MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, CO-FOUNDER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE
Page 3 About the New World Symphony
Page 4 Message from the President
Page 5 Board of Trustees
Page 6 Artistic Director, Stéphane Denève
Page 8 Co-Founder and Artistic Director Laureate, Michael Tilson Thomas
Page 11 Visiting Faculty
Page 13 Recent Alumni Successes
Page 14 Message from the Board Chair
Page 15 Donor Recognition
Page 24 Programs
Mar. 1-2
Mar. 8-9
Mar. 15
Denève: Music in (Techni)Color
Denève: Davóne Tines' Mass
Denève: Britten's War Requiem
Mar. 29-30 MTT, Bronfman and Beethoven
Page 64 New World Symphony Fellows
Page 76 New World Symphony Staff
Page 78 Plan your Visit
Page 80 Sponsor Recognition
Cover photo by Alex Markow
ABOUT THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY
The New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy (NWS), prepares graduates of music programs for leadership roles in professional orchestras and ensembles. Since its cofounding in 1987 by Artistic Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas and Lin and Ted Arison, NWS has helped launch the careers of nearly 1,300 alumni worldwide. In 2022 Stéphane Denève was named Artistic Director of New World Symphony.
A laboratory for the way music is taught, presented and experienced, the New World Symphony consists of young musicians who are granted fellowships lasting up to three years. The fellowship program offers in-depth exposure to traditional and modern repertoire, professional development training and personalized experiences working with leading guest conductors, soloists and visiting faculty. Relationships with these artists are extended through NWS’s extensive distance learning via the internet.
NWS Fellows take advantage of the innovative performance facilities and state-of-the art practice and ensemble rooms of the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center, the campus of the New World Symphony and home of the Knight New Media Center.
In the hopes of joining NWS, over 1,000 recent music school and conservatory graduates compete for about 35 available fellowships each year. The Fellows are selected for this highly competitive, prestigious opportunity based on their musical achievement and promise, as well as their passion for the future of classical music.
NWS recognizes that the viability of the performing arts depends on their being reflective of the communities in which they live. NWS is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and proud to be partnering with many organizations to realize the goal of the reflective orchestra.
NWS is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music.
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Welcome to this concert by the New World Symphony. These performances are celebratory moments as all our Fellows take the next steps toward becoming comfortable as artists in the world…and anticipate their last step in the process of gaining a professional position.
Each year, I ask our new Fellows an important question. When did you decide you had to be a musician? Their stories are compelling. They remember exactly where they were physically, often describing a specific passage in a piece of music. These are cathartic moments. What was a passing interest became a more serious endeavor until a musical experience opened into a new vision. They began to imagine that music might define their life. These moments are a gift. They serve as reference points because life beyond these decisions is not predictable. The risk is significant.
One statistic that dramatizes this risk, over 1,000 young musicians applied for the 32 openings in this year’s fellowship program. But there is the mitigating fact that 90% of our alumni are actively engaged in music making. In fact, last season 30 Fellows left the New World Symphony with jobs.
At this performance, you are listening to the future of the art form. And, you are supporting our Fellows as they embrace risk—in their week-to-week rehearsal/ performance sequence that brings these concerts forward, and in their season-long development of their own voices, essential for making the transition to professional life.
Welcome to the New World Symphony where youth meets excellence meets risk.
Howard Herring President and Chief Executive Officer
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
OFFICERS
William M. Osborne III, Chair
Adam Carlin, Vice Chair
Ira M. Birns, Vice Chair/Treasurer
Dorothy A. Terrell, Vice Chair/Secretary
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Sheldon T. Anderson
Madeleine Arison
Sarah S. Arison
Ira M. Birns
Anne Donovan Bodnar
Katherine C. Bormann
Matthew A. Budd, M.D.
Matthew W. Buttrick
Adam Carlin
Bruce E. Clinton
Ann M. Drake
Mary E. Frank
John D. Fumagalli
Rose Ellen Greene*
Matt Haggman
John J. Haley
Neisen O. Kasdin*
Gerald Katcher*
William Kleh
Richard L. Kohan
Charmel Maynard
Adam Morris
William L. Morrison
L. Michael Orlove
William M. Osborne III
Stephen L. Owens
Patricia M. Papper
Tracey Robertson Carter
Judith Rodin
Edward Manno Shumsky*
Dorothy A. Terrell
Ebonee Thomas
Michael J. Zinner, MD
EX-OFFICIO, NON-VOTING
Stéphane Denève
Howard Herring
Michael Tilson Thomas
TRUSTEES EMERITI
Stanley Cohen
Mario de Armas
Howard Frank*
Harry M. Hersh
R. Kirk Landon°
Sheldon Schneider*
Judy Weiser*°
Sherwood Weiser*°
* Indicates Former Chair
° In Memory
STÉPHANE DENÈVE
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Stéphane Denève is Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. He recently concluded terms as Principal Guest Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Brussels Philharmonic, and previously served as Chief Conductor of Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Recognized internationally for the exceptional quality of his performances and programming, Stéphane Denève regularly appears at major concert venues with the world’s greatest orchestras and soloists. He has a special affinity for the music of his native France and is a passionate advocate for music of the 21st century.
Stéphane Denève’s recent and upcoming engagements include appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica
dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (with whom he conducted the 2020 Nobel Prize concert), Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, DSO Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Rotterdam Philharmonic.
In North America, Stéphane Denève made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with whom he has appeared several times both in Boston and at Tanglewood, and he regularly conducts the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, New World Symphony and Toronto Symphony. In 2022 Denève was the conductor for John Williams’ official 90th Birthday Gala with NSO Washington; he is also a popular guest at many of the U.S. summer music festivals, including the Hollywood Bowl, Bravo! Vail, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Blossom Music Festival, Festival Napa Valley, Grand Teton Music Festival and Music Academy of the West.
Stéphane Denève frequently performs with many of the world’s leading solo artists, including Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Nicola Benedetti, Yefim Bronfman, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, James Ehnes, Kirill Gerstein, Hélène Grimaud, Augustin Hadelich, Hilary Hahn, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Leonidas Kavakos, Lang Lang, Olivier Latry, Paul Lewis, Nikolai Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Kelly O’Connor, Víkingur Ólafsson, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Gil Shaham, Akiko Suwanai, Nikolaj SzepsZnaider, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Frank Peter Zimmermann. He also treasures the memory of Nicholas Angelich and Lars Vogt, two exceptional artists with whom he enjoyed a close musical friendship over many years.
In the field of opera, Stéphane Denève led a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Netherlands Opera at the 2019 Holland Festival. Elsewhere, he has led productions at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Saito Kinen Festival, Gran Teatro del Liceu, La Monnaie and Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
As a recording artist, Stéphane Denève has won critical acclaim for his recordings of the works of Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Franck and Connesson. He is a triple winner of the Diapason d’Or of the Year, has been shortlisted for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year Award, and has won the prize for symphonic music at the International Classical Music Awards. His most recent releases include a live recording of Honegger’s Jeanne d’arc au bûcher with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and two discs of the works of Guillaume Connesson with the Brussels Philharmonic (the first of which was awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’année, Caecilia Award, and Classica Magazine’s CHOC of the Year). A box-set of his complete Ravel recordings with Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was released in 2022 by Hänssler Classic.
A graduate and prize-winner of the Paris Conservatoire, Stéphane Denève worked closely in his early career with Sir Georg Solti, Georges Prêtre and Seiji Ozawa. A gifted communicator and educator, he is committed to inspiring the next generation of musicians and listeners and has worked regularly with young people in programs such as those of the New World Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center, Colburn School, European Union Youth Orchestra and Music Academy of the West.
MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS
CO-FOUND ER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE
Michael Tilson Thomas is Co-Founder and Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy; Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony; and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. In addition to these posts, he maintains an active presence guest conducting with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.
Born in Los Angeles, Mr. Tilson Thomas is the third generation of his family to follow an artistic career. His grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, were founding members of the Yiddish Theater in America. His father, Ted Thomas, was a producer in the Mercury Theater Company in New York before moving to Los Angeles where he worked in films and television. His mother, Roberta Thomas, was the head of research for Columbia Pictures.
Mr. Tilson Thomas began his formal studies at the University of Southern California, where he studied piano with John Crown, and conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl. At age 19 he was named Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. During this same period, he was the pianist and conductor in master classes of Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz and worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland on premieres of their compositions at Los Angeles’ Monday Evening Concerts.
In 1969, after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That year he also made his New York debut with the Boston Symphony and gained international recognition after replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert. He was later appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 1974. He was Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979 and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. His guest conducting includes appearances with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.
Mr. Tilson Thomas is a two-time Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist, curating and conducting series at the hall from 2003 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2019. In the most recent series, he led Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America both at the hall and on tour in Asia, opened the Carnegie Hall season over two evenings with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted two programs with the Vienna Philharmonic and finished with a pair of concerts leading the New World Symphony.
A winner of twelve Grammy Awards, Mr. Tilson Thomas appears on more than 120 recordings. His discography includes The Mahler Project, a collection of the composer’s complete symphonies and works for voice and orchestra performed with the San Francisco Symphony, in addition to pioneering recordings of music by Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Steve Reich, John Cage, Ingolf Dahl, Morton Feldman, George Gershwin, John McLaughlin and Elvis Costello. His recordings span repertoire from Bach and Beethoven to Debussy and Stravinsky, and from Sarah Vaughan to Metallica.
His television work includes a series with the London Symphony Orchestra for BBC Television, broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts from 1971 to 1977 and numerous productions on PBS’s Great Performances. With the San Francisco Symphony, he created a multi-tiered media project, Keeping Score, which includes a television series, web sites, and radio programs. He received a Peabody Award for his SFS Media radio series The MTT Files
Mr. Tilson Thomas’s compositions are published by G. Schirmer. In 1991, he and the New World Symphony were presented in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF in the United States, featuring Audrey Hepburn as narrator of his work From the Diary of Anne Frank, which was commissioned by UNICEF. This piece has since been translated and performed in many languages worldwide. In August 1995, he led the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in the premiere of his composition Shówa/Shoáh, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. His vocal music includes settings of poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, which were premiered by Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming, respectively. In 2016, Yuja Wang premiered his piano piece You Come Here Often?.
Mr. Tilson Thomas' song cycle Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind, a setting of Carl Sandburg’s poem, was premiered in 2016 by the New World Symphony, with Measha Brueggergosman as soloist. In 2019 the piece was recorded for Medici.tv at the New World Center and given its New York premiere as part of Mr. Tilson Thomas’s second Carnegie Hall Perspectives series. His first Perspectives series also featured performances of his own compositions, including Island Music for four marimbas and percussion; Notturno for solo flute and strings, featuring soloist Paula Robison; and new settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. In 2020, he led the San Francisco Symphony in the world premiere of his six-part song cycle Meditations on Rilke, and he subsequently conducted the work at the Cleveland Orchestra. Additional compositions include Street Song for brass instruments; Agnegram, an overture for orchestra; and Urban Legend, a concerto for contrabassoon that was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony. In June 2020, SFS Media released an album of works composed by Mr. Tilson Thomas, featuring live concert recordings of From the Diary of Anne Frank, narrated by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, and Meditations on Rilke, sung by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and bassbaritone Ryan McKinny.
Mr. Tilson Thomas is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was Musical America’s Musician of the Year and Conductor of the Year, was Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year and has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes and ABC’s Nightline. He has been awarded the National Medal of Arts, has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a 2019 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
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The Washington Post
WELCOME TO MIAMI
New World Symphony envisions a strong and secure future for classical music and will redefine, reaffirm, express and share its traditions with as many people as possible. We are proud to be a part of the creative South Florida community, a rich tapestry of arts and culture.
The Frank Gehry-designed New World Center comes to life through the New World Symphony’s creative collaborations and partnerships with the world’s leading artists and organizations. "In tandem with the NWS mission, [Frank Gehry's] architecture seems to insist you change your perspective every few steps" (The Washington Post). It is not only a dynamic performance space for our concerts, but also an event venue of unparalleled utility and flexibility, available for conferences, workshops and other special occasions.
Whether you are new to the area or just want to expand your involvement with the community, let us help connect you with the cultural fabric of South Florida.
Learn more at nws.edu.
