Jeffrey Milarsky Conducts the Juilliard Orchestra in Four World Premieres on Monday, April 23, 2018, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

Program Features Works by Juilliard Student Composers Jack Frerer, Marc Migó, Marco-Adrián Ramos, and Will Stackpole

NEW YORK –– Jeffrey Milarsky conducts the Juilliard Orchestra in four world premieres by Juilliard student composers Jack Frerer, Marc Migó, Marco-Adrián Ramos, and Will Stackpole on Monday, April 23, 2018, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall. The program features Frerer’s On-Again, Off-Again; Ramos’ Toys in a Field: Songs from Dien Cai Dau with tenor Matthew Pearce; Migó’s Nocturne with pianist Aleksandra Kasman and violinist Alice Ivy-Pemberton; and Stackpole’s Feed. Mr. Ramos’ piece Toys in a Field was awarded the $2,500 Arthur Friedman Prize, which is presented to the composer whose work is deemed by the judges to be most outstanding. This year’s judges were composers Stephen Hartke and Paul Chihara.

Tickets are free for the April 23 concert and available at the Juilliard and Alice Tully Hall box offices.

About the Program

Jack Frerer’s On-Again, Off-Again is about the composer’s commute home to 157th Street. He writes: “To me, nothing could be a better symbol than the subway of the energy shifts that you find in New York. I divided On-Again, Off-Again into three sections. The first is fast, frantic, repeatedly cutting between musical gestures of the subway doors sliding shut, trains hurtling down the tracks, their cars violently rocking back and forth. Each time these gestures repeat, they’re intersected by a somewhat silly Leroy Anderson-esque tune which arrives whenever the train balances itself out, having reached cruising speed. As this musical train reaches its stops, this tune decelerates, reaching a full stop at each platform. The music ascends to the second station, the 125th Street 1-train stop, which skies over Harlem. The music passes in what seems like slow motion, peaceful and clear, before accelerating, growing more and more intense, and plummeting back underground for the third section: a final, manic push for the train to reach its destination in which all of these musical themes and gestures combine before the doors slam shut one final time.”

Marco-Adrián Ramos’ Toys in a Field is a cycle of four songs for tenor and orchestra set to poems from Dien Cai Dau, a work in which Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Yusef Komunyakaa recounts his experiences serving in the Vietnam War (the title means ‘crazy head’ in Vietnamese). Mr. Ramos writes: “We seem to be living in a time of great tension, as though just hovering on the edge of some tremendous shift; I think anyone reading this could agree that the climate of the world feels profoundly unsettled. This was one catalyst for Toys in a Field. Another was the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk, a work that also feeds on our zeitgeist and left me even more terrified over the concept and practices of war. Yusef Komunyakaa’s haunting poetry had been part of my subconscious since early in my undergraduate studies; returning to his book Dien Cai Dau during the summer of 2017, I felt the previously divergent strands of emotional and musical content begin to vibrate together in my mind. Recounting his experience of the Vietnam War ex post facto, Komunyakaa mixes a sense of detachment wrought by a decade of time with the excruciating and at times disarmingly beautiful circumstances and images of his then-reality. Musically, the orchestra acts as an extension of the voice, only briefly resisting its magnetism in the second movement. Otherwise, the vocal line is almost constantly refracted, doubled, and echoed by the orchestra. As the poet does in his work, I sparingly incorporate elements of Southeast Asian music, but they exist more as a distant recollection than any sort of faithful reconstruction.”

Marc Migó’s Nocturne is actually the second movement of a double concerto for violin and piano. He writes: “I wanted to explore the common elements that connect Spanish musical roots with Argentinian ones, as both cultures are close and dear to me. This is why I decided to compose this double concerto as if it were a journey from the Mediterranean coastline (Movement 1, “Fantasy”) to the energetic and vibrant Argentine province of Tucumán, located on the opposite side of the Atlantic (Movement 3, “Rondo alla Chacarera”). The movement that will be played at this concert serves as a bridge connecting the two sides of the ocean.”

Will Stackpole writes: “For the two years before I composed Feed, I had been living with a growing sense of negativity and unease. This was in part due to the drastic developments in the world – events that have gone on in recent years – but it felt as though there was an even more permeating cause. This was a feeling I noticed not only in myself, but in many others around me regardless of age, gender, race, income, political affiliation, or religion, and I began to wonder what could be affecting so many people in this way. With the advent of social media 10-or-so years ago, we experienced a shift in the way our society operates. From Facebook to Instagram to 24-hour news, Reddit, and Snapchat, we are inundated with alerts that tempt us to browse more infinite lists of…well, nothing really. As we strive to become more and more connected—more ‘social’—we in fact only become more easily distracted and distanced from our experiences. This influx of information leaves us with frustration in place of connection. Feed reflects on this anxiety in society.”

