Juilliard's new music ensemble, AXIOM, celebrates the music of Luciano Berio in first of three-concert season on Monday, October 13 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Tribute to Luciano Berio features composer's virtuosic Sequenzas, as well as "Corale," "Circles," and "Points on the curve to find"

AXIOM, Juilliard’s newest ensemble focusing on the works of the 21st century, led by conductor Jeffrey Milarsky, presents A Tribute to Luciano Berio for its first of three-concert season on Monday, October 13 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 West 65th Street). AXIOM celebrates Mr. Berio, one of the most influential Italian composers after 1950, who also was a member of the Juilliard faculty from 1965 until 1971 and taught at Harvard, Tanglewood, and Mills College. Mr. Berio co-founded, with Bruno Maderna, the Studio di Fonologia Musicale for electronic music at RAI in Milan in 1953 and served as its director from 1953-1961. He was director of the electroacoustic department at IRCAM in Paris from 1974-1980 and founded the center for live electronics, Centro Tempo Reale, in Florence in 1987 and served as its artistic director from 1987-2003. Luciano Berio served as president and artistic director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome from 2000-2003 (after serving as its interim director from 1999-2000).

Conductor and AXIOM’s Music Director Jeffrey Milarsky remarked: “Luciano Berio’s music is an interplay between experimentation with electronica, and with intense imagination where he adapts styles to create a collage effect. Berio’s music is both inspiring and evocative, and the students of AXIOM are cherishing this opportunity to perform the works of this modern day genius.”

The all-Berio program features Sequenza I (flute) (1958); Corale (1981); Sequenza VII (oboe) (1969); Circles (1961); Sequenza XIV (cello); and Points on the curve to find (1974). Berio’s Sequenza cycle is a sequence of fourteen pieces composed for various solo instruments, with the first one composed in 1958 and the last one in 2000. The Corale is based on Sequenza VIII; Berio often adapted and transformed the music of others and also adapted his own compositions. Circles is written for voice, harp, and percussion instruments and uses the words of an e.e. Cummings poem. Points on the curve to find features piano and small orchestra.
      
FREE tickets are available beginning September 29 at the Juilliard Box Office, newly relocated to Juilliard’s renovated lobby at 155 West 65th Street. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday, from 11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.

AXIOM performs the music of Olivier Messiaen on Saturday, December 13 at 8 PM at the Miller Theatre as part of Columbia University’s Composer Portraits series. A concert featuring the music of John Adams, Magnus Lindberg, and Steve Reich on Monday, March 30 at 8 PM in the newly-renovated Alice Tully Hall concludes the season.

AXIOM is the newest addition to Juilliard’s roster of performing ensembles formed by student initiative in 2005. This new chamber ensemble, led by Music Director and Juilliard alumnus Jeffrey Milarsky, is dedicated to performing the masterworks of the 21st-century repertoire. AXIOM is comprised of a flexible roster of current Juilliard students and recent graduates. In December 2006, James Conlon conducted the ensemble’s debut performance in Avery Fisher Hall featuring the music of Schoenberg and Debussy. AXIOM was selected to collaborate with the Juilliard Dance Division as part of their Spring Dances at Juilliard performances in March 2007 and 2008. They also have collaborated with the Juilliard Music Technology Center for the annual Beyond the Machine concert series in Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater. AXIOM was the featured ensemble for Miller Theatre’s celebration of Elliott Carter’s 99th birthday in December 2007, performing the New York stage premiere of his opera, What Next? AXIOM concluded its 2007-08 performance season with Beyond the Machine 8.0: The Groove Collective on May 3, 2008 at the Miller Theatre.

The newest member of Juilliard’s conducting faculty, Jeffrey Milarsky is a leading conductor of contemporary music in New York City. In the United States and abroad, he has premiered and recorded works by contemporary composers including Charles Wuorinen, Fred Lerdahl, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Lasse Thoresen, Gerard Grisey, Jonathan Dawe, Tristan Murail, Ralph Shapey, Luigi Nono, Mario Davidovsky, and Wolfgang Rihm. His wide ranging repertoire, which spans from Bach to Xenakis, has brought him to lead such accomplished groups as the American Composers Orchestra, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Manhattan Sinfonietta, Speculum Musicae, and Cygnus Ensemble, The Fromm Players of Harvard University, The Composers’ Ensemble at Princeton University, and the New York Philharmonic chamber music series. He has been music director of AXIOM since its founding in 2005. Mr. Milarsky is a much-in-demand percussionist who has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, among many ensembles.

FOR LISTINGS:
Monday, October 13, 8 PM, Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 West 65th Street
AXIOM
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor
Sequenza I (flute)
Corale
Sequenza VII (oboe)
Circles
Sequenza XIV (cello)
Points on the curve to find
FREE tickets are available beginning September 29 at the Juilliard Box Office. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or visit www.juilliard.edu.

Saturday, December 13, 8 PM
Composers Portraits
Miller Theatre at Columbia University, 2960 Broadway at 116th Street
AXIOM
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor
All-Messiaen program:
Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964)
Sept haikai (1962)
Couleurs de la cité céleste (1963)
FREE concert: no tickets required

Monday, March 30, 8 PM, Alice Tully Hall, Broadway and 65th Street
AXIOM
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor
Steve Reich - Eight Lines (1983)
John Adams - Chamber Symphony (1992)
Magnus Lindberg – Corrente (1992)
FREE tickets available beginning March 16 at the Juilliard Box Office. For further information, call
(212) 769-7406 or visit www.juilliard.edu.