American Composers Orchestra Announces Two New Board Members

American Composers Orchestra Announces Two New Board Members 

Marilyn Go and Jonathan Bailey Holland Join a Distinguished Cohort of New Board Members Elected in the Past Two Years

More information about American Composers Orchestra: www.americancomposers.org

New York, NY – American Composers Orchestra (ACO) announces two elections to its board of directors: Marilyn Go and Jonathan Bailey Holland. Board Chair Frederick Wertheim welcomes these individuals by saying, “I’m delighted that ACO continues to strengthen its board by identifying new directors with distinguished credentials, each of whom brings unique skill sets along with a passion for American music.”

Go and Holland join the group of four additional individuals who have joined the board since February 2017: Sameera Troesch (Senior Counsel, Corporate Center; Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas)); Melinda Wagner (Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Chair of Composition, The Juilliard School); Michael Russell (Partner, TimesSquare Capital Management); and Richard C. Neu (Adjunct staff member at the RAND Corporation and professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School).

Marilyn D. Go served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York from 1993 to 2018. At the time of her appointment, she was the first Asian American woman to serve as a judge in a federal court. A judge in one of the busiest federal courts in the country, she handled a large caseload of civil and criminal cases. 

Judge Go is a graduate of Radcliffe College and Harvard Law School. Following a clerkship with the Honorable William M. Marutani of the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, New York. In 1982, she joined the firm Baden Kramer Huffman Brodsky & Go, P.C. 

She was a member of Governor Mario Cuomo’s Task Force on Minority Representation on the Bench and served as Vice Chair of the Standing Committee on Minorities in the Judiciary of the American Bar Association.  She was a founding director and officer of the Asian American Bar Association and the National Asian Pacific American Judicial Council and was as a trustee of the Federal Bar Council and the Harvard Law School Association.  She has been a panelist on many continuing legal education programs and has received a number of community and bar awards, including the Trailblazer Award of the NAPABA and the Impact Leadership Award of AABANY.

Born in the Philippines and raised in Hawaii, Marilyn resides in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.  In her spare time, she enjoys listening to opera and chamber music and tinkering on the piano.

ACO Vice-Chair Sameera Troesch adds, “Marilyn is an extraordinary individual with real curiosity and commitment to culture and her community.  We are so excited to have the chance to collaborate with her going forward. She brings a new perspective to our work and will undoubtedly help ACO to serve its mission.”

Jonathan Bailey Holland was influenced early on by his grandfather’s baby grand piano and his father’s record collection, which contained everything from Miles Davis to Bootsy Collins, G. F. Handel, Sergio Mendes, Michael Jackson, Kenny Rogers, and more. Holland draws inspiration from classical, jazz, hip-hop, and other musical genres, as well as from visual art, architecture, poetry, dramatic works, and contemporary events. Early studies of piano, trumpet, tuba, and double-bass led him to Interlochen Arts Academy, where he discovered music composition. He continued his studies with Ned Rorem at Curtis Institute of Music, and Bernard Rands and Mario Davidovsky at Harvard University, in addition to studies with Andrew Imbrie, Yehudi Wyner, and Robert Sirota.  He is currently Chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Faculty Co-Chair of composition at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He also serves as faculty for the Curtis Summerfest Program.

Holland has been commissioned by numerous orchestras, ensembles, and soloists. He was Composer-in-Residence with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra during the 2018-19 season - the first composer to serve that role with that orchestra. His work Ode premiered in November, 2018 and his the fifth work for the orchestra, following the initial commission in 2003 of Halcyon Sun, written to celebrate the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Holland has also been commissioned by the Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, among others. Future collaborations and performances are scheduled by the Arx Duo, Buffalo Philharmonic, Concord Chorus, Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, and Eighth Blackbird, and more.  Holland is one of the composers ACO selected to orchestrate a Charles Ives song for our November 13 concert, and he has served as a mentor composer for EarShot.

ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel says about Holland, “Jonathan is a brilliant composer, teacher and colleague. 

We are honored that he has agreed to serve on our board so that he can offer his expertise and support to ACO’s desire to serve American composers in ever deepening and ever more impactful ways.”

About ACO

MISSION & HISTORY: American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers. With commitment to diversity, disruption and discovery, ACO produces concerts, K-12 education programs and emerging composer development programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders.

ACO identifies and develops talent, performs established composers, champions those who are lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting gender, ethnic, geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including over 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works. ACO recordings are available on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, Phoenix USA, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Tzadik, New World Records, InstantEncore.com, Amazon.com and iTunes. 

CONCERTS: The 2019-2020 season brings two concerts presented in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall with programming that reflects the innovative ways new American orchestral music sparks curiosity through geographic, stylistic, and gender diversity. Highlights include major premieres of works by 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams, Mark Adamo, Matthew Aucoin, as well as two alumnae of ACO’s emerging composers programs, Hilary Purrington and 2015 Rome Prize winner Nina C. Young. Featured soloists include guitarist JIJI, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton.

EMERGING COMPOSERS: Through the Underwood New Music Readings each year, ACO selects up to six emerging composers to travel to New York City to meet with artistic staff, orchestra members — including the conductor and mentor composers — and spend three days working with the orchestra. At the program’s conclusion, two composers are awarded commissions to write new works to be performed by ACO in a future season. Nationally, EarShot enables orchestras across the country to identify talented young composers. With guidance from ACO, partner orchestras – such as the Detroit Symphony, the Sarasota (FL) Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra – undertake readings, residencies, performances and composer-development programs that speak directly to their communities and leverage local resources. In the 2019-2020 season, ACO partners with Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Houston Symphony for EarShot readings.

EDUCATION: For nearly two decades, ACO has brought composers and musical teaching artists into New York City public schools through Music Factory. Students in Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens, work directly with professional composers to create and perform original music. ACO also offers the intensive Compose Yourself seminars, during which high school composers will participate in hands-on composition classes, culminating in a performance of student compositions played by ACO’s professional musicians.

More information about American Composers Orchestra is available online at www.americancomposers.org.