Document 6566919

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2014
Contact: Katherine E. Johnson
(212) 875-5718; johnsonk@nyphil.org
UPDATED October 17, 2014
CONTACT!
THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC’S NEW-MUSIC SERIES
Sixth Season Launches with
CONTACT! HOSTED BY JOHN ADAMS
A Co-Presentation with 92nd Street Y
PHILHARMONIC MUSICIANS To Perform Program Curated by John Adams
Works by Daníel BJARNASON, Ingram MARHSALL, Missy MAZZOLI, and Timo ANDRES
Monday, November 17, 2014, at SubCulture
The sixth season of CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series, opens with
CONTACT! Hosted by John Adams, Monday, November 17, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. at SubCulture,
featuring musicians from the New York Philharmonic performing a program of chamber works
curated by composer John Adams: Daníel Bjarnason’s Bow to String, conducted by Jayce Ogren,
and Five Possibilities for clarinet, cello, and piano; Ingram Marshall’s Muddy Waters; Missy
Mazzoli’s Dissolve, O My Heart; and the New York Premiere of Timo Andres’s Early to Rise.
The program is a co-presentation by the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y.
The program features composers in whom John Adams is particularly interested whose works
the Philharmonic has not frequently performed: emerging Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason,
New York–based composers Timo Andres and Missy Mazzoli, and established American
composer Ingram Marshall, whom Mr. Adams has long known and admired.
“John Adams is a longtime friend and colleague, as well as a hugely important American
composer, so we are extremely happy that he accepted our invitation to lend his support and
insight to make CONTACT! even more dynamic,” said Music Director Alan Gilbert.
The Philharmonic has enjoyed an ongoing relationship with John Adams since 1983, when it
performed the New York Premiere of his Grand Pianola Music. The Orchestra has since given
the World Premieres of Easter Eve 1945 (2004, conducted by Mr. Adams) and On the
Transmigration of Souls (2002), co-commissioned by the Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s
Great Performers series in memory of the victims of 9/11. The latter won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize
in Music, and its recording on Nonesuch — featuring the Philharmonic led by then Music
Director Lorin Maazel with the New York Choral Artists and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus —
received the 2005 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and
Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Mr. Adams’s China Gates was performed by pianist
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CONTACT! / 2
Marino Formenti in June 2014 during the Philharmonic’s inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL. In
March 2015, Alan Gilbert will conduct the Philharmonic and violinist Leila Josefowicz in the
World Premiere of John Adams’s Scheherazade.2 — Dramatic Symphony for violin and
orchestra, a New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Amsterdam; the Royal Concertgebouw; and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson,
chief conductor and artistic director.
Established by Music Director Alan Gilbert in the 2009–10 season, CONTACT! highlights the
works of both emerging and established contemporary composers, performed by smaller
ensembles of Philharmonic musicians in intimate venues outside the Lincoln Center campus.
“The work that composers do is the most important contribution to music at any given time,”
Alan Gilbert said. “I have enormous admiration for composers, and I feel incredible gratitude
that they are willing to struggle through the difficult process that is musical creation. One of the
ways the Philharmonic can be a resource and an important catalyst for musical composition is to
continue our very active commissioning program. I think it’s one of the greatest things we can do
for music.”
In addition to this program curated and hosted by John Adams, the 2014–15 season of
CONTACT! will feature World, U.S., and New York Premieres, as well as seminal works by
leading composers, in programs that explore the new-music scene from four different countries.
CONTACT! will continue with two more programs at SubCulture, co-presented with 92nd Street
Y: New Music from Israel, featuring The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Lisa
Batiashvili alongside Philharmonic musicians (February 9, 2015), and New Music from Italy
(May 11, 2015). Two CONTACT! programs will take place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
with Met Museum Presents: New Music from Nordic Countries, conducted by Music Director
Alan Gilbert and Assistant Conductor Courtney Lewis (March 7, 2015), and New Music from
Japan, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky (June 5, 2015).
Christopher Rouse, who in 2014–15 will be completing his three-year term as The Marie-Josée
Kravis Composer-in-Residence, advises the Philharmonic on the CONTACT! series.
“I’m very pleased that CONTACT! will be taking a geographical bent, with overviews of
contemporary music in Scandinavia, Italy, Japan, and Israel,” Christopher Rouse said.
“There are wonderful composers at work from all of these countries, and I hope that our
CONTACT! programming will prove exciting to our listeners. In addition to this, John
Adams will curate a CONTACT! program of music about which he is especially
enthusiastic. All in all there will be a wealth of splendid new music for our audiences to
encounter and enjoy.”
