Yale in New York to Open 2014-15 Season at Avery Fisher Hall, 10/19

Yale in New York opens its 2014-15 season with John Adams conducting the Yale Philharmonia and the Brentano Quartet in concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Sunday October 19, 2014 at 5 p.m.

Yale in New York features John Adams as conductor and composer as he leads the Yale Philharmonia and Brentano String Quartet in his Absolute Jest paired with works by Beethoven and Stravinsky. This event is the culmination of a week-long John Adams residency at Yale.

Tickets: $30 General Admission, $15 Students with ID. Available at the Avery Fisher box office (212) 721-6500
or online at http://bit.ly/YNYadams. There will be a preview performance in New Haven, CT on Friday, October 17, 2014, 7:30 p.m. at Woolsey Hall, New Haven, CT. Tickets: http://bit.ly/YSMadams.

Adams is considered "not only one of America's cleverest composers but a sharp conductor too" (David Murray, Financial Times). This concert showcases Adams' dual roles as conductor/composer with his rambunctious Beethoven-inspired piece Absolute Jest alongside Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and Stravinsky's Orpheus. A concerto for string quartet and orchestra, Absolute Jest also features the Brentano String Quartet in its debut year as Yale's Quartet-in-Residence.

Beethoven's music is intricately woven into Absolute Jest, "a provocative...Adams-ized mélange of late Beethoven" (The Los Angeles Times). Hence Adams' choice to pair his own work with a Beethoven symphony. The Fourth Symphony is sometimes overshadowed by the composer's third and fifth symphonies; Robert Schumann called it "a slender Grecian maiden between two Nordic giants."

Stravinsky's Orpheus rounds out the program. The piece, which premiered in New York City in 1948, boasts "translucent scoring and evanescent lyricism... [which] confer a distinctive beauty" (Joseph Horowitz).

The concert at Avery Fisher Hall follows a preview performance of the same program on October 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Woolsey Hall in New Haven, CT. It is the culmination of a week-long John Adams residency at Yale, which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 2013. Previously, he gave the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University in 2009. Adams is also a Yale parent: his son Samuel earned his master's degree from the School of Music in 2010.

The performance opens the 2014-15 Yale in New York concert season. The series, under the artistic direction of David Shifrin, encompasses two more concerts, both in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. On December 7, 2014, singers from Yale Opera will perform treasures from the Frederick R. Koch Collection at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. On January 24, 2015, the acclaimed Yale Percussion Group performs Mauricio Kagel's theatrical Dressur alongside music gleaned from the ensemble's recent musical trip to Ghana.

Yale in New York has garnered a reputation for its creative and diverse offerings, with frequent collaborations between Yale's distinguished faculty and its exceptional network of current students and alumni.

General admission tickets at $30 ($15 for students with ID) are available online at http://bit.ly/YNYadams, or by calling the Avery Fisher box office at (212) 721-6500. Tickets to the October 17 preview performance in New Haven may be reserved here: http://bit.ly/YSMadams.

John Adams on Absolute Jest (2012) - "There is nothing particularly new about one composer internalizing the music of another and 'making it his own,'" notes Adams. "Composers are drawn to another's music to the point where they want to live in it, and that can happen in a variety of fashions." Adams describes Absolute Jest as "the most extended experience in pure 'invention' that I've ever undertaken... a thrilling lesson in counterpoint, in thematic transformation and formal design."

John Adams Residency at Yale - The October 19 concert is the culmination of a week-long residency by John Adams at Yale. In addition to a master class, meetings with the composition students, and rehearsals with the Yale Philharmonia, the residency will feature a panel discussion with the composer, Peter Salovey (President of Yale University), and Robert Blocker (Dean of the Yale School of Music) on Thursday, October 16, 1:00-2:15 pm, on the stage of Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall.

The Yale Philharmonia -- The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale is one of America's foremost music school ensembles. The largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, the Philharmonia offers superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire. Performances include an annual series of concerts in Woolsey Hall, as well as Yale Opera productions in the Shubert Theater.

The Yale Philharmonia has performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 2008, the orchestra undertook its first tour of Asia, with acclaimed performances in the Seoul Arts Center, the Forbidden City Concert Hall and National Center for the Performing Arts (Beijing), and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.

Each year, the Philharmonia's concert series in historic Woolsey Hall offers a broad range of repertoire under resident conductor Shinik Hahm, principal guest conductor Peter Oundjian, and distinguished guest conductors. Recent seasons have featured guest conductors including Krzysztof Penderecki, William Christie, and James Conlon. The orchestra plays not only the symphonic repertoire but concertos, new music, and choral works. Past Performances by Yale Philharmonia with Yale in New York

YALE IN NEW YORK (http://music.yale.edu/newyork/) - Launched in 2007, Yale in New York is the acclaimed series in which distinguished faculty members-many of them famous soloists-share the limelight with exceptional alumni and students on Carnegie Hall's stages, capturing the intense collaboration found on every level at the Yale School of Music. Highlights of past seasons include: the classical legacy of Benny Goodman; undiscovered Prokofiev works; the Oral History of American Music project; Penderecki conducting Penderecki; Sleeping Giant; Robert Mealy's Yale Baroque Ensemble playing experimental 17th century music; a Prokofiev piano mini-marathon with Boris Berman; music for low instruments; Tokyo String Quartet; Hindemith the Master and Prankster; and a celebrated new production of A Soldier's Tale with Yale School of Drama. The series is curated by David Shifrin.