New Juilliard Ensemble Returns to the Museum of Modern Art's Sculpture Garden with Summergarden 2009
Summergarden 2009
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden
Sunday evenings, July 5 through July 26, 2009
Sculpture Garden opens at 7:00 p.m. Concerts begin at 8:00 p.m.
Admission is FREE
NEW YORK, May 21, 2009-The Museum of Modern Art's Summergarden concert series returns to The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden for four Sunday evenings beginning July 5, 2009. Summergarden, a tradition that began in 1971, is part of MoMA's long history of presenting jazz and new music concerts in the Sculpture Garden. MoMA once again welcomes the participation of The Juilliard School and Jazz at Lincoln Center, whose collaboration makes possible Summergarden's continuing programs of musical premieres.
Young members of The New Juilliard Ensemble will perform new chamber music that has never been heard in New York, by composers from all over the world writing in a vast range of styles. In the opening concert on July 5, musicians will perform New York and Western Hemisphere premieres for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion by American and European composers, including Andy Vores (Wales), Atli Heimir Sveinsson (Iceland), and others.
A string quartet program on July 19 will include the New York premiere of String Quartet No. 1, "X" (1993) by Daniel Bernard Roumain, an innovative Haitian-American composer and violinist; the Western Hemisphere premieres of works by young German composer Jörg Widmann and Irish composer David Flynn; and the World premiere of String Quartet No. 17 by Boguslaw Schaeffer, Poland's senior avant-garde composer.
Jazz at Lincoln Center has selected two cutting-edge jazz artists, each of whose concerts will emphasize original works. The Billy Harper Quintet, led by the renowned veteran saxophonist, will perform on July 12, and the Si o Si Quartet, featuring Cuban-born drummer and composer Dafnis Prieto, will give the program's final performance on July 26.
Major annual support is provided by The Ethel P. Shein Fund for Music at MoMA, which is generously funded by Agnes Gund and by Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder. Additional support is provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Paul D. Shein, Richard L. Tooke, Elizabeth Pozen, and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.
Summergarden 2009 Schedule
July 5
Juilliard Concert I: Music For Ensembles
Members of New Juilliard Ensemble: Nadia Kyne, flute; Sean Rice, clarinet; Sean Riley, violin; Alex Tasopoulos, viola; Mimi Yu, cello; Paul Nemeth, double bass; David Stevens, percussion; Jennifer Chu, piano; Joel Sachs, conductor
Eric Tanguy (France, b. 1968)
Duo for flute and clarinet (1994) Western Hemisphere premiere
Andy Vores (UK [Wales]/US, b. 1956)
Often (2003) New York premiere
Dorothy Chang (US, b. 1970)
Falling Sky (2000) New York premiere
Alti Heimir Sveinsson (Iceland, b. 1938)
Swedish Rapp: Rondo Fantastico II (1999) Western Hemisphere premiere
Robert Xavier Rodríguez (US, b. 1946)
Música, por un tiempo (2008) New York premiere
Members of the New Juilliard Ensemble, directed by Joel Sachs, perform five New York and American premieres by composers from around the world. In the first piece, Duo for flute and clarinet (1994) by French composer Eric Tanguy, the composer creates variations and transformations of polyphony and harmony using the same harmonic, rhythmic and melodic elements in three short and contrasting movements.
Welsh composer Andy Vores originally created the evening's second piece, Often (2003), to accompany a video projection about the Iraq War by artist Jessie Shefrin. The composition, like Shefrin's video, rocks between relentless rapid events and an elegiac, pastoral atmosphere.
The title of Falling Sky (2000), by Dorothy Chang, reflects the nervous energy and jagged, angular lines of this three-movement work. Falling Sky was written in 2000 for the Boston ensemble Collage New Music.
In Swedish Rapp: Rondo Fantastico II (1999), Icelandic composer Alti Heimir Sveinsson improvised melodies over an Icelandic medieval irregular dance rhythm, resulting in a composition with a playful, humorous tone.
The final piece for the evening, Robert Xavier Rodríguez's Música, por un tiempo (2008) combines two widely divergent musical entities: the ground bass from the song "Music, for a while," by the 17th-century English composer Henry Purcell, and the traditional Latin dance rhythm of the rumba.
July 12
Jazz Concert I: Billy Harper Quintet
Francesca Tanksley , piano; Keyon Harrold, trumpet; Clarence Seay ,bass; Aaron Scott, drums; Billy Harper, saxophone
Jazz saxophonist Billy Harper has established himself as an original, inventive performer and composer. His 1973 release Capra Black has been described as "one of the seminal recordings of jazz's black consciousness movement." Harper performs with his long-standing quintet, most recently featured on the 2008 release Blueprints of Jazz, vol. 2.
July 19
Juilliard Concert II: New Music for String Quartet
David Fulmer and Arthur Moeller, violins; Jen Herman, viola; Elizabeth Lara, cello
Jörg Widmann (Germany, b. 1973)
String Quartet No. 3, "Jagdquartett" (Hunting Quartet, 2003) Western Hemisphere premiere
David Flynn (Ireland, b. 1977)
String Quartet No.2, "The Cranning" (2004-5) Western Hemisphere premiere
Boguslaw Schaeffer (Poland, b. 1929)
String Quartet No. 17 (2006) World premiere
Daniel Bernard Roumain [DBR] (US, b. 1972)
String Quartet No. 1, "X" (1993) New York premiere
The performance opens with Jörg Widmann's String Quartet No. 3, Jagdquartett (Hunting Quartet, 2003). The third of Widmann's five string quartets, Hunting Quartet quotes from the finale of Robert Schumann' s piano cycle Papillons, a fragment that pervades the piece as it seems to gallop through an imaginary chase.
