The New School's College of Performing Arts Sets Winter, Spring Programming

The New School's newly formed College of Performing Arts, led by"firebrand" (New York Times) Executive Dean Richard Kessler, is pleased to announce winter-spring public programming highlights for the College's three schools: Mannes School of Music, The School of Jazz and The School of Drama. Performances will take place at the College's new performing arts hub-designed by Deborah Berke Partners at Arnhold Hall (55 West 13th Street)-as well as at The New School's Tishman Auditorium at University Center (63 Fifth Avenue), The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street) and venues throughout the city. Please see below for a schedule of events for each school.

Musicians from Mannes School of Music, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, will perform in a wide range of events both on campus and off. The Mannes Orchestra, conducted by David Hayes, and numerous other Mannes students, past and present, will perform in a concert version of Mannes Prep alumnus Ricky Ian Gordon and Leonard Foglia's chamber opera A Coffin in Egypt, featuring renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, an alumna of the conservatory, and other Mannes singers. The event will take place February 18 in The Appel Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. Hayes will also lead the Orchestra in performances of Arvo Part's Symphony No.3 and Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, April 8 at Alice Tully Hall. As part of a new educational partnership between Martha Graham Dance Company and the College of Performing Arts, the Orchestra will perform in the Company's 90th anniversary New York season, April 14-18 at New York City Center. The Orchestra will join the acclaimed Mannes Opera Young Artists, led by Artistic Director Joseph Colaneri, for a fully staged production of Mark Adamo's Little Women, May 6 & 7 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College.

Mannes American Composers Ensemble (MACE), founded by Mannes faculty composer Lowell Liebermann and directed in 2015-16 by Alan Pierson, will perform May 11 in the College of Performing Arts' new Ernst C. Stiefel Concert Hall at Arnhold Hall.

The College's popular new series (Un)Silent Film Nightreturns to Tishman Auditorium for a third edition on May 13, this time with Mannes and School of Jazz students performing a new score, by School of Jazz student composer Nathan Kamal, to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. (Un)Silent Film Night demonstrates the potential that students and faculty are able to realize now that Mannes, The School of Jazz and The School of Drama have been brought together in the new College of Performing Arts.

Exemplifying the College's commitment to collaboration across artistic disciplines, its students and faculty begin working this month with their counterparts at Parsons School of Design on a new production of Robert Ashley's opera Dust that the schools will co-present in the fall. The schools are working together on all aspects of the production, departing from the convention of design, rehearsal, direction and production taking place in isolation. This experimental approach mirrors the work itself. David Chambers, Directing Faculty at the School of Drama, will direct. Conductor, dates and location will be announced soon.

Richard Kessler, Dean of Mannes and Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts, said, "Building upon 100 years of excellence at Mannes, and decades of excellence at the schools of Jazz and Drama, the new College of Performing Arts at The New School creates unparalleled opportunities for students to practice high-level, innovative performance, composition, direction, improvisation and design-and for the public to experience their work. Perhaps the greatest opportunity we're creating for young artists and their audiences is the experience of collaboration, both among students in different disciplines and between students and world-class artists outside the College: Frederica von Stade, Martha Graham Dance Company and Randy Weston, to name a few."

The School of Jazz continues a series of events featuring-and paying tribute to-their first-ever (2015-16) artist-in-residence, the legendary pianist and composer Randy Weston. On February 18 at Tishman Auditorium, The Piano Is a Drumwill feature Weston, master percussionist Neil Clarke and several Senegalese percussionists in a conversation and performance paying homage to iconic African drum master Doudou N'Diaye Rose, who passed away in August 2015. Continuing to pursue the theme of piano's relationship to the drums, The School of Jazz will host a panel discussion moderated by jazz drummer Lewis Nash, including a performance by the evening's multi-cultural lineup of participants, March 31 at Tishman Auditorium. The Weston residency will conclude with a concert by the pianist himself, April 28 at Tishman Auditorium.

In the spring, The School of Drama will present its New Voices 2016 Playwrights Festival, which highlights the work of graduating MFA playwrights, directors and actors. Kristin Heckler will direct Zach Weed's I Broke a Plate March 16-19, Stevie Walker-Webb will direct Lorne Svarc's Chained WomanApril 6-9, and Margaret Hee will direct Reese Thompson's CrackerApril 20-23. Previous New Voices plays that have gone on to receive professional productions include Extinction, by Gabe McKinley, and A Kid Like Jake, by Daniel Pearle, which won the 2013 Laurents/Hatcher Award. There will also be new productions of classics: a second-year MFA staging of Julius Caesar, directed by Casey Biggs, February 18-20; a BFA production of Jean Genet's The Balcony, directed by Carl Cofield, March 3-5; and a BFA production of A Winter's Tale, directed by Melissa Crespo, May 5-7. All performances will take place at The Theater at the School of Drama.