Artists
The works of composer, conductor, and creative thinker John Adams span more than three
decades and include some of the most performed contemporary classical works, among them
Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, Chamber Symphony, Doctor Atomic Symphony, Short Ride in a
Fast Machine, and the Violin Concerto. His stage works, all created in collaboration with
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director Peter Sellars, include Nixon in China (1987), The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), El Niño
(2000), Doctor Atomic (2005), A Flowering Tree (2006), and the Passion oratorio The Gospel
According to the Other Mary (2012). Among Mr. Adams’s recent works are his Saxophone
Concerto, written for Timothy McAllister; City Noir, written for the Los Angeles Philharmonic;
and Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra, based on fragments of late Beethoven quartets,
commissioned for the San Francisco Symphony’s 100th anniversary. Mr. Adams has received
honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Northwestern University, Cambridge University,
and The Juilliard School. A provocative writer, he is author of the acclaimed autobiography
Hallelujah Junction and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review. As a
conductor, Mr. Adams appears with the world’s major orchestras in programs combining his
own works with a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Beethoven and Mozart to Ives, Carter,
Zappa, Philip Glass, and Ellington. He has conducted ensembles such as the Houston, Toronto,
and New World symphony orchestras; New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras; and
the Orquesta Nacional de España in Madrid. Mr. Adams is currently creative chair of the Los
Angeles Philharmonic. Recent recordings include the Deutsche Grammophon release of The
Gospel According to the Other Mary featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic, City Noir and
Saxophone Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony, the Grammy Award–winning album
featuring Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine with the San Francisco Symphony,
and the Nonesuch DVD of The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Nixon in China conducted by
the composer. Alan Gilbert made his acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut in 2008 leading John
Adams’s Doctor Atomic; the DVD and Blu-ray of this production received the 2012 Grammy
Award for Best Opera Recording.
During the 2014–15 season, Jayce Ogren leads West Side Story with film at London’s Royal
Albert Hall and at the Boca Raton Arts Festival, and conducts Ottawa’s National Arts Centre
Orchestra and the Toledo Symphony. He leads Basil Twist’s puppet production of Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring with Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, and is
in residence to conduct and teach at St. Olaf College. Last season he conducted a concert of
works by Rufus Wainwright with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; a month-long run of Robert
Carsen’s new production of Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady at Paris’s Théâtre du Chatelet; and
a program of music by Gershwin, John Adams, and Sibelius with the RTE Symphony in Ireland.
In the spring of 2014 he conducted concerts with South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, a
semi-staged production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and
Steven Mackey’s Dreamhouse during the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL on concerts that also
featured Bang on a Can All-Stars. Jayce Ogren graduated from St. Olaf’s College and the New
England Conservatory and, with a Fulbright grant, completed a postgraduate diploma in
orchestral conducting with Jorma Panula at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He
attended the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen and, for three years, was assistant
conductor to Franz Welser-Möst at The Cleveland Orchestra, which he led in regular season
subscription concerts and at The Blossom Festival in 2009. Mr. Ogren stepped in for James
Levine to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a program that included the World
Premiere of Peter Lieberson’s song cycle Songs of Love and Sorrow. As music director of the
New York City Opera he led new productions of Britten’s Turn of the Screw and Rossini’s Mosè
in Egitto, as well as the U.S. Premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s opera Prima Donna, Mozart’s The
Magic Flute, and Bernstein’s A Quiet Place. His European guest engagements have included the
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German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Copenhagen Philharmonic, RTE Symphony, and Asturias
Symphony. Mr. Ogren made his New York Philharmonic debut in 2012 leading CONTACT!, the
new-music series.
Repertoire
The first movement of Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason’s Bow to String (2009; rev. 2012)
refers to an art installation by the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson in which a
small orchestra accompanies a performer repeatedly singing the lyrics “Sorrow conquers
happiness.” Originally composed in 2009 for multi-layered cello, specifically for cellist Saeunn
Thorsteinsdottir, this version of Bow to String is composed for solo cello, clarinet, horn, two
pianos, string quartet, and double bass.
Daníel Bjarnason writes that Five Possibilities (2014), composed for and premiered by Trio
Ariadne in April 2014, is “in five short movements that each follows its own logic, creating
fleeting images or glimpses of larger worlds.” His works have been commissioned, premiered, or
performed by ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Ulster Orchestra, and So
Percussion, and they have been conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, James Conlon, and John
Adams, among others. Daníel Bjarnason’s string arrangements can be heard on the 2013 Sigur
Rós album Kveikur, and he contributed the score to the 2012 feature film The Deep.
