American Composers Orchestra opens season at Carnegie Hall with mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and guitarist JIJI

American Composers Orchestra 2019-2020 Season Opens at Carnegie Hall
New England Echoes

Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 7:30pm at Zankel Hall

Featuring soloists JIJI, guitar & Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano

Premieres by composers Hilary Purrington and Matthew Aucoin
Plus new orchestrations of Ives’ songs by Purrington, Hannah Lash, and Jonathan Bailey Holland

Derek Bermel, Artistic Director & George Manahan, Music Director

Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall | 57th St. and 7th Ave. | NYC
Tickets: $43-$51 at www.carnegiehall.org, CarnegieCharge 212.247.7800, or the Carnegie Hall Box Office

For more information: http://bit.ly/ACOEchoes 

New York, NY – American Composers Orchestra (ACO) opens its 2019-2020 concert season with New England Echoes on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. The concert features the world premiere of 2017 ACO Underwood Commission winner Hilary Purrington’s concerto for guitar and orchestra, Harp of Nerves, with guitar soloist JIJI. Celebrated Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton will sing in the world premiere of new orchestrations of Charles Ives’ songs, by composers Hilary Purrington, Hannah Lash, and Jonathan Bailey Holland. The New York City premiere of 2018 MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin’s Evidence completes the program.

ACO is always on the lookout for star performers who embrace American composers, and the orchestra’s collaboration with Jamie Barton on the songs of Charles Ives came about because of this. In the January 2017 issue of Opera News, ACO President Edward Yim read: “Many of Jamie Barton’s stories about lieder revolve around Charles Ives, the composer who ‘made my mind absolutely spark.’ Before her Ives group at Glimmerglass, she told the audience that the music was ‘an important and special group for me,’ and she was taking a set of six Ives songs on her U.K. tour. Indeed, much of a two-hour conversation with Barton defined her as a particularly American artist.”

ACO immediately contacted Barton to propose that ACO ask a group of living American composers to orchestrate some of her favorite songs for chamber orchestra. “Charles Ives’ songs embody the maverick and creative spirit of American music. Jamie is a phenomenal artist, and after reading that interview, we thought our interests could intersect,” said Yim.  “With enthusiasm and to our delight, she immediately said ‘yes!’ and provided a list of songs that she loves.” 

The composers chosen to orchestrate these songs reflect Barton and ACO’s interest in ensuring that women composers were represented and are composers who have had meaningful associations with ACO. Purrington, whose world premiere will also be performed on this concert, is originally from New England, like Ives, and won ACO’s Underwood Commission in 2017. Hannah Lash teaches at the Yale School of Music (Yale was Ives’ alma mater), participated in ACO’s Reading programs, and was commissioned by the Toulmin Women’s Composers Readings and Commissions Program. Jonathan Bailey Holland, who teaches at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, has been a mentor composer for ACO programs and recently joined ACO’s board of directors. 

Of her new guitar concerto, to be premiered with the orchestra by JIJI and commissioned with support from Paul and Michelle Underwood and additional support from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, Hilary Purrington writes, “I composed Harp of Nerves over the course of eighteen months. Before writing a single note, I carefully considered the relationship between the solo guitar and the larger ensemble, knowing that this decision would determine much of the work’s musical and dramatic content. Throughout the concerto’s three movements, the orchestra serves as an extension of the guitar. Sometimes the connection between the soloist and ensemble is immediately obvious; other times, it’s less so. This relationship also inspired the title – the entire ensemble becomes a kind of nervous system with the soloist acting as its control center, tethered to all members of the orchestra. Imagining the ensemble in this manner determined many of my artistic choices and helped shape the larger character of the work.”

Of Evidence, which receives its New York City premiere on this concert, composer Matthew Aucoin notes, “The basic difference between music and religion is music's fondness for evidence. Music-making – at least as I understand it – is a religious practice, but music doesn't have much time for faith. You wouldn't trust a composer or performer who says, ‘I know my music doesn't sound that great, but…take my word for it.’ Good music both enacts and embodies. It's both an act of praise and evidence of some other order, a consciousness, a presence. It speaks to us of some ‘elsewhere’ by manifesting burnt traces of that elsewhere. I find the word ‘evidence’ inexplicably beautiful. Even the Merriam-Webster definition – awkwardly worded, at first glance – feels resonant: ‘something which shows that something else exists or is true.’ When a piece of music is convincing on its own terms – when it earns its affirmations, or when it seduces us into some landscape that we would have thought uninhabitable – hasn't it manifested the presence of some other, self-sufficient world?”

