New Juilliard Ensemble, Led by Joel Sachs, Performs Premieres on October 3, 2017, at 7:30pm in Peter Jay Sharp Theater

NEW YORK –– The New Juilliard Ensemble, led by founder and director Joel Sachs, performs premieres by John Woolrich, Gerald Barry, Raminta Šerkšnytė, and Akira Nishimura at its opening concert on Tuesday, October 3, 2017, at 7:30pm in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The program features John Woolrich’s (U.K.) The Devil in the Clock (2012, first performance outside the U.K.) and After the Clock (2005, first performance outside the U.K.); Gerald Barry’s (Ireland) Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions (2008-09, New York premiere); Raminta Šerkšnytė’s (Lithuania) Almond Blossom (2006, U.S. premiere); and Akira Nishimura’s (Japan) Chamber Symphony No. 1 (2003, Western Hemisphere premiere).

Free tickets for the New Juilliard Ensemble concert will be available beginning September 18 at juilliard.edu/calendar.

About the Composers and the Program

John Woolrich studied English literature at Manchester University and composition with Edward Cowie at Lancaster University. He founded and directed a new-music group called the Composers Ensemble and a London festival called Hoxton New Music Days, and he has been composer in association with both the Orchestra of St. John’s Smith Square and the Britten Sinfonia. His collaborations with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group led to his appointment, along with Oliver Knussen, as artist in association. He was guest artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival in 2004 and associate artistic director of the festival 2005 to 2010. From 2010 to 2013 Woolrich was both artistic director of Dartington International Summer School and professor of music at Brunel University. He has had a string of orchestral commissions. Woolrich’s The Devil in the Clock was one of 10 works commissioned by the BBC to be performed in 10 locations in South Kensington, London. After the Clock was written for the London Sinfonietta. The piece’s title comes from a poem by the surrealist artist Jean (Hans) Arp.

Gerald Barry attended University College in Dublin and continued his studies with Peter Schat in Amsterdam and Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne. He has received many commissions from British and continental orchestras and opera companies as well as the BBC and Channel 4 television (U.K.). His operas include The Importance of Being Earnest, jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Barbican Centre; Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, with soprano Barbara Hannigan as Alice, first performed in Los Angeles and in London at the Barbican. His newest piece, Canada, for voice and orchestra, commissioned by the BBC for the 2017 Proms concerts, premiered on August 21 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions was co-commissioned by the London Sinfonietta and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Feldman's was a music shop in London in the early 20th century that sold collections of popular music, some of which were called Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions. The composer writes: “Collections like these were among my first feverish encounters with music as a boy.”

Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė began her musical training as a pianist and studied music theory and composition at the Naujalis Gymnasium in Kaunas. She attended the Lithuanian Academy of Music. She has received fellowships for study and creative work in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Brazil, and won numerous prizes in Lithuania. Performers of her music include Kremerata Baltica, Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the Juilliard Orchestra, the violinist Irvine Arditti and the Arditti Quartet, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, and the New Juilliard Ensemble. Almond Blossom was commissioned by the New Music Concerts, Toronto. It was premiered at a concert titled Baltic Currents in the Glenn Gould Studio by the New Music Concerts ensemble conducted by Robert Aitken. It has also been performed in Vilnius, Zagreb, and Ghent by Lithuanian and Belgian groups. The composer was inspired by one of Van Gogh’s last paintings, Almond Blossom.

Akira Nishimura studied composition and music theory at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1977, he won the first of his numerous later prize winnings at the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium International Music Composition Competition with Heterophony for string quartet and the Luigi Dallapiccola Composition Award with Mutazioni. He has been composer in residence of the Orchestra-Ensemble Kanazawa and of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, composer in residence to the Yamagata Symphony, and music director of Osaka’s Izumi Sinfonietta and the Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy and Festival. His three chamber symphonies were commissioned by the Izumi Sinfonietta, which requested one piece per year. Chamber Symphony No. 1 was first performed at Izumi Hall, Osaka, in 2003 with Norichika Iimori conducting. All three symphonies have been recorded by the I.S.O. on the Camerata label.

About Joel Sachs

Joel Sachs, founder and director of the New Juilliard Ensemble, performs a vast range of traditional and contemporary music as conductor and pianist. As co-director of the internationally acclaimed new music ensemble Continuum, he has appeared in hundreds of performances in New York, nationally, and throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He has also conducted orchestras and ensembles in Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, El Salvador, Germany, Iceland, Mexico, Switzerland, and Ukraine, and has held new music residencies in Berlin, Shanghai, London, Salzburg, Curitiba (Brazil), Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (U.K.), Helsinki, and the Banff Centre (Canadian Rockies).

