The New Juilliard Ensemble, led by Joel Sachs, Opens Its Four-Concert 2009-2010 Season on Saturday, September 26 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater
The New Juilliard Ensemble, now in its 17th season and led by founder and conductor Joel Sachs, opens its four-concert season on Saturday, September 26 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 West 65th Street). The program features two world premieres: Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky's Paths of Parables II: Woody Allen's Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar (2008-09) and Chris Gendall's Rudiments (2009); the two U.S. premieres are Elliott Sharp's Points & Fields (2009) and Errollyn Wallen's Horseplay (1998). Du Yun's Vicissitudes III (2003) completes the program.
FREE tickets are available beginning
September 11 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard (155 West
65th Street). Box Office hours are
Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.
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Composer Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky says of his work, which receives its world premiere performance on this concert: "After I composed Paths of Parables, based on Sufi tales, written for The Silk Road Ensemble in 2006, I started to look for another text for my next work with a narrator. When I got the commission from Juilliard, I decided to use the opportunity to realize my idea. I read many different stories and fairy tales from different cultures and couldn't find a text. Fortunately, I was given Woody Allen's Getting Even, where I found his Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar. Behind its light, ironical and almost anecdotal form lies deep, serious and almost philosophical ideas, and the text gives ample opportunity for musical embodiment." Narrating the work will be fourth-year Juilliard actor Nathan Miller. A native of Uzbekistan where political tension has been mounting for decades, Mr. Yanov-Yanovsky is beginning his second fellowship year at Harvard where he is part of their Scholars at Risk program. He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Composer Chris Gendall, whose work Rudiments will receive its world premiere on this concert, is currently in the doctoral program at Cornell where his work came personally recommended by his teacher and frequent New Juilliard Ensemble composer Roberto Sierra. Mr. Gendall is a native of New Zealand. Mr. Gendall says of Rudiments: "Each of this work's three movements takes as its point of departure one of the ‘basic' elements of composition: melody, harmony, and counterpoint. The second movement (subtitled Forest for the Trees) was composed in residence at Aldeburgh, U.K."
Elliott Sharp's Points & Fields, receiving its U.S. premiere performance, was composed for the New Juilliard Ensemble's Spring 2009 tour of Japan, the world premiere taking place in Tokyo. NJE was this year's featured ensemble in Suntory Hall's debut series of young ensembles. The Ensemble gave three other concerts in Tokyo, two of them in collaboration with local university-level schools, Musashino Music Academy and the performing arts program at Tamagawa University. Horseplay, a score for London's Royal Ballet, was composed by Belizean-born British composer, songwriter, and former dancer Errollyn Wallen. Horseplay is a ballet for four dancers. Each movement has its own color and word or image associated with horses: the first is dark and brooding; the second is swift; the word for the third movement is rocking; and the fourth movement is a gallop. The work receives its U.S. premiere on this concert. Vicissitudes III was composed by Chinese-born New Yorker, Du Yun. The verses used in the work were written by Wang Dan, a Chinese political and intellectual activist, as well as a Nobel laureate for Peace and Human Rights.
The New Juilliard Ensemble season continues on Monday, November 9 at 8 PM in Alice Tully Hall when Mr. Sachs leads the Ensemble in a program showcasing works written by contemporary Chinese composers living and working in China today. The concert is presented by Juilliard in partnership with Carnegie Hall as part of their festival, Ancient Paths, Modern Voices. The November 9 program includes the world premiere of a new work by Ye Xiaogang, Guo Wenjing's Concertino for Cello and Chamber Orchestra (1997); Jia Daqun's Three Images from Ink and Wash Painting (2005); and Liu Sola's In-Corporeal I (1998).
The New Juilliard Ensemble performs works by William Schuman, Henry Cowell, and others on the 2010 FOCUS! festival, Music at the Center: Composing an American Mainstream, on Monday, January 25, 2010 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
The season concludes on Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater when the New Juilliard Ensemble performs the world premieres of Chris Kapica's Juice Box Hero, David Fulmer's Violin Concerto (with the composer as soloist), Paul Chihara's Chamber Symphony, a new work by composer Jakhongir Shukurov (Uzbekistan); and the U.S. premiere of Martin Matalon's Trane IV.
The New Juilliard Ensemble (NJE), led by founding director Joel Sachs, celebrates the liveliness of today's music, focusing primarily on repertory of the last decade. Now in its 17th season, NJE presents music by a variety of international composers writing in the most diverse styles. Its members are current students at Juilliard, who are admitted to the ensemble by audition. Student interest in the ensemble's work is considerable, with more than 100 students participating each year, although the maximum size of compositions is normally 15-20 players. The Ensemble appears regularly at MoMA's Summergarden and has been a featured ensemble four times at the Lincoln Center Festival. This Spring, the New Juilliard Ensemble toured Japan; in December 2009, they perform aleatoric music at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with an exhibition of Persian and Turkish "divining" manuscripts. In January, the New Juilliard Ensemble opened the 2009 FOCUS! festival, CALIFORNIA: A Century of New Music, which showcased West Coast composers. The 2008 FOCUS! festival celebrated composer Elliott Carter's 100th year with New Juilliard Ensemble members joining members of the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble, conducted by Pierre Boulez.
New Juilliard Ensemble founder and director Joel Sachs performs a vast range of traditional and contemporary music as conductor and pianist and is co‑director of the internationally acclaimed new-music ensemble Continuum. Dr. Sachs has appeared in hundreds of performances in New York, nationally, and internationally. He has held new-music residencies in Berlin at the Hochschule der Künste, in London at Trinity College of Music, in Salzburg at the Hochschule Mozarteum, and at the annual Oficina de Musica in Curitiba (Brazil). During the last few years he conducted the distinguished Icelandic contemporary music ensemble Caput in a program of music from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United States, and Iceland, and a concert of music by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, and also recorded a CD of works by the Icelandic composer Askell Masson. In March, 2009 Mr. Sachs was in residence at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. June 2008 marked his sixth visit to Mongolia. His recordings appear on the Advance, CRI, Naxos, New Albion, Nonesuch, and TNC labels. A CD of music of the Americas with La Camerata de las Americas (Mexico City) was released by Dorian.
FOR LISTINGS:
Saturday, September 26, 2009, 8 PM
Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 West 65th Street)
New Juilliard Ensemble
Joel Sachs, Founder and Conductor
Elliott Sharp - Points & Fields (2009) - U.S. premiere
Chris Gendall - Rudiments (2009) - World premiere
Errollyn Wallen - Horseplay (1998) - U.S. premiere
Du Yun - Vicissitudes III (2003)
Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky - Paths of Parables II (2008-09) - World premiere
FREE tickets are available beginning
September 11 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer
Box Office at Juilliard (155 West
65th Street). Box Office hours are
Monday through Friday from
11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.
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