VISITING FACULTY
MARCH 2025
VIOLIN
David Kim, The Philadelphia Orchestra
CELLO
Mickey Katz, Boston Symphony
* Alan Rafferty, Cincinnati Symphony
BASS
* Kristen Bruya, Minnesota Orchestra
Ira Gold, National Symphony
FLUTE
Yubeen Kim, San Francisco Symphony
CLARINET
Mark Nuccio, Houston Symphony
BASSOON
Keith Buncke, Chicago Symphony
William Short, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
TRUMPET
* Mark Inouye, San Francisco Symphony
TROMBONE
* Kenneth Thompkins, Michigan State University
PERCUSSION
Eric Shin, National Symphony
ENTREPRENURIAL LEADERSHIP
Michael Abels, composer
Jeff Apana, AFM Local 655 Secretary-Treasurer
Tamika Bickham, TB Media Group
Kendra Hawley, AFM Local 655 President
Lisa Husseini, Lisa Husseini LLC
Nicole Jordan, ICSOM President
Deborah Newmark, AFM Director of Symphonic Electronic Media
Eric Shin, Seoul Spice
Rochelle Skolnick, AFM Director of Symphonic Services Division
Steve Wade, ROPA President
WELLNESS
* Meghan Jones, Wellness on Purpose
Lori Schiff, Alexander Technique, The Juilliard School
* denotes NWS alum
RECENT ALUMNI SUCCESSES
Andrew Abel, Principal Tuba, Oregon Ballet Theatre; Discovery Officer, Seattle Symphony
Besnik Abrashi, Bass Clarinet, Milwaukee Symphony
David Alexander, Associate Principal Horn, Cincinnati Symphony; Adjunct Instructor (Horn), University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
Peter Ayuso, Viola, Sarasota Orchestra
** Emily Bieker, Principal Flute, Des Moines Metro Opera
Myles Blakemore, Assistant Professor (Trombone), University of Maryland
** Kate Bruns, Oboe, Nashville Symphony (one-year)
Christopher Chan, Cello, Vancouver Symphony
Kenneth Chauby, Trumpet, U.S. Air Force Ceremonial Brass
Andrew Chilcote, Principal Bass, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
Maya Cohon, Associate Concertmaster, San Francisco Opera
Julianna Darby, Second Clarinet, Atlanta Symphony
Rhett M. Del Campo, President and CEO, Pacific Chorale
Jeffrey Dyrda, Violin, National Arts Centre Orchestra
James Ferree, Principal Horn, Baltimore Symphony; Member, American Horn Quartet
Jakob Gerritsen, Bass, Swedish Radio Symphony
** Maalik Glover, Violin, Columbus Symphony
Micah Harrow, Timpani, Utah Symphony (one-year)
** Beatrice Hsieh, Violin, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (one-year)
** Jingyi Rebecca Hou, Violin, Alabama Symphony
Thea Humphries, Fourth Horn, Tucson Symphony
Andrew Johnson, Percussion, National Arts Centre Orchestra
Blake-Anthony Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation
Jennifer Snyder Kozoroz, Assistant Professor (Viola), Lawrence University
Minha Kim, Flute, Virginia Symphony
Scott Leger, Adjunct Instructor (Horn), University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
** Shek Wan Li, Associate Principal Viola, Auckland Philharmonia
John Wilson, Faculty, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Julia Yang, Visiting Assistant Professor (Cello), The Ohio State University
Jason Yu, Assistant Principal Second Violin, The Cleveland Orchestra
James Zabawa-Martinez, Violin, Rochester Philharmonic
Dean Zhang, Principal Keyboard, Tucson Symphony
** Started the 2024-25 season as a Fellow
MESSAGE FROM THE BOARD CHAIR
Dear Friends of Music,
Welcome to our 37th New World Symphony season! Each year brings new Fellows, new programming and new community connections. While the orchestra is forever youthful, we celebrate traditions that have endured for centuries.
The visionary leadership of our esteemed Artistic Director Stéphane Denève infuses our performances with sensitivity, depth, joyfulness and optimism. We also congratulate our Artistic Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas on his newly released collection of recordings, Grace.
The shared experience of listening to a concert together connects us in a profound way. This season is particularly meaningful as we mark the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II, the liberation of the concentration camps, the end of the Holocaust and the rise of democracy across the world. These markers are significant, as we still have heroes and survivors among us who participated in and helped bring about the momentous close to some of the darkest days of our history. We will have the opportunity to reflect on the resilience of the human spirit through music of the mid-20th century that transcends the time and place of its creation.
All our performances remain accessible to audience members near and far— through our WALLCAST® concerts in the park, our Mobile WALLCAST® series spreading music across Miami, and our free online webcasts.
To our valued sponsors and donors, your generosity is what allows us to undertake such significant and impactful programming. Your contributions nurture the emerging talent you see on stage, as well as the countless hours of preparation and training that go into each week’s program. Your investment in the arts creates a lasting impact that extends far beyond the concert hall.
I thank all of you for inspiring us to passionately pursue our mission. Your presence is what makes our performances truly special.
With sincere appreciation,
William M. Osborne, III NWS Board Chair
NWS SALUTES OUR DONORS
WE ARE PLEASED TO RECOGNIZE THE FOLLOWING DONATIONS
MADE BETWEEN JULY 1, 2023 AND JANUARY 31, 2025.
MAESTRO’S CIRCLE DIAMOND TIER
$250,000 +
Anonymous (2)
City of Miami Beach
Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc.
Ann M. Drake
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The Kovner Foundation
Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs*
Judith Rodin and Paul Verkuil
Helena Rubinstein Philanthropic Fund at The Miami Foundation, Diane and Robert Moss
Karen Bechtel and William Osborne
MAESTRO’S CIRCLE GOLD TIER
$100,000-$249,999
Anonymous (2)
The Micky and Madeleine Arison Family Foundation
Sarah Arison and Thomas Wilhelm
Matthew Budd and Rosalind E. Gorin
Adam and Chanin Carlin
Crankstart
Estate of Chantal d'Adesky-Scheinberg
John and Mary Lou Dasburg
Dan J. Epstein Family Foundation
Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation
Rose Ellen Greene
The Hearst Foundation
Kleh Family Foundation, William and Patricia Kleh
William and Jan Morrison
Susan D. Kronick and Edward Manno Shumsky
State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts
Bill Strong
Dorothy A. Terrell
Rhonda S. Zinner Foundation, Michael J. Zinner, M.D.
MAESTRO’S CIRCLE SILVER TIER
$50,000-$99,999
Anonymous (2)
Baptist Health
Estate of Diane Marie Benson
Anne Donovan Bodnar and James Bodnar
Bruce and Martha Clinton, The Clinton Family Fund
Tracey Corwin
Frank Family Charitable Foundation, Mary and Howard S. Frank
John and Jama Haley
Estate of William Hiebel
Frayda Lindemann
Marcum LLP
Northern Trust Bank, John Fumagalli
Stephen Roper and Nirupa Chaudhari
Robert Rosenberg and Mary Wolfson
The Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust
Didi and Oscar S. Schafer
Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson, PA
The Robert and Jane Toll Foundation
The Wege Foundation
Ira M. Birns and Arlenis Birns, World Kinect Corporation
CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE
$25,000-$49,999
Anonymous
Akerman LLP – Neisen Kasdin
Albert H. and Jane D. Nahmad Foundation, Inc.
Florence and Sheldon Anderson
Martin Baron
The Batchelor Foundation
Heidi Jane Berghuis
Michael and Mary Carpenter
City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council
The Russell and Ronalee Galbut Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Russell
Graystone Consulting | Morgan Stanley
Danet Linares and Matt Haggman
Francinelee Hand and David Siegel
Linda C. Hothem Family
Jackson Health System
Jane and Gerald Katcher
The Kirk Foundation
Kokusai Denki
Theresa and Richard Lubman
Charmel and Jan Maynard
National Endowment for the Arts
Merle and Michael Orlove
Linda and David Paresky, Laura and Eric Gould, Julie and Mark Paresky
PNC Bank
Lewis Pollack
Thierry Isambert Culinary and Event Design
University of Miami and Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center
COMPOSER’S SOCIETY
$15,000-$24,999
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Louise Austin
Bank of America
David E. Berges and Debra Kendall
Alan Bernstein
Ernest and Rita Bogen
Century Risk Advisors
Funding Arts Network
J.P. Morgan
Ana and Neisen Kasdin
Joel D. Krauss and Sophia Sieczkowski
Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc.
Alan and Diane Lieberman
Susan S. Miller°
Linda and David Paresky
Steven Perles
David J. Phillips
Thomas C. Ragan
Michael and Chandra Rudd
Lewis and Margery Steinberg
CONCERTMASTER’S CIRCLE
$5,000-$14,999
Anonymous
Accenture
Dolores and Jorge Alonso
Amanda Altman and David Lynn
Carol Lavin Bernick
Blavatnik Family Foundation
Abram Bluestein and Ilene Gordon
Robert R. Brinker and Nancy S. Fleischman
Trudy and Paul Cejas
Rosanna and Michael S. Clementi
Keith Chasin
Citi
City of Coral Gables
Michael Comras
The Cowles Charitable Trust
George Dandrige and Marcos Tychbrochjer
Jeffrey W. Davis and Michael T. Miller
Deloitte
Jeanne Donovan Fisher
Millard and Peggy Drexler
Gilbert and Linda Drozdow
Victoria Dudley
Peter and June Felix
Gregory and Leslie Ferrero
Freshfields
Marvin Ross Friedman and Adrienne bon Haes
Emile and Susan Geisenheimer
Genpact
Philip and Norma Glogover
Ira and Linda Greenblatt
Werner and Diane Grob
Saul and Jane Gross
Alfredo and Luz Gutiérrez
Infosys
Intertec/FPT Software
Judith and Richard Jacobs
Juan Jose Jimenez and Laura I. Maydón
Marta B. Joltac and Jorge Etinger
Lawrence and Jackie Kamin
Herbert and Joyce Kean
Kelson Foundation
Arie and Gily Kotler
Harri and Eeva Kulovaara
The Elizabeth C. Lambertson Foundation
Maurice H. Laszlo°
Jerry M. Lindzon
Richard E. and Bobbi Litt
Lloyd A. Fry Foundation
Beth P. Lotspeich
Fred Malakoff
Ruth Ann Marshall and Patricia Houtz
Miami Dolphins
Morgan Stanley Investment Banking
Ann and Don Morrison
Peter° and Marion Mosheim
Jose Luis Murillo and Caroline Orlando
Ness Digital Engineering
Jay Newman and Elissa Kramer
David and Melanie Niemiec
Selma Ankist Family Trust, Andrea Nobil, Trustee
Stephen and Aimee Owens
Patricia Papper*
Pradip Patiath and Shalini Sharma
Susan Pernick
Jonathan Plutzik and Lesley D. Goldwasser
Kristin Podack
Dorothy and Aaron Podhurst and Podhurst Orseck P.A.
Jeremy Schlee | PWC
G. Daniel Prigmore and Marcia Hayes
Jeremy Schlee | PWC
Alan and Sue Rapperport
Raymond James Investment Banking
Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, LLC
Edward Roe
Carmen and Donna Romeo
Ruth Rosenwasser
Brian Ross
Albert and Anya Salama
Charles and Linda Sands
Daniel and Ileana Sayre
Yesica Schaaf
PKS and OIS
Janet Shein
The Shepard Broad Foundation, Ann B. Bussel*
Lourdes Lopez and George Skouras
Sara Solomon
James Star and Sara Crown Star
Stuzin Family Charitable Fund
Martha and Stephen Sullivan
Richard Tager
Joel and Shelley Tauber
Alan and Katherine Trager
Trio Foundation of St. Louis
UDT
Nadine Asin and Thomas van Straaten
Suzy and Sadek Wahba
Wells Fargo
Marguerite S. Willis
WNS (Holdings) Ltd.
Workday
Augusta I. Zimmerman
CONCERTO SOCIETY
$2,500-$4,999
ARC Excess & Surplus
Ms. Georgette Balance
Maria C. Bechily and Scott Hodes
Sharon Studer and Graham Beckett
Dorrit Bern
Cornelius Bond and Ann Blackwell
Joseph Burns
Marion Cameron-Gray
Charles and Dianna Colman
Jane L. and Andrew Dolkart Fund at The Miami Foundation
Bill Durham
Elizabeth Fenjves
Eugene Finkin and Linda Witham Finkin
Paula and Michael Finkle
Kevin and Celeste Ford
Rob and Cindy Friezo
Pamela Garrison
Jeff Gates and Richard Michael Moran
Donald Goodstein
Monique Halberstein
Benjamin E. Hein
Shirley and Barnett Helzberg Jr. Donor Advisory Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Manuel Hevia
Larry and Deborah Hoffman
Intellias Consulting
Linda Heller Kamm
Rosabeth Kanter
Hideko Klebanoff*
Renée and David Lieberman
Ann and William Lieff
Ming-San Ma
Jim Mooney
Dale Moses
Nelsons Family Foundation
NWS DIGITAL: POWERED BY KNIGHT FOUNDATION
In 2022 the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced a $10 million investment to help extend New World Symphony's Knight New Media Center and its exploration of digital technology to enhance music performance, education and community engagement.
These funds are expanding NWS's transformative work with its Fellows, staff and alumni. Together, they are participating in a unique musical laboratory, enabled by the Knight New Media Center, that is reimagining the future of classical music in a digital world. Additionally, NWS is leveraging Knight's investment to push the boundaries of artistic expression.
"The arts play a vital role in creating a sense of place, connection and vibrancy in community," said Knight Foundation President Maribel Pérez Wadsworth. "New World Symphony has always understood this. Their pioneering work in the integration of technology and classical music is an example of how digital media can grow the audience in size and in intensity of experience."
Knight Foundation and New World Symphony: Reimagining Classical Music in the Digital Age
NEW WORLD CENTER TOURS
Go behind the scenes of the New World Center—Frank Gehry's only Florida commission! Inperson docent-led tours are offered Mondays and Wednesdays at 3:00 PM, are $10 per person and last approximately 45-60 minutes. Be sure to book in advance, NWS cancels tours with no bookings 24 hours before that tour's start time. Private tours for groups of 10 or more and may be scheduled in advance by emailing tours@nws.edu.
