Back to Press Release List > 11/10/2009 - American Composers Orchestra Kicks Off Its 2009-10 Season with Traditions & Transmigrations Nov 30

On Monday, November 30 at 7:30 p.m., American Composers Orchestra (ACO), led by conductor Stefan Lano, performs a program titled Traditions & Transmigrations that includes the world premieres of Erin Gee’s Mouthpiece XIII: Mathilde of Loci, Part 1, Curt Cacioppo’s When the Orchard Dances Ceased, and Donal Fox’s Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra. Also on the program is the New York premiere of Huang Ruo’s Leaving Sao for Chinese Folk-Voice and Chamber Orchestra as well as Charles Ives’ Tone Roads Nos. 1 and 3. Please see listings below for complete program information.

About the Premieres
Erin Gee’s Mouthpiece XIII: Mathilde of Loci, Part 1, a work she has created with her brother Colin Gee, is based on a fictionalized account of the life of Matteo Ricci, proponent of the Memory Palace or the Method of Loci, a mnemonic technique. For the premiere, Ms. Gee will perform as vocalist employing an original vocal technique using two microphones and live computer processing. Mr. Gee, a writer and director, created the video portion of the work and will also perform as an actor onstage during the piece.

In Donal Fox’s Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra, the composer will perform as soloist, improvising his part along with a fully composed score for the orchestra. Mr. Fox 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.

Curt Cacioppo makes his first appearance with ACO with this premiere performance of When the Orchard Dances Ceased, an homage to the Navajo people of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. In the mid-1800s, the US Army drove the Navajo out of their ancestral lands in the Canyon, where they had cultivated thousands of peach trees for generations. In his work, Mr. Cacioppo conjures the melodies and instruments of the Navajo, Irish music, and US military marches. The work includes parts for Native American folk voice and percussion instruments, both of which will be performed by the composer.

Huang Ruo’s work, Leaving Sao, is written for soprano (or high male voice in folk style) and chamber orchestra in memory of his grandmother. The composer will perform as vocalist at this premiere performance. Sao in Chinese means sorrowful predicament. This title was taken from a poem written by poet Qu Yuan from the ancient kingdom of Chu; for this piece, Huang Ruo wrote an original poem with the same title in modern form.

Additional ACO concerts during the 2009–2010 season include:

Friday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m.: Conductor Anne Manson leads the orchestra in a program entitled Conversations which includes world premiere works by Roger Zare and Sebastian Currier, as well as the New York premiere of Conversations with Cachao by Paquito D’Rivera. Mr. D’Rivera is featured as clarinet and alto saxophone soloist.

Friday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m.: Composer Louis Andriessen kicks off his Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair residency at Carnegie Hall with the New York premiere of his Symphony for Open Strings in a program titled Louis & the Young Americans. Conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, the concert also features world premieres of music by young American composers mentored by Andriesson: Missy Mazzoli, Michael Fiday, and John Korsrud.

Artist Information
Stefan Lano began conducting through his work as a composer and after an extensive tenure on the music staff of the Vienna State Opera. After completing degrees in composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and biology at Oberlin College, he attended Harvard University, from which he holds a Ph.D. in Composition. Mr. Lano made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera conducting The Rake’s Progress in 1997, also preparing the Met production of Arnold Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron at that time. In 2002, he conducted a new production of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Cincinnati Opera. During the 2005 season, Mr. Lano premiered two new operas in the United States: Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata at the Houston Grand Opera and Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner in co-productions with the Michigan Opera Theater, Cincinnati Opera, and The Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Founded in 1977 by composers Francis Thorne and Nicholas Roussakis, Music Director Dennis Russell Davies, and Resident Conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel, the American Composers Orchestra has presented works by 600 American composers, including over 200 world premieres and commissions. Notable artists who have worked with the orchestra include Emanuel Ax, Itzhak Perlman, Leonard Bernstein, and Keith Jarrett. Among the honors received by the ACO are special awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra’s contribution to American music; ASCAP has awarded its annual prize for adventurous programming to ACO 30 times, singling out the ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States,” and most recently awarding ACO the 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming. During the 2003–2004 season, the orchestra launched the Orchestra Underground series in Zankel Hall with the world premiere of Gotham, a multimedia piece written by composer Michael Gordon. More information about American Composers Orchestra is available online at americancomposers.org.

Program Information
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.
Zankel Hall
AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA
Stefan Lano, Conductor
Curt Cacioppo, Voice and Percussion
Donal Fox, Piano
Colin Gee, Writer, Director, and Actor
Erin Gee, Vocalist
Huang Ruo, Vocalist

TRADITIONS & TRANSMIGRATIONS

CHARLES IVES Tone Roads Nos. 1
CURT CACIOPPO When the Orchard Dances Ceased (World Premiere)
HUANG RUO Leaving Sao (NY Premiere)
CHARLES IVES Tone Roads Nos. 3
ERIN GEE Mouthpiece XIII: Mathilde of Loci, Part 1 (World Premiere)
DONAL FOX Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra (World Premiere)
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Friday, January 29, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Zankel Hall
AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA
Anne Manson, Conductor
Robert Black, Bass
Paquito D'Rivera, Clarinet and Alto Saxophone
Pawel Wojtasik, Video Artist

CONVERSATIONS

ROGER ZARE Time-Lapse (World Premiere)
SEBASTIAN CURRIER Next Atlantis (World Premiere, String Orchestra / Multimedia Version)
PAQUITO D'RIVERA Conversations with Cachao (NY Premiere)
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Friday, April 9, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Zankel Hall
AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA
Jeffrey Milarsky, Conductor

LOUIS & THE YOUNG AMERICANS

LOUIS ANDRIESSEN Symphony for Open Strings (NY Premiere)
MISSY MAZZOLI These Worlds in Us (World Premiere, new orchestration)
MICHAEL FIDAY HST: In memoriam Hunter S. Thompson (World Premiere)
JOHN KORSRUD New Work (World Premiere)

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