New Juilliard Ensemble, Led by Joel Sachs, Performs Contemporary Works on Tuesday, November 13, 2018, at 7:30pm in Juilliard’s Studio 309

Joel Sachs to Perform a Faculty Recital Featuring Charles Ives’ Piano Sonata No. 1 and Selected Works by Henry Cowell on Monday, November 5, 2018, at 6pm in Morse Hall

NEW YORK –– The New Juilliard Ensemble (NJE), led by founder and director Joel Sachs, performs contemporary works by international composers on Tuesday, November 13, 2018, at 7:30pm, in Juilliard’s Studio 309. The program features Three Tales About My Teacher (1999; in memoriam Albert Lehman, 1915-98) and Escalera interminable (1999) by Mongolian composer-pianist Sansar Sangidorj; Symphony No. 8, “Seeking” (1994) by the late Zhu Jian-er, in its first performance outside China; Ah! Haydn (2007, New York premiere) by Betsy Jolas (France); and two American compositions, Sextet (1977) by Ursula Mamlok and Octeto en cuatro tiempos (2014) by Roberto Sierra. Free tickets are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

On Monday, November 5, 2018, at 6pm in Juilliard’s Morse Hall, Joel Sachs will give a faculty recital featuring the rarely performed Piano Sonata No. 1 by Charles Ives and selected works by Henry Cowell. Free tickets are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

About the Composers and the Program for the New Juilliard Ensemble Concert

Sansar Sangidorj studied at the Ulaan Baatar School of Music and Dance (1977-85) and continued at the Ulaan Baatar College of Music and Dance (1986-89) and the Moscow Conservatory, where he received his undergraduate degree in 1995 and continued as a graduate student (1995-97). His early compositions were performed in Europe and the United States. Then, in the fall of 1999, Dartmouth College Professor Theodore Levin visited Ulaan Bataar to investigate potential composers for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. As a result, Sansar traveled to the U.S. to participate in the Silk Road workshop at Tanglewood. In 2013, Joel Sachs conducted the premiere of his piano concerto Man and Nature with the Mongolian State Philharmonic and the composer’s sister as soloist. His music had been performed in China, Mongolia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Ecuador, and the U.S. He has also composed scores for films and stage plays in his native Mongolia. The composer says: “The three pieces about my teacher Albert Lehman are dedicated to his life for music.” Sachs says that the meaning of the title Escalera interminable (Endless Staircase) will be clear to the ear.

A native of Shanghai, China, Zhu Jian-er (1922-2017) studied composition at the Moscow Conservatory, studying with Sergey Balasanian. After graduation in 1960, he returned to China, but his career was disrupted by the Cultural; Revolution. In 1975, after the end of that turbulence, he became permanent composer of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and professor of composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He composed 10 symphonies (7 for large orchestra), 12 miscellaneous orchestral pieces, the Symphony-Cantata Heroic Poems, piano music, chamber music, ensemble works for Chinese traditional instruments, and more. He was the recipient of many awards and commissions in China and abroad; his 10th symphony was commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard, and the sextet Silk Road Reverie was commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, which premiered it at Tanglewood. His Symphony No. 5 concluded Juilliard’s 2018 Focus! festival. The Symphony No. 8, subtitled “Seeking,” is scored for cello and one percussionist.

Betsy Jolas (b. Paris, 1926) came to the U.S. in 1940, completed her general schooling, and began studying composition with Paul Boepple, piano with Helen Schnabel, and organ with Carl Weinrich. Graduating from Bennington College in 1946, she returned to Paris to continue studies with Darius Milhaud, Simone Plé-Caussade, and Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. In 1975, after replacing Messiaen in his course at the Conservatoire for three years, she was appointed to its faculty. She resides in Paris. Jola has received many honors, including becoming a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1983. The trio Ah! Haydn was commissioned by Eisenstadt’s 2009 festival commemorating the bicentennial of the death of Joseph Haydn: It was premiered in Paris by the Esterhazy Trio and then performed in Eisenstadt. The composer says, “My passionate attraction to Haydn’s music originated in childhood with the piano sonatas I was then able to sight-read. Much later came the revelation of the quartets, the oratorios (the extraordinary “Chaos” from The Creation!), the Masses, the symphonies … Yes, there was much Haydn on my mind when I set to work on my trio. I knew the choice was going to be difficult.”