Book your tour at nws.edu/tour
James and Amanda B. Opinsky
Oracle
Mark and Nedra Oren
Christa Paul
Debbie Polishook
Publix Super Markets Charities
Regions Bank
David and Letitia D. Richardson
Victoria Rogers
Susan and Sheldon Schneider
Nancy Stavis
Jose Szapocznik and Zammy Migdal
The Tandon Family Foundation
Joel and Shelley Tauber
Michael B. Troner and Deborah S. Troner
Truist
Annsheila Turkel
Teresa Galang-Viñas and Joaquín Viñas
Holly Wallack
Greg Weinberger
The Donna and Phillip Zarcone Charitable Fund
PATRONS
OF NWS
$1,000-$2,499
Anonymous (3)
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DENÈVE: MUSIC IN (TECHNI)COLOR
Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 2:00 PM
New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Stage
Stéphane Denève, conductor
Grégoire Pont, animator
Jody Elff, live orchestral augmentation
Luke Kritzeck, lighting designer
Maurice Ravel
Mother Goose Suite, M. 62 (1911-12) (1875-1937)
Sleeping Beauty's Pavane
Approx. duration: Little Tom Thumb
16 minutes
Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas
Conversation of Beauty and the Beast
The Fairy Garden
Grégoire Pont
Anna Clyne PALETTE: Concerto for Augmented Orchestra (2024; (b. 1980)
Approx. duration:
35 minutes
East Coast premiere of NWS co-commission)
Plum (Warm, sparse)
Amber (Suspended in time)
Lava (Erupting)
Ebony (Propelling)
Teal (Tranquil)
Tangerine (Whimsical)
Emerald (Expansive with ecstasy)
Jody Elff
Luke Kritzeck
Modest Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) (1839-1881)
Promenade
Orchestrated by The Gnome
Maurice Ravel Promenade
Approx. duration:
36 minutes
The Old Castle
Promenade Tuileries
Bydlo Promenade
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
Two Polish Jews
The Market at Limoges
The Catacombs
With the Dead in a Dead Language
The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba-Yaga)
The Great Gate of Kiev
Selected animations featured during Pictures at an Exhibition were commissioned by New World Symphony, developed in collaboration with Michael Tilson Thomas and created by students, alumni and faculty artists at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts for the New World Center’s opening in 2011.
The March 1 performance will be a WALLCAST® concert in SoundScape Park. WALLCAST® concerts are made possible with support from Premier Sponsor The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by Kokusai Denki and Knight Foundation. Knight Foundation and New World Symphony: Reimagining Classical Music in the Digital Age.
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Please help us by recycling your program with an usher on your way out.
CARNIVAL CORPORATION IS THE PREMIER SPONSOR OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. NWS CONCERTS ARE PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS AND THE CULTURAL AFFAIRS COUNCIL, THE MIAMIDADE COUNTY MAYOR AND BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS. NWS MEDIA IS POWERED BY KNIGHT FOUNDATION. KOKUSAI DENKI IS A TECHNOLOGY PARTNER OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. YAMAHA IS THE OFFICIAL PIANO OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. Pianos are generously provided by Piano Music Center. Concerts are recorded for archival and possible broadcast purposes. All dates, times, programs, prices and artists are subject to change.
DENÈVE: MUSIC IN (TECHNI)COLOR
MAURICE RAVEL
Mother Goose Suite, M. 62 (1911-12)
Approximate duration: 16 minutes
The French composer Maurice Ravel was a regular guest at the Sunday evening salons hosted by Cipa and Ida Godebski, a Polish couple living in Paris, and on several occasions he vacationed with the family at their country house. Over the course of visits between 1908 and 1910, Ravel composed a set of pieces for four hands at the piano dedicated to the young Godebski children, Mimie and Jean.
Under the title Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose), Ravel assembled “five children’s pieces” based on popular fairy tales. The title and two of the tales came from Charles Perrault, a 17th-century French writer and the father of the fairy tale as a literary genre. His 1697 collection Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals: Tales of Mother Goose, immortalized Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb and many other classic characters. Other tales came from Madame d’Aulnoy, a rival of Perrault. One more timeless story, Beauty and the Beast, first appeared in an 18thcentury collection.
The orchestral version of Mother Goose owes its existence, indirectly, to Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky. After the sensational appearances in Paris by the Ballets Russes, the French impresario Jacques Rouché countered by renting a theater and assembling productions with leading French composers and artists. Rouché asked Ravel for a new ballet, and the composer obliged by orchestrating the five Mother Goose pieces, stitching them together into a dramatic arc with a new prelude and connecting interludes.
This performance features the five original selections of Mother Goose in their orchestrated versions. Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane is a short and mournful dance; like Ravel’s famous Pavane pour une infante défunte, orchestrated a year earlier, this Pavane retains the ceremonial quality of the Italian court dance it is named for. In Little Tom Thumb, the protagonist drops breadcrumbs to guide his way home and becomes flummoxed as the chirping birds steal his crumbs. Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas, uses pentatonic themes and tam-tam strikes to evoke an Asian setting. The next tale depicts the Conversation of Beauty and the Beast, in which the clarinet leads a beauteous waltz and the contrabassoon makes beastly interjections. The Fairy Garden blooms from delicate solos into a resplendent finale for full orchestral forces, celebrating the rising sun.
PALETTE: Concerto for Augmented Orchestra (2024; East Coast premiere of NWS co-commission) Approximate duration: 35 minutes
The London-born, American-based composer Anna Clyne rocketed into the international limelight in 2009, when the Chicago Symphony named her as a composerin-residence. She has been in constant demand ever since as a collaborator with the world’s top orchestras, including a current stint as composer-in-residence with the BBC Philharmonic, which co-commissioned this latest orchestra score, along with The Juilliard School, National Orchestra Institute Festival, New World Symphony, San Diego Symphony and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
In PALETTE, the multi-talented Clyne merges her orchestral prowess with some of her other favorite channels of artistic expression. The title is an acronym for the hues she explored in the seven movements—Plum, Amber, Lava, Ebony, Teal, Tangerine and Emerald—and her compositional process involved painting abstract canvasses in which she developed elements of “gesture, texture, light and dark, color and form” that informed the music.
“Stemming from my love of calligraphy,” Clyne wrote in a program note, “the base layer of each painting is a large brush-stroke gesture that outlines the first letter of each movement title. Upon this I added layer upon layer of paint, and mixed other substances into the paint to transform their textures: varnish for Amber, coarse ground pumice for Lava, fiber paste for Ebony and tiny glass beads for Emerald.” Clyne collaborated with lighting designer Luke Kritzeck to create lighting cues that would shape the ambience of the concert hall in accordance with each movement.
Another longstanding fascination for Clyne has been the interaction of acoustic and electronic sounds, but at a certain point she stopped composing in that vein, feeling “limited by click tracks and looping which didn’t leave room for tempo expressivity.” To unlock new ways of integrating an electronic soundscape, she collaborated with sound designer Jody Elff to create what they call the Augmented Orchestra, using real-time processing to alter and expand the sounds being created by the acoustic instruments. In PALETTE, the listener will hear “basses pitch-shifted down beyond their natural range, clarinets processed with harmonic distortion, upper harmonics added to horns, a triangle sustaining long beyond its natural decay, and a chorus added to multiple instruments to make the whole orchestra shimmer.”
With the orchestra, paintings, lighting and sound design, Clyne said “the intention is to envelop the audience to create a truly immersive and multisensory experience.” Visit annaclyne.com/palette to see a gallery of the PALETTE paintings. Anna Clyne in her
studio, photo by Linda Källérus
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)
Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel
Approximate duration: 36 minutes
Modest Mussorgsky was a military cadet with a knack for the piano when, at age 19, he dedicated himself to composition and took his first serious lessons. The high point of his short career came in 1874, with the successful premiere of his opera Boris Godunov. That same year, a memorial retrospective of paintings by Viktor Hartmann, who had recently died from an aneurysm at age 39, inspired his good friend Mussorgsky to compose Pictures at an Exhibition. The suite for solo piano adopted a novel form in which a recurring promenade represents the composer strolling through the exhibit, linking the movements inspired by specific images.
Five years after Mussorgsky’s alcohol-fueled death at the age of 41, his friend and fellow composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov arranged for a posthumous publication of the original piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition, and one of his students soon made the first symphonic adaptation. The music is best known through the orchestral version heard here, created in 1922 by Maurice Ravel.
The iconic Promenade struts to an irregular gait, grouped into five- and six-beat segments. This theme represents the ambling composer, and the slightly imbalanced heft of the music seems a good match for the outsized Mussorgsky. The next movement, The Gnome, celebrates Hartmann’s design for a gnome-shamed nutcracker, depicted with halting phrases and brittle ensemble effects.
A gentle restatement of the promenade prepares The Old Castle, evoking an image of a troubadour singing before a medieval castle, represented by the dreamy buzz of a solo alto saxophone. Another fragment of promenade ushers in Tuileries, based on Hartmann’s painting of children in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. The recurring motive of a descending minor third captures the universal musical gesture with which children tease and call each other.
Bydlo recalls a painting of an ox-drawn cart, casting the tuba’s sullen melody over plodding accompaniment. An interlude of promenade material links into the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks, inspired by Hartmann’s sketch for a costume in which only the dancer’s head, arms and legs emerge from an eggshell. The music uses flitting grace notes and bright treble instruments to maximize the chirping playfulness.
Two Polish Jews represents separate portraits of Jewish men, one rich and one poor. The first theme in octaves rings with Semitic intervals and inflections, while a second chorale-like passage, peppered with muted trumpet, offsets the initial incantation.
The Market at Limoges transports the animated chatter of female shoppers engaged in frenetic crosstalk. At the climax, it breaks off into the deep, slow resonance of The Catacombs, drawn from a self-portrait of Hartmann in the depths of Paris.
The next section, With the Dead in a Dead Language, brings the composer into the picture through a spectral recollection of the promenade theme. As Mussorgsky wrote in the margin of his score, “The creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me towards the skulls, invokes them; the skulls begin to glow softly from within.”
From that most hallowed place, the exhibition proceeds to the most outlandish movement, The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yaga). Hartmann’s design for a clock modeled after the bird-legged house of the witch Baba-Yaga inspired Mussorgsky to depict another component of the folk tale, where the witch flies around in the mortar she uses to grind up the human bones she eats. That whirlwind music pivots in an instant to the most grand and majestic passage in the piece, The Great Gate of Kiev, reflecting Hartmann’s winning design for a ceremonial gate for the Ukrainian capital.
Aaron Grad is a composer and writer based in Seattle. In addition to providing program notes for the New World Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and others, he is also the artistic director of Many Messiahs, a project that reframes George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece as a collective call for justice.
GRÉGOIRE PONT
An exceptional artistic talent from the tender age of eight, Gregoire Pont attended the Animation Workshop in Paris where he studied Norman McLaren’s techniques of animation dynamics. He graduated from the Penninghen school of graphic arts (ESAG) in 1992 and shortly after directed his first animated film Le concerto du chat, with abstract shapes dancing to the sounds of the Orchestre de Paris at Salle Pleyel.
A great lover of classical music, Pont has always been passionate about making classical music more popular and accessible to both children and adults by means of animation. He developed a new performance concept called “Cinesthetics,” where he draws and animates live to a musical performance. He has made appearances at London Royal Festival Hall, Paris Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Tokyo Suntory Hall and Gothenburg Concert Hall, collaborating with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Kazushi Ono, Alexandre Bloch, Marko Letonja and Francois-Xavier Roth.
Pont has also received great acclaim for bringing his innovative animation techniques to the operatic repertoire. Together with British director James Bonas he conceived productions at Opera de Lyon of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges and L’heure espagnole, as well as premiering a new production of Orff’s Der Mond. Their innovative approach has led to their work being performed around the world, including at Opera de Limoges, Opera de Lille, Opera de Toulon, Royal Opera House Muscat, San Francisco Symphony and Cincinnati Symphony. Pont created animations for the semi-staging of Bizet’s Carmen for Orchestre National de Lille, as well as bringing Hans Abrahamsen’s Snow Queen to Opera National du Rhin and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel to Cologne Opera. Recent successes include Candide at Welsh National Opera, and Pont provided animations for National Ballet of Canada’s production of Emma Bovary.
Pont additionally illustrates books for children, most notably Les Excalibrius, and has made numerous animations for TV commercials, educational animated shorts and music video clips. For three seasons, Pont worked with the French conductor Francois-Xavier Roth and his innovative orchestra Les Siecles on Presto! (France Television). This animated series of musical works was seen by over three million viewers on weekly primetime television. Most recently he has worked on animated effects for the music video Catch Me, from the color series by New Studios, featuring the Boston ballet dancer My’Kal Stromile.
Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” by The New York Times and as “fearless” by NPR, Grammy Award-nominated Anna Clyne is one of the most in-demand composers today, working with orchestras, choreographers, filmmakers and visual artists around the world.
Clyne has been commissioned and presented by the world’s most dynamic and revered arts institutions, including the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Philharmonic, MoMA, Philharmonie de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco Ballet and the Sydney Opera House; and her music has opened such events as the Edinburgh International Festival, The Last Night of the Proms and the New York Philharmonic’s season. The World Economic Forum commissioned Clyne’s Restless Oceans, which was premiered by an all-women orchestra, led by Marin Alsop, at the opening ceremony in Davos.
Clyne often collaborates on creative projects across the music industry, including Between the Rooms, a film with choreographer Kim Brandstrup and LA Opera, as well as The Nico Project at the Manchester International Festival, a stage work about pop icon Nico’s life that featured Clyne’s reimagining of The Marble Index for orchestra and voices. Clyne has also reimagined tracks from Thievery Corporation’s The Cosmic Game for the electronica duo with orchestra, and her music has been programmed by such artists as Björk. Other recent collaborators include such notable musicians as Jess Gillam, Jeremy Denk, Martin Fröst, Pekka Kuusisto, and Yo-Yo Ma.
