Miller Theatre Continues Composer Portraits Series with Oliver Knussen Tonight

Miller Theatre at Columbia University School of the Arts continues the 2012-13 season of its Composer Portraits series with Oliver Knussen, featuring Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano, Jamie Jordan, soprano, Courtney Orlando, violin, Ensemble Signal and Brad Lubman, conductor.

Ensemble Signal and special guest soloists will perform works from the prolific output of the beloved British composer Oliver Knussen. The concert includes an onstage discussion with Oliver Knussen and Brad Lubman.

The concert will take place tonight, Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 8:00 PM at Miller Theatre (2960 Broadway at 116th street). Tickets: $25-30; Students with valid ID: $15-18.

Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey said, "I am so thrilled to bring the work of the brilliant and gifted Oliver Knussen to Miller Theatre. This program explores a wide range of his work over his nearly fifty-year career, performed by the members of Ensemble Signal and two exquisite guest singers, Rachel Calloway and Jamie Jordan."

The music of British conductor and composer Oliver Knussen is at once entirely accessible and thoroughly modern. A classical wunderkind, Knussen got his start at age 15, when he led the London Symphony Orchestra in performances of his First Symphony, at home and at New York's Carnegie Hall. No stranger to New York's new-music scene, his works have earned repeated accolades in performance at Lincoln Center. This concert traces his long and fruitful career, from his teenage years to more recent music, including many of his best-known and most-loved chamber works.

PROGRAM:
Requiem - Songs for Sue (2005-6)
Songs without Voices (1991-92)
Secret Psalm (1990)
Hums and Songs of Winnie-the-Pooh (1970/83)
Ophelia Dances, Book 1 (1975)
Onstage discussion with the composer

Born in Glasgow in 1952, Oliver Knussen grew up near London, where his father was principal double bass of the London Symphony Orchestra for many years. It was with the LSO that he made his debut in April 1968, conducting his First Symphony in London and in Carnegie Hall, New York. His first major works Coursing (1979) and the Third Symphony (1973-9) placed him in the forefront of contemporary British music. In the 1980s he collaborated with Maurice Sendak on Where the Wild Things Are (1979-83) and Higglety Pigglety Pop! (1984-5, rev. 1999), two chamber operas that have since been performed all around the world, and in the UK by Glyndebourne and London's National Theatre. In 2012 a new production of the two operas (with digital background) was premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival and subsequently travels to LA and the Barbican, London as part of the BBC's 'Total Immersion' festival dedicated to the composer. Several of Knussen's later works have quickly established themselves in the repertory: Flourish with Fireworks (1988), The Way to Yonder Castle (1988-90), Songs without Voices (1992), Two Organa (1994), the Horn Concerto (1994), the Violin Concerto (2002), Requiem-Songs for Sue for soprano and chamber orchestra (2005-6) and most recently, Ophelia's Last Dance (2010) for solo piano. Knussen has become one of the most skilled and sought-after conductors of new music, and in this capacity has appeared with many major international orchestras. He is currently Artist-in-Association with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. From 1983 to 1998, Knussen was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival, and in 1992, in collaboration with Colin Matthews, established the Contemporary Composition and Performance Courses at the Britten-Pears Programme at Aldeburgh. Among Knussen's many awards are Honorary Memberships of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Royal Philharmonic Society, an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and the 2004 Association of British Orchestras Award. In 2006 he was named the second recipient of the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University, and in 2012 he won the Critics Circle award for an 'Outstanding Musician.' He became a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1994 Birthday Honours.

Mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway has been praised by The New York Times for her "considerable depth of expression" and by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for her "emotional characterizations and sumptuous voice...and remarkable sensitivity." She makes her Latin American debut this season at the Festival Internacional Cervantino and sings the world premiere of Gabriela Frank's Holy Sisters with the San Francisco Girls' Choir and Joana Carneiro. This January she created the title role in Mohammed Fairouz's Sumedia's Song. With the contemporary vocal ensemble Ekmeles, Ms. Calloway will perform at Princeton University, Roulette, and in a large scale collaboration with Talea Ensemble in Beat Furrer's FAMA at the Bohemian National Hall. Last season, she made her European debut as Mrs. Grose in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw. Ms. Calloway has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera in workshops of Nico Muhly's Two Boys and Michael Torke's Senna, and in concert at Zankel Hall, Cornell University, Le Poisson Rouge, Yale University, Depauw University, and Glimmerglass Opera. Ms. Calloway has appeared in recital at the Kennedy Center, Steinway Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Philadelphia's Academy of Music. A proponent of contemporary and lesser-known music, Ms. Calloway gave the world premiere of New Andean Songs by Gabriela Lena Frank on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella series at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Last spring she sang Harrison Birtwhistle's Corridor in Merkin Hall and the world premiere of Nico Muhly's Stabat Mater, both with Ensemble Signal. She has performed Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire at Alice Tully Hall, Columbia University, and the Juilliard School and has appeared in the FOCUS! Festival of New Music. Ms. Calloway is a founding member of Shir Ami, an ensemble dedicated to the preservation and performance of Jewish art music suppressed by the Nazis and Soviets. Ms. Calloway has received awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council and first prize in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search sponsored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. A native of Philadelphia, Ms. Calloway holds degrees from the Juilliard School (BM) and Manhattan School of Music (MM) and maintains an active teaching studio.

Praised for her "alluring clarity" (The New York Times), Jamie Jordan is a sought after interpreter of contemporary classical music. She has performed at the Brooklyn Museum for the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Music Series; Bruno Walter Auditorium as a Joy in Singing Finalist; the Detroit Institute of Art; Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group; The Harvard Club NY; June in Buffalo with Ensemble Signal; The Liederkranz Foundation; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art for the Bang on a Can Festival Marathon; PASIC with Bob Becker; and Symphony Space with Encompass Opera Theatre. Jamie Jordan has been a guest artist at Columbia University, Cornell University, Eastman School of Music, Ithaca College, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Fredonia, Syracuse University, University of Maryland, University of South Florida, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Unruly Music Festival, and Wisconsin Flute Festival. She has performed in concerts sponsored by Ethos New Music Society, Society for New Music (Syracuse), and as a soloist with Alia Musica Pittsburgh and Southern Tier Symphony (Poulenc's Gloria and Rachmaninoff's Vocalise). Other performances include one-woman cabaret shows at Rose's Turn and the role of Romilda (Xerxes) with the Connecticut Early Music Festival. A passionate music educator, Jamie Jordan has sung in numerous pre-concert lectures for the New York Philharmonic, and worked as a teaching artist and archivist for the orchestra. For eight summers she was a clinician for Summer Sounds Music Festival in Washington. She has taught at Arizona State University, Eastman School of Music, and University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, as well as public and private schools throughout Michigan and New York. Upcoming engagements include the 2013 MATA Festival with Talea Ensemble and a world premiere by Steven Rice at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Jamie grew up in suburbs of Chicago and Washington, D.C., and earned degrees in jazz studies, opera performance, and music education.

Heralded by The New York Times as a violinist of "tireless energy and bright tone", Courtney Orlando specializes in the performance of contemporary and crossover music. She is a founding member of the acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, which has premiered works by and collaborated with some of the foremost composers of our time, including John Adams, Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Meredith Monk, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Augusta Read Thomas, Martin Bresnick, Steven Stucky, and Donnacha Dennehy. Courtney is also a member of the new music ensemble Signal, a collective of musicians under the direction of conductor Brad Lubman. Among other composers, Signal collaborates extensively with Steve Reich; the group recorded Music for 18 Musicians and the first entirely live version of Double Sextet in the spring of 2011. In 2008, Courtney took part in the premiere of Michael Gordon and Ridge Theatre's Lightning at our feet, a multi-media song cycle on poems of Emily Dickinson. In this work, she was able to explore her interest in simultaneously singing and playing the violin, and since then, other composers have written music that highlights this combination. She is an ongoing collaborator with Meredith Monk, with whom she recorded Songs of Ascension. She has also had the good fortune of working with experimental jazz musicians Theo Bleckmann, Uri Caine, and Michael Formanek. Other performances and recordings include those with Joshua Redman, Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Sigur Ros's Jonsi, and Arcade Fire's Richard Parry. In addition to Nonesuch, Courtney has recorded for Bridge, Cantaloupe, Chandos, ECM, Sonnabilis, Tzadik, and Winter and Winter. She is currently on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory, where she is an Ear Training and Sight Singing teacher and a chamber music coach. Prior to her appointment at Peabody, she received her doctorate from and taught at the Eastman School of Music, and also taught at Syracuse University.

