New Music for America, a consortium that aims to bring a commissioned work by a major American composer to orchestras in all 50 states, bore its first fruit last fall with the initial performances of Christopher Theofanidis’s Dreamtime Ancestors. Music Director Steven Karidoyanes led the Plymouth (Mass.) Philharmonic Orchestra in the world premiere on October 3; Theofanidis spoke from the stage about the genesis of his seventeen-minute tone poem inspired by an Australian aboriginal myth. Dreamtime Ancestors was given regional premieres by New Mexico’s Las Cruces Symphony on October 18 and by the Mission Chamber Orchestra (San Jose, Calif.) on November 8; a third regional premiere, by the Bentonville-based Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, is scheduled for April 16. Chairing the NMFA consortium is Robert Rosoff, formerly executive director of the Glens Falls (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra and a key figure in Ford Made in America, the commissioning project that led to 50-state performances of works by Joan Tower in 2006 and Joseph Schwantner in 2008.