ANNA CLYNE
Clyne’s works are frequently choreographed for dance and her fascination with visual art has inspired several projects. In addition, she seeks innovation through new technology, developing the Augmented Orchestra with sound designer Jody Elff; the technology expands the sound-world of the orchestra through computer-controlled processes. The Augmented Orchestra was premiered in Wild Geese at the 2023 Cabrillo Festival, featured in The Gorgeous Nothings at the BBC Proms 2024 and is used in her new work PALETTE.
Clyne is deeply committed to music education and to supporting and mentoring the next generation of composers. She has taught master classes and workshops throughout the U.S. and internationally and was the founding mentor for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Degaetano Composition Institute, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s New Stories program and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra's Emerging Composers Program.
Clyne’s music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. boosey.com/clyne
Jody Elff is a Grammy Award-winning audio engineer, sound artist and designer whose experience includes work with Yo-Yo Ma, Bang on a Can, Laurie Anderson, Chris Thile and others. His musical journey spans classical, contemporary, opera, jazz, art and television. His recording work includes the Yo-Yo Ma/Silk Road Ensemble album Sing Me Home and American Railroad, Chris Thile's Laysongs and Anna Clyne's Shorthand. He has provided sound design for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Lincoln Center Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago and others. His fine art sound works have been presented at museums and galleries internationally, including collaborations with David Lang and Diller & Scofido and Renfro on Musings on a Glass Box and The Mile Long Opera. Elff has developed patented audio technologies for realtime mixing of music events over distance, and is developing a platform for VR livestreaming entertainment experiences. He is the co-creator of The Augmented Orchestra, with Anna Clyne.
JODY ELFF
Photo by Victoria Stevens
Luke Kritzeck has worked with artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in theater, dance, music, circus and opera, on stages around the world as a lighting and production designer. He has served as the Resident Lighting Designer and Technical Advisor for the San Francisco Symphony and has been a member of the creative team on numerous multimedia production. Kritzeck served as the Director of Lighting at the New World Symphony for seven years and has working for Cirque du Soleil on its touring production TOTEM and in Macau, China on its resident show ZAiA. His other projects with Cirque du Soleil include serving as the Lighting Director for featured performances at the Venetian Macau. Selected design credits include Chautauqua Opera Company, Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Fair Entertainment, Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Lafayette Ballet Theatre and the St. Louis Symphony.
DENÈVE: DAVÓNE TINES’ MASS
Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 2:00 PM
New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Stage
Stéphane Denève, conductor
Davóne Tines, baritone
Ambassador Chorale of Florida Memorial University Fellows of the New World Symphony
Johann Sebastian Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049 (1721) (1685-1750) Allegro
Michael Abels Delights and Dances (2007) (b. 1962)
Approx. duration: Marissa Weston, violin I 14 minutes
Jacob Buhler, violin II
Joshua Thaver, viola
Samantha Powell, cello
Program continued on next page.
Davóne Tines
Recital No. 1: MASS (b. 1986) (2021; world premiere of NWS-commissioned orchestration) Orchestrated by Introit
Michael Schachter Sam Cooke (1931-1964): “Lost and Lookin’”
Approx. duration:
55 minutes
I. Kyrie
Caroline Shaw (b. 1982): Kyrie
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759): “Leave Me, Loathsome Light” from Semele, HWV 58
II. Agnus Dei
Caroline Shaw: Agnus Dei
Tyshawn Sorey (b. 1980): “Were You There” from Songs for Death
III. Credo
Caroline Shaw: Credo
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein” from St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244
IV. Gloria
Caroline Shaw: Gloria Moses Hogan (1957-2003): “Give Me Jesus”
V. Sanctus
Caroline Shaw: Sanctus
Arranged by Davóne Tines: “There is a Balm in Gilead”
VI. Benedictus
Arranged by Davóne Tines: “Let It Shine”
Davóne Tines
Ambassador Chorale of Florida Memorial University
Para programas en español visite nws.edu/program.
Please be sure to silence your cell phones. Flash photography is not permitted.
Access live captions at nws.edu/captions.
Please help us by recycling your program with an usher on your way out.
CARNIVAL CORPORATION IS THE PREMIER SPONSOR OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. NWS CONCERTS ARE PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS AND THE CULTURAL AFFAIRS COUNCIL, THE MIAMIDADE COUNTY MAYOR AND BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS. NWS MEDIA IS POWERED BY KNIGHT FOUNDATION. KOKUSAI DENKI IS A TECHNOLOGY PARTNER OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. YAMAHA IS THE OFFICIAL PIANO OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. Pianos are generously provided by Piano Music Center. Concerts are recorded for archival and possible broadcast purposes. All dates, times, programs, prices and artists are subject to change.
DENÈVE: DAVÓNE TINES’ MASS
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049 (1721)
Approximate duration: 17 minutes
At a time when his job in Cöthen was threatened by his patron’s marriage to a woman uninterested in music, J.S. Bach assembled six concerti grossi and sent them off to the Duke of Brandenburg, whom he had met while buying a harpsichord in Berlin. The Duke never even responded to this unsolicited job application, but nonetheless Bach’s collection will forever be known as the Brandenburg Concertos.
Bach’s scores elaborated on the template developed a generation earlier by the Italian composer Archangelo Corelli, who pioneered these “grand concertos” for groups of featured instruments working within an accompanying ensemble of strings and basso continuo. Whereas Corelli always used two violins and cello as the concertino group, Each of Bach’s examples tests a different configuration. The Fourth Brandenburg Concerto showcases a violin along with two parts identified as “echo flutes,” a mysterious term that appears nowhere else in Bach’s music. Scholars agree (for the most part) that the intended instruments were treble recorders, and that the “echo” label referred to the loud and soft alternations in the middle movement, creating an echo-like sound. In performances on modern instruments, flutes typically substitute for the recorders.
In the fast first movement, the violin takes the flashiest material, including long strings of arpeggios, a series of double-stops (the technique of playing two notes at once) and a wickedly fast passage of slurred 32nd-notes. The characteristic tone of the flutes becomes more prominent in the middle movement, with the violin dropping into the role of the bass instrument to support the higher voices. The movement ends on an unresolved chord that should proceed to E-minor, the slow movement’s home key, but instead the violas launch the Presto finale in G-major, where the concerto started. Their robust entrance marks the start of a virtuosic fugue.
MICHAEL ABELS
Delights and Dances (2007)
Approximate duration: 14 minutes
After studying composition at the University of Southern California, Michael Abels didn’t achieve his ambition to compose for Hollywood (at least not yet), but he built up an impressive array of commissions and prizes in concert music. One of those commissions came from The Sphinx Organization as it celebrated its first 10 years of expanding opportunities for historically marginalized communities in classical music. Abels crafted Delights and Dances in 2007 to feature the Harlem Quartet, with the quartet functioning as soloists in front of a string orchestra.
Little did Abels know that the music he was writing was planting a seed for something astronomically bigger. The director Jordan Peele, while scouting Black composers who could score his debut film Get Out, found Abels’ music on YouTube and reached out to hire him. Abels went on to score Peele’s Us and Nope, and another huge breakthrough came when Rhiannon Giddens enlisted him as co-composer for the opera Omar, which won the Pulitzer Prize for music.
The effervescent score for Delights and Dances attests to the talents that were in place long before Abels got his big break. He embraces a panorama of styles, from neoromantic lushness to bluesy grooves to foot-stomping hoedowns, showcasing the virtuosity of the instruments and the precision of his own craft.
DAVÓNE TINES
Recital No. 1: MASS (2021; world premiere of NWS-commissioned orchestration) Orchestrated by Michael Schachter
Approximate duration: 55 minutes
Davóne Tines is an operatic bass-baritone who has electrified the stage in roles written by such prominent composers as John Adams, Kaija Saariaho and Terence Blanchard. As a creator of his own works, he produces thoughtful and provocative hybrids that defy easy categorization, including The Black Clown, a theater piece based on a Langston Hughes poem that led The New York Times to declare that Tines “embodies the evolving, divided soul of black America.”
Tines provided the following program note for Recital No. 1: MASS, adapted from an interview with journalist Fergus McIntosh.
I approached the recital situation with a sort of a phobia, or an allergic reaction to participating in a programming model in which I wasn’t fully engaged. Filling in a template with music that checks boxes and doesn’t articulate my own feelings and experience in an explicit way. I think this idea of explicit context is critical: in order to perform well, these things need to be in the front of your mind, for every single note.
DENÈVE: DAVÓNE TINES’
As a child, singing was all religious or liturgical and all in a choral setting with close family and friends. Everyone in my family participated in choir. Singing works like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy followed by Lauryn Hill’s arrangement of “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” is a reflection of my actual lived experience with liturgical music. It’s comprised of all these things: early music, Bach, contemporary gospel and also new music. When you put these seemingly different things together and acknowledge the connections between them, you have to acknowledge that there’s something shared among these composers. There’s something that is shared among all people. This recital is an opportunity for me to marry all those flavors together and have that conversation in front of people.
In setting three familiar spirituals, Tyshawn Sorey’s task was to break the songs out of the aesthetic that we understand them within, so that the text and the ideas behind the text could become more apparent. I had this realization that many spirituals are essentially code for suicide notes. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” for example, is someone begging God to kill them, to “carry me home.” The poet Langston Hughes, in his time, directly connected to the possibility of these spirituals being suicidal, and I really want to show audiences another side of these songs. I think a lot of times spirituals are misunderstood, heard as happy songs or praising the Lord. But these are songs created by people in extraordinary circumstances, and they’re amazing, metaphorical expressions of real faith.
The order of the mass I’m using here, and which Caroline Shaw has followed in her miniature mass, accords with my own understanding of a spiritual journey. I’m basically queering the mass. Queering in the broad sense of bending it to my own understanding. Beginning with the Kyrie, which begs for mercy, and then the Agnus Dei, which represents the possibility for change, but only through death. There’s the affirmation of the Credo and the exaltation of the Gloria, with Bach’s “Quia Fecit,” which is so full of ecstatic wonder and excitement. The Sanctus is a moment of meditation and then the Benedictus has this very simple text, “Where there is darkness, he will bring light.” That’s the entire recital right there: Present the darkness and show the change into light.
– Davóne Tines
Aaron Grad is a composer and writer based in Seattle. In addition to providing program notes for the New World Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and others, he is also the artistic director of Many Messiahs, a project that reframes George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece as a collective call for justice.
Davóne Tines, heralded as an artist "changing what it means to be a classical singer (The New Yorker) and “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” (Los Angeles Times), is a pathbreaking artist whose work encompasses a diverse repertoire, ranging from early music to new commissions by leading composers, while exploring the social issues of today. A creator, curator and performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures and aesthetics, he is engaged in work that blends opera, art song, spirituals, contemporary classical, gospel and protest songs as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance connecting to all of humanity.
Tines is a musician who takes full agency of his work, devising new programs and pieces from conception to performance. He reflects this ethos in his Recital No. 1: MASS, an examination of the liturgy, comparing Western European, African American and 21stcentury traditions; as well as in his orchestral creations: Concerto No. 1: SERMON, a work he premiered with the Philadelphia and BBC symphony orchestras; and Concerto No. 2: ANTHEM, premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Tines has also premiered operas by today’s leading composers, including Terence Blanchard, Matthew Aucoin and, most recently, John Adams’s El Niño at the Metropolitan Opera. His concert appearances include performances of works ranging from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Kaija Saariaho’s True Fire. Tines’s first studio album, ROBESO , was released on Nonesuch Records in September 2024. Through a diverse set of repertoire ranging from classical and gospel to Broadway and Black folk music, Tines explores his connection to legendary American baritone Paul Robeson, reimagining some of the music Robeson famously sang.
Tines is Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Artist-in-Residence and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale’s first-ever Creative Partner. He recently served as Artist-inResidence at Detroit Opera—an appointment that culminated in his performance in the title role of Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X in 2022. Tines is featured on the Grammy-nominated world premiere recording of the opera released on BMOP/ sound in 2022. He is a member of AMOC and co-creator of The Black Clown, a music theater experience commissioned and premiered by American Repertory Theater. He is Musical America’s 2022 Vocalist of the Year, a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, a recipient of the 2018 Emerging Artists Award from Lincoln Center and a recipient of the 2024 Chanel Next Prize. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University.
AMBASSADOR CHORALE OF FLORIDA MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY
Dr. Argarita Johnson-Palavicini, Director
The Ambassador Chorale of Florida Memorial University was founded by the late Professor Roosevelt Williams during the 1975-76 academic year with four eager members to officially represent the University as its public relations entity.
Today, under the direction of Dr. Argarita Johnson-Palavicini (“Dr. J”), the Chorale has upwards of 50 members that not only perform as an independent academic ensemble, but enjoy exposure to sightreading, vocal technique, and performance pedagogy.
Members of the Chorale also hold leadership responsibility for the organization through appointed administrative positions. The Chorale performs a wide range of music and experiments with various musical genres and student compositions. The Chorale has performed in the United States and Europe to great acclaim. In June 2025, the Ambassador Chorale will make its debut performance in Carnegie Hall. The Chorale is continuing to move upward and onward!