Mannes School of Music Season Highlights

A Coffin in Egypt: An Opera-in-Concert
Composed by Ricky Ian Gordon
Libretto by Leonard Foglia
Featuring Frederica von Stade
Directed by Leonard Foglia
Lincoln Center's American Songbook
The Appel Room (Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th Street)
February 18, 8:30pm

Mannes students past and present come together to perform a concert version of Mannes Prep alumnus Ricky Ian Gordon and Leonard Foglia's one-act chamber opera, A Coffin in Egypt, written especially for legendary mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, a Mannes alumna. She portrays Myrtle Bledsoe, a 90-year-old widow reflecting on her life in tiny Egypt, Texas. Gordon's intimate, touching score, with a libretto based on the play by Horton Foote, gracefully distills both the crushing bitterness and overwhelming radiance of one woman's life story.

With the Mannes Orchestra performing the score, the cast will include soprano Malorie Casimir (Mannes MM student), mezzo-soprano Chantelle Grant (Mannes alumna), tenor Terrence Chin Loy (Mannes MM student) and bass-baritone Justin Hopkins.

Reviewing the opera at Opera Philadelphia, The Wall Street Journal said of von Stade, "Some performers don't need to retire." The Chicago Tribune called her performance, at Chicago Opera Theater, a "moving tour-de-force."

The Mannes Orchestra
Conducted by David Hayes
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
April 8, 7:30pm

Maestro David Hayes leads The Mannes Orchestra in performances of Arvo Part's Symphony No.3, and Bruckner's masterpiece Symphony No. 9 in D Minor. Known for their bold and adventurous programming, David Hayes and The Mannes Orchestra have been hailed by The New York Times for playing with "inviting warmth and solidity," and for their "intensity of focus." Part's Symphony No. 3 and Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 make for a delightful pairing, with much to compare and contrast, including the deployment of large-scale polyphony, masterful counterpoint and striking musical development and architecture.

Martha Graham Dance Company's 2016 New York Season
Mannes Orchestra, Conducted by David Hayes
New York City Center (131 West 55th Street)
April 14, 8pm; April 15, 8pm; April 16, 8pm; April 18, 7pm

As part of a new educational partnership between the world-renowned Martha Graham Dance Company and The New School's College of Performing Arts, the Company's 90th anniversary performances, at New York City Center, will include The Mannes Orchestra. The New York season will feature four of Martha Graham's most important masterworks-Appalachian Spring, Chronicle, Cave of the Heart and Night Journey-alongside new works created for the Company by internationally acclaimed choreographers Marie Chouinard, Mats Ek and Pontus Lidberg. April 18 is a special gala program marking 90 years since Graham's first public performance with her Concert Group, on April 18, 1926.

Mannes Opera
Little Women
Composed by Mark Adamo
Featuring the Mannes Orchestra
Conducted by Joseph Colaneri, Mannes Opera Artistic Director
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College (524 West 59th Street, New York)
May 6 & 7, 7:30pm

Mannes School of Music presents a fully staged production of the opera Little Women, by composer Mark Adamo. The Mannes Opera Young Artists combine forces with The Mannes Orchestra under the direction of Artistic Director Joseph Colaneri.

MACE (Mannes American Composers Ensemble)
Conducted by Alan Pierson
Ernst C. Stiefel Concert Hall at Arnhold Hall (55 West 13th Street)
May 11, 7:30pm

Founded by Mannes faculty composer Lowell Liebermann and directed by Alan Pierson in 2015-16, MACE (The Mannes American Composers Ensemble) champions the music of living American composers. MACE presents works by iconic American masters such as John Adams, Mason Bates and Steve Reich, as well as works by young and up-and-coming composers such as David Hertzberg and Nina C. Young. The ensemble aims to embrace a broad view of the vital landscape of contemporary American Music, and to bolster that landscape through performances, world premieres, and soon, commissions.

(Un)Silent Film Night: The Birds
With a New Score by School of Jazz Student Nathan Kamal
Tishman Auditorium at University Center (63 Fifth Avenue)
May 13, 7pm

(Un)Silent Film Night, the popular new College of Performing Arts series in which student musicians perform live to a classic film screening, returns with Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece The Birds, featuring a new score composed by School of Jazz BM candidate Nathan Kamal. An amplified ensemble including students from Mannes and The School of Jazz will improvise with Kamal's "musical sketches" as a guide, using a broad sonic vocabulary ranging from lush chorale harmonic textures to extreme dissonance and extended techniques. Out of Kamal's respect for the original, unaltered work, the rich "natural" sounds of the film serve as the starting point for the new score, and the spontaneous quality of the musicianship will fit with the spirit of Hitchcock's mammoth capacity for invention.

