North Carolina Symphony Tours to Washington, D.C. for SHIFT Festival
Subject: North Carolina Symphony Tours to Washington, D.C. for SHIFT Festival From: Meredith Laing
Dear friends,
In just two weeks, the North Carolina Symphony will depart for Washington, D.C., to par cipate in the inaugural year of SHIFT: A Fes val of American Orchestras. NCS is one of just four U.S. orchestras selected for this na onal fes val!
We will bring music with direct connec ons to North Carolina to our na on’s capital, and the programs will be previewed in Raleigh.
Details about the SHIFT fes val and the preview concerts are below and a ached. Thank you for your support of the North Carolina Symphony as we embark on this adventure with the privilege of represen ng our state!
All the best, Meredith
-- Meredith Kimball Laing Director of Communications North Carolina Symphony 3700 Glenwood Avenue, Suite 130 Raleigh, NC 27612 919.789.5484 www.ncsymphony.org
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CONTACT Meredith Kimball Laing 919.789.5484 [email protected]
North Carolina Symphony Tours to Washington, D.C. as One of Four Orchestras Chosen for SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras
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Preview Performances in Raleigh, North Carolina, on March 24-25
The North Carolina Symphony premiered a North Carolina-inspired multimedia work by Sarah Kirkland Snider in 2015 and presents it at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. this month.
RALEIGH, N.C.— The North Carolina Symphony is one of just four American orchestras selected to participate in the inaugural year of SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras, a collaboration between The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington Performing Arts. Together with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boulder Philharmonic, and the Brooklyn-based ensemble The Knights, NCS was chosen for this prestigious festival for its artistic excellence, creative programming, and dedication to serving and building relationships in communities across North Carolina.
Each of the orchestras participating in the SHIFT festival will perform a mainstage concert at The Kennedy Center and “residency” programs around the D.C. area. NCS performs at The Kennedy Center on March 29 and offers a casual concert at the Kogod Courtyard (between the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery) on March 30. Before the Symphony travels to Washington, D.C., it will give preview performances at Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall and CAM Raleigh (The Contemporary Art Museum) on March 24 and 25.
Music education is at the core of NCS’s mission and identity—the Symphony runs the most extensive program of any symphony orchestra, traveling statewide and engaging more than 50,000 students each year. Bringing that commitment to D.C., NCS will give an education performance on March 30 for 500 public schoolchildren at Stuart-Hobson Middle School, near the United States Capitol building.
NCS is deeply committed to presenting artists and works with ties to North Carolina, and the state’s musical culture will be ever-present during the Symphony’s tour to the nation’s capital. The mainstage concert at The Kennedy Center features composers and works with North Carolina connections. Championing the music of our time, the program also consists entirely of works by extraordinary composers who wrote, or are continuing to write, in the 21st century: Caroline Shaw, Mason Bates, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Robert Ward.
Caroline Shaw—a New York-based composer, violinist, and singer—originally hails from Greenville, North Carolina, where some of her earliest musical memories were hearing NCS perform at her elementary school. “I'll never forget being one of hundreds of third graders in the gym, learning about the instruments of the orchestra and wondering what it must be like to play such thrilling music,” says Shaw. In 2013, at age 30, the
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North Carolina native became the youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her enigmatic composition Partita for 8 Voices. NCS is proud to highlight North Carolina-grown talent by performing Shaw’s Lo, with the composer playing the partially improvised solo violin part. The Symphony co-commissioned the piece and irst performed it with Shaw in fall 2015.
Distinguished as the second-most performed living composer in the United States, Mason Bates brilliantly and beautifully expands the orchestral sound by incorporating electronic effects. In Rusty Air in Carolina, a beat track under lush harmonies and bluesy tunes evokes katydids and cicadas on a summer night. Bates explains, “The work uses electronics to bring the white noise of the Southern summer into the concert hall, pairing these sounds with luorescent orchestra textures that loat gently by.” The Southern air Bates evokes is that of Brevard, North Carolina, where he spent a summer at a music festival as a teenager.
Last season, NCS co-commissioned a new work by Sarah Kirkland Snider, Hiraeth, inspired by childhood visits to her grandparents’ home in Salisbury. The title is a Welsh word that loosely translates to “homesickness” and the music is deeply emotional, affected by Snider’s loss of her father as she was composing. The music is performed with an original ilm by Mark DeChiazza, which includes footage from the Piedmont region. NCS gave the world premiere of Hiraeth in spring 2016 in Raleigh, followed by a performance in Salisbury.