Joel Belhomme
Anthony Broderick
Azaria Brown
Lionel Camel II
Xornel Campbell
Dominique Carter
Wil-Eldune Cenatus
Wilmide Cenatus
Jeremiah Chisolm
Trenika Francis
Zecharia Green
Keion Hackett
Deion Hampton
Zahir Harrison
Theresa Hayden
Ja’Ana Henry
Jude Jean
Christopher Johnson
Taylor Lewis
Kecia Lormine
Rashaud Marcelin
Joy McMillan
Janae Mobley
Jordan Montgomery
FELLOWS OF NEW WORLD SYMPHONY
Nathaniel Noel
Jonathan Pierre
Hannah Prieto
Heavenly Ross-Mack
Johnathan Shortridge
Jevaughn Smith
Stefan Whittingham
Alijaa Williams
De’Anthony Williams
Maya’Lasha Williams
To learn more about the Fellows performing today, visit nws.edu/fellows.
The ruins of Coventry Cathedral two days after the German Luftwaffe air raid on November 14, 1940; photo by Imperial War Museum.
Benjamin Britten, photo by Denis De Marney/Getty Images
Davóne Tines, photo by Noah Morrison
CRITICAL MASSES
How Two Musicians Revitalized an Ancient Rite
By Aaron Grad
We can only imagine the awe felt by the people of Coventry when they entered their new church with its spire that soared up nearly 300 feet, making it one of the tallest structures in all of England. Back then, in the early 1400s, this hub of the cloth trade was home to some 10,000 people. It was the golden age of Gothic architecture, and a time when sacred singing was on the cusp of exploding into rapturous harmony and ornate polyphony, giving birth to what we now call classical music. What a feast it must have been for the senses: to gather with one’s community in a building longer than a football field, lit by colorful stained glass, hearing the holy words of the Latin mass reverberate in hallowed threads of plainchant!
500 years later, that church stood over what had become a booming industrial city of 200,000 residents—and a prime target of the Nazi air force. On November 14, 1940, the Germans launched Operation Moonlight Sonata, sending 515 bombers streaking over Coventry for 11 hours straight. The beloved cathedral took a direct hit, and by morning all that remained was its tower and some outer walls.
The Church of England could have tried to rebuild the old cathedral, but instead, out of 200 designs submitted to a competition, they chose a plan by the architect Basil Spence that left the ruins as they were and folded them into a new, modern design. To celebrate the consecration of the new cathedral in 1962, the church commissioned the man who had become the clear leader among British composers: Benjamin Britten.
Even with his prodigious talents that emerged as a teenager, there was no guarantee that Britten would end up in such a lofty position. He was gay in a homophobic society, and a committed pacifist who left England shortly before World War II, and who eventually registered as a conscientious objector. As he wrote in his application to be exempted from military service, “The whole of my life has been devoted to acts of creation, being by profession a composer, and I cannot take part in acts of destruction. I believe sincerely that I can help my fellow human beings best by continuing the work I’m most qualified to do, by the nature of my gifts and training.”
The 31-year-old Britten became England’s brightest musical star in 1945 when his debut opera, Peter Grimes, marked the return of opera to London after the long silence of World War II. A month later, Britten joined the Jewish violinist Yehudi Menuhin in Germany to perform in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which had been liberated just three months earlier and still served as a refuge for survivors. It was a profound experience that anchored, in a visceral and emotional way, the composer’s pacifist mindset.
Britten accepted the commission for a large-scale choral piece to open the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962, and he devised a plan to set the requiem mass—the version of the Catholic mass used to honor the dead, that had been rendered so memorably by Mozart, Verdi, Fauré and countless others—interspersed with anti-war poems written during World War I by the poet-soldier Wilfred Owen. Just like the dualistic cathedral it was created for, Britten’s War Requiem situates the old and new side-by-side. With the modern texts sung by separate soloists and accompanied by a distinct chamber orchestra, these
interludes stand apart and serve as critical commentary on the mass for the dead, making those old Latin words resound with new meaning and feeling.
Britten understood at the time that he was writing “what I think will be one of my most important works.” His approach rose above the specific perspective of England and its allies, reframing the Christian liturgy as a universal ritual “in memory of those of all nations who died in the last war.” (The composer in fact wrote those words when asking the famous German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to be the baritone soloist; he also invited a Soviet soprano, but cold war tensions led to her withdrawal just before the premiere.)
Britten still held fast to the ideals of pacifism that had crystallized for him when war was raging 20 years earlier. And the periodic roar of fighter jets that he could hear at home, only a few miles from a base that housed nuclear warheads, underscored the stark reality that mass violence could happen again anytime. The personal donations he gave to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament pale in comparison to the charity he paid forward to humankind with his War Requiem.
—
“Kyrie eléison! Christe eléison!”
“Lord, have mercy! Christ, have mercy!” Those phrases begin every mass, but what do they really mean? Baritone Davóne Tines found himself puzzling over that question while singing in the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., the largest Catholic church in North America. He was only an hour away from the Black Baptist Church he had grown up attending in rural Virginia, and, as he shared in an interview, “It put me in a place of comparing and contrasting the religious tradition I grew up in with the religious tradition I was realizing through being a part of the choir.”
“I would look out at these people who were saying things like, ‘God, have mercy, Christ, have mercy,’” he recalled, “or we would sing a Credo, the most exuberant text in the mass, and there was no joy. There was no hope. There was no visible incarnation of these words within these people. It's there in the music in the most resplendent and sublime ways. But if you look out into the congregation, or even look upon the people that are delivering this symbology and ceremony, the actual human embodiment of what those words and rites mean is absent. And it made me feel very sad, and it made me feel that there was an extreme loss of possibility.”
He realized, in contrast, that there was “clear, depthful, emotional connection to every single thing that happens within the ritual” in the Black Baptist tradition, even if it was less formalized. Tines was speaking about what gets lost through unquestioning repetition in a religious context, but he could just as easily be speaking about the state of classical music. Tines was a gifted violinist and singer in his youth, but he didn’t see a natural path for himself in music, even after his huge, supple voice earned him a coveted spot at The Juilliard School. Sidestepping the traditional formula for developing recital repertoire and opera roles that he was taught in school, Tines found his home within contemporary music, and he became a friend, collaborator and muse to the greatest composers of his generation, including Matthew Aucoin, Tyshawn Sorey and Caroline Shaw. He rode this trajectory into major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera in 2024, singing
the leading role in John Adams’ El Niño. All the while, Tines has been developing his own repertoire, including the years he spent conceptualizing Recital No. 1: MASS.
The spine of Tines’ MASS is an a cappella setting of the mass text by Caroline Shaw. Just like the plainchant masses of olden times, these short recitations frame the broader ritual. With extraordinary sensitivity to the meaning and structure of each part of the mass, Tines assembled a vocal recital that spans from Handel and Bach arias to reimagined spirituals.
“A mass,” says Tines, “at its most simple, is a process for dealing with a problem.” He was quite intentional in keeping his version ecumenical, or as he puts it, “the mass of the human experience,” since “everyone has dealt with a problem.” He also notes that “it has nothing to do with race in an overt way,” other than the fact that he is exploring the music and emotions that are true to him personally. In everything he sings, Tines is simply “asking people to listen to music while being physically aware,” without an agenda. “I can't tell you what to think,” he acknowledges. “I can't tell you what to feel, but I can invite you to actually be incarnate as your individual self. And then it's left upon the audience member to do with that what they will. And it’s continually fascinating for me to learn over and over again how challenging that can be for people, to just be simply invited to engage their own emotions.”
To help facilitate the process of reflection and hold the shape of the mass, open-ended questions and statements are projected on a screen during Recital No. 1. During the Credo portion about the power of belief, a slide paraphrases Picasso—“Every act of creation is an act of destruction”—while Tines sings an aria from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion that begins with the line, “Make yourself pure, my heart.”
So what destruction does Tines believe we need so that a creation like this can come to be? “What has to go is the fear of self-reflection,” he says.” What has to go is the fear of actually engaging the emotional material of one's own existence. That is something I continually work on. I think all of us struggle with it. I'm just hopefully trying to do it for myself, and using the medium that I'm blessed to work within to invite others to do it too.”
—
In their own ways, Britten and Tines shared the same objective: to challenge people to be present to the truth in front of them, even at the risk of discomfort, and to come away prepared to speak up for what matters. Both musicians found conduits for their messages in the church rituals established centuries ago, and they each found novel ways to revive the energy and urgency of those time-faded traditions. In the process, they created sensational music that is endlessly fascinating to behold in live performance, but that’s almost beside the point. These hybrids of past and present affirm music’s oldest and most sacred function: to awaken that inner space of awe and wonder through which everyone and everything is connected. Amen to that!
DENÈVE: BRITTEN'S WAR REQUIEM
Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Adrienne Arsht Center, Knight Concert Hall
Weiser Auditorium
Stéphane Denève, conductor
Christine Goerke, soprano
Ian Bostridge, tenor
Roderick Williams, baritone
Florida Singing Sons
Girl Choir of South Florida
Master Chorale of South Florida
Brett Karlin, chorus master
Benjamin Britten
War Requiem, Op. 66 (1961-62) (1913-1976)
Approx. duration:
78 minutes
I. Requiem aeternam
Requiem aeternam
“What passing bells”
Kyrie eleison
II. Dies irae
Dies irae
"Bugles sang"
Liber scriptus
"Out there, we walked quite friendly up to death"
Recordare
Confutatis
"Be slowly lifted up"
Reprise of Dies irae
Lacrimosa
III. Offertorium
Domine Jesu Christe
Sed signifer sanctus
Quam olim Abrahae
Isaac and Abram
Hostias et preces tibi
Reprise of Quam olim Abrahae
IV. Sanctus
Sanctus and Benedictus
"After the blast of lightning"
V. Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei
VI. Libera me
Libera me
Strange Meeting ("It seemed that out of battle I escaped")
In paradisum
Conclusion – Requiem Aeternam and Requiescant in Pace
New World Symphony is proud to present Resonance of Remembrance, a season-long commemoration marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust. This series’ music serves not only as a timeless memorial honoring the millions of lives lost, but also as urgent warnings for today.
We are all moral witnesses to the despair, suffering and destruction that war has wrought upon our world, which risks us losing sight of our shared humanity. Music compels us to consider war’s lessons of conflict and peace, totalitarianism and resilience, allowing us to heed these warnings from the past to envision a peaceful future with freedom and dignity for all. Learn more about Resonance of Remembrance at nws.edu/peace.
Para programas en español visite nws.edu/program.
Please be sure to silence your cell phones. Flash photography is not permitted. Please help us by recycling your program with an usher on your way out.
CARNIVAL CORPORATION IS THE PREMIER SPONSOR OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. NWS CONCERTS ARE PRESENTED WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS AND THE CULTURAL AFFAIRS COUNCIL, THE MIAMIDADE COUNTY MAYOR AND BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS. NWS MEDIA IS POWERED BY KNIGHT FOUNDATION. KOKUSAI DENKI IS A TECHNOLOGY PARTNER OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. YAMAHA IS THE OFFICIAL PIANO OF THE NEW WORLD SYMPHONY. Pianos are generously provided by Piano Music Center. Concerts are recorded for archival and possible broadcast purposes. All dates, times, programs, prices and artists are subject to change.
DENÈVE: BRITTEN'S WAR REQUIEM
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
War Requiem, Op. 66 (1961-62)
Approximate duration: 78 minutes
England lost one of its great cultural treasures in 1940 when Nazi bombers destroyed the Gothic cathedral in Coventry. The Church of England was determined that a new cathedral would rise from the site where only the old spire and some outer walls remained, and they opened it up as a competition that attracted plans from some 200 architects. The winning design by Basil Spence was a brilliant amalgam of old and new, with a modern church arising adjacent to the original footprint and incorporating the open-air ruins. As the construction neared its completion in 1962, the church decided to commission a work of music worthy of the occasion, and they approached the clear leader among England’s composers: Benjamin Britten.
There had been signs since Britten was a teenager (already with hundreds of compositions to his credit) that he was destined for greatness. In his years after graduating from the Royal College of Music, he attracted plenty of commissions and accolades, but his path was far from assured when, with war looming, he left England for a formative period in New York. He returned during World War II as a committed pacifist who, at great risk to his reputation, registered as a conscientious objector. He also came back madly in love with the tenor Peter Pears, who remained his partner and vocal muse for the rest of his life.
The 31-year-old Britten made an auspicious debut as an opera composer in 1945, when a prominent theater marked its reopening after the long silence of World War II with the debut of Peter Grimes, starring Pears in the title role. The dark tale about a suspicious outsider captivated London’s theater-starved audiences, and it proved something that had been in doubt for 250 years since the death of Henry Purcell: that England was capable of producing a world-class opera composer.
16 years and nine soul-probing operas later, Britten accepted the commission for the Coventry consecration on the condition that he would be free to define the work himself.
He was no stranger to his country’s abundant history of ceremonial and celebratory music, but that sort of grandiose pageantry involving chorus and orchestra didn’t play to his natural strengths, and besides, his complete and total disgust about war meant that he had no appetite to glorify British might and renewal. He arrived at an idea for a Requiem Mass, taking inspiration from examples by Mozart and Verdi, but he introduced a twist that was eerily well-matched to the dual nature of the Coventry Cathedral, and which would define the entire tone and intent of the War Requiem: He wove into the Latin mass a group of poems originally dispatched from the trenches of World War I by Wilfred Owen, a British soldier who chronicled the senseless carnage until he himself was killed in action at the age of 25.
