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Dennis Russell Davies & American Composers Orchestra Develop Millennium Concert "Snapshots" in 1999-2000 The American Composers Orchestra's series of Millennium concerts, entitled "20th Century Snapshots" moves into high-gear during the 1999-2000 season at Carnegie Hall. This three-year musical celebration of themes, moments, and trends of 20th Century America will conclude in the spring 2001, marking the end of the tenure of Dennis Russell Davies as Music Director of the ACO. In 1999-2000, ACO presents four of the 11-concert series, with programs entitled "Protest," "Roots," "Lindbergh...," and "Copland-Sessions." "Protest" focuses on music as both social commentary, and opens the season on Sunday, October 31, 1999. Protest includes three New York premieres which mark conflicts from three different decades of this century. Robert Beaser's, The Heavenly Feast, a joint commission by ACO and the Baltimore Symphony, is inspired by the martyrdom of Simone Weil, a Jewish-born nun who died while on a hunger strike protesting Nazi aggression and the holocaust. The work sets texts drawn from the poem by Gjertrud Schnackenberg. Lauren Flanigan is soprano soloist. Native-American composer Louis Ballard draws on his Quapaw-Cherokee roots in his vivid recollection of the notorious massacre depicted in Incident at Wounded Knee. In 56 Blows, Alvin Singleton recalls the Rodney King beating and the national turmoil that followed in its wake. In the fourth and final work on the program, Curtis Curtis-Smith assumes a more satiric stance with GAS! - The Great American Symphony, a musical commentary on false-values and slick facades in American culture. Sunday, January 9, 2000, ACO explores the interaction of stylistic, ethnic and musical "Roots" in American symphonic music. ACO juxtaposes two world premieres by two ACO-commissioned African-American composers of different generations. Daniel Roumain, a young composer whose work draws heavily on Rap, Hip-Hop and other forms of urban pop music, will unveil his Harlem Essay for Orchestra and Digital Audio Tape, commissioned with the support of the Helen F. Whitaker Fund. Tomorrow's Songs, As Yesterday Sings Today, commissioned by the late Francis Goelet, is by Muhal Richard Abrams, a composer-pianist whose own musical roots extend to the Chicago-based experimental jazz movement, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which he helped to found in the 1950s and 1960s. The concert also contains the earliest work on the 20th Century Snapshots series, Amy Beach's "Gaelic" Symphony, which received its premiere in 1896. Completing the program are "Quartets" for orchestra by one of the century's most creative musical thinkers, John Cage. In this work, Cage sets his ever-playful mind on deconstructing Moravian hymns. ACO "casts off the surly bounds of earth" on Sunday, February 27, 2000 with "Lindbergh...," a thematic program devoted to one of the century's pioneering achievements, flight--and the early heroes of that age. Along the way, music by of some of the century's most individual and theatrical composers is explored as well. The centerpiece of the program is Kurt Weill's The Lindbergh Flight, a work written in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht and Paul Hindemith, specifically for radio transmission, as both celebration of Charles Lindbergh and of new technology. The ACO performance of this seldom heard work for chorus, orchestra, tenor, baritone and bass soloists, coincides with the world-wide celebration of the centennial of Kurt Weill's birth on March 2. To celebrate the accomplishments of another aviation pioneer, the Carnegie Hall Corporation has commissioned Laurie Anderson to write a new work based on the story of Amelia Earhart. Ms. Anderson is a modern-day counterpart to Weill, with work that challenges conventions of music and theater and embraces new technologies. Ms. Anderson will perform as soloist in this world premiere. Rounding-out the program are Samuel Barber's Night Flight and the U.S. premiere Act V of The White Raven by another pair of music-theater pioneers Philip Glass and Robert Wilson. On Sunday, April 2, 2000, ACO caps-off the season with "Copland-Sessions," an homage to the living legacy of two giants of American music, Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions. In addition to their own work as musical creators, these two friends joined together to create a landmark contemporary music series which they produced from 1928 to 1932. That series introduced many of the most significant composers of the century, including George Antheil, Roy Harris, Walter Piston and others. On the ACO program, Copland is represented by his Short Symphony. The Symphony No. 3 marks Roger Sessions contribution to the performance, culminating ACO's own multi-year survey of the Sessions symphonies. Another highlight of the concert will be George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique which produced a notorious scandal at its U.S. premiere at Carnegie Hall in 1927. (Copland was one of the pianists at that historic performance.) Copland and Sessions were always supportive of younger composers, and ACO has reserved the opening spot on the program for an emerging composer: the New York premiere of a new overture by Jennifer Higdon, a Philadelphia-based composer, jointly commissioned by The Women's Philharmonic and ACO. ACO's "Copland-Sessions" concert will be the centerpiece of a special weekend celebration at Carnegie Hall, exploring the history and music which sprang from those early concerts. Joining ACO in the festivities will be Music from The Copland House, the resident ensemble at Copland's longtime home in Cortlandt Manor, New York, which will give a chamber music performance on Saturday evening, April 1 at Weill Recital Hall. ACO will further build on the Copland-Sessions legacy by holding its annual Whitaker New Music Readings on April 3 and 4, introducing world premiere readings by six emerging composers selected from around the country. Tickets and subscriptions for "20th Century Snapshots" are available by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800. Founded in 1977, the American Composers Orchestra is the world's only orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing symphonic works by American composers. Through its concert series at Carnegie Hall, recordings, radio broadcasts, educational programs, new music reading sessions, and commissions, ACO identifies today's brightest emerging composers, champions this country's prominent established composers as well as those lesser-known, and increases regional and national awareness of the infinite varieties—stylistic, geographic, and ethnic—of American orchestral music. Since its founding, the Orchestra has programmed 400 works by 350 American composers, including 108 world premieres and 89 commissions, generating more new American Symphonic works than any other orchestra. Recordings by ACO are available on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Tzadik, and New World Records. "20th Century Snapshots" will continue into the 2000-2001 season with programs entitled Pacifica, Ellis Island to JFK, Berlin 1931, and Hollywood. The American Composers Orchestra will also celebrate the Millennium by taking "20th Century Snapshots" on tour, bringing definitive performances of American music and today's most important and intriguing composers to audiences throughout the country. Major support of the American Composers Orchestra is from Alliance Capital Management L.P., Mr. Thomas Buckner, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Booth Ferris Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Geraldine C. and Emory M. Ford Foundation, Mr. Francis Goelet, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, J.P. Morgan & Co., the Virgil Thomson Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund. ACO programs are also made possible with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.