In String Quartet No. 2, "The Cranning" (2004-05), David Flynn conveys the essence of traditional Irish music in a contemporary classical setting. While employing techniques, modes, rhythms and feelings from Irish music, the piece also includes references to African, Balkan, classical, jazz, and rock traditions.
Boguslaw Schaeffer, one of the most prominent leaders of the post-war European avant-garde, composed the evening's third piece. String Quartet No. 17, in five parts, juxtaposes many different combinations of texture and tempo, sometimes giving the impression of free improvisation. Summergarden is especially happy to present this world premiere shortly after Mr. Schaeffer's 80th birthday.
Haitian composer Daniel Bernard Roumain's String Quartet No. 1, "X" (1993) is the final performance of the evening. The angular, agile and angry sound of X, written in Roumain's early twenties, reflects the composer's reaction to the autobiography of Malcolm X. The piece combines selected motifs from Bela Bartok with the composer's own developing sense of funk.
July 26
Jazz Concert II: Dafnis Prieto Si o Si Quartet
Peter Apfelbaum, tenor and soprano saxophones, percussion; Manuel Valera, piano; Charles Flores, bass; Dafnis Prieto, drums
Cuban-born drummer Dafnis Prieto's revolutionary drumming techniques have had a powerful impact on both the Latin and jazz music scene, locally and internationally. His Absolute Quintet (2006) received a Grammy Award Nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album. This evening, the Si o Si Quartet performs "Bla Bla Bla," which draws from the sounds of Cuban Carnivals and the music of New Orleans.
Summergarden is free and seating is on a first come, first served basis. The Sculpture Garden may close if attendance reaches maximum capacity. Entrance to Summergarden is through the Sculpture Garden gate on West 54 Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The Sculpture Garden opens at 7:00 p.m., and concerts start at 8:00 p.m. and run approximately one hour to 90 minutes. The Sculpture Garden closes at 10:00 p.m. The Garden Cart will sell light fare, including gelato and sorbetto from New York-based Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Wine, draft beer, coffee drinks, and non-alcoholic beverages are also available for purchase. In the event of rain, concerts will be held in The Agnes Gund Garden Lobby, and the Museum's 54 Street entrance will open at 7:30 p.m. The exhibition galleries are closed during Summergarden. Full program information is available to the public starting in late May at moma.org.
About Jazz at Lincoln Center
Jazz at Lincoln Center is dedicated to inspiring and growing audiences for jazz. With the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and a comprehensive array of guest artists, Jazz at Lincoln Center advances a unique vision for the continued development of the art of jazz by producing a year-round schedule of performance, education and broadcast events for audiences of all ages. These productions include concerts, national and international tours, residencies, yearly hall of fame inductions, weekly national radio and television programs, recordings, publications, an annual high school jazz band competition and festival, a band director academy, jazz appreciation curriculum for students, music publishing, children's concerts, lectures, adult education courses, student and educator workshops and interactive websites. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis, Chairman Lisa Schiff and Executive Director, Adrian Ellis, Jazz at Lincoln Center produces thousands of events during its season in its home in New York City, Frederick P. Rose Hall, and around the world.
About the New Juilliard Ensemble
The New Juilliard Ensemble, under the direction of Joel Sachs, is now in its seventeenth season. In addition to its annual series of concerts at Lincoln Center, and four programs in the Lincoln Center Festival, the New Juilliard Ensemble has made its mark locally, nationally, and internationally. Celebrating the liveliness of today's music, and focusing primarily on repertory of the last decade, the Ensemble presents music by a variety of international composers writing in the most diverse styles. Its members are current students at The Juilliard School, who are admitted to the ensemble by audition. Student interest in its work has been so great that more than 100 students participate every year, although the maximum size of compositions is normally 15 to 20 players.
The New Juilliard Ensemble has presented more than 80 world premieres and has made its mark through tour performances. Tour performances have included two concerts at the Leipzig Conservatory in May 2001 and appearances at the Festival Why Note in Dijon, France, in November 2002. In October 2002, the Ensemble gave the world premiere of Hearing Solutions, a concerto for cello and chamber ensemble by Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan), the first recipient of the Siemens Corporation's Artist-in-Residence award. The New Juilliard Ensemble's recording of Virko Baley's Violin Concerto, with violinist Tom Chiu, can be found on the TNC label (www.TNCmusic.net).In October 2005 a group of New Juilliard Ensemble players and their counterparts from the Manson Ensemble of London's Royal Academy of Music joined to perform works by three composition students from each school. The concerts took place in New York and London, and all works were recorded for the Royal Academy's CD label. In June, 2009, it will perform at Tokyo's Suntory Hall and in other locations in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The New Juilliard Ensemble has been in residence at the young composers' workshop of the Polish International Society for Contemporary Music (ICSM); played at the opening festivities of the Lepzig Conservatory's new concert hall; gave two concerts at the Moscow Conservatory; and was one of the two ensembles invited to an international conference at the Jerusalem Academy of Music.
Sponsorship
Major annual support is provided by The Ethel P. Shein Fund for Music at MoMA, which is generously funded by Agnes Gund and by Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder. Additional support is provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Paul D. Shein, Richard L. Tooke, Elizabeth Pozen, and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.
The public may call 212/708-9400 for detailed Museum information.
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