Albany Symphony To Present 2024 American Music Festival: Water Music NY More Voices

The two-time GRAMMY award-winning Albany Symphony will present extraordinary, captivating and stunning works by composers of our time at the 2024 American Music Festival: Water Music NY More Voices. The weekend event also celebrates 30 years of Dogs of Desire. The concerts will take place June 7th through June 9th at the gorgeous EMPAC concert hall located on the RPI campus, and at locations throughout Troy, NY.

"We are so excited to bring you our 2024 American Music Festival, "Water Music NY: More Voices," said Music Director David Alan Miller. "This is the beginning of a three-year project in which we will celebrate and explore the history of New York through the lens of people whose stories have not been told. We are delighted to welcome back many of our favorite composers and performers, including Clarice Assad, Joan Tower, Christopher Theofanidis, and Brandon Patrick George, as well as many absolutely wonderful composers and creators who are new to us. The weekend is jam-packed with incredible music. Our American Music Festival is an opportunity for listeners to hear an amazing array of the most exciting, visionary, life-affirming music being written today."

The Festival kicks off with Dogs of Desire on Friday, June 7th at 7:30pm at EMPAC. There will be five world premieres to honor the 30-year-old innovative ensemble by Dai Wei, del Pino, Sohn, Bansal and JURAKHAN. In addition, Jack Frerer has created covers of hits by NY-born songwriters, from Cab Calloway to Grace Jones and Lana Del Rey, as well as an audience singalong! Following the concert, there will be a late-night lounge event in which listeners can enjoy the sultry Brazilian rhythms of father-daughter duo Sérgio and Clarice Assad. Sergio Assad is one of the world's greatest living classical guitarists, and Clarice is a major Brazilian-American composer, much loved by the Albany Symphony audience and community. There may even be some fun audience participation on their program!

The American Music Festival full orchestra concert takes place on Saturday, June 8th at 7:30pm in the EMPAC concert hall. Two incredible world premiere works, by Clarice Assad and Michael Gilbertson, will be performed, as well as two extraordinary recent works by Joan Tower and Christopher Theofanidis. Soloists include Assad on piano and and the brilliant Grammy-winning flutist Brandon Patrick George, as well as a choral ensemble from the Yale School of Sacred Music.

FLOW, a "Water Music NY: New Voices" commission by Assad, is a suite for piano and orchestra, a musical journey through the symbolic currents of emotions, exploring themes of change, resilience, and the passage of time through the idea of water. All the movements connect seamlessly, each representing a different dynamic ebb and flow of emotions and experiences. The suite begins with "River Tide," which conveys a sense of urgency and motion through its pulsating rhythms that fluctuate in mood and tempo. In contrast, the second movement, "The Last Song," offers a moment of introspection and reflection. Its melancholy melody creates a sense of stillness and solitude, inviting the listener to pause and contemplate. The final movement, "Rhapsodic Dances," bursts with renewed energy. Its lively and improvisational character is a celebration of endurance, affirming the idea that even in the face of challenges, the capacity to adapt and emerge stronger exists.

"I am thrilled to be returning to the Albany Symphony this season, not only to premiere a newly commissioned piece I composed for us to perform, but also to share the stage with my beloved father, Sergio Assad, for a late- night performance. The Symphony and its wonderful team have been such an important part of my musical journey, and I am truly grateful for our long history of collaboration. I can't wait to again feel the great energy of the audience and the musicians as we come together to share the stage, and I'm also greatly looking forward to being a curating artist of "Water Music NY: More Voices" in coming seasons," said Assad.

GRAMMY-winning flutist Brandon Patrick George brings the inaugural installment of his BPG: Community Concerto Project to the American Music Festival. Through this ongoing initiative, which is supported by the Ford Foundation, Brandon is partnering with orchestras across the country to commission new flute concertos that involve orchestras' local communities by including students in the process and in the performance. For this partnership, the commissioned composer is Michael Gilbertson, who has written Flute Concerto to be performed by Brandon with the Albany Symphony and students from the Albany High School Chamber Choir.

On The Bridge of the Eternal, a work by Christopher Theofanidis, will also be showcased at the Festival concert. A few years ago, the University of Colorado Boulder commissioned Theofanidis to write an orchestral work for their 100th anniversary celebrations that were to happen in the fall of 2020. The timing of the pandemic ended up delaying that event until 2022. In the period he was composing the work, he ended up going into a more internal space - less extroverted and celebratory, and more contemplative.

"What had been obsessively on my mind during the pandemic was a short text from St. Augustine's Confessions. It was a rumination on the nature and mystery of time, and it seemed to me that there was something both religious but at the same time more modern in its sentiment- it had an almost physicist's take on time embedded in it," said Theofanidis.

Finally, Joan Tower's dazzling orchestral tone-poem, 1920/2019, will be performed. The work, inspired by the anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, was one of the New York Philharmonic's featured "Project 19" commissions. The work was recently released on a Naxos recording by Albany Symphony Music Director Miller and the NOI Philharmonic.

Following the American Music Festival concert there will be a Late Night Lounge vocal event, including music of Broadway and the American Songbook.

The Festival includes a "First Draughts" Reading Session and Beer Tasting on Saturday, June 8th at 10:30am at Bush Hall. From the composer's imagination to the concert hall, 13 emerging composers will have their newest works workshopped and performed for the very first time. Music Director David Alan Miller, composer Christopher Theofanidis, and musicians of the Albany Symphony will work with the young composers in bringing their works to life in real time. Between the readings, audience members can sample new craft beverages from local upstate breweries. Great American Song! will also take place on June 8th at Bush Hall at 3:00pm.

Closing the weekend-long event is The Last of James Fenimore Cooper on Sunday, June 9th at 4:00pm at The Sanctuary for Independent Media. Native American composer Brent Michael Davids has composed a witty, satirical quartet about James Fenimore Cooper. Davids, who embraces indigenous themes and subjects in his music, considers Cooper's ignorance of native culture in "The Last of the Mohicans" in this delightful work for string quartet, featuring members of the Albany Symphony. This event is featured as part of the Sanctuary for Independent Media's Freedom Festival in collaboration with the American Music Festival.

Additional Information: https://www.albanysymphony.com/amf-2024-wmny

Tickets can be Purchased: https://tickets.albanysymphony.com/TheatreManager/102/online?membershiptype=1142