Central to the new-music experience in New York.
– Time Out NY
Central to the new-music experience in New York.
– Time Out NY
Huang Ruo, composer
David Henry Hwang, librettist
Carolyn Kuan, conductor
Chay Yew, director
Sunday, May 12, 2024 – Performance #1, 3pm
Tuesday, May 14, 2024 – Performance #2, 7pm
Thursday, May 16, 2024 – Performance #3, 7pm
Saturday, May 18, 2024 – Performance #4, 8pm
Sunday, May 19, 2024 – Performance #5, 3pm
PAC Event Page
On October 3, 2011, Chinese-American Army Pvt. Danny Chen was found dead in a guard tower at his base in Afghanistan. Based on his story and the ensuing courts-martial of Chen’s fellow soldiers, this New York City premiere opera tells the powerful true story of a young soldier from Manhattan’s Chinatown who sought to serve his country, only to find his biggest threat was the very people who swore to protect him.
Told through the multidimensional music of Huang Ruo (M. Butterfly, Book of Mountains and Seas) with libretto by Tony and Grammy winner David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Soft Power), and directed by Obie Award winner Chay Yew (Cambodian Rock Band, Sweatshop Overlord), An American Soldier is a powerful and unforgettable experience.
Co-Produced by PAC NYC, Boston Lyric Opera, and American Composers Orchestra.
The 2024 version was co-commissioned by PAC NYC and Boston Lyric Opera.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
RSVP for FREE tickets
EO Event Page
PROGRAM
Talib Rasul Hakim, composer
Currents (1967)
string quartet
Four (1965)
clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piano
Music for Nine Players and Soprano Voice (1977)
soprano, alto flute, English horn, bass clarinet, horn, trombone, piano,
cello, double bass, percussion
Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. (1978)
mezzo soprano, flutes, piano
Scope-Seven (1965)
piano solo
Either/Or (EO) and International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) co-present and collaborate on a program of works by legendary Society of Black Composers co-founder Talib Rasul Hakim. Following the performance, a panel discussion featuring three MacArthur composers— Courtney Bryan, Tyshawn Sorey, and ICE AD George Lewis — and EO’s Richard Carrick and Chris McIntyre will discuss the history and ongoing impact of Hakim’s work.
Before his untimely passing, Talib Rasul Hakim (1940-88) was already becoming a widely influential composer, one who suffused his music for chamber and orchestral forces with intense deliberation, considered improvisations, dynamic rhythmic profiles, and purposeful silences. Hakim saw his compositions as more than just music: he saw music performance as the equivalent to an almost religious awakening. In the 1978 book The Black Composer Speaks, Hakim maintained, “It is hoped that whenever [my] music is performed, both performer and listener will experience some degree of inner stirring, that they will experience some philosophical, religious, political, emotional, intellectual experience.”
In this program, ICE and Either/Or present five diverse aspects of Hakim’s artistry that consider music as an encounter with the divine. The program includes performances of Psalm of Akhnaten; ca. 1365-1348 B.C. (1978), an imposing trio work that features a searching articulation of faith, mysticism, and spirituality; Currents (1967), his masterful entry to the string quartet canon; Scope-Seven (1965), an enigmatic solo piano work recently discovered within the vast holdings of the Library for the Performing Arts; Four (1965) for quartet; and Music for Nine Players and Soprano Voice (1977), which features the combined forces of ICE and Either/Or performers.
PERSONNEL
Either/Or
Richard Carrick, conductor
Jennifer Choi, violin
Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet
Pala Garcia, violin
Madison Greenstone, clarinet
Chris McIntyre, trombone
John Popham, cello
Kal Sugatski, viola
International Contemporary Ensemble
Fay Victor, mezzo-soprano
Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute
Nicolee Kuester, horn
Cory Smythe, piano
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Panel
Courtney Bryan, composer; Tyshawn Sorey, composer; Richard Carrick, Director, Either/Or ; Chris McIntyre, Curator, Either/Or; George Lewis, Artistic Director, ICE
Image of Mr. Hakim from the William A. Brown Collection, courtesy of the Archives & Special Collections at Columbia College Chicago
Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information at macfound.org.
Made possible in part through lead support from Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music and the Cheswatyr Foundation.
NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE AND THE APOLLO PRESENT
The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout
John F. Kennedy Center Opera House
Sat. Jun. 1, 2024 7:30p.m.
Join Nona Hendryx, Abby Dobson, Toshi Reagon, Joel Thompson, Carlos Simon, Courtney Bryan, Troy Anthony and more as they take you on a sonic melodic quest to “The Gathering.” With virtual host, Mahogany L. Browne as our guide —along with the American Composers Orchestra and NEWorks Voices of Inspiration— this experience is meant to be our space to collectively center the social impact issues of our time, to awaken joy as a source of liberation and to find love as our form of possibility and resistance.
Program
Through orchestral, choral, gospel and soul choral music, this one-night-only event is the signature celebration for The Kennedy Center’s Conflux partnership with National Black Theatre (NBT) running May 26 - June 2, 2024.
The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout will take us on a sonic quest produced by National Black Theatre & The Apollo. Taking place in the Opera House at The Kennedy Center, “The Gathering” will center the soul of Black folks and the heart of America's brilliant and bitter present.
With Creative Concept and Direction by NBT’s Executive Artistic Director, Jonathan McCrory, and featuring 80 members of the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Chelsea Tipton, II and 48 members of the NEWorks Voices of Inspiration chorale under the leadership of choirmaster Nolan Williams, Jr, this night will feature the DC premiere of Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson alongside Carlos Simon’s Amen! and Courtney Bryan’s Sanctum. In conjunction with these pieces, the night has been curated in the African tradition of call and response to include original works by genre-defying Black artists such as Abby Dobson, Toshi Reagon, Troy Anthony, and Nona Hendryx.
The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout was originally performed to a sold-out audience at The Apollo in Harlem, New York 2022.
This performance is co-produced by National Black Theatre and The Apollo in association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is an external rental presented in coordination with the Kennedy Center Campus Rental Office
CJM performing his work Reverses (2019)
Sounding Serra at Gagosian Gallery, Dec. '19
string quartet and piano (for Ne(x)tworks); premiere perf. on 5/3/08