This is the third edition of (Un)Silent Film Night, which debuted in April 2015 with Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. and Charlie Chaplin's The Immigrant, hosted by Matthew Broderick; and continued in November 2015 with Harold Lloyd's Speedy, hosted by Bill Irwin. A host for the May 13 event will be announced soon.

The School of Jazz Season Highlights

How Music Dies (or Lives)
Panel Discussion with Author Ian Brennan
Arnhold Hall, 5th Floor Performance Space (55 West 13th Street)
February 17, 7pm

GRAMMY-winning record producer Ian Brennan-the force behind the Zomba Prison Project album I Have No Everything Here, currently nominated for the Best World Music Album GRAMMY-comes to the College of Performing Arts to discuss his new book, Music Dies (or Lives): Field-Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts, out February 2.

The Piano Is A Drum: Randy Weston and Senegalese Master Drummers in a Tribute to Doudou N'Diaye Rose
Part of the Randy Weston Artist-In-Residency Series at The School of Jazz
Tishman Auditorium at University Center (63 Fifth Avenue)
February 18, 7pm

On August 19, 2015, drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose, one of the most renowned African musicians of the 20th century, passed away in Dakar, Senegal. This program, originally intended to feature him as a special guest artist, will instead pay homage to his singular musical legacy. The evening will feature performances by his sons-master drummers in their own right-Moustapha ("Tapha") N'Diaye and Birame N'Diaye, direct from Senegal. Joining them on stage will be Senegalese drummers Mar Gueye and his son Mor Coumba Gueye, legendary percussionist Neil Clarke, and pianist and composer Randy Weston, The School of Jazz's 2015-15 Artist-in-Residence.

Symposium in the African Drum
Moderated by Lewis Nash
Featuring Candido (Cuba), Big Black (South Carolina), Jorge Alabê (Brazil), Bonga (Haiti), Neil Clarke (New York)
Tishman Auditorium at University Center (63 Fifth Avenue)
March 31, 7pm

Randy Weston has said that he and many other jazz performers play the piano like a drum. "The drum never left us," he explains, referring to the influence of the drum and his African heritage. This unique event will address that tradition as it has traveled throughout Africa and to Cuba, Brazil, Haiti and the United States, with discussion moderated by Lewis Nash, demonstrations and a performance by the participants.

Jazz Presents: Armen Donelian
Arnhold Hall, 5th Floor Performance Space (55 West 13th Street)
April 19, 8pm

Pianist and School of Jazz Faculty Member Armen Donelian, who has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Far East since 1975, will give an intimate concert. Donelian has garnered acclaim as a featured solo pianist, a leader of his own quintet and trio, and with jazz legends including Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, Paquito D'Rivera, Mongo Santamaria and Billy Harper. The New York Times has described him as "a pianist with a crystalline touch, but a penchant for avant gardism."

Randy Weston Artist-in-Residence Series Concert
Tishman Auditorium at University Center (63 Fifth Avenue)
April 28, 7pm

Legendary pianist and composer Randy Weston performs a concert culminating his year (2015-16) as The School of Jazz's first Artist-in-Residence.

The School of Drama Season Highlights

Julius Caesar
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Casey Biggs
The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street, 3rd Floor)
February 18-19, 8pm; February 20, 3pm and 8pm

A second-year MFA Production of William's Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, directed by Casey Biggs.

The Balcony
By Jean Genet
Directed by Carl Cofield
The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street, 3rd Floor)
March 3-4, 8pm; March 5, 3pm and 8pm

A BFA Production of The Balcony by Jean Genet, directed by Carl Cofield.

I Broke A Plate
By Zach Weed
Directed by Kristin Heckler
Part of the New Voices 2016 Playwrights Festival
The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street, 3rd Floor)
March 16-18, 8pm; March 19, 3pm and 8pm

Third-year MFA director Kristin Heckler directs this playby third-year MFA playwright Zach Weed.

Chained Woman
By Lorne Svarc
Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb
Part of the New Voices 2016 Playwrights Festival
The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street, 3rd Floor)
April 6-8, 8pm; April 9, 3pm and 8pm

Third-year MFA director Stevie Walker-Webbdirects this playby third-year MFA playwright Lorne Svarc.

Cracker
By Reese Thompson
Directed by Margaret Hee
Part of the New Voices 2016 Playwrights Festival
The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street, 3rd Floor)
April 20-22, 8pm; April 23, 3pm and 8pm

Third-year MFA director Margaret Hee helms this production of a new work by third-year MFA playwright Reese Thompson.

A Winter's Tale
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Melissa Crespo
The Theater at the School of Drama (151 Bank Street, 3rd Floor)
May 5 & 6, 8pm; May 7, 3pm and 8pm

Melissa Crespo directs a BFA production of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale.