FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press contacts: Christina Jensen PR, ACO/EarShot (646) 536-7864 | [email protected] Katherine E. Johnson, New York Philharmonic Director, Public & Media Relations (212) 875-5718 | [email protected] THIRTEEN EMERGING COMPOSERS SELECTED TO HAVE THEIR SCORES READ AND PERFORMED BY AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA AND NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC As Part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL A Collaboration with AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA’S EARSHOT: THE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA COMPOSITION DISCOVERY NETWORK Three Selected Works to be Given Premieres by the New York Philharmonic in Concerts Conducted by Alan Gilbert and Matthias Pintscher June 5, 6, and 7 at Avery Fisher Hall American Composers Orchestra led by George Manahan 23rd Annual Underwood New Music Readings June 6 and 7, 2014 at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music One Composer to Win $15,000 Commission, Another to Win Audience Choice Award April 24, 2014, New York, NY – The New York Philharmonic and American Composers Orchestra (ACO), in collaboration with ACO’s EarShot: the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network, announce the selection of 13 emerging composers from an international pool of more than 400 applicants from seven countries and 37 states ranging in age from 9 to 84, whose original scores for orchestra have been chosen for readings and performances by the Philharmonic and ACO as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL. Three works will be selected to receive premieres on public concerts with the New York Philharmonic as part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL: one work on June 5 and the second on June 7 will be conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, and the third work will be featured on the June 6 program conducted by Matthias Pintscher. The three works will be selected following a private reading of six works by the Philharmonic on June 3. On June 6 and 7, American Composers Orchestra will hold its 23rd annual Underwood New Music Readings conducted by Music Director George Manahan at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, also as part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL. The Underwood Readings will feature new, stylistically diverse music from seven composers at the early stages of their careers. ACO’s Readings include two public events – a working rehearsal on June 6 at 10:00 a.m., and a run-through on June 7 at 7:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public, giving audiences a chance to look behind the scenes at the process involved in bringing brand new orchestral music to life. One composer from the Underwood New Music Readings will be chosen to receive a $15,000 commission to write a new piece for ACO, to be premiered during the orchestra’s 2015–16 season. Writing for symphony orchestra remains one of the supreme challenges for emerging composers. The subtleties of instrumental balance, timbre, and communication with the conductor and musicians are critical skills, but opportunities for composers to gain hands-on experience working with professional orchestras are few. The New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings and the ACO Underwood New Music Readings will provide invaluable knowledge for the participating composers during the NY PHIL BIENNIAL. “The New York Philharmonic’s presentation of works discovered through the EarShot composition discovery program is a particularly important and gratifying element of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL,” Alan Gilbert said. “Our goal for this project is to share with our audience the freshest music from new voices today. When we announced the call for scores we had no idea what it would yield. We were overwhelmed by the more than 400 submissions we received, and it was quite a challenge to hone them down to six for the Orchestra to read — I can honestly say that I have no idea which three will be selected to be performed on our concerts. Supporting new compositions and composers is imperative in keeping orchestras and classical music vital, and on a personal level, it fills me with great joy to be able to work with emerging composers to give them a platform for discovery.” Michael Geller, president of ACO, adds: “American Composers Orchestra is excited to extend our role as a catalyst for emerging American composers by collaborating with the New York Philharmonic, whose NY PHIL BIENNIAL has a mission kindred to our own. For 23 years, through our Underwood New Music Readings, we have given emerging composers a hands-on opportunity to work directly with a professional orchestra, many of them for the first time. We are also delighted to partner with the Philharmonic in its own readings program under the auspices of EarShot, the National Orchestra Composition Discovery Network. The New York Philharmonic is joining a growing roster of orchestras across the country in working with EarShot to connect to the next generation of great new composers and bring their music to