Carnegie Hall Offers Recordings of Recently Commissioned Works Online

Carnegie Hall today announced that audio recordings of select new works, recently commissioned by Carnegie Hall, have been made available for free download or streaming at carnegiehall.org/commissions. This new online resource is intended to extend the reach of Carnegie Hall's commissioning program, reflecting the Hall's aspiration to make great music accessible to the largest possible audience. This project was made possible by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

More than a dozen recently-commissioned works are now available online for “encore" hearings, including: Christopher Adler's Music for a Royal Palace; Clarice Assad's Confessions; David Bruce's Piosenki; Ryan Carter's Doot; Anna Clyne's Blush; Gabriela Lena Frank's Ritmos Anchinos; Kayhan Kalhor's The Silent City; Angel Lam's Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain and Sun, Moon, and Star; David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion; Johannes Lauer's Scenes; Gyan Riley's The Wane of More; Bright Sheng's Sweet May Again; Michael Ward-Bergeman's Three Roads; and Evan Ziporyn's Sulvasutra.

About the Compositions
Written for bassist Edgar Meyer and pianist Emanuel Ax, Bright Sheng's Sweet May Again received its world premiere in Zankel Hall as part of the duo's April 2007 recital. The work has since been performed by members of Ensemble ACJW, comprised of Fellows from The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education—in Weill Recital Hall and Filene Concert Hall at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion was written for and premiered by Theatre of Voices, a vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of renaissance and mediaeval polyphony, contemporary composers of the “new tonality" school, and electronica. The work sets the story of Hans Christian Andersen's story The Little Match Girl in the format of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion. It intersperses Andersen's narrative with the composer's versions of the crowd and character responses from Bach's Passion. The text is written by Lang, after texts by Hans Christian Andersen, H. P. Paulli (the first translator of the story into English, in 1872), Picander (the nom de plume of Christian Friedrich Henrici, the librettist of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion), and the Gospel according to Saint Matthew.

The remaining works were commissioned as part of two recent Weill Music Institute Professional Training Workshops.

In April and September 2006, Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble led a workshop entitled Tradition and Innovation, which explored musical tradition and innovation through the study of existing and newly commissioned works. For the workshop, Carnegie Hall commissioned established composers (Gabriela Lena Frank, Kayhan Kalhor, and Evan Ziporyn) and two emerging composers (Christopher Adler and Angel Lam) to write new works for indigenous Silk Road instruments with varying combinations of strings and percussion. These new pieces received their world premieres on September 16 and 17, 2006 in Zankel Hall. The workshop was presented in partnership with the Silk Road Project and Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Composer Osvaldo Golijov and soprano Dawn Upshaw led a two-part workshop in November 2006 and April 2007 that guided 12 singers and eight composers through the compositional process, from conception to the completion of a work. The eight composers selected for participation were Clarice Assad, David Bruce, Ryan Carter, Anna Clyne, Angel Lam, Johannes Lauer, Gyan Riley, and Michael Ward-Bergeman. The new compositions received their world premieres on April 14 and 15, 2007 in Weill Recital Hall. David Bruce's Piosenki has since been performed by members of Ensemble ACJW, comprised of Fellows from The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education—in Weill Recital Hall and Filene Concert Hall at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Piosenki will also be performed by Ms. Upshaw as part of Carnegie Hall's 2008–2009 season. This workshop was presented in partnership with The Bard College Conservatory of Music.

About the Carnegie Hall Commissioning Program
New and innovative work has long been a part of Carnegie Hall's fabric—the world premieres of such now-standard works as Dvorak's “New World" Symphony and Gershwin's An American in Paris took place at the Hall. More than 20 years ago, Carnegie Hall actively began its own commissioning program. Carnegie Hall's first two commissioned works were Leonard Bernstein's Opening Prayer, premiered by the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta in December 1986, and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (commissioned jointly by Carnegie Hall, the Detroit Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra League) by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, which was premiered at Carnegie Hall in January 1987.

In the 1990–1991 season, Carnegie Hall launched the Centennial Commissioning Project, a series of thirteen commemorative commissions honoring the Hall's landmark 100th season. Thirteen major composers, nine of them Americans, were matched with great artists to form a diverse array of premiere performances of works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, and voice.

Since 1986, Carnegie Hall has commissioned more than 100 new works—ranging from solo to large orchestral pieces—as well as over 125 new arrangements for jazz band from 1992 to 2002. In recent seasons, Carnegie Hall has presented world premieres by Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, David Del Tredici, Bill Frisell, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gordon, Brad Mehldau, Meredith Monk, Andre Previn, Kaija Saariaho, and Charles Wuorinen, among others. For the 2007–2008 season, Carnegie Hall has continued its dedication to new music with the commissioning of nine new works from such composers as Thomas Ades, Steve Reich, John Adams, David Lang, and Jorg Widmann.

Carnegie Hall presents more than 200 performances each season by the world's greatest soloists, ensembles, and orchestras on its three great stages—the renowned Isaac Stern Auditorium and its newly dedicated Ronald O. Perelman Stage, intimate Weill Recital Hall, and innovative new Zankel Hall. The establishment of The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall paves the way for expanded opportunities as Carnegie Hall moves forward as an international cultural center representing the very best in musical performance, artist development, and arts education.