NY Philharmonic launches Contact! series tonight & ACME performs @ The Tank ++ other dates & videos

December 17, 2009

by Andrew Frisicano

ACME…outdoors in warmer times
ACME

Tonight (12/17) at the Tank, American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) perform music from Phil Kline and John Cage (two earlier works, String Quartet in Four Parts and Credo In Us). Kline’s annual Unsilent Night event just happened in NYC on December 12th (and is still to come in other cities). His piece Exquisite Corpses, on the program for ACME, also prominently features boomboxes. He’s also put together a new acoustic arrangement of his string quartet The Blue Room and Other Stories (originally written for Ethel whose version is below), which ACME will be debuting. Tickets are on sale.

Kicking off tonight and running through this weekend, the Tank heads to Brooklyn to present the Blip Festival at the Bell House. If you can’t be there, you can listen on WFMU.

Across town and also tonight (12/17), the New York Philharmonic will be launching its Contact! new music series at Symphony Space (95th and Broadway). Four composers – Arlene Sierra, Lei Liang, Marc-André Dalbavie & Arthur Kampela – will be debuting very different compositions with the group. Video and audio previews of those are below. Tickets are on sale. An encore performance (to borrow a phrase) takes place Saturday, December 19th at Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The second Contact! program – with new music from Sean Shepherd, Nico Muhly and Matthias Pintscher – comes April 16th at Symphony Space and April 17th at Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Videos and more info are below…

Arlene Sierra on CONTACT!

Arthur Kampela on CONTACT!

Contact! April 16th & 17th program

Sean Shepherd – These Particular Circumstances (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission)
Nico Muhly – New work (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Commission)
Matthias Pintscher – songs from Solomon’s garden, for baritone and chamber orchestra (World Premiere: New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Matthias Pintscher for CONTACT!