The New Juilliard Ensemble, led by Joel Sachs, opens Juilliard's and its own 2008-2009 concert season on Saturday, September 27 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater

The New Juilliard Ensemble, led by Joel Sachs, opens Juilliard’s 2008-2009 season of performances on Saturday, September 27, 2008 with a program featuring the world premiere of Roumen Balyozov’s (Bulgaria) Juilliard Concerto (2008); the Western Hemisphere premieres of Balázs Horváth’s (Hungary)Poly (2007), Jonathan Harvey’s (U.K.) Sprechgesang (2007) with Toni Marie Marchioni on oboe and English horn, and Atli Heimir Sveinsson’s (Iceland) Icerapp; and the New York premiere of Frederic Rzewski’s (U.S./Belgium) Bring Them Home! (2004). This concert, which takes place in Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 W. 65th St.), also starts the New Juilliard Ensemble season, and with some luck will mark the reopening of Juilliard’s fully-renovated building lobby on 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.

FREE tickets for the concert on September 27 are available beginning September 12 at the Juilliard Box Office, also relocated, it is hoped, to the School’s same street-level main lobby by that time. If not, please look for the box office’s temporary blue trailer on Plaza Level, adjacent to the Juilliard building, Monday through Friday, from 11 AM – 6 PM. The trailer Box Office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. For more information, please call (212) 769-7406 or visit www.juilliard.edu.   
      
The New Juilliard Ensemble season continues on Wednesday, November 19 with works by Gilbert Amy, Milton Babbitt, Jack Beeson, Jakub Ciupinski, Raminte Šerkšnyté, and Aleksandr Shechtynsky, and concludes on Friday, April 3 with works by Barrett Ansbach, Stefano Gervasoni, Martin Matalon, Betty Olivero, and Manuel Sosa. Concerts take place at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp (155 West 65th Street). The New Juilliard Ensemble, led by Joel Sachs, also opens Juilliard’s FOCUS! 2009 Festival – CALIFORNIA: A Century of New Music - on Friday, January 23 at 8 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Juilliard’s season continues with a typical variety of performances in October, including Juilliard Jazz Ensembles with guest artist Mulgrew Miller, October 1; the Juilliard Orchestra in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater with Nicholas McGegan on October 2 and James DePreist on October 10; Juilliard instrumentalists in an October 2 Sonatenabend; the start of Juilliard’s annual faculty series on October 7 with a performance by the American Brass Quintet; and a concert by AXIOM on October 13. Additional press releases will be sent soon.
 
About the New Juilliard Ensemble’s September 27 Program:

Roumen Balyozov’s Juilliard Concerto has its world premiere on this concert. Composer Roumen Balyozov graduated from the State Academy of Music in Bulgaria, where he studied violoncello with Konstantin Popov and composition with Dimiter Tapkov. Since 1974, he has been cellist with the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony. He has composed works for various genres and was the recipient of three awards from the Union of Bulgarian Composers and an award from the Ministry of Culture and Education.

Balázs Horváth was born in Budapest in 1976. He studied composition at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, where he received his degree with honors (summa cum laude) in 1999. He finished his DLA in composition at the Liszt Academy in 2005, while teaching there as well. Mr. Horváth’s compositions have been performed in Hungary and abroad, and his work was featured on Juilliard’s FOCUS! 2007 Festival: The Magyar Legacy. His featured work on this program, Poly, won the 1st prize at the “In Memoriam György Ligeti” composition contest in Berlin in 2007. Mr. Horváth regularly appears as conductor and performer at special occasions and performances of contemporary pieces.

Jonathan Harvey’s Sprechgesang was written for oboe, English horn, and chamber ensemble and was commissioned by the Klangforum Wien, Asko Ensemble, and musikFabrik. The work had its first performance on April 15, 2007 in Cologne, Germany. Mr. Harvey has a truly global reputation, particularly for his work in the field of electro-acoustic music. (He has been commissioned by IRCAM on eight separate occasions.) He is considered one of the most skilled and imaginative composers using the electronic medium today. Mr. Harvey has also composed for most other genres. He is frequently featured at all major European music festivals and is composer-in-residence at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Atli Heimir Sveinsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1938. He studied piano at Reykjavik College of Music and received his diploma in 1957. He also holds a degree from Icelandic University. Mr. Sveinsson founded the composition program at Reykjavik College of Music. In addition, he was a producer for Icelandic State Broadcasting Service where he produced a popular show on musical history. In 1976, he was awarded the Nordic Music Prize for his Flute Concerto; the award is given biannually by the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Finland). In 1980, he founded Dark Music Days, a festival for contemporary Icelandic music. Mr. Sveinsson was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1993. His works include operas, chamber and orchestral music, choral music and songs, and music for the theater, and have been widely performed in Europe and overseas.  

