COPLAND HOUSE AND ITS MUSICAL JOURNEYS ACROSS AMERICA RETURNS FOR THE SPRING 2023 SEASON

FREE FOR ALL!!!

Sonic Adventures with Music from Copland House

"Absorbing concert experiences" (Opera News)

"Redefines what it means to listen to fine music in the 21st century. (District Fray, Washington)

Monday, February 6, 2023 at 7:30pm

EMBRACE OR EXILE: THE COLOR OF FATE 

Lost Freedom: A Memory [NY Premiere] by Kenji Bunch and George Takei, and Tres Homenajes by Gabriela Lena Frank 

Christopheren Nomura, narrator; Siwoo Kim and Elizabeth Fayette, violins; Dana Kelley, viola; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello; Sae Hashimoto, percussion; Michael Boriskin, piano 

Who exactly are “enemy aliens?” And who determines that? Pondering the fragility of liberty, Kenji Bunch’s compelling new musical work is based on actor-author-activist George Takei’s unforgettable childhood memoir of his family’s forced relocation by U.S. government decree to a World War II-era Japanese American internment center. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Tres Homenajes celebrates interrelationships and deep camaraderie – the opposite of banishment – in her vibrant triptych inspired by Latin American idioms, cultures, and landscapes. 

"Bunch’s music is shiningly original.” (The Oregonian)  

“Frank is one of the 35 most significant women composers in history” (Washington Post) 

Monday, March 20, 2023 at 7:30pm

PAST AS PROLOGUE

Gabriella Smith: Brandenburg Interstices [NY Premiere]; John Musto: Piano Quintet [NY Premiere]; Robert Xavier Rodriguez: Estampie; Nico Muhly: Motion

Brandon Patrick George, flute; Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet; Siwoo Kim and Stephanie Zyzak*, violins; Dana Kelley, viola; Alberto Parrini, cello; Ayano Kataoka, percussion; Michael Boriskin, piano

Time-traveling across the generations, growing fresh creative fruit from artistic seeds of the distant past. A riff on J.S. Bach that “morphs fluidly through the centuries and genres.” A memorial tribute tapping into the intricacies of Baroque counterpoint and the passions of Italian opera to symbolize a life intertwined with art, love, and humanity. A contemporary ballet score built on Medieval song and dance, flavored with Wagnerian gestures and Ragtime energy. The virtuosic repurposing of an English Renaissance hymn as the underpinning of a kinetic, stylishly contemporary work. These dazzling works bridge the centuries, embrace and renew artistic ancestry, and affirm the continuing relevance of a rich creative legacy. How can the same 12 notes of the chromatic scale be made to sound so different across six centuries?

*CUNY Graduate Center

Monday, May 1, 2023 at 7:30pm

EPIC VISTAS, LONESOME ROADS

Juhi Bansal: Thirteen Moons (NY Premiere); Shawn Okpebholo: Fractured Water (NY Premiere); Kevin Puts: Arcana; Stacy Garrop: Postcards from Wyoming; Dan Visconti: Lonesome Roads

Brandon Patrick George, flute; Siwoo Kim and and Stephanie Zyzak*, violins; Colin Brookes and Danielle Farina, violas; Alexis Pia Gerlach and James Wilson, cellos; Ayano Kataoka, percussion; Michael Boriskin, piano

Five brilliant composers on real or imagined journeys across America’s vast, variegated landscape. The California desert’s arid, rocky terrain of sand, howling wind, and hidden life and history. The energy, fragility, and spiritual symbolism of the Chicago River, with water transformed into a musical instrument. The impossible beauty of an immense Hawaiian volcano, ringed with exotic birds and plants, gauzy clouds at the crater’s rim, meteor-like rock, and hardened lava. The mystical allure of the Western flatlands, prairies, native wildlife, and spectacular nightly displays of the stars and heavens in a sky free of city lights. Plus the many sounds encountered on a freewheeling drive across the U.S.

*CUNY Graduate Center

Monday, June 12, 2023 at 7:30 pm

CULTIVATE 2023

Closing concert of the American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC Festival, celebrating composers under 40

Program TBA [World Premieres]

Moran Katz, clarinet; Pala Garcia*, violin; Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello; Margaret Kampmeier, piano

The future is HERE! A pandemic-delayed 10^th Anniversary celebration of Copland House’s acclaimed, annual emerging composers institute (directed by Grammy-nominated composer-clarinetist Derek Bermel), featuring six World Premieres by the 2023 CULTIVATE Fellows, commissioned by Copland House and written especially for this concert.

*CUNY Graduate Center

This program is sponsored by the Office of Academic Initiatives and Strategic Innovation at the Graduate Center, CUNY and in partnership with Music from Copland House