One of the most active presenters of new music in New York, Dr. Sachs founded New Juilliard Ensemble in 1993. He produces and directs Juilliard’s annual Focus! festival and has been artistic director of Juilliard’s concerts at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) since 1993.

A member of Juilliard's music history faculty, Dr. Sachs wrote the first full biography of the American composer Henry Cowell, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. He often appears on radio as a commentator on recent music and has been a regular delegate to Netherlands Music Days and other international music conferences.

A graduate of Harvard, Dr. Sachs received his PhD from Columbia University. In 2011, he was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard University for his work in support of new music, and received the National Gloria Artis Medal of the Polish Government for his service to Polish music. In 2002, he was given Columbia University’s Alice M. Ditson Award for his service to American music.

About the New Juilliard Ensemble

New Juilliard Ensemble (N.J.E.), led by founding director Joel Sachs and in its 25th season, presents music by a variety of international composers who write in the most diverse styles. Its members are current students at Juilliard, who are admitted to the ensemble by audition. More than 100 students participate each year, although the compositions normally call for 13-18 players. The ensemble appears regularly at MoMA’s Summergarden and has been a featured ensemble four times at the Lincoln Center Festival. It has premiered some 100 compositions.

Highlights of the 2016-17 season included music by Andrew Ford, Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, Tansy Davies, and Scott Wheeler; a program celebrating composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s 85th birthday year; and a closing concert with works by Juilliard composers Jonathan Cziner and Theo Chandler and composers Farangis Nurulla-Khoja; and Unsuk Chin.

In 2014, the New Juilliard Ensemble collaborated with Carnegie Hall on “UBUNTU: Music and Arts of South Africa.” A highlight of the 2013-14 season was a collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Bicentennial Celebration with the U.S. premieres of works by Magnus Lindberg and Judith Weir. In 2012, N.J.E. collaborated with Carnegie Hall on “Voices From Latin America”; in 2011, with Carnegie Hall’s “Japan/NYC” festival; and in 2009, with Carnegie Hall’s “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices” festival.

The New Juilliard Ensemble performs in Juilliard’s Focus! festival. Recent editions have included: “Our Southern Neighbors: The Music of Latin America” (2017); Milton Babbitt’s World: A Centennial Celebration” (2016); and “Nippon Gendai Ongaku: Japanese Music Since 1945” (2015).

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New Juilliard Ensemble, Led by Joel Sachs

2017-18 Calendar of Events

 

Tuesday, October 3, 2017, 7:30pm, Peter Jay Sharp Theater

New Juilliard Ensemble

Joel Sachs, conductor

 

John WOOLRICH (U.K.): The Devil in the Clock (2012, first performance outside the U.K.)

WOOLRICH: After the Clock (2005, first performance outside the U.K.)

Gerald BARRY (Ireland): Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions (2008-9, New York premiere)

Raminta ŠERKŠNYTĖ (Lithuania): Almond Blossom (2006, U.S. premiere)

Akira NISHIMURA (Japan): Chamber Symphony No. 1 (2003, Western Hemisphere premiere)

 

Tuesday, November 7, 2017, 7:30pm, Paul Hall

New Juilliard Ensemble

Joel Sachs, conductor

 

Mauricio KAGEL (Argentina/Germany): December 24, 1931 - - Garbled News for Baritone and Instruments (1988-1991)

Giya KANCHELI (Georgia/Belgium): Exil (1994)

 

Friday, January 19, 2018, 7:30pm, Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Opening night of Juilliard’s 2018 Focus! festival

“China Today: A Festival of Chinese Composition”

 

Shuci WANG (China): New work (2017, world premiere, composed for N.J.E.)

Liu SOLA (China): New work for virtual soprano and N.J.E. (2017, world premiere, composed for N.J.E.)

Additional works to be announced.

 

Saturday, April 28, 2018, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall

New Juilliard Ensemble

Joel Sachs, conductor

Singers and violist to be announced.

 

Sunbin Kevin KIM (Korea/U.S.): New work (2017-8, composed for N.J.E.)

Kolbeinn BJARNASON (Iceland) New work (2017-8, world premiere, composed for N.J.E.)

Alejandro CARDONA (Costa Rica): Sweet Tijuana – Danzas Fronterizas for viola and chamber orchestra (2007, U.S. premiere)

Jonathan DAWE (U.S.): EARTHLINGS: EVOLVE! (2017-8, world premiere, composed for N.J.E.)

 

Free tickets for New Juilliard Ensemble concerts will be available beginning September 18 at Juilliard.edu/calendar.