Performers at the American Composers Orchestra’s March 12 concert at Zankel Hall, led by Rei Hotoda, included (from left) mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams, accordionist Felipe Hostins, and Hotoda. Photo by Jennifer Taylor.
In Monday’s (3/18) Classical Voice North America, Anne E. Johnson writes, “The American Composers Orchestra (ACO)… concert on March 12 at Zankel Hall [was] part of Carnegie Hall’s seasonal festival, ‘Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice.’ Under conductor Rei Hotoda, the ACO presented works that interpreted the concept of margins … There was a blending of jazz with classical music, some songs representing exile, a work about the shared borders of nature and human occupancy, a ‘meditation on time’ that grows directly out of a Weimar composer’s work, and an ecstatic celebration of a marginalized people. The program opened in spectacular fashion with American composer George Antheil’s Jazz Symphony, originally written for full orchestra in 1925 … Right Now, a world-premiere song cycle by composer John Glover and librettist Kelley Rourke, offered the most direct connection to the Weimar arts scene of the 1920s…. The other world premiere [was] Tonia Ko’s Her Land, expanded for orchestra and video…. While it was interesting to learn that [Ko’s] sonic inspiration had been the digital deconstruction of church bells … the result was blips and squiggles of sound that didn’t hold together… The program came to a glorious close with the New York premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s ‘Clans,’ [a scene] from his work Lowak Shoppala’, paying tribute to the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, of which he is a citizen. Tate recited nine poems about the matrilinear clan system of his people…. Tate’s orchestral writing has the majesty of Vaughan Williams flavored with the scales and rhythmic patterns of Native traditions.”