In this scheme, the War Requiem transcended the specificity and fresh wounds of World War II to become an indictment of war in its broadest sense. It also, somewhat conveniently, sidestepped some of the thorny moral questions about a conflict in which the aggressor (Nazi Germany) had perpetrated atrocities that could only be stopped by force—something Britten must have wrestled with when, in 1945, he visited a recently liberated concentration camp to perform for the emaciated, traumatized Jews still being housed there.
Britten’s determination to speak to the universal pain of war even extended to his controversial choices about the featured artists. For the tenor soloist, he of course designed the part for Pears, a fellow Englishman. For the Baritone, he managed to convince the German star Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to appear, and he had plans for a Russian soprano to participate as well, until Cold War tensions made it impossible at the last minute. She did make it to the subsequent recording session that Britten conducted, rounding out the all-star ensemble for an album that went on to sell a quarter-million copies in a matter of weeks.
Britten placed these words by Wilfred Owens as an epigraph at the top of his score:
My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
All a poet can do today is warn.
From the start of the Requiem aeternam, with its tolling bells, chanted words coming from different directions, and serpentine threads from the strings that evoke the music of centuries past, we are drawn into a timeless, disquieting space. The arrival of the words “et lux perpetua luceat eis” (“and let perpetual light shine upon them”) introduces a brittle leap the distance of a tritone or augmented-fourth, known for centuries as diabolus in musica (“the devil in music”). This pungent interval remains as a central motto of the entire War Requiem. The boys' choir, set apart from the rest of the ensemble, offers the only consolation.
Britten’s scheme uses the poetry of Owens to comment on the Requiem liturgy, with the tenor and baritone soloists accompanied in those movements by a distinct chamber orchestra (a separation that only breaks down at the end). Before the last chord of the Requiem aeternam even ends, the harp within the smaller orchestra initiates the “very quick and agitated” music that sets the poem “What passing bells,” picking up on the bell sounds heard before. Britten brings out the violence of the poem with word painting in the orchestra, representing “the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle” and “the shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells.” Tolling bells act as a pivot back to the ancient realm of the Requiem, with the unaccompanied choir beginning those all-important words, “Kyrie eleison,” (“Lord have mercy”), with the singers frozen in that same unsettled tritone spacing between them.
Britten’s setting of the requiem mass spends the longest time in the next section, Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”). Fanfare motives from the brass introduce the clipped, eerily quiet presentation of those words from the choir, building from there toward a ferocious climax. Those brass motives prove to be significant, as the next Owens poem recalls the “sorrowful” sound of bugles as soldiers slept, not knowing what the next day would bring.
The soprano soloist makes her first entrance in Liber scriptus, adding a focused, penetrating tone color that augments and intensifies the choir. Another new color arrives with the next Owens poem, “Out there, we walked quite friendly up to death,” with the tenor and baritone soloists singing together as fellow soldiers. The next Latin section, Recordare, uses only women’s voices, with the violins silenced to clear space in their register, countered by men’s voices and violent, war-like music with the arrival of the Confutatis portion (“When the damned are cast away and consigned to the searing flames”). Thundering timpani snaps the focus back to the words of Owens and the image of the “great gun towering toward Heaven,” setting up a terrifying return of the “Day of wrath” text and music. The cascading tears of the soprano in the Lacrimosa and lines from Owen’s poem titled “Futility” weave together, until the chorus settles into a quietude accompanied only by bells. When they sing the prayer to “Pie Jesu Domine” (“Gentle Lord Jesus”) they come to rest twice on that aching interval of a tritone, only to arrive at a glowing major triad on the last syllable of the “amen.”
After arriving with the prayerful, pristine sound of the boys’ choir accompanied by a small organ, the Offertorium section of the Requiem draws a parallel between the Latin text’s mention of Abraham (who was commanded to sacrifice his son) and Owen’s poem “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young.” With the baritone representing Abraham and the tenor singing as Isaac, this cynical retelling has Abraham ignoring the angel’s intervention that is meant to spare Isaac; instead “he slew his son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one.”
The Sanctus brings spine-tingling urgency to the word “holy” by framing the soprano with a riot of jangling, ritualistic percussion and piano. The chorus enters by chanting freely on the words “Pleni sunt ceoli et terra gloria tua” (“Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory”), as if entranced, and then “Hosanna in excelsis” (“Hosanna in the highest”) lands with the most unambiguously rapturous music of the War Requiem. A jarring juxtaposition shifts to the baritone’s resigned lines from Owen’s poem “The End.”
The Agnus Dei is the shortest section, with consoling scales from the chorus interspersed within an Owens poem that ends, “But they who love the greater love / Lay down their life; they do not hate.” In a blurring of the War Requiem’s separate strata, the tenor switches to Latin for the final phrase, “Dona nobis pacem” (“Grant us peace”).
The sinister rumble of war drums at the start of the Libera Me sets the dark tone for this most alarming portion of the Requiem mass. It makes the contrast all the more stark when the tenor, accompanied by just a wisp of strings, begins singing speech-like lines from “Strange Meeting,” a poem by Owens in which two dead soldiers meet in the afterlife. The baritone responds, with the accompaniment dropping out entirely when he sings, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.” As the soldiers sing together, “Let us sleep now,” the angelic boys choir enters, invoking paradise. Coming out of this peaceful reverie, the a cappella choir retreads that anguished tritone harmony for the closing line, “Requiescant in pace” (“Let them rest in peace”), until the final “amen” once more arrives at a luminous major chord.
Aaron Grad is a composer and writer based in Seattle. In addition to providing program notes for the New World Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and others, he is also the artistic director of Many Messiahs, a project that reframes George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece as a collective call for justice.
Soprano Christine Goerke has appeared in the major opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala, Maggio Musical Fiorentino, Teatro Real in Madrid, Teatro Municipal de Santiago, and the Saito Kinen Festival. She has sung much of the great soprano repertoire, starting with the Mozart and Handel heroines and now earning critical acclaim for the dramatic Strauss and Wagner roles. She has received praise for her portrayals of the title roles in Elektra, Turandot, and Ariadne auf Naxos, Brünnhilde in the Ring Cycle, Kundry in Parsifal, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Leonora in Fidelio, Eboli in Don Carlos, The Dyer’s Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Marie in Wozzeck, Cassandre in Les Troyens, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, Alice in Falstaff, and Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmelites.
Goerke has also appeared with a number of the leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra (in Boston, Carnegie Hall, and the Tanglewood Festival), Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Radio Vara (at the Concertgebouw), Sydney Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and the Hallé Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival. She has also toured Europe with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
Goerke’s recording of Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Classical Recording and Best Choral Performance. Her close association with Robert Shaw yielded several recordings including Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, and the Grammy-nominated recording of Dvorak’s Stabat Mater. Other recordings include the title role in Iphigenie en Tauride for Telarc and Britten’s War Requiem, which won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
This season Goerke returns to the Boston Symphony Orchestra for both Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and as Marie in concert performances of Die Tote Stadt, the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Gurre-Lieder with Zubin Mehta and the Washington National Opera for an evening of Wagner highlights at the Kennedy Center. She also sings Marie in Wozzeck at the Hamburg State Opera and appears in concert with the New World Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra.
Goerke is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the Detroit Opera and was the recipient of the 2001 Richard Tucker Award, the 2015 Musical America Vocalist of the Year Award and the 2017 Opera News Award.
Ian Bostridge CBE’s extraordinary international career has taken him to the foremost concert halls, orchestras and opera houses in the world.
Synonymous with the works of Schubert and Britten, his recital career has taken him to the Salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh and Schwarzenberg Schubertiade festivals and to the main stages of Carnegie Hall, the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Monnaie and Teatro alla Scala. In opera, Bostridge has received particular praise for his interpretation of Aschenbach (Death in Venice) at the Deutsche Oper and Peter Quint (The Turn of the Screw) for Teatro alla Scala. His recordings have won all the major international record prizes and have been nominated for 15 Grammys.
Highlights of Bostridge’s 2024-25 season include a return to the Concertgebouw, a tour across mainland China alongside conductor Daniel Harding, recitals with Piotr Anderszewski in Paris and Krakow, and a U.S. tour with Julius Drake taking in the 92nd Street Y, Montreal’s Bourgie Hall and Baltimore’s Shriver Hall. The season will also see him continue his artistic collaboration with director Deborah Warner in staged performances of “Winterreise” at the Ustinov Studio at Theatre Royal Bath. Bostridge will revisit beloved concert repertoire including Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Britten’s War Requiem on multiple stages across Europe and the U.S.
A prolific recording artist, Bostridge’s recent Pentatone recording of Schubert’s “Winterreise” with Thomas Adès won the Vocal Recording of the Year 2020 in the International Classical Music Awards. Other recordings include Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with Graham Johnson (Gramophone Award 1996), Tom Rakewell’s The Rake’s Progress with Sir John Eliot Gardiner (Grammy Award, 1999) and Belmonte’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with William Christie.
Photo by Marco Borggreve
Roderick Williams is one of the most sought-after baritones of his generation. He performs a wide repertoire from Baroque to contemporary music, in the opera house, on the concert platform and is in demand as a recitalist worldwide.
Williams enjoys relationships with all the major U.K. opera houses and has sung opera world premieres by David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michael van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel. Recent and future engagements include The Traveller / Death in Venice for Welsh National Opera, the title role in Eugene Onegin and Yeletsky / Pique Dame for Garsington, Papageno for Covent Garden, Sharpless / Madame Butterfly for ENO and van de Aa’s Upload with Cologne Opera, Bregenz Festival and the Dutch National Opera.
Williams sings regularly with all the BBC orchestras and all the major U.K. orchestras, as well as the Berlin, London and New York philharmonics, Deutsches SymphonieOrchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Cincinnati Symphony, London Symphony and Bach Collegium Japan, amongst others. His many festival appearances include the BBC Proms (including the Last Night in 2014), Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, Aldeburgh and Melbourne festivals.
Williams has an extensive discography. He is a composer and has had works premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio. In 2016 he won the prize for best choral composition at the British Composer Awards. From 2022-23 season he takes the position of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers. Williams performed the three Schubert song cycles around the U.K. culminating in performances at the Wigmore Hall and has subsequently recorded them for Chandos. Future releases include more Schubert, Schumann in English, as well as works by Vaughan Williams.
Williams was Artistic Director of Leeds Lieder in 2016, Artist in Residence for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra from 2020-21 for two seasons and won the RPS Singer of the Year award in 2016. He was awarded an OBE in June 2017 and sang at the Coronation Service of King Charles III in 2023, as well as composed a choral work for the event.
For nearly half a century, Florida Singing Sons (FSS) has been a cornerstone of South Florida’s choral music scene. Founded in 1975 in Fort Lauderdale, FSS has provided world-class musical education to thousands of students, shaping young singers into highly skilled musicians and fostering a lifelong appreciation for the arts.
Organized into four ensembles spanning second through twelfth grade, FSS is an elite youth choir dedicated to showcasing the transformative power of choral music. Through rigorous training, students develop university-level musicianship skills, a deep understanding of vocal pedagogy and choral techniques and invaluable personal growth. Rooted in the tradition of classical composers like Bach and Handel, FSS has long performed historically informed works with an ensemble for which they were originally conceived—a choir of men and boys. In 2022 FSS expanded its mission by welcoming girls into its newest mixed-voice ensemble, Chorale Soleil, broadening its impact and outreach within the community.
FSS’s repertoire spans sacred chants, classical masterworks, Broadway favorites, and contemporary anthems. In addition to its own concert series, FSS is regularly invited to collaborate with leading musical organizations, including the Master Chorale of South Florida, Florida Grand Opera, New World Symphony, Symphony of the Americas, Nova Singers and more. The choir also embarks on annual domestic and international tours, providing students with profound cultural experiences in locations such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Prague, South Africa and most recently, Spain.
FSS is committed to strengthening music education in South Florida and cultivating artsaware youth to be the leaders of tomorrow. By fostering the musical knowledge, education and vocal training of its members through performances and community events, FSS gives South Florida a source of pride for the talent and professional achievements of its youth.
As we approach our 50th anniversary season, we celebrate nearly five decades of musical excellence, educational impact and community engagement. Our upcoming anniversary celebration will honor our legacy while reaffirming our commitment to the future of choral music in South Florida and beyond.
MEMBERS OF THE FLORIDA SINGING SONS PERFORMING TODAY
Daniel Bates, Artistic Director
Malcolm Rogers, Associate Artistic Director
Christian Burbach, alto
Tristan 'Cody' Cary, alto
Giacomo Castro, alto
Sophia Cavaretta, soprano
Charlotte Cramer, alto
Carter Crouch, soprano
Adeline Cycholl, alto
Leonardo Nolasco, soprano
Samuel Prieto-Bueno, alto
Kornel Racz, alto
Eivissa Tinney, soprano/alto
Huiling Zhang, soprano
Matthew Zhang, soprano
Andrew Zhang, alto
GIRL CHOIR OF SOUTH FLORIDA
The Girl Choir of South Florida (GCSF) is the region’s premier singing ensemble for young women, dedicated to musical excellence and transformative education. With singers ages 6 to 18, GCSF provides a rigorous yet supportive environment where choristers develop exceptional vocal technique, musicianship and confidence.