their musicians and audiences.” The composers selected to participate in the New York Philharmonic EarShot Readings and their works are: Julia Adolphe: Dark Sand, Sifting Light Julia Adolphe was born in 1988 in New York and is now based in Los Angeles. She is a composer, writer, and soprano whose music embraces diverse artistic and sociological influences, unfolding intricate emotional narratives. Adolphe has received the Theodore Front Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music, the Jimmy McHugh Composition Prize, John James Blackmore Prize, and John S. Knight Prize. She is currently pursuing a DMA from the USC Thornton School of Music studying composition with Stephen Hartke, and holds a MM in music composition from USC and a BA in music composition and literary theory from Cornell University. Hartke calls Adolphe, “a very promising composer.” Her work Dark Sand, Sifting Light is her first for professional orchestra, and imagines a piano playing in the distance, overheard through an open apartment window. As the listener poised beneath the window begins to daydream, the piano sounds take on larger orchestral colors. William Dougherty: Into Focus William Dougherty was born in 1988 in Philadelphia and currently resides in Basel, Switzerland. His works have been performed by ensembles including the Orchestre National de Lorraine, the BBC Singers, the London Chorus, the Lontano Ensemble, the Nemascae Lemanic Modern Ensemble, and the Ligeti String Quartet. Dougherty earned his BM in composition from Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in 2010 where he studied with Richard Brodhead and Jan Krzywicki. As a Marshall Scholar, Dougherty earned his MM in composition with distinction from the Royal College of Music, London in 2012 working with Mark-Anthony Turnage and Kenneth Hesketh. That same year, he pursued complementary studies with Georg Friedrich Haas at the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, where he still attends. In fall 2014, Dougherty will continue his studies with Haas as a doctoral student at Columbia University. Of his work, Haas says, “His music is fragile, expressive, and full of deep love of the qualities of sound.” In his piece Into Focus, Dougherty seeks to aurally explore the three areas of visual perception known as the focus, fringe, and margin. Max Grafe: Bismuth: Variations for Orchestra Max Grafe was born in 1988 in Poughkeepsie and now lives in New York. His work has been performed by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, bassoonists Elizabeth Garrett and Sasha Gee Enegren, pianist Han Chen, and saxophone-percussion duo Patchwork. Grafe has received several scholarships for graduate study at the Juilliard School, a fellowship for study at the 2012 Aspen Music Festival and School, a 2011 Jacobs School of Music Dean’s Prize, and a 2007 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He is currently pursuing a DMA in composition as a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow of the Juilliard School, where he also received a MM in composition in 2013. He received a BM in composition with a concentration in bassoon from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2011. Grafe’s work Bismuth: Variations for Orchestra is the result of the composer’s desire to write a piece with a high degree of abstraction, in contrast to his previous works informed by extramusical sources. The work is named for the kaleidoscopic patina and geometric edges of a pure bismuth crystal. Mentor composer Christopher Rouse describes Grafe’s music as “elegant and imaginative.” This is Grafe’s first reading by a professional orchestra. Jesse Jones: …innumerable stars, scattered in clusters Jesse Jones was born in 1978 in Flora Vista, New Mexico and now resides in Columbia, South Carolina. His music has been performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Muziekgebouw, Seiji Ozawa Hall, the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater, the Aspen Music Festival, and the American Academy in Rome. He was a 2009 participant in ACO’s Underwood New Music Readings, and has received the Elliott Carter Rome Prize in Composition from the American Academy in Rome, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Heckscher Foundation Prize in Composition, Cornell’s Sage Fellowship, a Barlow Endowment Commission, the Peter Tommaney Fellowship of the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Jones holds a DMA in music composition from Cornell University where he studied with Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, and Kevin Ernste. He earned his MM in composition from the University of Oregon and his BM from Eastern Oregon University. Jones is currently Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of South Carolina. Steven Stucky described Jones’ work as having, “a very special, very personal voice, shaped by his upbringing in New Mexico and Oregon. It is spell-binding music.” Jones’ …innumerable stars, scattered in clusters was inspired by the experience of sharing the same view of the heavens that Galileo Galilei saw in 1609 from the tallest hill in Rome, during his residency at the American Academy in Rome.