Under the leadership of Music Director George Manahan, American Composers Orchestra (ACO) returns to Carnegie Hall for the 11th season of its Orchestra Underground series, which explores the orchestra as an elastic ensemble that can respond to composers' unhindered creativity. ACO's first performance this season, titled Orchestra Underground: Monk's Sphere, tonight, November 21 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall is part of Meredith Monk's season-long residency as holder of Carnegie Hall's Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair. The program will include a performance of Monk's Night as well as world premieres of Clear Image by experimental rock-guitarist Ian Williams, Motormouth by A.J. McCaffrey, and My Brightest Garment by Theo Bleckmann (commissioned by Carnegie Hall). The concert will also include the New York premiere of Stalks, Hounds by Loren Loiacono. Theo Bleckmann and Ian Williams will join members of Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble as special guests for this exhilarating concert.
ACO returns to Zankel Hall on
Friday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. with Orchestra Underground: Sins and Songs. Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden, who performs as My Brightest Diamond, joins ACO for a selection of her songs, "Whoever You Are," "We Added it Up," and "Looking at the Sun," as well as
Kurt Weill's cult classic, The Seven Deadly Sins. The program will also include selections from Sarah Kirkland Snider's song cycle Unremembered, the world premiere of
Carman Moore's Tata Madiba, written in honor of Nelson Mandela, and the US premiere of draKOOL, a Dracula-inspired work by Daniel Schnyder.
Going into his fifth season as
Music Director of the American Composers Orchestra, the wide-ranging and versatile
George Manahan has had an esteemed career embracing everything from opera to
the concert stage, the traditional to the contemporary. In addition to his work with ACO this season, Manahan continues his commitment to working with young musicians as Director of Orchestral Studies at the Manhattan School of Music as well as guest conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Manahan was
Music Director at New York City Opera for fourteen seasons. There he helped envision the organization's groundbreaking VOX program, a series of workshops and readings that have provided unique opportunities for numerous composers to hear their new concepts realized, and introduced audiences to exciting new compositional voices. In addition to established composers such as Mark Adamo, David Del Tredici, Lewis Spratlan, Robert X. Rodriguez, Lou Harrison, Bernard Rands, and Richard Danielpour, Manahan has introduced works by composers on the rise including
Adam Silverman, Elodie Lauten, Mason Bates, and
David T. Little. Among his many world premieres are Charles Wuorinen's Haroun and the Sea of Stories,
David Lang's Modern Painters, and the New York premiere of Richard Danielpour's Margaret Garner.
Described by the Toronto Star as an "eclectic with wide open ears," Grammy-nominated composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel has been widely acclaimed for his creativity, theatricality, and virtuosity. Bermel's works draw from a rich variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, pop, rock, blues, folk, and gospel. Hands-on experience with music of cultures around the world has become part of the fabric and force of his compositional language. Bermel currently serves as the Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra and has been ACO's Artistic Adviser since 2009. Bermel is the senior composer in ACO's artistic administration, and is primarily responsible for ACO's concert programming.
In addition to his commissions from American Composers Orchestra, Bermel has received commissions from the Pittsburgh, National, Saint Louis, and Pacific Symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, WNYC, eighth blackbird, the Guarneri String Quartet, Music from Copland House and Music from China, De Ereprijs (Netherlands), Jazz Xchange (U.K.), violinist Midori, and electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans, among others. His many honors include the Alpert Award in the Arts, Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, American Music Center's Trailblazer Award, and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; commissions from the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations, Meet the Composer, and Cary Trust; and residencies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Yaddo, Tanglewood, Aspen, Banff, Bellagio, Copland House, Sacatar, and Civitella Ranieri. His discography features three critically acclaimed discs: an all-Bermel orchestral recording that includes his clarinet concerto Voices (BMOP/sound); Soul Garden (New World/CRI); and his most recent disc, Canzonas Americanas, with Alarm Will Sound (Cantaloupe).
Entering its 38th season, American Composers Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American composers. ACO makes the creation of new opportunities for American composers and new American orchestral music its central purpose. Through concerts at
Carnegie Hall and other venues, recordings, internet and radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and commissions, ACO identifies today's brightest emerging composers, champions prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO also serves as an incubator of ideas, research, and talent, as a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras, and as an advocate for American composers and their music.
To date, ACO has performed music by more than 700 American composers, including nearly 300 world premieres and newly commissioned works. Among the orchestra's innovative programs have been SONiC: Sounds of a New Century, a nine-day citywide festival in New York of music by more than 100 composers age 40 and under; Sonidos de las Américas, six annual festivals devoted to Latin American composers and their music; Coming to America, a program immersing audiences in the ongoing evolution of American music through the work of immigrant composers; Orchestra Tech, a long-term initiative to integrate new digital technologies in the symphony orchestra; Improvise!, a festival devoted to the exploration of improvisation and the orchestra; coLABoratory: Playing It UNsafe, a new laboratory for the research and development of experimental new works for orchestra; and Orchestra Underground, ACO's entrepreneurial cutting-edge orchestral ensemble that embraces new technology, eclectic instruments, influences, and spatial orientation of the orchestra, new experiments in
the concert format, and multimedia and multidisciplinary collaborations.
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