Orchestra 2001 Opens Kimmel Center’s Fresh Ink Series October 7
Concert Features World Premiere by George Crumb from Ongoing American Songbook Series
September 24, 2004
George Crumb
Tickets at $24 and $30 are available online now.
“We are delighted to be part of the Kimmel Center’s Fresh Ink series where the excitement of discovering new music matches our commitment to being a catalyst and inspiration for new composers,” said James Freeman, Artistic Director of Orchestra 2001. “We are also extraordinarily proud to be the ensemble for which George Crumb is writing so much music, and in this his 75th year, we are especially pleased to be bringing a new work of such importance to the Kimmel Center. The River of Life — with Crumb’s astonishingly beautiful interpretations of such songs as “Amazing Grace”, “Deep River,” and “Nearer My God To Thee ” is a work that I am absolutely certain will become (along with the other three volumes of his American Songbook) one of the great classics of 21st-century American music.”
The composer of numerous “avant-garde classics” including Black Angels for electric string quartet, Ancient Voices of Children and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Echoes of Time and the River, George Crumb became the 36th recipient of the Edward McDowell Medal in 1995 for the individuality and integrity of his music. After studies with Boris Blacher and Ross Lee Finney, he taught at the University of Colorado, and from 1966 until his retirement in 1997 he was Professor of Composition at the University of Pennsylvania. The River of Life is the third part of Crumb’s monumental projected four-volume American Songbook project. In the past two years, Orchestra 2001 has premiered Volume One, Unto the Hills, which was featured, with an additional movement, at their Carnegie Hall debut last winter, and Volume Two, A Journey Beyond Time, which, with The River of Life, will be presented in this year’s New York appearance.
James Freeman, founder and Artistic Director of Orchestra 2001, is the Daniel Underhill Professor of Music Emeritus at Swarthmore College. In 1990 he was given the first Philadelphia Music Foundation’s award for achievement in Classical Music. Other honors include two Fulbright Fellowships, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the German Government, and Harvard University. He has commissioned and given the first performances of many new works by American composers with many of the most prominent musical institutions in Philadelphia. His performances throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Slovenia, Russia, England and Denmark have also won critical acclaim.
As a performer and an educator, pianist Gilbert Kalish is a major figure in American music making. He is a frequent guest artist with many of the world's most distinguished chamber ensembles. He was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a pioneering new music group that flourished during the 1960's and '70's. He is noted for his partnerships with other artists, including cellists Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnick, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and, perhaps most memorably, his thirty-year collaboration with mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. A native New Yorker, Mr. Kalish studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabelle Vengerova. In addition to teaching at Stony Brook where he is head of the performance faculty, he has also served on the faculties of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Banff Centre and the Steans Institute at Ravinia. Mr. Kalish's discography of some 100 recordings encompasses classical repertory, 20th-century masterworks and new compositions. In 1995 the University of Chicago presented him with the Paul Fromm Award for distinguished service to the music of our time.
Broadway diva and Philadelphia native Ann Crumb returns home after headlining the first National Company of Swing which earned her a Broadway National Theater Award Leading Actress Nomination. Locally she has performed in Bed and Sofa at The Wilma Theater which garnered her the Barrymore Award for Outstanding Leading Actress. She has also appeared opposite John Davidson in The Will Rogers Follies, starred in the premiere of Neil Simon’s new version of The Goodbye Girl on London’s West End, and headlined the U.S. National Tour of Music of the Night. Ann became the first American actress to originate a lead role in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical when she starred in Aspects of Love in London and on Broadway. She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of Anna Karenina and toured nationally in the title role of Evita. Ann was a member of the original Broadway companies of both Chess and Les Miserables, and went on to play Fantine in the first National Tour of Les Miz. Many of the songs in the American Songbooks were sung to Ann when she was a child by her mother and she has never forgotten their powerful images and haunting melodies. To work on the American Songbooks in collaboration with her father is the dream of a lifetime.
Orchestra 2001’s season continues with Piano Summit!!!, an evening of three piano concertos featuring pianists Charles Abramovic, Marcantonio Barone, and Uri Caine with his Beethoven Diabelli Variations project (November 19 and 21); Dawn Upshaw Meets 2001 (January); a new completion of Mozart’s Zaide, with a new overture by Peter Schickele (March 19 and 20); and Three Premieres and a Masked Ball, with premieres by Melinda Wagner, Richard Wernick and Adam Wernick, plus music of Francis Poulenc (April 3 and 10).
Orchestra 2001’s name pointed to the future when the ensemble was founded in 1988 to present world-class performances of twentieth-century music and to provide a resource for living composers. Today its name, by now indelibly associated with landmark performances of new music, marks the beginning of the 21st century and points in a new way to the future of the music of our time. Since its inception the ensemble has been responsible for more than 60 world premieres and 75 Philadelphia premieres including 5 operas, and has recorded 5 CDs including the Grammy-nominated “George Crumb: Ancient Voices of Children” CD. This season also brings the group’s Miller Theater debut in New York City in November as well as the world premiere of The River of Life by George Crumb as part of his four-volume American Songbook series, composed especially for Orchestra 2001. The group has performed extensively at European festivals in Russia, Denmark and England. Orchestra 2001 is the ensemble-in-residence at Swarthmore College.
For further information please visit www.orchestra2001.org or call 215-922-2190.
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