American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra is, as its name suggests, completely dedicated to American music. The ensemble originated in a dinner conversation at a restaurant in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. Conductor Dennis Russell Davies and composer Francis Thorne were discussing the upcoming anniversary of the American Composers Alliance, which had been founded in 1938 by Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Wallingford Riegger, and others to promote contemporary American composers. It was one of the most important and long-lived of several modern music-oriented organizations founded in the U.S., particularly in New York, in the 1920s and 1930s.
Nevertheless, as Thorne and Davies remarked in the course of their talk, it remained the case that American orchestras played relatively little American music. They decided to attempt to form an orchestra to fill that function.
Davies volunteered to serve as principal conductor and music director, and another composer, Nicolas Roussakis, joined Thorne. Another conductor (also flutist) Paul Lustig Dunkel also joined the group of leaders of the endeavor. The orchestra was formed and had its first concert on February 7, 1977, which was broadcast on National Public Radio and Voice of America.
The American Composers Orchestra's first several series of concerts were held at Alice Tully Hall in New York. In the 1985 - 1987 season, it permanently moved to Carnegie Hall. The immediate result of this move was that subscriptions tripled and average attendance more than doubled and the orchestra included in its activities the commissioning of new music. Joseph Schwantner's Aftertones of Infinity won the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1978 - 1979, the first A.C.O.-commissioned work to do so. Another A.C.O. commission, Ellen Taafe Zwilich's Symphony No. 1, in 1983 became the first work by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1979, the American Composers Orchestra received its first A.S.C.A.P. (American Society of Composer's and Publishers, the primary composers' and publishers' rights groups in the U.S.) Award for adventuresome programming and it went on to win 18 more by the end of the twentieth century.
In 1989, the A.C.O. inaugurated an annual series of reading sessions for works of emerging composers. A reading session is a chance for a composer to hear an orchestra work on one of his/her compositions. It fulfills the difficult-to-attain goal of allowing a composer to hear in the real world whether his/her orchestration works. The orchestra encourages younger composers to send in their resumes and scores of their orchestral works and selects six or seven for playing in a two-day session. One of the composers receives a commission, based on the promise shown by the composition submitted, for a new work to be played by the A.C.O. The series was interrupted, but was reorganized on a permanent basis in 1994 with support from the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.
In the same year, the A.C.O. premiered its series of concerts on American Public Radio. In 1990, an A.C.O. recording of works by Alan Hovhanes and Lou Harrison hit the Billboard classical charts and remained there for three months. Following that, the A.C.O. signed a contract with the ARGO label, an imprint of Decca (London) and part of the major Polygram Group. Decca had decided to devote this sublabel to British, American, and choral music.
The scope of the term "American" in the ensemble's name was enlarged in the 1993 - 1994 season when its wider meaning, embracing all the nations of the New World, was recognized. The A.C.O. accordingly launched its Sonidos de las Américas (Sounds of the Americas) festival. These annual festivals are devoted to the music of individual countries or regions of the Americas. The series has included festivals focused on Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Cuba. After the 2000 - 2001 season, the series was to be re-evaluated, with a goal of establishing a broader Latin American music program the following year.
The orchestra annually commissions an average of four compositions, totaling more than 90 from 1977 to 2000. Two more of its recordings were high sellers: a disc of music by Colin McPhee, Lou Harrison, and Chinary Ung, and its best-selling disc ever, Philip Glass' Heroes Symphony. The A.C.O. has released at least 19 CDs on the Argo, ECM, Point, and Nonesuch labels. Its school music program annually plays before 20,000 New York City children in trips to several schools and in eight youth concerts at Carnegie Hall.
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Discografía
16 álbum(es) • Ordenado por Mejores ventas
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Philip Glass: Heroes Symphony
American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 16 ene. 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Four Symphonic Works
American Composers Orchestra, Maurice Peress
Clásica - Editado por Musical Heritage Society el 18 nov. 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sessions: Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 & 9
American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 1 ene. 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Glass: Heroes Symphony
Gidon Kremer, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi, American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Deutsche Grammophon (DG) el 1 jul. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cage: The Seasons
Margaret Leng Tan, Dennis Russell Davies, American Composers Orchestra
Clásica - Editado por ECM New Series el 10 mar. 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Adams: Shaker Loops
Edo de Waart, San Francisco Symphony, Dennis Russell Davies, American Composers Orchestra
Clásica - Editado por Decca (UMO) el 1 ene. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
"Mysterious Mountain", Lousadzak, Symphony No. 2 "Elegiac"
American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies, Keith Jarrett
Clásica - Editado por Musical Heritage Society el 1 ene. 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ung: Inner Voices / McPhee: Tabuh-Tabuhan / Harrison: Suite for Symphonic Strings
Dennis Russell Davies, American Composers Orchestra
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 1 dic. 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sessions: Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 & 9
American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Phoenix USA el 1 ene. 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
McPhee: Tabuh-tabuhan - Ung: Inner Voices - Harrison: Suite for Symphonic Strings
American Composers Orchestra, Peter Basquin, Dennis Russell Davies, Christopher Oldfather
Clásica - Editado por Phoenix USA el 1 ene. 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Music of Elliott Carter
Clásica - Editado por NWCRI el 1 ene. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bolcom: Violin Concerto, Fantasia concertante, & Symphony No. 5
Sergiu Luca, Janet Lyman Hill, American Composers Orchestra, American Chamber Orchestra, Eugene Moye, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Phoenix USA el 1 ago. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Robert Beaser: Chorale Variations; The Seven Deadly Sins; Piano Concerto
Dennis Russell Davies, American Composers Orchestra
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 1 jun. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bolcom: Violin Concerto; Symphony No.5; Fantasia Concertante
Sergiu Luca, Janet Lyman Hill, Eugene Moye, American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 1 ene. 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beaser: Chorale Variations, The 7 Deadly Sins, & Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
American Composers Orchestra, Jan Opalach, Pamela Mia Paul, Dennis Russell Davies
Clásica - Editado por Phoenix USA el 1 ene. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sessions: Symphonies 6, 7, & 9
Clásica - Editado por Phoenix USA el 1 ene. 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo