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Summergarden Is Back at MoMA For nine summers until the Museum of Modern Art closed in May 2002 for an $858 million renovation, it had been host to Summergarden—a series of free outdoor concerts of recent music performed by Juilliard musicians on Friday and Saturday nights throughout the summer season. During the first year of the reconstruction, the series moved 10 blocks south, to Bryant Park, but was subsequently suspended altogether. MoMA's building on West 53rd Street reopened to the public in November 2004, and this year, the museum's newly expanded Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden will once again be the site of the Summergarden concerts.
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| MoMA's recently renovated Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at night. (Photo by Timothy Hursley) |
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The format of the series will differ from past years, and will allow the museum—and audiences—to test the way the reconfigured garden functions. Instead of two weekly concerts, this year there will be six concerts on Sunday evenings beginning on July 17, three of them presented in collaboration with Juilliard and three with Jazz at Lincoln Center. Once again, Joel Sachs, a Juilliard faculty member and director of the New Juilliard Ensemble, will direct the Juilliard portion.In a New York Times review in August 1998, critic Anthony Tommasini wrote: "The reason these free contemporary-music concerts continue to attract such large and enthusiastic audiences was clear on Saturday night: Joel Sachs, the artistic director of the series, knows how to put together programs that are challenging and engrossing, with excellent players from the Juilliard School, where Mr. Sachs teaches."In order to unify the contribution of the jazz and "classical" programs, Sachs says, this year the emphasis will be on premieres, and it is hoped that all of the pieces in the Juilliard portion will be heard in New York for the first time. The repertory will be drawn from composers all over the world.The Juilliard programs will take place on July 17 and 31, and August 14; Jazz at Lincoln Center's concerts will be held on July 24, and August 7 and 21. Juilliard students interested in performing in Summergarden should contact Joel Sachs by e-mail at jsachs@juilliard.edu.
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