In Sunday’s (10/2) New York Times, Steve Smith writes, “It’s not as if Alan Pierson were hunting for a new job. A lean, sharp and energetic 37-year-old conductor, Mr. Pierson has made an enviable name for himself over the last decade as the artistic director of Alarm Will Sound, a vital, omnivorous 20-member chamber ensemble formed in 2001 by graduate students at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.” That gig and his role as principal conductor of the Crash Ensemble, “along with a full schedule of freelance engagements, were more than enough to keep Mr. Pierson occupied. But with a performance on Saturday evening during the Restoration Rocks Music Festival in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Mr. Pierson enters uncharted territory as the new artistic director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. In the concert, one of two events designated by the orchestra as season previews, Mr. Pierson and members of the orchestra will collaborate with the prominent hip-hop artist Mos Def. … the concert shows a spark of life for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, an august and hardy institution founded in 1857 and lately fallen on hard times. A groundbreaking ensemble internationally known for its provocative programming, it evaporated in recent years to a trickle of community-oriented chamber-music events.”
Posted October 3, 2011