Ensemble Signal is a large New York-based ensemble dedicated to offering the broadest possible audience access to a diverse range of visionary works through performance, commissioning, recording, and education. Its roster includes some of the most gifted and innovative young musicians working in New York. Signal performs with conductor Brad Lubman, who founded the group along with cellist and co-artistic director Lauren Radnofsky. To form what The New York Times describes as "one of the most vital groups of its kind," Lubman and Radnofsky assembled a "new music dream team" (Time Out New York) of independent artists who have worked closely with one another and Lubman over the last decade. Members of JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, and other leading New York ensembles perform regularly with the ensemble. Signal is flexible in size and instrumentation, enabling it to meet the demands of its diverse repertoire that ranges from Philip Glass to Helmut Lachenmann. At home in concert halls, clubs, and international festivals alike, Signal has performed at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall to (le) Poisson Rouge. Signal made its debut in Spring 2008 at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York and the Ojai Music Festival in California, earning praise for "deeply committed performances" (Musical America) of "gripping vehemence" (Los Angeles Times). Soon after, Signal gave two sold-out performances of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and You Are (Variations) at (le) Poisson Rouge, earning praise from the New York Times for their "vibrant, euphoric performances that seemed to electrify the remarkably youthful audience." 2011-12 season highlights included performances at Tanglewood, playing the music of Brian Ferneyhough; (le) Poisson Rouge, collaborating with Philip Glass Ensemble Music Director Michael Riesman; and Miller Theatre's Composer Portrait series, premiering a new work by Hilda Paredes written for Signal and Irvine Arditti. Signal's recordings include Philip Glass' "Glassworks" and Music in Similar Motion (Glass' Orange Mountain label) and Sarah Kirkland Snider's Penelope (New Amsterdam Records). Upcoming releases include a CD/surround-sound DVD of music by Lachenmann, with the composer as soloist in Zwei Gefühle (Mode); Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe's Shelter (Cantaloupe); and Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and Pulitzer-prize winning Double Sextet (Cantaloupe).

Brad Lubman, conductor/composer, is founding co-Artistic Director and Music Director of Ensemble Signal. He has gained widespread recognition during the past two decades for his versatility, commanding technique, and insightful interpretations. His guest conducting engagements include major orchestras such as the DSO Berlin, Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie, WDR Symphony Cologne, Cracow Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Dresdner Philharmonic, Saarbrücken Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, performing repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary orchestral works. He has worked with some of the most important ensembles for contemporary music, including London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, musikFabrik, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, and Steve Reich and Musicians. He has recorded for Albany, BMG/RCA, Bridge, Cantaloupe, CRI, Kairos, Koch, Mode, New World, Nonesuch, Orange Mountain, and Tzadik. Lubman's own compositions have been performed in the USA and Europe and can be heard on his CD, insomniac, on Tzadik. Lubman is Associate Professor of Conducting and Ensembles at the Eastman School of Music, where he has directed the Musica Nova ensemble since joining the faculty in 1997. He is also on the faculty of the Bang on a Can Summer Institute.

Tickets are now available online at www.millertheatre.com. The public may also purchase tickets through the Miller Theatre Box Office in person or at 212/854-7799, M-F, 12-6 p.m.

Photo Credit: Clive Barda