Words & Buried Meaning

Words & Buried Meaning Creative Associate Nico Muhly in Conversation With Iestyn Davies Moderated by Creative Associate Nadia Sirota

Friday, December 4, 1pm ET

This discussion between Creative Associate Nico Muhly (MM ’04, composition) and countertenor Iestyn Davies will explore their years-long collaborations, including a chamber work dealing with archaeology and the beauty of the lost past (Old Bones); a monodrama about Alan Turing (Sentences); arrangements of folk music and John Dowland; and, most recently, a song created and recorded entirely during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The conversation will be moderated by Creative Associate Nadia Sirota (BM ’04, MM ’06, viola).

The program may include excerpts from the following works:

Sentences: Part III Iestyn Davies, Countertenor Britten Sinfonia Nico Muhly, Composer

The Bitter Withy (Traditional, arr. Muhly) Iestyn Davies, Countertenor Britten Sinfonia

New-Made Tongue Iestyn Davies, Countertenor Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Oliver Zeffman, Conductor Nico Muhly, Composer

Old Bones Iestyn Davies, Countertenor Thomas Dunford, Theorbo Nico Muhly, Composer

Time Stands Still (Dowland, arr. Muhly) Iestyn Davies, Countertenor Aurora Orchestra Nicholas Collon, Conductor

Juilliard’s Creative Enterprise programming, including the Creative Associates program, is generously sponsored by Jody and John Arnhold.

Special thanks to Kevin Anthenill, Olivia Fitzsimons, James Lemkin, Fritz Myers, Sue Spence, and the many members of the Juilliard community who helped bring this program to life.

Panelists Nico Muhly Creative Associate Nico Muhly (MM ’04, composition) is an American composer and sought-after collaborator whose influences range from American minimalism to the Anglican choral tradition. The recipient of commissions from the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tallis Scholars and St. John’s College, Cambridge, and others, Muhly has written more than 100 works for the concert stage, including the 2017 opera Marnie, which premiered at the English National Opera and was staged by the Metropolitan Opera in fall 2018. Muhly is a frequent collaborator with choreographer Benjamin Millepied and, as an arranger, has paired with Sufjan Stevens, Antony and the Johnsons, and others. His work for stage and screen include music for the 2013 Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie and scores for films including the Oscar-winning The Reader. Born in Vermont, Muhly studied composition at Juilliard before working as an editor and conductor for Philip Glass. He is part of the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue (2008). He lives in New York City.

Iestyn Davies After graduating from St John’s College, Cambridge, Iestyn Davies studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London. In 2017 he received an Olivier Award nomination for singing the role of Farinelli in Farinelli and the King with Mark Rylance, a Globe Theatre production which was revived in the West End and on Broadway. On the opera stage, he has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, La Scala, Milan, Metropolitan Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago and in Munich, Vienna, and Zurich. Recent highlights include returning to the Bayerische Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, and Metropolitan Opera for Ottone (Agrippina) and singing Terry (Marnie) at the Metropolitan Opera and Polinesso (Ariodante) at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. This season, Davies makes his Santa Fe Opera debut as Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream conducted by Harry Bicket. Celebrated on the concert platform, Davies has performed at La Scala (Milan), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Tonhalle (Zurich), Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Paris), the Barbican (London) and Lincoln Center. This season, he joins an all-star cast for concert performances at the Royal Opera House as Polinesso in Handel’s Ariodante, Handel's Messiah with Wiener Symphoniker/Andrea Marcon and the Academy of Ancient Music/Ricard Egarr, and Bach's B-Minor Mass with Sächsischen Staatskapelle/ Philippe Herreweghe at the Osterfestspiele Salzburg. A committed recitalist, with repertoire ranging from Dowland to Clapton, Davies is a regular guest at Carnegie Hall and has curated residencies at both Wigmore Hall and Saffron Hall in the U.K. He has twice been awarded the Gramophone recital award and, in 2017, won the Gramophone baroque vocal award for his Bach Cantatas disc with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen. In 2017, he was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his contributions to music.

Moderator Nadia Sirota Creative Associate Nadia Sirota (BM ’04, MM ’06, viola)—whose career spans performance, curation, and broadcasting—brings classical music to a broader audience. Her singular sound and expressive execution have served as muse to composers including Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, Daníel Bjarnason, Marcos Balter, and David Lang. She has been a soloist with many orchestras and has released four solo albums of commissioned music: first things first (2009), Baroque (2013), Keep in Touch (2016), and Tessellatum (2017). Sirota is a member of Bedroom Community, a collective of musically diverse artists who work and collaborate at Reykjavík’s Greenhouse Studios. She has also lent her sound to recording and concert projects by the National, David Bowie, John Legend, and Björk. Sirota is a member of the chamber sextet yMusic and since 2018 she has been the New York Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis creative partner, a position created for her. She is also artist in residence at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance and a Creative Associate at Juilliard, where she studied with Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Hsin-Yun Huang.