The American Composers Orchestra to Present HELLO, AMERICA: TRANSATLANTIC at Carnegie Hall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Carnegie Hall Presents the American Composers Orchestra
in Hello, America: Transatlantic - March 6, 2025

Led by Tito Muñoz, ACO Performs Music From Various Parts of Latin America to
Highlight its Influence on Jazz and Classical Music in the United States

Performing the World Premieres of ACO Commissions, Tomàs Peire Serrate's Wayfarer
and Edmar Castañeda's Bordones; the NYC Premiere of Clarice Assad's The Evolution
of AI; a World Premiere Arrangement of Going Home by Alice Coltrane
Turiyasangitananda by Curtis Stewart; Plus Ácana by Tania León

Performances by Clarice Assad, Edmar Castañeda, and Harlem Samba

"The focused attention of a robust crowd of listeners was an indication that this group's
necessary interventions have a ready, supportive local audience." - The New York Times

www.americancomposers.org

New York, NY (January 13, 2025) - On Thursday, March 6, 2025 at 7:30 PM, Carnegie Hall presents the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) in Hello, America: Transatlantic, led by Tito Muñoz in Zankel Hall. As part of the Hall's Nuestros sonidos celebration of Latin culture in the US, this concert features two singular performers in premieres of their own original works: virtuoso jazz harpist Edmar Castañeda, who "raises the bar for every harpist" (NPR); and electronics artist Clarice Assad, who "negotiates the line between chamber jazz and classical music with ... her native [Brazilian] rhythms" (The Chicago Reader). The orchestra also treats audiences to Ácana, an uplifting piece by 2021 Pulitzer Prize winner Tania León; a recomposition based on Alice Coltrane's interpretation of Going Home, derived from Dvořák's Ninth Symphony and in collaboration with Brazilian percussion ensemble Harlem Samba; and an additional world premiere by Los Angeles' Tomàs Peire Serrate. Keeping the energy high throughout the program are interludes by Harlem Samba.

Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and United States culture have been interconnected for centuries by the effects of colonization and the music transported and transformed overseas as a result. This program features music from various parts of Latin America and its influence on jazz and "Classical" music in the United States.

The world premiere recomposition of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda's interpretation of Going Home - Fantasy and Interludes on Going Home was co-composed by Curtis Stewart and Harlem Samba. Going Home is considered by many to be one of America's Negro Spirituals (despite being sourced from the beautiful slow movement of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony and set to text by William Arms Fisher in the late 1800's). It was championed by Paul Robeson, with many others, and recorded by Alice Coltrane on her album Lord of Lords, which also has a reworking of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. The spiritual is reworked for strings, keyboards, harp, and percussion, with the highly ornamented keyboard and strings creating an almost raga-like atmosphere around the original harmonies and melody. These orchestral interludes are a fantasy on all of the above-a musical thought reflected on a thought between a thought from a thought. Paired with the traditional drumming of Harlem Samba, this original orchestral work questions the nature of where "home" is, and to where it refers, depending on who is framing the iteration of cultural memory.

Tania León's Ácana is a work inspired by a poem dedicated to a tree of the sapotaceas family. The poem of the same name written by the Cuban Laureate Poet Nicolás Guillén is part of a collection of poems called El Son Entero published in La Gaceta del Caribe in 1944. Guillén's poem Ácana tells the story of this tree, one with wide spreading roots found across León's native Cuba. The Ácana tree is indigenous to the American Meridian. The wood of this tree is remarkably strong. It is commonly used to construct support beams of rustic homes and depending on the region is used for many varied purposes.

The ACO Commission and world premiere of Tomàs Peire Serrate's new work, Wayfarer, a musical reflection on the inner journey-an exploration of movement, solitude, and connection and the discoveries that grow alongside the experience of life.

Clarice Assad's The Evolution of AI, an ACO co-commission and New York premiere, is a contemporary musical composition that delves into the intricate interplay between human artistry and artificial intelligence. The piece invites the listener on a journey that explores and questions the boundaries of creativity and the profound implications of human and artificial intelligence collaboration. The work is for a chamber orchestra, electronics, and a human performer acting as a hybrid human AI machine inside a musical experiment. It is not the machine's first time around, though. The first movement, titled Reboot, hints at the idea that this hybrid being has existed before. The Evolution of AI is in four movements, without interruption.

The world premiere of Edmar Castañeda's Bordones for Harp and Orchestra, which is also an ACO Commission and Carnegie Hall co-comission, developed via EarShot CoLABoratory, is a work that innovatively fuses the llanera harp with a string orchestra, celebrating the rhythmic and harmonic richness of traditional Llanos music, a genre originating from the Llanos regions of Colombia and Venezuela. The piece pays tribute to the traditions of joropo and other characteristic styles from this region, while introducing a contemporary vision that emphasizes the fundamental role of rhythm, a central pillar of Llanos musical identity. The llanera harp, in its leading role, employs the technique of "bordones"-repeated low-register chords on the harp's bass strings- which not only provide a solid harmonic foundation but also become an element of rhythm and percussion, evoking the pulse of the Llanos dance.

