December 16, 2002 Contact: Paula Mlyn

Director and Conductor Joel Sachs opens Focus! 2003 with the New Juilliard Ensemble on Friday, January 24 at 8 PM with works by Lou Harrison, Dorrance Stalvey, Robert Kyr, Melissa Hui, and featuring Virko Baley’s Violin Concerto No. 1, quasi una fantasia with Juilliard violinst JongEun Lee

Guest Conductor Reinbert de Leeuw leads the Juilliard Symphony on Friday, January 31, at 8 PM in a program featuring a special performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 with the Juilliard Choral Union, Judith Clurman, director and Daniel Gross, Narrator Works of John Adams, Lou Harrison, and Chinary Ung also are featured

Other FOCUS! 2003 performances include chamber music of John Cage, Henry Cowell, Joan La Barbara, Pia Gilbert, Leon Kirchner, William Kraft, Darius Milhaud, Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley, Roger Reynolds, and Igor Stravinsky, among others from Tuesday, January 28 through Thursday January 30.

FOCUS! 2003, taking place Friday January 24 through Friday, January 31, marks Juilliard’s nineteenth annual festival of contemporary music directed by Joel Sachs. This year the festival surveys music Beyond the Rockies and pays a belated 85th birthday tribute to composer Lou Harrison by exploring the music of the Western United States and Canada. FOCUS! 2003 includes music from the last hundred years, including composers such as Henry Brant, Henry Cowell, John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Dane Rudhyar among others. It also includes works by the refugees from Nazi Europe such as Stravinsky, Schoenberg (whose A Survivor from Warsaw will be featured on the concluding concert), Krenek, and Juilliard faculty member Pia Gilbert, as well as an electic group of more contemporary composers such as John Adams, Virko Baley, Robert Erickson, Melissa Hui, Joan La Barbara, Roger Reynolds, Terry Riley, Chinary Ung, Joji Yuasa, plus others and more.

Beyond the Rockies begins on Friday, January 24 at 8 PM in the Juilliard Theater with a concert featuring the New Juilliard Ensemble conducted by Joel Sachs. The program includes Lou Harrison’s Concerto in slendro, a work dating from 1961, that is scored for violin, and celesta, two tack pianos (pianos with thumbtacks in the hammers), "ranch triangles" (used to summon ranch hands for dinner), washtubs, garbage cans, plumber’s pipes, and claves (hardwood sticks), as well as ordinary triangles and gongs. In this work the violin soloist’s role lies somewhere between that of the Asian ensemble player and the Western concert virtuoso. Originally performed with just intonation, (which requires the composer’s specially tuned celesta), this performance is played with tempered tuning. Other works programmed include two New York premieres: Dorrance Stalvey’s Celebration Sequent I, and Melissa Hui’s Foreign Affairs; Robert Kyr’s Elements of Time and Wonder (Chamber Symphony No. 3) also is scheduled. Finally, Virko Baley’s Violin Concerto No. 1, quasi una fantasia with Juilliard violin soloist JongEun Lee rounds out the program. An American composer of Ukrainian descent, Virko Baley studied with Earle Voorhies and Morris Ruger; he also studied piano with Rosina Lhevinne and composition with Donald Erb and Mario Davidovsky. His music frequently refers to Ukrainian folk songs and this first violin concerto, conceived as a fantasy, includes these folk elements and explores orchestral textures using instruments such as celeste, vibraphone, harpsichord, and, in its final movement, muted jazz trumpet. Mr. Baley’s Violin Concerto No. 1 was recorded by the New Juilliard Ensemble with violinist Tom Chiu for the Cambria label

