By JOEL SACHS

Although the full New Juilliard Ensemble gets into motion with its concert on September 24 in the Juilliard Theater, this summer was busy for some members and graduates who were in New York. On July 17, Summergarden returned to the Museum of Modern Art's sculpture garden after the hiatus for the museum's reconstruction. I had the pleasure of directing the festival from 1993 until MoMA closed in 2001, and felt the tension of wondering if it would be revived when the new building opened. Happily, MoMA decided that music should play a continuing role in its offerings. The 2005 installment was a test run to see how music fits into the new configuration of the building.

The late composer Valentin Bibik's Fifth Quartet was premiered at MoMA's Summergarden concerts this summer. (Photo by Virko Baley)

Summergarden underwent major changes. Whereas the earlier version consisted entirely of new concert music, this year Juilliard new-music players and Jazz at Lincoln Center appeared on six alternate weekends. The overall schedule also changed. In the past, each program was performed on Friday and Saturday evenings as a service to the public and protection against losing a program to bad weather. (We had one double rain-out in 1996.) Whereas the old building had no indoor space to which concerts could be moved, the impressive new lobby is ideal for indoor performances, with a natural stage formed by stairs at the giant window into the sculpture garden. Since the concerts are therefore protected, there was only one performance of each program, on Sunday evenings.

At first I feared that audiences would not come on Sunday nights. In previous years, Friday concerts all began just as the museum closed, and hordes of art lovers filled the sculpture garden to experience what for some was their first concert of modern music. Their enthusiasm made the concerts a real victory. Now, however, MoMA draws such crowds that it feared seeing thousands of people trying to crowd into the garden. While I was amused by the thought of new-music concerts being mobbed, the risk is unacceptable. Furthermore, even if one could control the crowds, it was not possible to close off the garden for the several hours needed to set up the performance. Now the setup is done between closing time and concert time. And, happily, the garden was packed. An added advantage of Sunday night is a much quieter ambience, with less street noise.

Brian Ferneyhough, some of whose chamber music was performed at the 2005 Lincoln Center Festival by members and graduates of the New Juilliard Ensemble. (Photo by Dylan Collard)

To unify the jazz and "classical" new-music performances and create a thematic tie between Summergarden and the new MoMA building, we decided to program only music new to New York—"New MoMA, New Music," we called it. Facing an immense repertory of works that have never been done here, I decided to present very recent music, subject to budgetary and logistical factors that limit the number of performers. The opening program offered music for piano and strings: a piano trio by Azerbaijani composer Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, a piano quintet by Tajik-Israeli Benjamin Yusupov, and piano quartets by Gerald Barry (Ireland), Paul Schoenfield (U.S.), and Roberto Sierra (Puerto Rico/U.S.). The second program utilized flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, piano, and marimba in various combinations for works by Snorri Sigfus Birgisson (Iceland), Chen Yi (China/U.S.), Paul Desenne (Venezuela), Zoltan Jeney (Hungary), Ushio Torikai (Japan/U.S.), Vu Nhat Tan (Vietnam), and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan). For the final program, the Attacca Quartet (comprised of four Juilliard undergraduates) performed works by Valentin Bibik (Ukraine/Israel), Akira Nishimura (Japan), Joel Spiegelman (U.S.), Eric Tanguy (France), and Suren Zakarian (Armenia). This program included the world premiere of Bibik's Fifth Quartet, which he never heard; he died in 2003 at the age of 63. Joel Spiegelman's Fantasy No. 1, the one older composition in the festival, is more than 40 years old but had never been done in this city.

Members and graduates of the New Juilliard Ensemble also returned to the extraordinarily varied Lincoln Center Festival. As in three recent summers, the ensemble presented chamber music by the composer of the festival's featured opera. Past composers were Salvatore Sciarrino (in two festivals), Guo Wenjing, and Bright Sheng. This year the composer was Brian Ferneyhough. Known for its extreme intricacy, Ferneyhough's music makes unprecedented performance demands. In addition to requiring the highest virtuosity, he presents rhythmic challenges that have to be seen in the score to be believed. Yet the result, far from artificial, is exciting, constantly varied, and colorful. In order to create a diverse program taking into account budgetary limitations, I selected two solo pieces (the flute solo Carceri d'invenzione IIb and the piano solo Lemma-Icon-Epigram); one piece utilizing electronic technology (the phenomenal Time and Motion Study II for cello and live electronics); and the chamber concerto Terrain, for violin and eight players. The soloists were flutist John McMurtery (D.M.A. '05), cellist Christopher Gross (a current master's student), pianist Stephen Gosling (D.M.A. '00), and violinist David Fulmer (a dual major in composition and violin). It was gratifying to see spectacular reviews and a packed Paul Hall, with an overflow group including standees watching on a video monitor in the lobby. A great moment for high modernism, as The New York Times put it.

Music by Jack Beeson will be performed at the New Juilliard Ensemble concert on September 24. (Photo by Dietrich Dettmann)

The third event of the summer was completion of editing for the CD recorded by members of the N.J.E. and the Manson Ensemble of the Royal Academy of Music (London) at the time of their joint project last October. To be issued by the Academy, the CD contains works by composition students and recent graduates of the two schools, along with Webern's Concerto, Op. 21, the jumping-off point for the composers. Juilliard composers in the project were Justin Messina, Nico Muhly, and Sean Shepherd.

On September 24, the N.J.E.'s 13th season kicks off in the Juilliard Theater. This traditional location for the September program was initially threatened because the stage is covered by a gigantic ramp built for Eliot Feld's dance program the following week. Fortunately, it occurred to me that the ramp would not submerge the theater's orchestra pit elevator, because the dance program will use live music. Once the blueprints for the ramp were finalized, it was clear that the New Juilliard Ensemble would fit in the available downstage space, with access to the wings for loading percussion in and out.

New Juilliard Ensemble Juilliard Theater Saturday, Sept. 24, 8 p.m. Free tickets available Sept. 9 in the Juilliard Box Office.

For the School's centennial, the New Juilliard Ensemble will draw exclusively upon the dozens of compositions written for it since its birth in 1993. That repertory continues to grow: the 2005-06 season will feature six world premieres. We sincerely regret that only a fraction of the pieces composed for the N.J.E. can be programmed this year, and hope that the unrepresented composers will not be offended. The September 24 program comprises works by Jack Beeson (U.S.), Kenji Bunch (U.S.), Valentin Bibik (Ukraine/Israel), John Psathas (New Zealand), and Suren Zakarian (Armenia).

Joel Sachs, director of the New Juilliard Ensemble and the annual Focus! festival, has been a faculty member since 1970.