WYBN TV 14 News – 5/5/2023
Next Festival Partners with American Composers Orchestra
and Guitarist Yvette Young for 10th Anniversary Season
Contemporary music’s best-kept secret presents world premiere performances
and open showings around New York State this June
NEW YORK STATE – The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, a trailblazing arts enrichment program for early career string musicians, composers, and choreographers, launches an expansive 10th Anniversary season from May 26 – June 9, 2023. 20 String Performance Fellows, selected through a national open call, will present 12 world premieres in two weeks by some of today’s most exciting composers, like Yvette Young, who Guitar Player Magazine named a “Legend Leading Guitar to a New Frontier.” Fellows will also participate in recording sessions and explore multi-disciplinary collaboration. Residencies and performances will take place as part of American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC Festival in New York City and at PS21/Performance Spaces for the 21st Century in Chatham, New York. Click here for press kit access.
“It is extremely rare to find a festival that fosters an environment of hard work and camaraderie while making contemporary music its primary focus. The Next Festival is an extraordinary home for new music.” –Jeffrey Zeigler, Cellist, Past Next Festival Guest Artist
PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
Thursday, June 1, 7:30pm
Ecstatic Music Series / American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC Festival
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023
Tickets $25: https://bit.ly/ecstatic-music-june1
The 2023 SONiC Festival opens with Ecstatic Music, featuring multi-Grammy nominated violinist Curtis Stewart, alongside pianist and Kaufman Music Center Resident Aaron Diehl, the Harlem Quartet, and a chamber orchestra of musicians from The Next Festival of Emerging Artists and Kaufman Center’s Special Music School, conducted by Peter Askim. A New Sounds Live co-presentation hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer, the program brings new creative voices to the fore, in part through reinterpreting works from the past, including the world premiere of Stewart’s ACO-commissioned work Embrace.
Friday, June 2, 7:30pm
Program of World Premieres for String Orchestra
PS21/Performance Spaces for the 21st Century, 2980 NY-66, Chatham, NY 12037
Pay As You Wish: https://bit.ly/ps21-concert-jun2
All proceeds benefit the Crellin Community Parks & Recreation Department
Next Festival Performance Fellows will present a 10th Anniversary program of world premieres for string orchestra by 2023 Guest Artist and guitarist Yvette Young, 2022 Pulitzer-Finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti, violinist and 2022 fellow alum Che Buford, saxophonist Matthew Evan Taylor, and The Next Festival’s Artistic Director Peter Askim. This event is the culmination of a weeklong residency at PS21’s state-of-the art venue on 100 acres of unspoiled meadows, trails, and woodlands in the heart of the Hudson Valley.
Saturday, June 3, 7:30pm
Program of World Premieres / American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC Festival
Tishman Auditorium at Mannes, 63 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003
Tickets $20 Suggested Donation: https://bit.ly/anniversary-program-jun3
After two weeks of rehearsals, performances, and individual coaching, Next Festival Fellows share their 10th Anniversary program as part of ACO’s 2023 SONiC Festival, a NYC-wide celebration of the breadth and vibrancy of the nation’s modern composers. The Next Festival will perform new innovative works by Featured Guest Artist Yvette Young, as well as Leilehua Lanzilotti, Che Buford, Matthew Evan Taylor, and Next Festival Director Peter Askim.
Thursday, June 8, 7pm
Composer/Choreographer Workshop / ACO’s SONiC Festival and EarShot Program
Tishman Auditorium at Mannes, 63 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003
Free with RSVP: https://bit.ly/comp-choreo-workshop-jun8
The Next Festival’s 2023 Choreographer, Composer and Performance Fellows premiere new music and dance works, intermingling the world premiere of ACO EarShot compositions with a works-in-progress dance showing. This is the culmination of a week-long workshop, consisting of rehearsals, collaboration and spontaneous creation. ACO’s EarShot is the nation’s first ongoing program for creating relationships between orchestras and composers, in partnership with American Composers Forum, League of American Orchestras and New Music USA.
Composer Mentors, the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis and “strikingly original” (The New York Times) Kamala Sankaram, along with Festival A.D. Peter Askim, will guide ACO’s Earshot Composer Fellows Michael R. Dudley Jr., Emil Ernström, and Akari Komura in the creation of new music. These new pieces will be played by the Festival’s String Performance Fellows.
Choreography Mentor Sidra Bell will lead Choreographer Fellows Flora Ferguson, Jay Beardsley, and Ameeya Singh in the development of new dance work, in collaboration with EarShot Composer Fellows and String Performance Fellows.
The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, founded in 2013, provides young performers and composers (ages 20-30) with an immersion into 21st century music. Designed to cultivate the next generation of 360° artists, the Festival focuses on contemporary music, entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary collaboration, and developing artist citizens. A champion for living composers, Next Festival commissions new compositions by both established and early career composers every year, presenting over 75 Guest Artists in the last 10 years, including Pulitzer, Grammy, and MacArthur award winners. Prioritizing artist futures, not the present bottom line, the Festival supports Fellows through a radical “pay-what-you-can” model, ensuring that deserving talent is able to participate regardless of financial circumstances. The Festival has been awarded grants by the Amphion, ASCAP and BMI foundations, and the Copland Fund for Music. Learn more at next-fest.org.
NEXT FESTIVAL LEADERSHIP
Founder and Artistic Director of The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, Peter Askim is a composer, conductor, and bassist, Director of Orchestral Studies at NC State Department of Music and conductor of Raleigh Civic Symphony Association. As a conductor, he has led the American Composers Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Askim was featured on HBO and NPR Music conducting folk-rock legend Richard Thompson’s soundtrack for “The Cold Blue.” As a composer, he has been called a “Modern Master” by The Strad and worked with groups like Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Honolulu, and American Viola Society. Through the Next Festival of Emerging Artists, Askim is known for innovative programming and championing the work of living composers and underrepresented voices. Learn more at peteraskim.com.
2023 FEATURED GUEST ARTIST
Yvette Young is a musical prodigy, self-taught guitarist and the front-woman of the math rock band Covet. She has seen her career skyrocket in the last five years, after the release of outstanding records, Effloresce (2018) and Technicolor (2020). Covet’s third album Catharsis (2023), released though Triple Crown Records, has led to a national tour. Young graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and began her career by posting videos of herself playing music in 2009. Teaching herself guitar by ear, she notes, “I’m not really in a box in terms of chord shapes. And I don’t use [traditional] shapes at all, which freaks a lot of people out!” One of the most respected names in modern guitar culture, Yvette Young has received endorsements from Ibanez Talman Guitars, deals with Yamaha, Harmony, and Mono, and appeared in a Super Bowl LV commercial for Logitech. Learn more at linktr.ee/Yvetteyoung.