American composer Ingram Marshall composed Muddy Waters (2004, for an amplified
chamber ensemble comprising marimba, piano, electric guitar, bass clarinet, cello, and
contrabass) on commission from Bang on a Can All-Stars. It is based on a tune from the Bay
Psalmbook of 1692, the first printed music in North America, titled Lichfield, itself based on
Psalm 69: “The waters in unto my soul are come, oh God me save, I am in muddy deep sunk
down where I no standing have.” Mr. Marshall writes: “In the course of the piece the psalm tune
goes through various transformations.… The affect shifts, chiaroscuro-like, from darkness and
gloom to exuberance and sanguinity.” He notes that the conclusion shifts “away from the psalm
tune to a reference to Muddy Waters (the blues singer), who has the last word.” Ingram
Marshall’s influences have included Indonesian and electronic music. Since 1985 his primary
focus has been on works for ensembles, both with and without electronics. He has been
commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, Magnum Opus, and Orpheus.
American composer Missy Mazzoli composed Dissolve, O My Heart (2010), commissioned by
the Los Angeles Philharmonic, for violinist Jennifer Koh’s Bach & Beyond project, which
combines Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas with newly commissioned works. Ms. Koh requested a
piece based on Bach’s Partita in D minor. Ms. Mazzoli explains: “Dissolve, O My Heart begins
with the first chord of Bach’s Chaconne, a now-iconic D minor chord, and spins out from there
into an off-kilter series of chords that doubles back on itself, collapses, and ultimately dissolves
in a torrent of fast passages.” Melding indie-rock sensibilities with formal training from Louis
Andriessen, Martijn Padding, Richard Ayers, and others, Missy Mazzoli’s music has been
performed by, among others, the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, American Composers
Orchestra, New York City Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, NOW
Ensemble, and cellist Maya Beiser.
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American composer Timo Andres writes that the ten-minute, four-movement string quartet
Early to Rise (2013) is “the most recent in a series of Schumann-inspired pieces I’ve written; this
time, the seed is a five-note accompanimental figure from his late piano cycle Gesänge der
Frühe (Morning Songs). At first, Early to Rise uses this figure in a canon, gently cycling through
harmonies while its rhythms rub against each other in expanding and contracting patterns.… In
the final section, momentum builds in the opposite direction with a simple downward-drifting
chorale, picking up speed until it reaches a frenetic conclusion.” Timo Andres’s recent
commissions have come from the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; a
consortium including Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Royal
Concertgebouw, and San Francisco Performances; and the Library of Congress, among others.
Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker that Mr. Andres’s 2010 album Shy and Mighty “achieves an
unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the
scene.”
***
This concert is made possible with generous support from Linda and Stuart Nelson.
***
Christopher Rouse is The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence.
***
Programs are supported, in part, by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the
New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the
New York State Legislature.
***
Tickets
Tickets for CONTACT! at SubCulture start at $35. Tickets may be purchased online at 92y.org or
nyphil.org. To determine ticket availability, call the Philharmonic’s Customer Relations
Department at (212) 875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 1:00 p.m. to
6:00 p.m. on Saturday, and noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. [Ticket prices subject to change.]
For press tickets, call Lanore Carr in the New York Philharmonic Marketing and
Communications Department at (212) 875-5714, or e-mail her at carrl@nyphil.org.
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CONTACT! HOSTED BY JOHN ADAMS
A Co-Presentation of the New York Philharmonic and 92nd Street Y
SubCulture
45 Bleecker Street
Monday, November 17, 2014, 7:30 p.m.
John Adams, host
Musicians from the New York Philharmonic
Daníel BJARNASON
Bow to String
Jayce Ogren, conductor
Nathan Vickery, solo cello
Duoming Ba, Quan Ge, violin;
Katherine Greene, viola; Maria Kitsopoulos, cello; Max Zeugner, bass;
Pascual Martínez Forteza, clarinet; R. Allen Spanjer, horn;
Steven Beck§, Stephen Gosling§, piano
Ingram MARSHALL
Muddy Waters
Maria Kitsopoulos, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass;
Oren Fader§, electric guitar; Lino Gomez§, bass clarinet;
Daniel Druckman, marimba; Eric Huebner, piano
Missy MAZZOLI
Dissolve, O My Heart
Anna Rabinova, violin
Daníel BJARNASON
Five Possibilities for clarinet, cello, and piano
Pascual Martínez Forteza, clarinet; Patrick Jee, cello;
Eric Huebner, piano
Timo ANDRES
Early to Rise (New York Premiere)
Fiona Simon, Sharon Yamada, violin;
Robert Rinehart, viola; Eileen Moon cello
§ denotes New York Philharmonic guest artist
###
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