Performing a diverse repertoire—including classical masterworks, contemporary compositions, folk traditions and Broadway favorites—GCSF is committed to artistic growth and innovation. The choir has commissioned and premiered works by renowned composers such as Eleanor Daley, Bob Chilcott and David Brunner.
GCSF frequently collaborates with leading arts organizations, including the Master Chorale of South Florida, Lynn University Philharmonia and Brazilian Voices. The choir has performed at prestigious venues such as the White House and has toured nationally and internationally, with past performances in New Orleans, San Francisco and London. In June 2025, GCSF will make its Carnegie Hall debut.
Rooted in high-quality music education, GCSF’s curriculum emphasizes sight-reading, ear training and vocal artistry, meeting Florida’s Sunshine State Standards for Arts. Through rehearsals, workshops and movement training, singers develop technical skills and expressive artistry that prepare them for success on and off the stage.
MEMBERS OF THE GIRL CHOIR OF SOUTH FLORIDA PERFORMING TODAY
Sylvia Rose Aycock, Artistic and Executive Director
Mariana Acevedo
Valeria Acevedo
Sophia Aguinaga
Autumn Byington
Valentina Clemente
Emma Contreras
Zoey Cueto
Ava De Stefanis
Mira Dhruva-Malmsten
Sky Dixon
Ruth England
Lucy Fasulo
Catherine Fitzpatrick
Sienna Friel
Peyton Ganpath-Singh
Madison Gause
Mikhayla Harper
Gia John
Nia John
Anyelin Lamarque
Brianna Mendizabal
Niara Morvan
Shalah Muhammad
Judith Pearlyn Patiance
Julianna Patiance
Emma-Rose Ridley
Graciela Rodriguez
Abigail Scott
Esme Scott
Kitty Scott
Haley Seal
Nina Semenova
Lilly Shafor
Sofia Singer
Olivia Thompson
Lucia Tobon
Juliana Wachs
From Beethoven to Broadway, Bach to Bernstein, the Master Chorale of South Florida performs works by the full range of beloved classical and contemporary composers, along with some lighter fare.
The Master Chorale is a highly select, auditioned ensemble comprised of 120 singers from Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Originally founded in 2003, the Chorale is thriving under artistic director and conductor Brett Karlin.
The Master Chorale communicates the transformative and unifying power of choral music by performing a rich and varied repertoire. Since its premiere performance of Mozart’s Requiem (in honor of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus), the Master Chorale has delighted South Florida audiences with classical music’s greatest works. These have included Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Brahms’ German Requiem, Verdi’s Requiem, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Bach’s Mass in B minor. In response to audience demand, the Chorale recently added a concert of lighter fare to its yearly concert series, performing such delights as Broadway favorites, movie music and Gilbert & Sullivan.
In addition to its own concert series, the Master Chorale is in high demand for featured guest performances with other musical organizations. Throughout its history, the Chorale has collaborated with The Cleveland Orchestra, New World Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, Andrea Bocelli, Itzhak Perlman, Franz Welser-Most, Giancarlo Guerrero and James Judd, among many others.
The Master Chorale is an avid proponent of maintaining a strong cultural fabric in South Florida and supports its community by engaging local solo artists, orchestras and other nonprofit organizations.
MEMBERS OF THE MASTER CHORALE OF SOUTH FLORIDA PERFORMING TODAY
Brett Karlin, Artistic Director
SOPRANO
Jane E. Andersen
Monique L Belch
Denise Campbell
Miki Cayard
Deborah Christie
Nicole M. Dominguez
Ruth Dunbar
Maria Gaston
Hannah Gauthier
Gabrielle Grof
Christina Hutcheson
Victoria Kaufman
Maria Márquez
Esmeyer Martinez
Maureen O’Brien
Sarah Quick
Gina Robichaux
Jessica Jane Rucker
Jennifer Sardiña
Johanna Sharp
Lori Snow
Erica Williams
Michelle Williamson
ALTO
Daniela Abratt-Cohen
Anna Lise Arvelo
Aura Maria Chàvez
Becca de la Zerda
Carolyn DeSanti
Gretchen Fasulo
Marci Gelb
Gayle Giese
Charlene Gilbert
Fran Goldenberg
Aaryn Gottesfeld
April Green
Janet Grubel
Karen Hayes
Kimberly Jackson
Francine Levin
Nancy McDonnell
Kelly McMurtrey
Heather Osowiecki
Harriet J Ottenheimer
Stephanie Parker
Dawn Polizzotti
Lea Rasabi
Brenda Smith
Jennifer Tiel
Jenna Weisberg
Dee Weisman
Anakae Wiles
TENOR
Brock Burdach
Jason Campbell
Kevin DeMars
Carl Gelfand
Mark W Glickman
William Guerin
Yulia Khalfina
Anthony Krupp
Tanya E. Low
H. Ian Novack
Sean Quinn
José H. Ramos
David Rumford
Greg Scherba
Samuel Sherman
Holly Strawbridge
Ryan Strouss
Christopher Waite
Rita Wells
Leo Williams
BASS
R. Mark Blaylock
Damien Bleus
Gregory Boals
Santiago Bownés
Clint Bush
Jeff Delman
Alex Desmond
Fabián Diaz
Walter Dickey
Michael Farris
Alexandre Grand-Pierre
Rod Hayes
John McDiarmid
Paul Morris
Joe Oravecz, Ph.D.
Richard M. Price II
Stuart Rosenthal
Michael T Still
Jay Stravers
Michael Waxer
Matthew Wisnoski
Randy Zinkus
Recognized for his insightful interpretations and expressive leadership, Brett Karlin has established himself as a conductor of remarkable versatility and depth. Under his baton, the Master Chorale of South Florida has received acclaim for performances that combine musical precision with emotional resonance, including recent praise for “another milestone… with an eloquent, deeply felt performance of Mozart’s Mass in C minor” (South Florida Classical Review).
In his 12th season with the Master Chorale, Karlin is set to lead the ensemble through an ambitious 2024-25 season featuring two monumental oratorios: Felix Mendelssohn's dramatic setting of Elijah and Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in collaboration with New World Symphony—both of which promise to be highlights of the South Florida concert season. The season also includes performances of Gustav Holst's The Planets, Schoenberg's poignant A Survivor from Warsaw and a season finale titled American Voices, celebrating a rich spectrum of American classical music and benefiting Nat King Cole Generation Hope.
Karlin’s previous work with commercial recordings has garnered significant recognition. As the Assistant Conductor for Seraphic Fire, he contributed to the ensemble’s critically acclaimed and Grammy-nominated album A Seraphic Fire Christmas in 2012. He also took on the roles of Assistant Chorus Master and singer for the ensemble’s recording of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem (London version), which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance.
Karlin's commitment to engaging audiences with both timeless and contemporary works has been a defining aspect of his career. Beyond his work with the Master Chorale, he has previously served as artistic director of The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, music director for the Broward Symphony Orchestra and chorus master for Florida Grand Opera. He has also maintained guest conducting engagements for various choral, orchestral and academic ensembles, including The Symphonia, Lynn Philharmonia and Seraphic Fire.
BRETT KARLIN
NWS is extremely grateful to the following donors who have made philanthropic commitments to the Resonance of Remembrance series.* If you would like to learn more about how you can support this series, please contact support@nws.edu.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Anonymous
Karen Bechtel and Will Osborne
Adam and Chanin Carlin
John and Mary Lou Dasburg
SENIOR PRODUCERS
Matthew Budd and Rosalind E. Gorin
Kleh Family Foundation, William and Patricia Kleh
Frayda Lindemann
Linda and David Paresky, Laura and Eric Gould, Julie and Mark Paresky
Robert Rosenberg and Mary Wolfson
Dr. Michael Zinner, MD
PRODUCERS
Bank of America
Alan Bernstein
Ira M. Birns and Arlenis Birns and World Kinect Corporation
In honor of Barbara Eisenberg by Ronalee and Russell Galbut
Leonard and Fleur Harlan
* as of February 14
As they approach Sicily, Coast Guardsmen raise the same flag they flew during the invasion of North Africa. The National WWII Museum, Gift of Jeffrey and Mary Cole, 2002.119.006
MTT, BRONFMAN AND BEETHOVEN
Saturday, March 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, March 30, 2025 at 2:00 PM
New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Stage
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Richard Strauss
Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 (1888) (1864-1949)
Approx. duration: Alasdair Neale 24 minutes
Robert Schumann Concerto in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 54 (1841-45) (1810-1856)
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1804-08) (1770-1827)
Allegro con brio
Approx. duration: Andante con moto
31 minutes
Scherzo: Allegro
Allegro – Presto
The March 29 performance will be a WALLCAST® concert in SoundScape Park. WALLCAST® concerts are made possible with support from Premier Sponsor The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by Kokusai Denki and Knight Foundation. Knight Foundation and New World Symphony: Reimagining Classical Music in the Digital Age.
Para programas en español visite nws.edu/program.
Please be sure to silence your cell phones. Flash photography is not permitted.
Access live captions at nws.edu/captions.
MTT, BRONFMAN AND BEETHOVEN
RICHARD STRAUSS
Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 (11888)
Approximate duration: 24 minutes
The young Richard Strauss took after his father (a famous horn player) in developing a preference for the older and more buttoned-up Classical style of Mozart and Beethoven. It was only once Strauss left home that his ears opened up to the “music of the future,” to quote a phrase associated with his new musical idol, Richard Wagner. In time, Strauss would inherit Wagner’s mantle as the king of progressive opera, but first he followed another radical innovator, Franz Liszt, into the storytelling realm of the symphonic poem. After completing two tone poems (his preferred term) based on existing literary tales— Macbeth and Don Juan—Strauss devised his own plot for his third effort, titled Death and Transfiguration. When he conducted the premiere himself in 1890, it confirmed that the 26-year-old, having already made a splash a few months earlier with Don Juan, was destined to shape the course of German music.
It was important to Strauss that the audience would be able to follow the narrative that he was conveying purely through orchestral means, and he provided various versions of a synopsis, including flowery verses by his friend and mentor Alexander Ritter that were printed with the score. The slow first section introduces a man lying on his deathbed in a humble room, the passing of time marked by the throbbing of a clock (or perhaps his own heartbeat). His dreams bring pleasant memories. Next comes a fast and agitated section that teeters feverishly on the brink between life and death, interrupted by dreams that visit happier times and the first hint of the “transfiguration” theme that will ultimately bring deliverance. The slower third section looks back once more to contented memories and noble ideals, but death draws ominously close, until the final transition comes with a swirling rise and a sudden stillness punctuated by the reverberations of a tam-tam (a large, flat gong) that represents the hammer-blow of death. Out of those rumbling depths of despair, the orchestra makes a gradual, consoling climb, and then a single held note from the violins welcomes the transfiguration theme that bestows its soothing grace on the remainder of the score.
However audacious it was for the 26-year-old Strauss to position himself as an expert on the arc of dying, he was clearly onto something. 60 years later, on his own deathbed, he told his daughter-in-law that dying was “just as I composed it in Death and Transfiguration.”
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Concerto in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 54 (1841-45)
Approximate duration: 31 minutes
Robert Schumann’s own self-assessment, as of the age of 20, was that his “talents as musician and poet are at the same level.” He soon committed to a life in music, and he organized his life in Leipzig around piano lessons with the distinguished teacher Friedrich Wieck. Schumann’s fanatical practice regimen, combined with his ill-advised use of a finger-strengthening device, resulted in permanent damage to his right middle finger, but at least there was a silver lining to his aborted piano career: Schumann came to know his teacher’s daughter, Clara, a gifted prodigy who would become his wife 12 years after they first met.
After many false starts and failures, Schumann finally made headway in composing for the orchestra in 1841, when he completed two symphonies and a three-movement “Symphonette” (later recast as the Overture, Scherzo and Finale), plus a Phantasie for piano and orchestra designed as a feature vehicle for his wife. Clara, more than eight months pregnant, read through the single-movement work that August at a private session with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by their friend Felix Mendelssohn. With the addition of two more linked movements, the Phantasie expanded in 1845 into Schumann’s first and only piano concerto.
The opening movement comes with an unusual tempo marking—Allegro affettuoso, meaning “fast and affectionate.” After a stabbing entrance, an oboe leads a wind chorale in a melody that descends tenderly to the repeated keynote. Those first four notes, C-B-A-A, are rendered in German as C-H-A-A, thereby spelling Chiara, the Italian equivalent of Clara. This encoded tribute to his wife suffuses Schumann’s first movement, and it makes a significant appearance later in the Concerto.
To answer the four-note descent of the “Chiara” theme, the central Intermezzo responds by arriving with an exchange of four rising notes, a device that immediately unifies these sections composed four years apart from each other. In a contrasting passage, the cellos swoon through a big, romantic melody while the piano comments in the margins.
A clever transition pivots from the four-note upward segments back to the “Chiara” theme, which then accelerates into the lively new pulse of the finale. Coming from a composer who was neither a piano virtuoso nor a natural-born creator of large-scale compositions, this marvelously cohesive Concerto is a testament to Schumann’s hard-earned union of heart and craft.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1804-08)
Approximate duration: 31 minutes
Beethoven made his first sketches for the Fifth Symphony in 1804. He composed the bulk of the symphony in 1807-08 while working concurrently on the Sixth Symphony, and he introduced both works during a four-hour marathon concert in Vienna on December 22, 1808, at which the frigid temperatures and under-rehearsed orchestra made more of an impression than the immortal music heard there for the first time.