During the following week, FOCUS! 2003 presents four nights of chamber and solo music from Monday, January 27 through Thursday, January 30, 2003. The first concert includes Henry Brant’s Four Doctors in a world premiere version for trombones, Pablo Ortiz’s Five little Milanguitas, John Luther Adams’, Red Arc/Blue Veil,Lou Harrison’s Pieces for Solo Cello, John Cage’s Bacchanale, Morton Subotnick’s Axolotl, for cello and electronic ghost score, Joan La Barbara’s Sunbird’s Dance, Into the Light, and Igor Stravinsky’s Septet. Tuesday evening begins at 7 PM with a roundtable discussion on "Western Music" with composers Roger Reynolds and Walter Blanton. The concert follows at 8 PM with a program that includes Darius Milhaud’s String Quartet No. 13, Op. 268, Robert Erickson’s, High Flyer, Jocelyn Morlock’s Lacrimosa, the world premiere of Walter Blanton’s Jackson Street After Dark, selections from Lou Harrison’s Six Cembalo Sonatas, the U.S. premiere of Roger Reynolds’ Process and Passion for violin, cello, and live electronics, and Terry Riley’s Cinco de Mayo. On Wednesday evening the program features Elinor Armer’s Oasis, an excerpt from Alvin Curran’s Schtyx, William Kraft’s Momentum, Lou Harrison’s Varied Trio, the New York premiere of Yumiko Morita’s Bamboo Bending in the Snow, Gordon Mumma’s 5 from the Sushi Box, a work by Dane Rudhyar, and Spirals and Interpolations by Juilliard faculty member and composer Pia Gilbert. Thursday evening’s concert includes Leon Kirchner’s Duo for Violin and Piano, Henry Cowell’s Three piano pieces, Ernst Krenek’s Sonata for Harp, Op. 150, Lou Harrison’s Suite for Cello and Harp, as well as Janice Giteck’s Agrarian Chants, Seán Heim’s sö pa, Joji Yuasa’s Viola Locus, and the U.S. premiere of Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez’s Cinco para cuatro.

The concluding concert of FOCUS! 2003, takes place on Friday, January 31 at 8 PM in the Juilliard Theater. Dutch conductor Reinbert de Leeuw, the noted specialist in contemporary music who led the concluding concert of last year’s festival, returns to conduct the Juilliard Symphony in a program which includes John Adams’ Slonimsky’s Earbox, the New York premiere of Chinary Ung’s Grand Spiral - Desert Flowers Bloom; two works by Lou Harrison - A Parade (1995) and his Elegiac Symphony (1941-45; revised 1988); and, finally, a special performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46, featuring the Juilliard Choral Union under the direction of Judith Clurman with Daniel Gross, narrator.

Both the Harrison and Schoenberg pieces share two common themes: they both are memorial works and the Koussevitzky Foundation funded both works’ completion. The original sketches for the Elegiac Symphony date from 1942 but the work was first completed in 1975 on a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation and again revised in 1988. While the Symphony was written in memory of Natalie and Serge Koussetitzky, it also commemorates the deaths of Harrison’s mother, and the composer Harry Partch. The third movement, contains two solo double basses who play an extended duet - a fitting tribute to Koussevitzky - a double-bassist and composer, as well as conductor. In 1947, the idea for A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46, started with a musical fragment from a Partisan song, which was sent to Schoenberg by dancer, teacher, and choreographer Corinne Chochem. In correspondence to Ms. Chochem, Schoenberg wrote, "I plan to make it this scene - which you described - in the Warsaw Ghetto, how the doomed Jews started singing, before going to die." Due to financial constraints, the project foundered until Schoenberg received a commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, which allowed him to complete the unfinished work. Scored for small orchestra, men’s chorus, and a narrator, A Survivor from Warsaw made its debut in Albuquerque, New Mexico with the Albuquerque Civic Orchestra under the direction of conductor Kurt Frederick on November 4, 1948.

ALL FOCUS! FESTIVAL concerts are FREE. FREE tickets are required for Friday, January 24 and Friday, January 31 performances and are available beginning January 10, 2003 at the Juilliard Box Office, located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Concerts on scheduled for Monday, January 27 through Thursday, January 30 are FREE and no tickets are required. The Juilliard Box Office is open Monday through Friday, from 11 AM to 6 PM. For more information, please call (212) 769-7406.