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American Composers Orchestra Appoints Steven Sloane Music Director Designate; Announces Next Generation of Artistic Leadership
The announcement comes as ACO's 25th anniversary season in 2001-02 is on the horizon, and represents the culmination of a search that included nearly three years of planning, beginning shortly after Mr. Davies announced his intention to retire. "In Steven Sloane, we think we have found one of the most innovative and adventurous conductors working today; someone who will create stimulating and inspiring programs that will lead ACO into its next 25 years. Our search committee was unanimous in its recommendation of Steven, and we are overjoyed to have him on our team," said ACO President and cofounder Francis Thorne. Franz Xaver Ohnesorg, Artistic and Executive Director of Carnegie Hall, says of Sloane, "Through my work with Steven in Cologne, I know that he is a marvelous talent and very creative. He is at the forefront of a new generation of conductors born in America, who have honed their skills in Europe, and are now coming home to conduct American orchestras. I look forward to many exciting ACO concerts at Carnegie Hall with Steven on the podium." About his new appointment, Mr. Sloane says, "I am tremendously excited about working with ACO. It is a great orchestra committed to performing new music, and I know of no other orchestra either in the U.S. or Europe with such potential, flexibility, and vision. I look forward to working with Bob Beaser and everyone at ACO, and to the challenge of creating exciting new programs that help to redefine what orchestral music is all about." Among Mr. Sloane's top priorities will be to develop new programs specifically designed for Zankel Hall, the state-of-the-art performance space now being constructed underground, beneath Carnegie Hall that is slated to open in 2002. Mr. Sloane's contract runs through the 2005-06 season. Steven Sloane, Music Director DesignateBorn in Los Angeles in 1958, Steven Sloane is currently Music Director of Opera North (UK) and General Music Director of the City of Bochum Symphony, Germany, as well as Principal Conductor of the English Northern Philharmonia. For the last three years he was also Music Director, Opera and Orchestra, of the Spoleto Festival, USA. At these posts, Mr. Sloane has won acclaim for his compelling programming, theatrical flair, and impressive technique. His passion for unusual repertoire, interest in eclectic juxtapositions of music of divergent eras and styles, commitment to contemporary works, and willingness to challenge convention, have established Mr. Sloane as a bold champion of the future of concert music. Mr. Sloane's recent performances include the American premiere of Heiner Goebbels', "Surrogate Cities" at Spoleto this past summer. That work, by one of Germany's most provocative composers, is scored for amplified orchestra, voice, percussion and computer sampler. Mr. Sloane presented "Surrogate Cities" in a suitably dramatic setting-an abandoned theater-in a performance that The New York Times called "a knockout," and said, "turned the symphony orchestra on its head." With the Bochum Symphony, Mr. Sloane has offered such eclectic programming as Monteverdi Meets Maderna, Jean Cocteau and his Paris, Trans-Atlantik (exploring connections between Germany and America), and Assimilation: Jewish Identity in Music, earning the prestigious German Publishers Award for Best Programming of the Year. This season, taking the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie on tour, Mr. Sloane performed George Crumb's landmark music/performance-art piece "Echoes of Time and the River." Among the many contemporary composers whose works he has performed recently are American composers Michael Daugherty, Joan Tower, Steve Reich, John Adams, Tan Dun, Christopher Rouse, John Corigliano and Stewart Wallace. He has also championed many of America's early New England School composers, including George Whitefield Chadwick, John Knowles Paine, and Edward MacDowell, as well leading European composers of today such as Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel, and Wolfgang Rihm. He has commissioned more than twenty Israeli composers, including Gil Shohat, Noam Sheriff, Sergiu Natra, and Tzvi Avni. Mr. Sloane studied viola, musicology and conducting at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He continued his conducting studies with Eugene Ormandy, Franco Ferrara and Gary Bertini. After settling in Israel in 1981, Mr. Sloane conducted all the leading Israeli orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Haifa Symphony and the Israel Sinfonietta. He was also Orchestral and Choral Director of the Israel Conservatory of Music and Music Director of both the Tel Aviv Philharmonic Choir and the Tel Aviv Vocal Festival. From 1988 to 1992, Mr. Sloane was Resident Conductor of the Frankfurt Opera. From 1992 to 1994 he served as Music Director of the Long Beach Opera. He has been a regular guest conductor with the New York City Opera and the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. Recent operatic engagements have included debuts at the Seattle Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Bonn, Welsh National Opera, Lausanne, and Stuttgart Opera. He has also led productions at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Hong Kong and Edinborough Festivals. His recent operatic repertoire includes Weill's "Mahagonny", Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia", Strauss' "Salome", Berg's "Wozzeck", and Janácek's "Jenufa" and "Katja Kabánova". Next season he will make his debut at the Houston Grand Opera in a production of Janacek's "The Makropulos Case". Sloane's orchestral engagements include the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the symphony orchestras of Utah, New Mexico and Edmonton, the Cologne and the Bavarian Radio Orchestras, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Teatro San Carlo (Naples), the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra, London, among others. Robert Beaser, Artistic Director