This season, ACO continues its commitment to the creation, performance, preservation, and promotion of music by American composers with programming that sparks curiosity and reflects geographic, stylistic, racial and gender diversity. “ACO’s 2019-2020 Carnegie Hall programs highlight the breadth and depth of American music being composed today,” commented ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel. “Our audience will have the unique opportunity to experience world premieres of these emerging talents alongside established American voices – brand new music heard for the very first time in New York City.”

New England Echoes Concert Program:

American Composers Orchestra
George Manahan, music director and conductor
Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano
JIJI, guitar

HILARY PURRINGTON: Harp of Nerves (World Premiere)

CHARLES IVES: Selections from 114 Songs (World Premieres of orchestrations by Hilary Purrington, Hannah Lash, and Jonathan Bailey Holland)

“Immortality”
“The Housatonic at Stockbridge”
“Autumn”
“The Cage”
“Memories: (a) Very Pleasant (b) Rather Sad”

MATTHEW AUCOIN: Evidence (2016, New York City Premiere) 

About the Composers

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer and conductor. He is both Artist-in-Residence at Los Angeles Opera and co-artistic director of the American Modern Opera Company. Aucoin is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Aucoin’s new opera, Eurydice, has been co-commissioned by Los Angeles Opera, and New York's Metropolitan Opera. Aucoin’s orchestral and chamber music has been commissioned and performed by such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra, the Brentano Quartet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Chanticleer. His two previous operas, Crossing and Second Nature, have been performed all over North America, including productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Canadian Opera Company. At LA Opera, Aucoin has conducted productions including Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, Verdi’s Rigoletto, and his own opera Crossing. Aucoin has also appeared as a guest conductor with the Santa Fe Opera (the new production of John Adams's Doctor Atomic), the San Diego Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Rome Opera Orchestra, among others. He trained as a conducting apprentice with Riccardo Muti at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and served as an Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. Aucoin is a 2012 graduate of Harvard College and a 2014 recipient of Juilliard’s Graduate Diploma in Composition. 

A native of Flint, MI, composer Jonathan Bailey Holland’s works have been commissioned and performed by orchestras and chamber ensembles across America. He served as the first ever Composer-In-Residence with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the 2018-19 season. His 2019-20 season includes a commission from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum inspired by John Singer Sargent’s dance-inspired painting, “El Jaleo.” His Third Quartet, for string quartet and percussion duo was featured on the Walton Arts Artosphere Festival, and the Kingston Chamber Music Festival. Boston Opera Collaborative will delve into an evening of Holland’s chamber operas; the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival performed His House is Not of This Land as part of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music; and his music will appear on the Juventas New Music Ensemble season. Notable highlights from recent seasons include the premieres of his work Ode, a companion work to Beethoven’s Ninth, by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; the release of Synchrony, a powerful statement on Black Lives Matter on the Radius Ensemble’s Fresh Paint CD; the premiere of Equality by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra featuring the poetry of Maya Angelou featuring narration by actor Regina Taylor and rapper/actor Common, and more. Holland hold degrees from Curtis Institute of Music and Harvard University. He is Chair of Composition, Contemporary Music, and Core Studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful…handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been performed in concerts halls in the US and worldwide venues at Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, and many more. Lash has received numerous honors and prizes, including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship (2011) and Fellowship (2016) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Foundation Commission, a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, a fellowship from Yaddo Artist Colony, the Naumburg Prize in Composition, the Barnard Rogers Prize in Composition, the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize in Composition, and numerous academic awards. Her orchestral work Furthermore was selected by the American Composers Orchestra for the 2010 Underwood New Music Readings. Her chamber opera, Blood Rose, was presented by New York City Opera’s VOX in the spring of 2011. Hannah Lash is currently developing a new chamber opera and a concerto for two harps and orchestra, which will both see premieres in 2019.