Frederic Rzewski’s Bring Them Home! (2004) for two pianos and two percussion, was commissioned by the Music 2004 festival at the University of Cincinnati. It consists of 17 episodes based on the late 17th century Irish song, “Siuil, a Run.” The song was made popular by soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. The song has been adapted to changing situations of war over the last three centuries. The theme, which remains the same, is about a young woman who sings to her absent lover, who has gone to war and may never return. The Gaelic refrain offers some ray of hope. Frederic Rzewski was born in Westfield, Massachusetts in 1938. He studied music first with Charles Mackey of Springfield and later with Walter Piston, Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt at Harvard and Princeton Universities. In addition, he studied composition with privately with Luigi Dallapiccola in Rome in 1960. Mr. Rzewski’s works of chamber, vocal, and piano works have been performed throughout the world; he also is active as a pianist. He has taught at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège (1977-2003), where he was professor of composition from 1983-2003. He also taught at Yale, the University of Cinninati-Conservatory of Music, SUNY at Buffalo, California Institute of the Arts, and the University of California at San Diego.

The New Juilliard Ensemble (NJE), led by founding director Joel Sachs, celebrates the liveliness of today’s music, focusing primarily on repertory of the last decade. Now in its 16th season, NJE presents music by a variety of international composers writing in the most diverse styles. Its members are current students at Juilliard, who are admitted to the ensemble by audition. Student interest in the ensemble’s work has been so great that more than 100 students participate every year, although the maximum size of compositions is normally 15-20 players. The ensemble appears regularly in MoMA’s Summergarden festival and has been a featured ensemble four times at the Lincoln Center Festival, playing the music of Brian Ferneyhough, Guo Wenjing, Bright Sheng, and Salvatore Sciarrino to packed houses and rave reviews. 
       
In January 2008 at Juilliard’s FOCUS! Festival: All About Elliott, celebrating Elliott Carter’s 100th year, members of the New Juilliard Ensemble performed jointly with members of the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble, conducted by Pierre Boulez. The combined ensembles will be heard again at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland this summer.

New Juilliard Ensemble founder and director Joel Sachs performs a vast range of traditional and contemporary music as conductor and pianist and is co-director of the internationally acclaimed new-music ensemble Continuum. Dr. Sachs has appeared in hundreds of performances in New York, nationally, and internationally. He has held new-music residencies in Berlin at the Hochschule der Künste, London at Trinity College of Music, Salzburg at the Hochschule Mozarteum, and at the School of Music and Fine Arts, and at the annual Oficina de Musica in Curitiba (Brazil). During the last few years he conducted the distinguished Icelandic contemporary music ensemble Caput in a program of music from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United States, and Iceland, and a concert of music by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, and also recorded a CD of works by the Icelandic composer Askell Masson. June 2008 marked his sixth visit to Mongolia. In March, 2009 he will be in residence at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Joel Sachs’ recordings appear on the Advance, CRI, Naxos, New Albion, Nonesuch, and TNC labels. A CD of music of the Americas with La Camerata de las Americas (Mexico City) was released by Dorian. 
       
One of the most active presenters of contemporary music concerts in New York, Joel Sachs founded the New Juilliard Ensemble in 1993. He produces and directs Juilliard’s annual FOCUS! Festival, has been artistic director of Juilliard’s concerts at MoMA’s Summergarden festival since 1993, and also was a co-director of the Sonic Boom festival of contemporary music presented by a consortium of New York City’s most prestigious new-music ensembles. 
       
An active music historian, Dr. Sachs, who is a member of Juilliard’s music history faculty and was the first chairman of its music history department, currently is writing a biography of the American composer Henry Cowell, to be published by Oxford University Press. He appears on radio as a commentator on recent music and has been a regular delegate to Netherlands Music Days and other international music conferences.       

FOR LISTINGS:

Saturday, September 27, 2008, 8 PM
The Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 West 65th Street

New Juilliard Ensemble
Joel Sachs, conductor
Toni Marie Marchioni, oboe/English horn

Roumen Balyozov Juilliard Concerto (2008) (world premiere)
Jonathan Harvey  Sprechgesang (2007) (Western Hemisphere premiere)
Balázs Horváth  Poly (2007) (Western Hemisphere premiere)
Atli Heimir Sveinsson Icerapp (Western Hemisphere premiere)
Frederic Rzewski  Bring Them Home! (2004) (New York premiere)

FREE tickets are available beginning September 12 at the Juilliard Box Office, currently located in a blue trailer at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. The box office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. The box office will relocate to Juilliard’s new lobby at 155 West 65th Street this fall. For more information and construction updates, call (212) 769-7406 or visit www.juilliard.edu.