Monday, November
30, 2009, 7:30 PM Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, NYC
ACO opens its 33rd season with Orchestra Underground in Zankel Hall at
Carnegie Hall performing three World premieres by Erin Gee, Donal Fox,
and Curt Cacioppo; a New York premiere by Huang Ruo; and a rarely heard
work by Charles Ives.
Traditions
& Transmigrations celebrates the blending and juxtaposition of
traditions, and the journey involved in any exploration of new musical
territory. The concert showcases the diversity of today's American
composers: Curt
Cacioppo's new work is an homage to the Navajo people
of Canyon de Chelly; composer and pianist Donal Fox
brings his signature method of pairing an improvised solo part with
notated orchestral writing; Erin Gee's piece places the orchestra
as
the fulcrum for a multi-media performance that melds video created by
her
brother Colin Gee (an actor who will also perform live on stage) with
Ms. Gee's unusual vocal techniques utilizing two microphones with live
computer processing; and Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo
combines Chinese folk singing with vibrant orchestral colors. Charles Ives'Tone Roads Nos. 1 and 3 provide a touchstone
of iconic Americana. The
concert spotlights composers who are also performers—Curt Cacioppo
(voice and percussion), Donal Fox (piano), Erin Gee (vocalist), and
Huang Ruo (vocalist) will all perform as soloists in their own pieces.
Guest conductor Stefan
Lano makes his ACO debut on this concert.
Trained
as an actor, Colin Gee
was a principal clown for Cirque du Soleil from 2001 to 2004 in the
touring production, Dralion, and appeared in the
company's television
program Solstrom (2003). He is currently the
founding
artist-in-residence at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and a
visiting artist-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the
Divine. His film Dakota (2006), with live solo
performance and music by
Erin Gee, was presented at P.S. 122, Diskurs '04 Giesen, Wexford Arts
Center, 4020 Festival, and received the Best Male Performer award at
the 2006 Dublin Fringe Festival.
Donal
Fox: Peace Out
for Improvised Piano
and Orchestra (ACO Commission, World Premiere) Listen
to an excerpt from Donal Fox's Improvised
Piano and Orchestra perf. Donal
Fox with University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, cond. William LaRue
Jones
Donal
Fox was the
first African American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra and was a special guest artist at the Library of
Congress in a program that was recorded by National Public Radio. He
first appeared with ACO in the 2003-04 season, when he gave the New
York premiere of T.J. Anderson's piano concerto, Boogie
Woogie
Concertante, with the Manhattan School of Music Jazz
Philharmonic
during the American Composers Orchestra's Improvise! Festival. He
returns to ACO with a new commission that showcases his artistry as a
virtuosic improviser as well as an accomplished composer of classical
music. In Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra,
Fox will
perform as soloist, improvising his part along with a fully composed
score for the orchestra.
Originally
from Hainan, China, Huang
Ruo first came to the attention of ACO in 2004 when his
City of Solace was selected to be read in the
New Music Readings. His
work Leaving Sao is written for soprano or high
male voice in folk
style and chamber orchestra in memory of his grandmother. Sao in
Chinese means sorrowful predicament. This title was taken from a poem
written by poet Qu Yuan (fourth century B.C.) from the ancient kingdom
of Chu. Instead of setting Qu Yuan's poem, Huang wrote an original new
poem with the same title in a modern form and literal use of word.
Charles
Ives' Tone
Roads are thought to be a musical depiction of various
journeys humans
take through life, our individual differences converging to create the
fabric of a larger community. He wrote in his Memos, "The Tone Roads
are roads leading right and left—'F.E. Hartwell & Co., Gents
Furnishings'—just starting an afternoon's sport. If horses and wagons
can go sometimes on different roads (hill road, muddy road, rocky,
straight, crooked, hilly hard road) at the same time and get to Main
street eventually, why can't different instruments on different staffs?
The wagons and people and roads are all in the same township, same mud,
breathing the same air, same temperature, going to the same place,
speaking the same language (sometimes), but not all going on the same
road, all going their own way, each trip different to each driver,
different people, different cuds, not all chewing in the key of C—that
is not all in the same key—or the same number of steps per mile."
This
concert will be Stefan
Lano's first appearance with ACO. Music Director of the
Teatro Colón from 2005 to 2008, Lano began conducting through his work
as composer and after an extensive tenure on the music staff of the
Vienna State Opera. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera
conducting The Rake's
Progress in 1997, where he also prepared the Met
production of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses
und Aron. In 2010, he will conduct a reprise of Jake
Heggie's Dead Man
Walking for the Semper Oper Dresden.
ACO performs at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
Friday, November 30, 2009, at 7:30pm. Tickets are $38 and $48, and may
be purchased through CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, by visiting
Carnegie Hall's website at www.carnegiehall.org,
or at the Carnegie Hall box office, 57th Street at 7th Ave.
Listen
to an excerpt from Erin Gee's Mouthpiece
IX Part 1
Originally
from Hainan, China, Huang
Ruo first came to the attention of ACO in 2004 when his
City of Solace was selected to be read in the
New Music Readings. His
work Leaving Sao is written for soprano or high
male voice in folk
style and chamber orchestra in memory of his grandmother. Sao in
Chinese means sorrowful predicament. This title was taken from a poem
written by poet Qu Yuan (fourth century B.C.) from the ancient kingdom
of Chu. Instead of setting Qu Yuan's poem, Huang wrote an original new
poem with the same title in a modern form and literal use of word.
Charles
Ives' Tone
Roads are thought to be a musical depiction of various
journeys humans
take through life, our individual differences converging to create the
fabric of a larger community. He wrote in his Memos, "The Tone Roads
are roads leading right and left—'F.E. Hartwell & Co., Gents
Furnishings'—just starting an afternoon's sport. If horses and wagons
can go sometimes on different roads (hill road, muddy road, rocky,
straight, crooked, hilly hard road) at the same time and get to Main
street eventually, why can't different instruments on different staffs?
The wagons and people and roads are all in the same township, same mud,
breathing the same air, same temperature, going to the same place,
speaking the same language (sometimes), but not all going on the same
road, all going their own way, each trip different to each driver,
different people, different cuds, not all chewing in the key of C—that
is not all in the same key—or the same number of steps per mile."