May 15, 2024 @ 7:00PM
Fotografiska New York
281 Park Ave South, New York, NY 10010
AUTOMATION
Press “1” for Cello
Yves Dhar, cello
Missed Deadline – World Premiere Cristina Spinei
Nrtya (नृत्य ) – World Premiere Adonis Gonzalez-Matos
Plant Church – World Premiere Nathan Schram
The Beginning
Stepping Out
Psilocybin Church
Coming Home
Visual Projection Design by Funktaxi 1533
Missed Deadline, Nrtya, and Plant Church were commissioned by Yves Dhar, with generous support from Vassar College and the Louise Boyd Dale Fund.
[Intermission]
Automation
Automation – NYC Premiere Adam Schoenberg
The Experiential Orchestra
James Blachly, conductor
Yves Dhar, cello and halldorophone
A.G.N.E.S., AI learning algorithm and holograph
Sound Design by Adam Schoenberg and Alex Brinkley
Synth Programming and additional Sound Design by Gabriel Bethke
Visual Productions and A.G.N.E.S. Recordings by Yves Dhar
VFX and Motion Graphics Design by Ryan Wise / DASYSTEM
Automation was commissioned by Justin M. Sullivan, in honor of his son Alec Baker Sullivan.
Cristina Spinei is a Juilliard-trained composer who has written for numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles. She is best known for her work with dance, having been commissioned by the Joffrey Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Parsons Dance, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and many more. Self-described as “minimalish,” Cristina anchors her musical ideas in melody, movement, and loops, informed by her love of multimedia collaboration.
Cristina has been active in the web3 space since 2020. Her work Prelude, recorded by the Gateway Chamber Orchestra, was the first new orchestral piece to be released as an NFT. Cristina’s other collaborative NFTs include a programmable string quartet for Async Art, audiovisual Triptych with artist Marterium, and Occulta Verba — an audiovisual cryptogram created with artist luxpris.
Pianist, composer, and conductor Adonis Gonzalez-Matos, a Latin Grammy nominee for his solo debut album 'Adios a Cuba,' marked his conducting debut with the Vienna International Orchestra in Austria. As a soloist, he's collaborated with globally renowned orchestras, including The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphonies of Cuba, Venezuela and Costa Rica among others. He has showcased his talent at some of the most distinguished venues in the U.S., including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and The Kennedy Center.
His versatility as a composer extends across chamber and orchestral works, film scores, and dance compositions. A former composer in residence of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, he contributed to the 'Works and Process Series' at the Guggenheim Museum. Recent compositions were featured in the DIALOGUES Series of ComposersNow, curated by composer Tania León. The Trisha Brown Dance Company commissioned and premiered his latest dance score. Dr. Gonzalez, holding a doctoral degree from Rutgers University, currently serves as a Professor of Music at Alabama State University.
Nathan Schram is a two-time GRAMMY® Award-winning composer and violist of the Attacca Quartet. Nathan has collaborated, in the studio and on stage, with many of the great artists of today including Björk, James Blake, Finneas and Billie Eilish, David Crosby, Becca Stevens, Itzhak Perlman, and others. Nathan is a PhD Candidate in music composition at Princeton University and an Honorary Ambassador to the city of Chuncheon, South Korea.
Nathan has released two solo records of his own compositions, Nearsided and Oak and the Ghost, on Better Company Records and New Amsterdam Records, respectively. As a member of Attacca, Schram has released records on Sony Classical, GroundUP Music, Nonesuch, and New Amsterdam Records. Attacca’s records, Orange and Evergreen, won GRAMMY® Awards for Best Chamber Music Performance in 2020 and 2023. His arrangement of Radiohead’s 2 + 2 = 5 written for Becca Stevens and Attacca Quartet was also nominated at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards.
Apart from performing, Nathan is the Founder and Artistic Director of Musicambia. Founded in 2013, Musicambia develops music education programs and performances inside prisons and jails throughout the United States.