NCS will open and close its Kennedy Center program with works by the late composer Robert Ward (1917-2013). His exuberant and tune- illed Jubilation Overture was written in the World War II era when Ward led a band in the Seventh Infantry Division. The program’s inale, City of Oaks, is a 2008 celebration of the city of Raleigh. Ward, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was professor of music at Duke University and spent the last 35 years of his life in the Research Triangle area. NCS’s free residency concert at the Kogod Courtyard echoes the Symphony’s performances at nontraditional venues in North Carolina. Works by Sarah Kirkland Snider and Caroline Shaw are also included on that program, along with a work by Gabriel Kahane that NCS commissioned and premiered last season. Snider’s Unremembered is a haunting song cycle based on a series of vignettes by lyricist and illustrator Nathaniel Bellows, drawn from his childhood in rural Massachusetts. “The piece meditates on the romance and innocence of childhood perception—and the bittersweet loss and gain that accompanies the shedding of that perspective as we age,” says Snider. Shaw’s By and By for string quartet and voice take lyrics from old gospel hymns and bluegrass songs and sets them in a darker, more contemplative sound. Kahane’s Hard Circus Road is based on the NCS’s long history of statewide travels, from the mountains to the coast of North Carolina. NCS’s participation in the SHIFT festival will not only draw national attention to the Symphony, but also to North Carolina’s culture and heritage—which has de ined the Symphony’s work and musical offerings since its founding in 1932. By embracing artists who know and love the state, we create and curate a collective understanding of the North Carolina communities that we serve.
North Carolina Symphony SHIFT: A FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN ORCEHSTRAS
SHIFT Festival Mainstage Concert in D.C. Wednesday, March 29 at 8PM
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts All tickets $25; kennedycenter.org
Preview Concert in Raleigh (Kennedy Center Bon Voyage)
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Friday, March 24, 2017 at 8PM Meymandi Concert Hall Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts All tickets $27; ncsymphony.org
PROGRAM Ward: Jubilation Overture Caroline Shaw: Lo Mason Bates: Rusty Air in Carolina Sarah Kirkland Snider: Hiraeth Ward: City of Oaks
PERFORMERS North Carolina Symphony Grant Llewellyn, conductor Caroline Shaw, violin
SHIFT Festival Residency Concert in D.C. Thursday, March 30 at 7:30PM Kogod Courtyard Free; no reservations required
Preview Concert in Raleigh (Unremembered) Saturday, March 25 at 8PM CAM Raleigh All tickets $30; ncsymphony.org
PROGRAM Gabriel Kahane: Hard Circus Road Caroline Shaw: By and By Sarah Kirkland Snider: Unremembered
PERFORMERS North Carolina Symphony Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond), soprano DM Stith, tenor Padma Newsome, baritone Caroline Shaw, violin
About the North Carolina Symphony Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony (NCS) is a vital and honored component of North Carolina's cultural life. Its 175 concerts and events annually are greeted with enthusiasm by adults and schoolchildren in more than 90 North Carolina counties—in communities large and small, and in concert halls, auditoriums, gymnasiums, restaurants, clubs, and outdoor settings. The Symphony’s 66 full-time professional musicians perform under the artistic leadership of Music Director Grant Llewellyn.
NCS’s state headquarters venue is the spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh. The Symphony’s service across the state includes series in Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines, and Wilmington, as well as the Summerfest series at its summer home,
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the outdoor Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary. Collaborating with performers that range from classical artists, to banjo players, to jazz bands, NCS brings some of the world’s greatest talents to North Carolina.
Committed to engaging students of all ages across North Carolina, NCS leads the most extensive education program of any U.S. orchestra. In alignment with the curriculum set by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the Symphony provides training and resources for teachers, sends small ensembles into classrooms, and presents full-orchestra Education Concerts experienced by more than 52,000 4th and 5th graders each year. Music Discovery for preschoolers combines music with storytelling, and at the middle and high school levels, students have opportunities to work directly with NCS artists and perform for NCS audiences.
NCS is dedicated to giving voice to new art, and has presented 47 U.S. or world premieres in its history. In March 2017, NCS will appear at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as one of four orchestras chosen for the inaugural year of SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras—an honor that recognizes the Symphony’s innovative community partnerships and creative programming. The Symphony will present works by composers with ties to North Carolina, including Sarah Kirkland Snider, Caroline Shaw, Mason Bates, and Robert Ward.
The irst state-supported symphony in the country, NCS performs under the auspices of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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