The Albany Symphony Orchestra in New York is holding five events for this year’s American Music Festival of contemporary music. The festival runs from May 17 to 20 at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. The festival opens with a free reading session of works by young composers; other festival highlights include performances of new works by Victoire, the post-rock ensemble founded by the Albany Symphony’s composer-in residence Missy Mazzoli, and by the orchestra’s eighteen-member new-music ensemble Dogs of Desire. On the first of the ASO’s two programs, Music Director David Alan Miller will lead the orchestra in performances of Aaron Jay Kernis’s Valentines for Soprano and Orchestra; Michael Daugherty’s Rosa Parks Boulevard; Joan Tower’s Violin Concerto; and the world premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Holy Roller. The final festival program is entitled “If These Walls Could Sing: Celebrating the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall” and features new works by eight composers, including the world premiere of a work co-composed by Missy Mazzoli and students at the Doyle Middle School Band and Chorus, who have been working with the composer throughout this school year. Following the final concert, ticketholders are invited on a behind-the-scenes tour of Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, one of the city’s architectural treasures.
Photo of David Alan Miller by Alex Hoffman
Posted May 17, 2012