Born in Berlin, Ursula Mamlok (1923-2016) had already begun her musical studies when she and her family fled the Nazis in 1939. After spending two years in Ecuador, they made their way to New York. Mamlok earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Manhattan School of Music at which she taught until retirement after a long career on its faculty. She also taught at N.Y.U., Temple University, and City University of New York. Mamlok received grants and commissions from most major American foundations and institutions, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2006, after the death of her husband, she returned to Germany. Her final composition premiered in 2015 at the Berlin Philharmonie. The Sextet premiered in 1977 by Parnassus, a contemporary ensemble founded by Anthony Korf, which also commissioned the piece.

Roberto Sierra (b. Puerto Rico, 1953) studied composition in Puerto Rico and Hamburg (the latter with György Ligeti) and electronic music in London and Utrecht. He is currently professor of composition at Cornell University. Sierra’s music is regularly performed by major orchestras. Recent projects include a commission by the BravoVail festival for the Dallas Symphony and Concierto Virtual, for automated piano without pianist, composed for the New Juilliard Ensemble and premiered in the 2017 Focus! festival. His Octeto en cuatro tiempos (Octet in Four Movements) was commissioned by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with funding from Linda and Stuart Nelson in honor of their friend Charles Hamlen.

About the New Juilliard Ensemble

The New Juilliard Ensemble, led by founding director Joel Sachs and now in its 26th season, presents music by a variety of international composers who write in the most diverse styles. The ensemble appears regularly at MoMA’s Summergarden and was a featured ensemble four times at the Lincoln Center Festival. It has given world premieres of some 100 compositions and U.S. premieres of many others. Concerts in the 2017-18 season included music by John Woolrich, Gerald Barry, Raminta Šerkšnytė, Akira Nishimura, Mauricio Kagel, Giya Kancheli, Shuci Wang, Liu Sola, Sunbin Kim, Kolbeinn Bjarnason, Alejandro Cardona, and Jonathan Dawe. 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, NJE 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 Focus! editions have included: China Today: A Festival of Chinese Composition (2018); 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). NJE will open the 2019 Focus festival, On the Air!, a celebration of the decades-long commissioning projects of European and Canadian broadcasters.

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 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, Sachs founded the 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, Sachs wrote the first full biography of the American composer Henry Cowell, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. Sachs often appears on radio as a commentator on recent music and has been a regular delegate to numerous international music conferences. A graduate of Harvard, Sachs received his PhD from Columbia University. In 2011, he was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard for his work in support of new music, and he 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.

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Program Listings:

Monday, November 5, 2018, 6pm in Juilliard’s Morse Hall

Faculty Recital: Joel Sachs, piano

Charles IVES: Piano Sonata No. 1

Henry COWELL: Selected works

Free tickets are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

 

Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 7:30pm in Juilliard’s Studio309

New Juilliard Ensemble

Dror Baitel, Duanduan Hao, piano

Ji Soo Choi, violin

Issei Herr, Marza Wilks, cello

Tyler Cunningham, percussion

Sansar SANGIDORJ (b. Mongolia, 1969): Three Tales About My Teacher (1999; in memoriam Albert Lehman, 1915-98) and Escalera interminable (1999) with pianist Duanduan Hao

Zhu JIAN-ER (China, 1922-2017): Symphony No. 8, “Seeking” (1994, first performance outside China) with cellist Issei Herr and percussionist Tyler Cunningham

Betsy JOLAS (b. France, 1926): Ah! Haydn (2007, New York premiere) with violinist Ji Soo Choi, cellist Marza Wilks, and pianist Dror Baitel

Ursula MAMLOK (Germany, 1923-2016): Sextet (1977)

Roberto SIERRA (b. Puerto Rico, 1953): Octeto en cuatro tiempos (2014)

Free tickets are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.