Hilary Purrington is a New York City-based composer of chamber, vocal, and orchestral music. Her work has received recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC), among others. Purrington’s music has been performed by many distinguished ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Modern Ensemble, the Albany Symphony, and the Yale Philharmonia. Recent commissions include new works for the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, Yale Glee Club, and the New York Youth Symphony. Upcoming projects include commissions from River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Originally from Longmeadow, MA, Purrington currently lives New York, NY and works at Barnard College. She holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. 

About the Soloists 

Critically acclaimed by virtually every major outlet covering classical music, American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is increasingly recognized for how she uses her powerful instrument offstage – lifting up women, queer people, and other marginalized communities. Her lively social media presence on Instagram and Twitter (@jbartonmezzo) serves as a hub for conversations about body positivity, diet culture, social justice issues, and LGBTQ rights. She is proud to volunteer with Turn The Spotlight, an organization working to identify, nurture, and empower leaders among women and people of color – and in turn, to illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts. Barton is the winner of the Beverly Sills Artist Award and Richard Tucker Award, both Main and Song Prizes at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Her debut solo album, All Who Wander, featuring songs by Mahler, Dvorak, and Sibelius, was shortlisted by the International Classical Music Awards and Gramophone Classical Music Awards, and earned the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award. This season, Barton is the featured performer on Last Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, bringing the 2019 BBC Proms festival to a close. She appears as Léonorin in La favorite at Houston Grand Opera, Eboli in Don Carlo at Dallas Opera, Fricka in Die Walküre at Reykjavík Arts Festival, and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Santa Fe Opera. Barton brings her feminist recital with pianist Kathleen Kelly to Wigmore Hall in London, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. She returns to the Metropolitan Opera for role debuts as the titular Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and as Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, with a Met Live in HD performance of the latter simulcast to cinemas in over seventy countries. 

Applauded by the Calgary Herald as “…talented, sensitive…brilliant,” JIJI is an adventurous artist on both acoustic and electric guitar, playing an extensive range of music from traditional and contemporary classical music to free improvisation. Her impeccable musicianship combined with compelling stage presence and fascinating repertoire earned the Korean guitarist First Prize at the 2016 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. The Kansas City Star described JIJI as, “A graceful and nuanced player.” Career highlights include a wide array of venues, including Carnegie Hall, 92^nd Street Y, Festival Napa Valley, Krannert Center, Purdue Convocations, Virginia Arts Festival, National Sawdust, Miller Theater, Mass MOCA, Subculture NYC, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Princeton Sound Kitchen, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her recent tours of Hong Kong consisted of performances collaborating with a performance artist, a traditional Chinese instrument ensemble, and an Erhu player in art galleries, clubs, and even on a moving trolley. A passionate advocate of new music, JIJI has premiered a duo piece, Talking Guitars, by renowned composer, Paul Lansky, released on Bridge Records. She has premiered works by numerous emerging composers, including Nina C. Young, Gabriella Smith, Riho Maimets, Krists Auznieks, Gulli Björnsson, Andrew McIntosh, and Farnood Haghani Pour. She also performs her own compositions, incorporating electronic media and acoustic music. 

Listen to music by Purrington, Lash, Holland, and Aucoin:

Hilary Purrington: http://hilarypurrington.com/large-ensemble.html
Hannah Lash: http://hannahlash.com
Jonathan Holland: http://jonathanbaileyholland.com/works
Matthew Aucoin: https://soundcloud.com/matt-aucoin

Other Upcoming ACO Performances & Events

Commission Club Soiree
Monday, November 18, 2019 at 6:30 PM
Steinway Hall | NW corner of 6th Ave. & 43rd St. | NYC | http://bit.ly/ACOCommission 

Commission Club Soiree
Monday, January 27, 2020 at 6:30 PM
Private Home | NYC | http://bit.ly/ACOCommission

In the 2019-20 season, ACO’s Commission Club will support Mark Adamo as he creates Last Year, a new cello concerto written for Jeffrey Zeigler, which ACO will perform on April 2, 2020 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. Members of ACO’s Commission Club invest in the lifespan of a commission: from the composer’s first kernel of artistic inspiration to the realization of the music as a printed score, the early rehearsals, and through the premiere performance. Collectively, the Club members support fees paid to the composer, printing and engraving costs, as well as rehearsal and production costs related to the concert premiere. Throughout the season, members are invited to exclusive preview events with the composer, a sneak peek at the work in progress, and access to private rehearsals.