Meet the Artists

American conductor Jeffrey Milarsky is the music director of AXIOM and a senior lecturer in music at Columbia University where he is the music director and conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. He received his bachelor and master of music degrees from Juilliard where he was awarded the Peter Mennin Prize for outstanding leadership and achievement in the arts. In recent seasons he has worked with ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Met Chamber Ensemble, Bergen Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New World Symphony, and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. In the U.S. and abroad he has premiered and recorded works by many groundbreaking contemporary composers in Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and at IRCAM in Paris, among others. Mr. Milarsky has a long history of premiering, recording, and performing American composers and throughout his career has collaborated with John Adams, Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Steven Mackey, Christopher Rouse, Ralph Shapey, Morton Subotnick, Charles Wuorinen, and an entire generation of young and developing composers. He was recently awarded the Ditson Conductor’s Award for his commitment to the performance of American music.

Jack Frerer, born in 1995, is an Australian-American composer of music for concert, film, and dance, as well as a producer and filmmaker. He is pursuing his bachelor’s in composition at Juilliard as a student of John Corigliano. His work has been performed by a variety of ensembles around Australia, Europe, and the U.S., and he has won awards including a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and competitions including Illinois State University’s Red Note Composition Competition, the Alba Rosa Viëtor Composition Competition in Utrecht, the Young Australian Music Composition Competition, and Indiana State University’s Music Now Competition. As a filmmaker, he has created films for institutions including Juilliard and Quest magazine, dancers Marcelo Gomes and Julie Kent, and music videos for bands and ensembles. He is a co-creator and producer of The Roof, a collaborative film and performance series he created with dancer Liana Kleinman which features New York-based choreographers and composers. Mr. Frerer holds the George Gershwin Scholarship and the Richard Rodgers Scholarship in Composition.

Russian-American pianist Aleksandra (Sasha) Kasman is a winner of several international piano competitions and has performed across the U.S., Italy, Russia, Ukraine, France, South Korea, and Japan. She made her concerto debut at age 3 with the Symphonic Orchestra of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine and her European solo debut at 14 in Salle Cortot. Recent appearances include solo recitals across Northern Italy, in Kiev’s St. Sophia Cathedral, and performances at Alice Tully Hall and Juilliard. Upcoming engagements include recitals at the Southeastern Piano Festival, Steinway Piano Gallery in Boca Raton, Florida, and a return to Italy and Ukraine for solo and concerto concerts. A dedicated music educator, Ms. Kasman holds a PianoArts artist in residence fellowship, and recently completed her third consecutive teaching and performing tour for PianoArts. She has taught master classes at Lee University and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Ms. Kasman grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where she graduated from the University of Alabama, Birmingham. There she studied with her father, Yakov Kasman. She is pursuing her master’s in piano performance at Juilliard, where she studies with Robert McDonald. She holds the Joseph Fidelman, the Helen and Martin Kaltman, and the THOBA Corporation scholarships.

Marc Migó, born in 1993, is a composer from Barcelona pursuing his master’s at Juilliard as a student of Melinda Wagner. He earned his bachelor’s at L’Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) in Barcelona where he studied composition with Salvador Brotons and Albert Guinovart and piano under Liliana Sainz. Mr. Migó has attended the June in Buffalo Festival and the Charlotte New Music Festival, and has won awards in a number of European competitions including the Fondazione Giorgio e Aurora Giovannini 2014, Orient/Occident (in 2015 and 2016), and Bruno Maderna 2016. He has been commissioned to write works for leading Catalan orchestras including the Barcelona Symphonic Band, Sant Cugat Symphony Orchestra, and Cerdanyola Symphonic Band. He has also received commissions from the Nebula Ensemble, organist Aarón Ribas, pianist Víctor Braojos, and the Isas/Kwiek duo. His orchestral music has been played by Lemberg Sinfonietta (Lviv), Camerata Eduard Toldrà (Vilanova), La Banda Municipal de Barcelona, and La Orquestra Simfonica de Sant Cugat. He is the recipient of the Fundación SGAE Scholarship for international studies.

Tenor Matthew Pearce from Union, Kentucky, is a first-year master’s student at Juilliard where he studies with Marlena Malas. At Juilliard, he has sung La théière in L’enfant et les sortilèges and Spärlich in Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor. Mr. Pearce was recently a featured soloist with the National Chorale at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall in the New York premiere of Angela Rice’s Thy Will Be Done. He attended the Aspen Summer Music Festival and School in 2016 and 2017 where he sang Gastone in La traviata and Le Petit Vieillard in L’enfant et les sortilèges. Prior to Juilliard, Mr. Pearce attended the University of Kentucky where he studied under Everett McCorvey and performed regularly as a featured soloist with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. He holds the George H. Gangwere and the Simon and Anna Fabian scholarships.

Violinist Alice Ivy-Pemberton is pursuing her bachelor of music degree at Juilliard, where she is a student of Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho. A native of New York City, she began her music studies at age four and studied violin with Nurit Pacht at the Kaufman Music Center for ten years. She first performed on National Public Radio’s From the Top at the age of 10 and has also been featured as a soloist on the PBS series From the Top: Live from Carnegie Hall. She has won numerous concerto competitions, including those of the New York Chamber Players’ Orchestra, Ensemble 212, the Sound Symphony, and the Greenwich Village Orchestra. The Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau awarded her the Prix du Directeur in 2016 and she also took the audience prize at the Conservatoire’s Prix Ravel competition. Ms. Ivy-Pemberton has performed as a soloist in many venues in New York including Bargemusic, Zankel Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall. She is the proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.

Marco-Adrián Ramos, born in 1995, is a Mexican-American composer and arranger who has written for voice, instrumental ensembles, and dance. He has attended the European-American Musical Alliance, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Next Festival of Emerging Artists. Composers with whom he has worked include Christopher Lacy, Robert Beaser, Derek Bermel, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Arturo Márquez. He is the recipient of a 2016 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, as well as being a 2017 finalist. In 2018, he was awarded an artist grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures in conjunction with composer-mentor Gabriela Lena Frank. At Juilliard, Mr. Ramos is a first-year master’s student studying with Christopher Rouse and is a teaching fellow in the ear training department. He holds the Georgia Shreve and Abraham Ellstein memorial scholarships in composition.

Will Stackpole, from New Hampshire, began writing concert music as an undergraduate at Stevens Institute of Technology while studying guitar with Carlos Alomar and music theory with Andy Brick. He later studied composition with Justin Dello Joio while working in New York as a freelance composer and orchestrator for theater, film, and television. Mr. Stackpole’s recent work includes Aft Agley (premiered by the Juilliard Orchestra in 2016), a work for orchestra that explores the process of its own creation, and…Ask Questions Later (premiered in 2016 by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra), that highlights the consequences of gun violence. He is the founder and artistic director for Focal Point New Music, a performing arts initiative that each year pairs student composers with players of a specific instrument that is underrepresented in contemporary music. Mr. Stackpole holds a bachelor’s in music and technology from Stevens Institute of Technology and a master’s in composition from Juilliard, where he is pursuing his DMA as a student of Robert Beaser. He has also studied with David Dzubay and Bob Aldridge. He holds a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship.

About the Juilliard Orchestra

The Juilliard Orchestra, Juilliard’s largest and most visible performing ensemble, is comprised of all the orchestral instrumental majors in the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs. Under the musical leadership of alumnus Alan Gilbert, the director of conducting and orchestral studies, the Juilliard Orchestra is also led by numerous world-renowned guest conductors, some of whom have included John Adams, alumna Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, alumnus James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Fabio Luisi, Bernard Haitink, alumnus James Levine, David Robertson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, alumnus Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman, and many others. The Juilliard Orchestra performs regularly at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as in opera and dance productions, special events and broadcasts, and national and international tours.

All undergraduates begin their orchestral studies with Orchestra Orientation, a three-week orchestra cycle comprised of seminars, workshops, and rehearsals designed to prepare students for the rigors of the Juilliard Orchestra. Led by Maestro Gilbert, the Orchestra Orientation also calls upon Juilliard faculty and members of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera orchestras to lead discussions, coach sectionals, and play in side-by-side rehearsals.

Juilliard opened its 2016-17 orchestral season with conductor Mirga Gražiyntė-Tyla, and welcomes guest conductors Edward Gardner, Anne Manson, Steve Osgood, and Carlos Miguel Prieto, as well as Juilliard faculty members Alan Gilbert and Gary Thor Wedow, in addition to Jeffrey Milarsky.

In the 2015-16 season, the Juilliard Orchestra featured guest conductors: Pablo Heras-Casado, Fabio Luisi, Nicholas McGegan, Gianandrea Noseda, Case Scaglione, and faculty members Alan Gilbert, Jeffrey Milarsky, Itzhak Perlman, and Matthias Pintscher. Highlights of the orchestra’s 2014-15 season included debut appearances by guest conductors Fabio Luisi, Tadaaki Otaka, and alumnus Peter Oundjian; return appearances by Edward Gardner, Larry Rachleff, Emmanuel Villaume, David Zinman, and David Robertson.

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Program Listing:

Monday, April 23, 2018, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall

Juilliard Orchestra

Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor

Aleksandra Kasman, piano

Matthew Pearce, tenor

Alice Ivy-Pemberton, violin

 

Featuring four world premiere works by Juilliard student composers

 

Jack FRERER On-Again, Off-Again (2017)

Marco-Adrián RAMOS Toys in a Field: Songs from Dien Cai Dau (2018)

Marc MIGÓ Nocturne (2017-18)

Will STACKPOLE Feed (2018)

 

Free tickets are available at the Juilliard and Alice Tully Hall box offices.