From May 23 to June 11, 2016, the New York Philharmonic and Music Director Alan Gilbert will present the second NY PHIL BIENNIAL, a wide-ranging exploration of today’s music by an array of contemporary and modern composers. A flagship project of the New York Philharmonic, the NY PHIL BIENNIAL brings together an international roster of composers, performers, and curatorial voices for concerts presented both on the Lincoln Center campus and in venues throughout the city.
The 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL will feature works by 74 composers, almost 60 of whom are American, spanning in age and experience from students to iconic legends. Reflecting the Philharmonic’s growing collaborations with music education organizations from New York City to Asia, in the second NY PHIL BIENNIAL the Philharmonic will present new-music programs from some of the country’s top music schools, ranging from high school to university levels, and youth choruses from the East and West Coasts. The biennial will expand to more New York City neighborhoods — including to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at National Sawdust — and will cross genres, including electroacoustic and opera. The programs will range from large-scale symphonies, chamber operas, and concertos to chamber music in intimate settings, solo works, and mixed-media events. The curators overseeing the planning of the 2016 NY PHIL BIENNIAL are Alan Gilbert and Esa-Pekka Salonen, The Marie-Josée Kravis Composerin-Residence at the New York Philharmonic.
ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL’S ASPEN CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE To Perform New York Premieres by Aspen Alumni Thomas KOTCHEFF, Nina C. YOUNG, and Christopher STARK Aspen Faculty Members Steven STUCKY and Stephen HARTKE And Esa-Pekka SALONEN Conducted by STEVEN STUCKY
June 8, 2016, at WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
Current members and alumni of Aspen Music Festival and School’s Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE), led by Aspen composition faculty member Steven Stucky, will perform New York Premieres by composers tied to Aspen’s new-music programs. Taking place at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the program features works by young Aspen alumni Thomas Kotcheff (United States, b. 1988), Nina C. Young (United States, b. 1984), and Christopher Stark (United States, b. 1980); Aspen faculty members Steven Stucky (United States, b. 1949) and Stephen Hartke (United States, b. 1952); and a work by Esa-Pekka Salonen (Finland, b. 1958) that ACE performed to acclaim in its final concert in summer 2015.
Christopher Stark’s Mercy Bell (2014) is inspired by the composer’s memories of “La Misericordia” (“The Mercy Bell”), one of the seven bells housed in Giotto’s Campanile on the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy. All of its melodic and harmonic material is derived from an analysis of that bell’s unique overtone timbre. The instrumentation is borrowed from Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, and also evokes the nonet from Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool. Stark writes: “Various bells and their spectra have been important muses for many composers in the past 100 years, and through this shared inspiration, I am paying homage to those composers whose work I greatly admire — Edgard Varèse and Jonathan Harvey, to name a few.”