A reading list curated by the Bushwick bookstore Mil Mundos Books accompanies the evening, pairing Latin American thought on Transatlantic connections with the concept behind each of the composers' works. To see the reading list and order the books, please see this link.

Program:
Thursday, March 6, 2025 at 7:30 PM ET
Carnegie Hall Presents American Composers Orchestra in Hello, America: Transatlantic
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall | New York City, NY
Tickets: Tickets start at $50 ($40 + $10 fee)
Link: www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2025/03/06/American-Composers-Orchestra-0730PM

Program:
Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, Curtis Stewart, and Harlem Samba - Fantasy and Interludes on Going Home (inspired by Alice Coltrane's Lord of Lords) [World Premiere Arrangement]
Tania León - Ácana
Tomàs Peire Serrate - Wayfarer [ACO Commission/World Premiere]
Clarice Assad - The Evolution of AI [ACO Co-Commission/NY Premiere]
Edmar Castañeda - Bordones [ACO Commission, developed via EarShot CoLABoratory/World Premiere]

American Composers Orchestra
Tito Muñoz, Conductor
Clarice Assad, Vocals and Electronics
Edmar Castañeda, Harp
Harlem Samba, Percussion

About American Composers Orchestra
In 1977, a collective of fearless New York City musicians came together to form the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), an ensemble dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers. Over more than 40 years committed to artistry, creativity, community and equity, ACO has blossomed into a national institution that not only cultivates and develops the careers of living composers, but also provides composers a direct pipeline to partnerships with many of America's major symphony orchestras.

In addition to its annual season, presented by Carnegie Hall since 1987, the ACO serves as a New York City hub where the most forward-thinking experimental American musicians come together to hone and realize new art by developing talent, established composers, and underrepresented voices, increasing the regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music.

ACO produces national educational programs for all ages, and composer advancement programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders - all dedicated to American composition.

To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including over 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works. Recent and notable commissioned composers include John Luther Adams, Andy Akiho, Clarice Assad, Carlos Bandera, Courtney Bryan, Valerie Coleman, Dai Wei, Du Yun, inti figgis-vizueta, Marcus Gilmore, Vijay Iyer, Yvette Janine Jackson, Joan La Barbara, Steve Lehman, Tania León, Paula Matthusen, Trevor New, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Ellen Reid, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Carlos Simon, Henry Threadgill, and many more.

Now encompassing all of ACO's composer advancement initiatives, EarShot is the first ongoing, systematic program for developing relationships between composers and orchestras on the national level. Through orchestral readings, CoLABoratory fellowships, consortium commissions, publishing, and professional development, EarShot ensures a vibrant musical future by investing in creativity today. Serving over 350 composers since its inception, ACO Readings in NYC began in 1991, and since 2008, national Readings have been offered in partnership with orchestras across the country in collaboration with American Composers Forum, the League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA. EarShot Readings composers have gone on to win every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Rome Prizes.

ACO has received numerous awards for its work, including those from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI Foundation, Inc., recognizing the orchestra's outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded ACO its annual prize for adventurous programming 35 times, singling out ACO as "the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States." ACO received the inaugural MetLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. Learn more at www.americancomposers.org.

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Bordones by Edmar Castañeda was commissioned with the support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting and developed through the American Composers Orchestra's EarShot CoLABoratory program.

Wayfarer by Tomàs Peire Serrate was commissioned with the support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.

American Composers Orchestra is grateful to the many organizations that make its programs possible including Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Fund, Altman Foundation, Amphion Foundation, Benevity, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, BMI Foundation, BMI, Inc., Charity Navigator's Giving Basket, Cheswatyr Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ford Foundation's Good Neighbor Committee, Give Lively, Francis B. Goelet Charitable Trust, Fromm Music Foundation, Steven R. Gerber Trust, G. Schirmer/Wise Music Foundation, The Hearst Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Jephson Educational Trusts, Jerome Foundation, MacMillan Family Foundation, Mellon Foundation, New Music USA's Organization Fund, The New York Community Trust (Musical Arts Fund, Clara Lewisohn Rossin Trust, and Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund), Pacific Harmony Foundation, Paypal Giving Fund, Rexford Fund, Sphinx Venture Fund, TD Charitable Foundation, Turrell Fund, UKOGF Foundation, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Corporate gifts to match employee contributions are made by Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Triton Container International Incorporated of North America, and Neiman Marcus.
Public funds are provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment for the Arts.