Born in 1954 in Boston, Mr. Beaser was educated at Yale, where he graduated summa cum laude and went on to earn his Doctorate. He is often cited as an important figure among the "New Tonalists", and through a wide range of media has firmly established his own voice as a synthesis of Western tradition and American vernacular. Beaser has been commissioned with regularity by major orchestras and ensembles throughout the world including, most recently the New York Philharmonic (150th anniversary), the Chicago Symphony (Centennial Commission), the American Composers Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony, and The American Brass Quintet. His music has been performed frequently by such renowned artists as Renee Fleming, Paula Robison, Dennis Russell Davies, James Galway, Dawn Upshaw, Eliot Fisk, Lauren Flanigan, Leonard Slatkin and David Zinman. Mr. Beaser has been the recipient of a Grammy Award nomination for Best Classical Composition for his widely heard "Mountain Songs", the Prix de Rome, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, and the Academy Award in music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His opera "The Food of Love" which has been commissioned by New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera and WNET with a libretto by the playwright Terrence McNally was premiered in 1999 as part of the triptych "Central Park" to great critical acclaim. It was recently broadcast on PBS's Great Performances throughout the United States, and was nominated for an Emmy Award in July 2000. Beaser's music has been recorded for ARGO, New World, Musicmasters, and EMI-Electrola labels, and is published by European American Music. He served as co-Music Director/Conductor of the contemporary music group Musical Elements, an influential group that helped to redefine the new music scene in New York from 1978-1989. Mr. Beaser remains committed to developing the next generation of American composers, serving as Chairman of the Composition department at the Juilliard School. Assembling The New Artistic TeamMichael Geller, Executive Director of the ACO, described the search process that led to the appointments of Mr. Sloane and Mr. Beaser as comprehensive and exhaustive, including strategic planning as well as a formal search procedure that included input from composers and conductors, as well as ACO's board, administration, and musicians. "ACO was not simply looking to fill its chief conducting position," said Mr. Geller. "We were contemplating the future of the orchestra-the first generation beyond our founders. We had a lot of thinking to do about what kind of leadership we needed structurally and artistically. We had to think of what we wanted ACO to be in the future. It is vital that ACO remain flexible, open-minded and responsive to the ever-changing musical and compositional environment. As a composers orchestra, we also felt it was crucial to insure that composers were fully represented in artistic planning. ACO is a unique institution and it requires unique talents in its artistic leadership. I know that Bob and Steven have the ingenuity and sensitivity to keep ACO innovative, and insure ACO's future role as a dynamic musical catalyst," he added. |
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Interview
with Steven Sloane
Forty-two-year-old
American conductor Steven Sloane has been named Music Director
Designate of American Composers Orchestra (ACO). Mr. Sloane begins
his artistic planning duties with ACO effective immediately, and will
make his Carnegie Hall debut with the orchestra in March 2002. He
will become Music Director beginning with the 2002-03 season,
succeeding Dennis Russell Davies, ACO's founding Principal Conductor
and Music Director, who will become Music Director Laureate at that
time. Also effective immediately, composer Robert Beaser, ACO's
Artistic Advisor since 1993, has been named to the newly created post
of Artistic Director.
Concurrent
with Mr. Sloane's appointment, composer Robert Beaser, becomes ACO's
Artistic Director, the senior composer leadership position for the
orchestra. Mr. Beaser has had a long relationship with ACO, beginning
as Composer-in-Residence in 1988, and continuing since 1993 as
Composer Advisor. Mr. Beaser will work closely with Mr. Sloane in
programming and longer-term artistic planning. He will also continue
to oversee ACO's professional development initiatives, including the
annual Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions and Commission and
Composer Fellowship programs.