out-of-school. The program serves approximately 50 high school age musicians with direct instruction in music composition. Classes help young composers develop their creativity and learn professional standards in a supportive, hands-on environment; the program has a strong record of preparing students for the rigors of college and beyond. In Fall 2021, ACO's high school composers focused on non-traditional notation, including graphic and text scores. On January 23, 2022, the students will have their work read by a professional ensemble in the next Compose Yourself Reading Session. Read more about ACO's Sonic Spark education programs >

Now in its fifth year, ACO's Commission Club invites individuals to follow the creative process from start to finish, from discussing the composer's first creative spark, through the process of composing, and finally to the premiere. Membership fees support expenses related to composer commission fee, printing, rehearsal, and performance costs. In return, members are invited to exclusive events to interact with the artists. This season, the Club will support the new orchestration of Carlos Simon's work Amen!, to be premiered at the Apollo in May 2022. Preview events, including a cocktail reception, short musical performances, and Q&A with the composer, are taking place over the course of the season. For the first time this season, ACO links its Commission Club to its national composer advancement programs, offering members the opportunity to attend EarShot readings and world premiere performances in cities nationwide. Read more about ACO's Commission Club >

The next ACO Gala is on Tuesday, March 22 at Bryant Park Grill. The Gala launches the inaugural year of ACO's Creative Catalyst Award, which recognizes artists and leaders who exemplify its core values of discovery, diversity, disruption. In 2022, the ACO Creative Catalyst Award Recipients are American conductor and violinist Marin Alsop; one of the most prominent African-American female executives in Silicon Valley and current executive-in-residence at Cornell Tech, Denise Young Smith; and Cuban-American fourteen-time Grammy winner Paquito D'Rivera. Read more about ACO's 2022 Gala >