The Orchestra Now To Perform Debussy's 'Afternoon Of A Faun' & U.S. Premiere Of Dani Howard's Trombone Concerto

The Orchestra Now performs Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun for its final New York City concert this season, at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater on Sunday, May 19 at 3 PM.

The concert marks the New York debut of rising French conductor Chloé van Soeterstède, a former Dudamel and Taki Alsop Fellow who has conducted such eminent orchestras as the London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras.

In addition, London Symphony Orchestra principal trombonist Peter Moore makes his New York solo debut in the U.S. premiere of Dani Howard's award-winning Trombone Concerto. The program also includes Rachmaninoff's final work, Symphonic Dances. 

Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun

Sunday, May 19, 2024, at 3 PM

The Orchestra Now

Chloé Van Soeterstède, conductor (NY debut)

Peter Moore, trombone (NY solo debut)

Claude Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, L. 86

Dani Howard: Trombone Concerto (U.S. Premiere)

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

French conductor Chloé Van Soeterstède makes her New York debut at this performance, among her debuts with the Auckland Sinfonia, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and the Bilbao Symphony during the 2023-24 season. She is the founder of the London-based Arch Sinfonia chamber orchestra, acclaimed for its wide range of repertoire. The concert opens with one of Debussy's most popular works, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, inspired by a poem about the mythical creature and some alluring nymphs. Next on the program is the U.S. premiere of British composer Dani Howard's Trombone Concerto, written to celebrate the unsung heroes of the pandemic and declared “an instant classic” by the London Times. Premiered in 2021 by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the work received a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Large-Scale Composition category. The soloist is Peter Moore, for whom the work was written. Principal trombonist of the London Symphony Orchestra, he is also professor of trombone at the Royal Academy of Music, and has been praised by BBC Music Magazine as displaying “an eloquence that one might have thought impossible except by the human voice.” Howard's works have been commissioned and performed by more than 40 orchestras worldwide, broadcast by BBC Radio 3, and recorded on the Listenpony and Flipside Music labels. She was named Composer-in-Residence with the London Chamber Orchestra for the 2022-23 season. The afternoon concludes with Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, his final work, and the only one fully composed in the United States.

Tickets, priced at $15–$35, are available online at jazz.org, by calling CenterCharge at 212.721.6500, or at the Jazz at Lincoln Center box office at Broadway & 60th, Ground Floor.

The Orchestra Now

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) currently comprises 60 vibrant young musicians from 13 different countries across the globe: Austria, Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. All share a mission to make orchestral music relevant to 21st-century audiences by sharing their unique personal insights in a welcoming environment. Hand-picked from the world's leading conservatories—including the Yale School of Music, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Academy of Music, and the New England Conservatory of Music—the members of TŌN are enlightening curious minds by giving on-stage introductions and demonstrations, writing concert notes from the musicians' perspective, and having one-on-one discussions with patrons during intermissions.

Conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, whom The New York Times said “draws rich, expressive playing from the orchestra,” founded TŌN in 2015 as a graduate program at Bard College, where he is also president. TŌN offers both a three-year master's degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies and a two-year advanced certificate in Orchestra Studies. The Orchestra's home base is the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, where it performs multiple concerts each season and takes part in the annual Bard Music Festival. It also performs regularly at the finest venues in New York, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others across NYC and beyond. HuffPost, who has called TŌN's performances “dramatic and intense,” praises these concerts as “an opportunity to see talented musicians early in their careers.”

The Orchestra has performed with many distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Neeme Järvi, Gil Shaham, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Hans Graf, Peter Serkin, Gerard Schwarz, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta. Recordings featuring The Orchestra Now include two albums of piano concertos with Piers Lane on Hyperion Records, and a Sorel Classics concert recording of pianist Anna Shelest performing works by Anton Rubinstein with TŌN and conductor Neeme Järvi. Buried Alive with baritone Michael Nagy, released on Bridge Records in August 2020, includes the first recording in almost 60 years—and only the second recording ever—of Othmar Schoeck's song-cycle Lebendig begraben. Recent releases include Classics of American Romanticism—featuring the first-ever complete recording of Bristow's Arcadian Symphony—and an album of piano concertos with Orion Weiss, both on Bridge Records, and the soundtrack to the motion picture Forte. Recordings of TŌN's live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and are featured regularly on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide.

For upcoming activities and more detailed information about the musicians, visit ton.bard.edu.