EarShot: Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Tuesday & Wednesday, January 28 & 29, 2020
http://bit.ly/EarShot_Buffalo

EarShot, a nationwide network of new music readings and composer-development programs, is the nation’s first ongoing, systematic program for identifying emerging orchestral composers, which provides professional-level working experience with orchestras from every region of the country and increases awareness of these composers and access to their music throughout the industry. The EarShot residencies include mentorship from the most accomplished orchestral composers in the country, orchestra readings, and musician and conductor feedback sessions. The program is customized to each host orchestra’s aesthetic, demographic, community, and educational interests. EarShot is a partnership of American Composers Orchestra, American Composers Forum, New Music USA, and the League of American Orchestras.

ACO Gala 2020
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 6:30 PM Cocktails | 7:30 PM Performance & Dinner
Bryant Park Grill | 25 W. 40th St. | NYC | http://bit.ly/ACOGala2020

ACO celebrates those who have effected change in the American musical landscape. ACO’s 2020 honorees are Anthony Roth Constanzo, countertenor; Jesse Rosen, ACO Board Member and League of American Orchestras CEO; and the Harlem School of the Arts Music Department, led by Director Yolanda Wyns. The music program, to be announced at a later date, will feature tributes and musical selections spotlighting the honorees.

Underwood New Music Readings
Thursday, March 12 at 9:30 AM & Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:30 PM
Aaron Davis Hall at The City College of New York | West 135th St. & Convent Ave. | NYC
http://bit.ly/UNMR2020

ACO will hold its 29th Annual Underwood New Music Readings for emerging composers at Aaron Davis Hall at The City College of New York. In what has become a rite of passage for aspiring orchestral composers, several composers from throughout the United States will be selected to receive a reading of a new work. The Readings are open to the public for a nominal admission price. A working rehearsal will be presented on Thursday, March 12, 2020 at 9:30am; on Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:30pm, all selected pieces will be polished and performed in their entirety, led by ACO’s Music Director George Manahan. ACO’s Artistic Director Derek Bermel directs the Readings.

The Natural Order
Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 7:30 PM
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall | 57th St. & 7th Ave. | NYC | http://bit.ly/ACONaturalOrder

The Natural Order on April 2, 2020 at Carnegie Hall explores how music can capture nature’s complex relationship to humankind. ACO presents the New York City premiere of John Luther Adams’ Become River, a companion piece to his 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning orchestral work, Become Ocean. Mark Adamo’s Last Year depicts an apocalyptic version of the Four Seasons in this world premiere performance featuring cellist Jeffrey Zeigler. Completing the program is Nina C. Young’s Out of whose womb came the ice. Young and projection designer R. Luke DuBois create a sonic and visual glimpse of famed explorer Ernest Shackelton’s Antarctic journey (1914-17). ACO gave the world premiere of the first part of the piece in 2017 and will premiere the expanded version on this concert, featuring baritone David Tinervia.

EarShot: Houston Symphony
Tuesday & Wednesday, May 5 & 6, 2020
http://bit.ly/EarShotHouston

EarShot, a nationwide network of new music readings and composer-development programs, is the nation’s first ongoing, systematic program for identifying emerging orchestral composers, which provides professional-level working experience with orchestras from every region of the country and increases awareness of these composers and access to their music throughout the industry. The EarShot residencies include mentorship from the most accomplished orchestral composers in the country, orchestra readings, and musician and conductor feedback sessions. The program is customized to each host orchestra’s aesthetic, demographic, community, and educational interests. EarShot is a partnership of American Composers Orchestra, American Composers Forum, New Music USA, and the League of American Orchestras.

About Derek Bermel, ACO Artistic Director

Grammy-nominated composer-clarinetist Derek Bermel has been hailed for his creativity, theatricality, and virtuosity. An “eclectic with wide open ears” (Toronto Star), Bermel is acclaimed for music that is “intricate, witty, clear-spoken, tender, and extraordinarily beautiful [and] covers an amazing amount of ground, from the West African rhythms of Dust Dances to the Bulgarian folk strains of Thracian Echoes, to the shimmering harmonic splendor of Elixir. In the hands of a composer less assured, all that globe-trotting would seem like an affectation; Bermel makes it an artistic imperative.” (San Francisco Chronicle).  

His engagement with myriad musical cultures has become part of the fabric and force of his compositional language. In addition to his role as Artistic Director of American Composers Orchestra, he is also Director of Copland House’s CULTIVATE emerging composers’ institute, served for four-years as Artist-in-Residence at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study and is Curator of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music (Bowdoin International Music Festival). Recognized as a dynamic and unconventional curator and creator, his work has been performed by renowned artists worldwide. His commissioners have included the Pittsburgh, National, Saint Louis, New Jersey, Boston, and Pacific Symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles, New Century, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, WNYC Radio, eighth blackbird, the Guarneri and JACK Quartets, Seattle and La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Music from Copland House and Music from China, FIGURA (Denmark) Ensembles, Midori, ASKO/Schoenberg Ensemble and Veenfabriek (Netherlands).

As The Boston Globe wrote, “There doesn't seem to be anything that Bermel can't do with the clarinet.” As a performer he has worked with a dizzyingly eclectic array of artists, including as soloist alongside Wynton Marsalis in his own Migration Series, commissioned by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and American Composers Orchestra. Bermel’s clarinet concerto Voices premiered at Carnegie Hall, with the composer as soloist, and he has performed the critically acclaimed work with more than a dozen orchestras, including the BBC Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival. His performance of Voices with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project led to a Grammy-nominated recording for Best Soloist with Orchestra. Founding clarinetist of the acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble, Bermel’s chamber music appearances also include performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Borromeo, Pacifica, and JACK quartets; festivals including Moab, Fontana, Cape Cod, and Salt Bay; the Cliburn Series at the Modern, Carmel and Albuquerque Chamber Music Series, Garth Newel Center, Seattle Town Hall, and Louisville Chamber Music Society. He has collaborated on several film scores, and with artists such as playwright Will Eno, installation artist Shimon Attie, choreographer Sheron Wray, poet Wendy S. Walters, and hip hop legend Yasiin Bey (Mos Def).

Bermel's many honors include the Alpert Award in the Arts, Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, commissions from the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations, and residencies at Yaddo, Tanglewood, Aspen, Banff, Bellagio, Copland House, Sacatar, and Civitella Ranieri.

About George Manahan, ACO Music Director

ACO’s Music Director, the wide-ranging and versatile George Manahan, has had an esteemed career embracing everything from opera to the concert stage, the traditional to the contemporary. He is also the Music Director of Portland Opera (OR), previously served as Music Director of New York City Opera for fourteen seasons, and has appeared as guest conductor with the Opera Companies of Seattle, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Chicago, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera National du Paris and Teatro de Communale de Bologna and the National, New Jersey, Atlanta, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis Symphonies, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. In 2013, Manahan was awarded the Alice M. Ditson Award for his outstanding commitment to the work of emerging composers, and was honored four times by the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) for his commitment to 20th-century music during his tenure as Music Director of the Richmond Symphony (VA).

Dedicated to the music of our time, he has led premieres of Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne, Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories, David Lang’s Modern Painters, Hans Werner Henze’s The English Cat, Terence Blanchard’s Champion, the New York premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner, and Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Karpman’s Grammy Award winning Ask Your Mama, a collaboration with soprano Jessye Norman, The Roots, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Recent seasons have included appearances at Santa Fe Opera, Rose Theater at Lincoln Center in a concert performance of Gluck’s Alceste featuring Deborah Voigt, Music Academy of the West, and the Aspen Music Festival. The Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of his New York City Opera production of Madame Butterfly won an Emmy Award.

Manahan’s discography includes the Grammy-nominated recording of Edward Thomas' Desire Under the Elms with the London Symphony, and Steve Reich’s Tehillim on the EMI-Warner Brothers label. He is Director of Orchestral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music as well as a frequent guest conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music.

About ACO

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. 

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.

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.