Emmy Award-winning and GRAMMY® nominated Adam Schoenberg has twice been named among the Top 10 most performed living composers by Orchestras in the United States. With more than 300 orchestral performances worldwide, his works have received performances and premieres at the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, and twice with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. Recent commissions include his percussion concerto (Losing Earth), violin concerto (Orchard in Fog) for Anne Akiko Meyers (2014 Classical Billboard Artist of the Year) and the San Diego Symphony, and a concerto for orchestra for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. His latest album with the Kansas City Symphony was nominated for two GRAMMYs, including Picture Studies as Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
For film and TV, Schoenberg has scored several projects including GRACELAND, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, his Emmy Award-winning score to Artbound's (PBS/KCET) documentary THAT FAR CORNER: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles, and the current theme package for ABC’s NIGHTLINE. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, playwright and TV writer Janine Salinas Schoenberg, and their two sons, Luca and Leo.
Yves Dhar plays the cello. He has played it in famous places (Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, NYC FASHION WEEK, United Nations, Rikers Island) and not-so-famous places (schools for special needs, children’s hospitals, youth sports clubs, retirement homes, designer boutiques). He has shared the stage with many celebrated artists (Itzhak Perlman, Christina Aguilera, Arijit Singh, Bert from Sesame Street). If you haven’t seen him in concert halls, you might have heard him in films, TV, or ads (Annie; Allure; HBO’s The Plot Against America; Budweiser, Disney, VISA, Micoli Studio). He teaches cello, social advocacy, and arts entrepreneurship at Vassar College, in masterclasses around the world, and privately online. Perhaps, most importantly, Dhar co-founded nonprofits (Cello Makes Everything Better, New Docta) to inspire others with music and make the world a better place.
James Blachly is a Grammy®-winning conductor dedicated to enriching the concert experience by connecting with audiences in memorable and meaningful ways. James Blachly serves as Music Director of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and of the Experiential Orchestra, and is a versatile guest conductor in diverse repertoire with orchestras including New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, and WDR Funkhausorchester.
With the Experiential Orchestra (EXO), Blachly has conducted the works of Arvo Pärt at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, sit within the orchestra at Lincoln Center, and engage with Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn. During his most recent season, he led the Experiential Orchestra in a subscription concert at the Phillips Collection, in an immersive performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs with cellist Andrew Yee and soprano Sarah Brailey, and gave the New York premiere of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto with soloist Curtis Stewart.
The Grammy®️-winning Experiential Orchestral (EXO) brings audiences close to the music by engaging listeners through imaginative, immersive, and interactive concert experiences. Founded by Music Director James Blachly in 2009, EXO’s performances and recordings have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and have been praised for having “luscious tone and poise” by Classics Today. EXO was founded on collaboration and co-creation, and each curated performance is imbued with a generous spirit of celebration, facilitating the exploration of what Blachly calls, “a new experience of sound” by audiences. The orchestra’s performances take place in and outside the concert hall with audiences invited to participate in unorthodox ways. EXO has performed the music of Arvo Pärt in the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance during Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at National Sawdust, enveloped the audience in concerts at Lincoln Center with audience and orchestra members sitting together, and presented Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn. The orchestra’s world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) was released on Chandos Records in 2020 to international critical acclaim in The New York Times, Gramophone, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other publications. The album won the Grammy®️ for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 – the first Grammy ever awarded for Smyth’s music.
PROGRAM NOTES
Missed Deadline was commissioned by my friend and brilliant cellist Yves Dhar. Yves wanted a showy piece to be able to perform when people ask him to “play something!” at parties or gatherings. It is a fast-paced work filled with ostinati, chopping, and fun grooves. I’ll leave it to you to guess how the title came about...
Nrtya, meaning dance in Hindi, is a musical piece that artfully blends dance rhythms originating from India, West Africa, and the Caribbean Islands. In this unique composition, the cellist takes on a dual role, not only playing the cello but also incorporating percussion instruments to emulate the spirit of dance. Through "Nrtya," the aim is to create a harmonious synthesis of diverse cultural influences and showcase the virtuosity of its dedicatee.
Plant Church is a psychedelic journey into an overstimulated subconscious. The music weaves through primordial dust, a mechanistic working life, stupefying social interactions and a final journey through the celestial orbs of our universe.
Automation explores the complex relationship between man and machine. Can a technically superior machine with no soul make music that moves us? How will humans feel if that machine can replace us? Watch and listen as cellist Yves Dhar goes “bow-to-bow” onstage with holographic AI cellist A.G.N.E.S. (Automatic Generator Network of Excellent Songs) in this groundbreaking work that features cello, halldorophone, electronics, hybrid orchestra, and holographic projections.