The Fifth Symphony comes from the heart of Beethoven’s “middle” period, a phase when his encroaching deafness changed his relationship to composing and performing, and when the crystalline classicism of his early works gave way to a more focused and concentrated manner of writing. Rather than issuing flowing melodies, Beethoven’s quintessential works from this period build highly integrated forms out of compact, elemental materials.
The most famous musical nugget Beethoven ever conceived—perhaps the most recognizable motive ever penned by a composer—comes at the start of the Fifth Symphony, when the orchestra delivers four unadorned notes: three short repetitions of G dropping to a sustained E-flat, representing two notes from the home triad of C-minor. This one motive fuels the entire first movement based in Beethoven’s favorite key for stormy and fateful music, and traces of it return later in the Symphony.
The second movement features a double set of variations, alternating the development of two contrasting themes. Some of the accompanying rhythms echo the short-short-shortlong rhythmic pattern from the first movement, contributing to the symphony’s organic cohesion.
The Scherzo retreads the central tonal conflict of the work, juxtaposing a moody first theme in C-minor and a spry section in C-major that exploits the meticulous counterpoint of a fugue. A coda builds tension that releases directly into the triumphant finale, anchoring the redemptive new key of C-major with the added brilliance of piccolo and trombones in the orchestration.
Aaron Grad is a composer and writer based in Seattle. In addition to providing program notes for the New World Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and others, he is also the artistic director of Many Messiahs, a project that reframes George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece as a collective call for justice.
Internationally recognized as one of today's most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors and recital series. His commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike.
A frequent touring partner with the world's greatest orchestras and conductors, Bronfman’s 2024-25 season begins with the Pittsburgh and NDR Hamburg symphonies on tour in Europe followed by China and Japan with the Vienna Philharmonic. With orchestras in the U.S. he returns to Cleveland, New York, Houston, Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, Sarasota and Pittsburgh, and in Europe to Hamburg, Helsinki, Berlin, Lyon and Vienna. In advance of a spring Carnegie Hall recital his program can be heard in Austin, St. Louis, Stillwater (Oklahoma), San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Rome, Lisbon and Spain. Two special projects are scheduled in this season—duos with flutist Emmanuel Pahud in Europe in the fall and trios with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pablo Ferrandez in the U.S. in spring.
Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music, under Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, in 2010 he was further honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University and in 2015 with an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.
Photo by Dario Acosta
Alasdair Neale is the Music Director of the Sun Valley Music Festival (SVMF). The 2025 season will mark 31 years at the helm of the Festival (formerly Sun Valley Summer Symphony). As Music Director of the SVMF, Neale has propelled this festival to national status: it is now the largest privately funded free admission symphony in America.
In 2024 Neale completed his five-year tenure as Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. His appointment came after an extensive international search and marked for him a return to the city where he lived, studied and began his professional career more than 30 years prior.
In 2023 Neale celebrated his 22nd and final year as Music Director of the Marin Symphony. After he assumed the post in 2001, he was hailed for invigorating the orchestra and establishing it as one of the finest in the Bay Area.
Neale’s appointment with the Marin Symphony followed 12 years as Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. From 2001 to 2011, he served as Principal Guest Conductor of the New World Symphony and from 2001 to 2014, he served on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Neale’s discography includes a recording of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Colored Field with the San Francisco Symphony, featuring English horn player Julie Ann Giacobassi which won France’s Diapason d’or award following its release. He may also be heard on New World Records conducting the ensemble Solisti New York in a recording of new flute concertos. He appears on the Bay Brass recording Sound the Bells, released in 2011 on the Harmonia Mundi label and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance.
Neale holds a bachelor’s degree from Cambridge University and a master’s degree from Yale University, where his principal teacher was Otto-Werner Mueller. He lives in Paris.
Photo by Eisaku
Tokuyama
GRACE
The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas
The New World Symphony congratulates Michael Tilson Thomas on the release of GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas, a four-disc collection honoring MTT’s lifetime of contributions as a composer. Released by Pentatone for MTT’s 80th birthday, the set spans more than five decades and features 18 works, from premiere recordings to remastered archival recordings available for the first time, including ones of New World Symphony.
Order now at nws.edu/grace
All net proceeds from GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas will be donated to brain cancer research at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center.
NEW WORLD SYMPHONY FELLOWS -
VIOLIN
Morgan Bennett
1st-Year Fellow
Omaha, NE
McGill University, BM, GPD
Royal Danish Academy of Music, MM
@morganbennett_violin
Jacob Buhler
3rd-Year Fellow
Lake Grove, NY
Eastman School of Music, BM
Cleveland Institute of Music, MM @jakeblr.jpeg
Hannah Corbett
1st-Year Fellow
Maple, Ontario, Canada
University of Toronto, BM
Rice University, MM @hj_corbett
Jaimee Cao 2nd-Year Fellow
Thousand Oaks, CA
University of Southern California, BM
Rice University, MM
Diego Diaz 2nd-Year Fellow
Barquisimeto, Lara, Venezuela
Universidad Centroccidental
Lisandro Alvarado, BM
Roosevelt University, MM, PD @diegojdiazc
Archer Brown
1st-Year Fellow
Minneapolis, MN
San Francisco Conservatory, BM
Connor Chaikowsky 2nd-Year Fellow
Baltimore, MD
Rice University, BM @connor__chaikowsky
Sean Diehl 1st-Year Fellow
Andover, MA
McGill University, BM
Sadie Hamrin
1st-Year Fellow
Bemidji, MN
Baylor University, BM
McGill University, MM @sadiehamrin
Yunjung Ko
1st-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
Seoul National University, BM
Manhattan School of Music, MM, OPC
Freya Liu
1st-Year Fellow
San Jose, CA
Boston University, BM Yale University, MM
Yuna Jo
1st-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
Manhattan School of Music, BM Yale University, MM
Natalie Koh
2nd-Year Fellow
Singapore
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, BM
DePaul University, MM @nata_de_kohkoh
Mai Matsumoto
1st-Year Fellow
San Jose, CA
The Juilliard School, BM, MM @maimatsuviolin
Deurim Jung
1st-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
Northwestern University, BM
The Juilliard School, MM @deurimjung
Wing Yan Alison Kwok 2nd-Year Fellow
Hong Kong
Manhattan School of Music, BM Cleveland Institute of Music, MM
Ye Jin Min
3rd-Year Fellow
Ilsan, South Korea
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, BM
Yale University, MM, DMA @yejinminviolin
Floriane Naboulet
2nd-Year Fellow
Perpignan, Occitanie, France
Paris Conservatory, BM University of Southern California, MM
Allison Smith
1st-Year Fellow
Dublin, OH
Rice University, BM, MM @allison.smith.violin
Sung-kyung Yoo
2nd-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
Kyung Hee University, BM
McGill University, AD
Rice University, MM
Soomi Park
1st-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
Yonsei University, BM Indiana University, MM @so__omi
Jesse Thompson
1st-Year Fellow
Williamsport, PA
Duquesne University, BM, AD, MM @Jess.Thompson.583
VIOLA
Janani Sivakumar
1st-Year Fellow
Chicago, IL
Indiana University, BM, MM
Marissa Weston
2nd-Year Fellow
Valparaiso, IN Indiana University, BM
Carnegie Mellon University, MM, PC
Michael Ayala 1st-Year Fellow
San Antonio, TX University of Michigan, BM
Northwestern University, MM, MS @michaelayalav
Daniel Guevara
2nd-Year Fellow
Cali, Colombia / Miami, FL
Lynn University, BM, MM
Rituparna Mukherjee
1st-Year Fellow
Kolkata, India
Oberlin Conservatory, BM, BA
New England Conservatory, MM @rituparnam_
Joshua Thaver
2nd-Year Fellow
Houston, TX
Baylor University, BM
University of Michigan, MM @allinthaver
Shek Wan Li
2nd-Year Fellow
Hong Kong
New England Conservatory, BM
Indiana University, MM
Nicholas Pelletier
3rd-Year Fellow
Duluth, GA
New England Conservatory, BM
Rice University, MM
Seth Van Embden
3rd-Year Fellow
Millville, NJ
Rutgers University, BM
Northwestern University, MM
Tyler McKisson
1st-Year Fellow
Arvada, CO
University of Northern Colorado, BM University of Colorado, Boulder, MM
University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music, AD @tylerkissonwho
Srivishnu Ramankutty 1st-Year Fellow
Miami, FL
New World School of the Arts, BM
Lynn University, MM @visva.rupa
Toby Winarto
3rd-Year Fellow
Los Angeles, CA
Manhattan School of Music, BM, MM @tobywinarto
NEW WORLD SYMPHONY FELLOWS -
CELLO
Hana Cohon
3rd-Year Fellow
Seattle, WA
Northwestern University, BM
New England Conservatory, MM
San Francisco Conservatory, PSC
Jordan Gunn 1st-Year Fellow
Champaign, IL
Eastman School of Music, BM
Marcie Kolacki 2nd-Year Fellow
Phoenix, AZ
Peabody Institute, BM
Manhattan School of Music, MM, PS
Mizuki Hayakawa 1st-Year Fellow
Yokohama, Japan
The Juilliard School, BM, MM @m.hayakawa
David Olson
3rd-Year Fellow
Ashford, CT
Cleveland Institute of Music, BM
Rice University, MM
Kamila Dotta
3rd-Year Fellow
Caracas, Venezuela / Montevideo, Uruguay
University of Colorado Boulder, BM
Rice University, MM
Jessica Hong 3rd-Year Fellow
Holmdel, NJ
The Juilliard School, BM, MM
Samantha Powell 2nd-Year Fellow
Frisco, TX
Cleveland Institute of Music, BM University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, AD
Alexander Wu
1st-Year Fellow
Penn Valley, PA
Pennsylvania State University, BM
Peabody Institute, MM @alexwuuu105
Ian Grems
1st-Year Fellow
Denton, TX
University of North Texas, BM
Southern Methodist University, MM @iangrems
Hector Ponce
1st-Year Fellow
San Jose, CA
Eastman School of Music, BM, PC
Yale School of Music, MM, MMA
BASS
Jacob Diaz
2nd-Year Fellow
El Paso, TX
Indiana University, BM, PD
Esther Kwon
1st-Year Fellow
Tacoma, WA
University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music, BM, BA Yale University, MM @estherheejee
John Shank
2nd-Year Fellow
Elizabethtown, PA
Duquesne University, BM
Matthew Peralta
3rd-Year Fellow
New York, NY
Purchase College, BM
Yale University, MM
NEW WORLD SYMPHONY FELLOWS
FLUTE
Emily Bieker
3rd-Year Fellow
Waukee, IA
DePaul University, BM
Eastman School of Music, MM
Elizabeth McCormack
1st-Year Fellow
Needham, MA
Northwestern University, BM
New England Conservatory, MM
Sooyoung Kim
2nd-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
Seoul National University, BM Colburn School, MM
OBOE
Jamie Kim
1st-Year Fellow
Los Angeles, CA
University of Southern California, BM
The Juilliard School, MM
Robert Diaz
1st-Year Fellow
Clearwater, FL
New England Conservatory, BM @rob.diaz_
Andrew Port
1st-Year Fellow
Carmel, NY
New England Conservatory, BM, MM
San Francisco Conservatory, PSC
CLARINET
Benjamin Cruz
3rd-Year Fellow
South Kingstown, RI
DePaul University, BM
Eastman School of Music, MM
New England Conservatory, GD @bencruz.official
Sunho Song
2nd-Year Fellow
Seoul, South Korea
The Juilliard School, BM, MM
Matthew Matheny
2nd-Year Fellow
Owasso, OK
University of Oklahoma, BM, BME
Yale University, MM
BASSOON
Evyn Levy
1st-Year Fellow
Saint Louis, MO
Oberlin Conservatory, BM
Eastman School of Music, MM
Nina Laube 1st-Year Fellow
Highland Park, IL
Eastman School of Music, BM
The Juilliard School, MM
Manhattan School of Music, PC
Michael Quigley 1st-Year Fellow
Oakville, Ontario, Canada
University of Toronto, BM
Manhattan School of Music, MM
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, PC
The Karen Bechtel and William Osborne Bassoon Fellowship
HORN
Abigail Black
2nd-Year Fellow
Vernon Hills, IL
Eastman School of Music, BM
DePaul University, MM, GD
Sylvia Denecke
2nd-Year Fellow
Buffalo, NY
Northwestern University, BM @sylvia_denecke
TRUMPET
Xin He
2nd-Year Fellow
Ellicott City, MD
Eastman School of Music, BM
Yale University, MM @__xinderella
Jack Farnham 1st-Year Fellow
Sunnyvale, CA
Northwestern University, BM
The Juilliard School, MM
Abigail Davidson 1st-Year Fellow
Centennial, CO
Eastman School of Music, BM
Colburn School, MM @abby.davidson
Taryn Lee
2nd-Year Fellow
Salt Lake City, UT
University of Colorado, BM
Peabody Institute, MM
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, AD
Richard Stinson 1st-Year Fellow
Marietta, GA
Indiana University, BM
The Juilliard School, MM @richardjstinson
TROMBONE
Austin Canon 2nd-Year Fellow
Miami, FL
New England Conservatory, BM
The Juilliard School, MM @austin_canon
BASS TROMBONE
Graham Mynatt 1st-Year Fellow
Springdale, AR University of Central Arkansas, BM Indiana University, MM
Bridget Conley 2nd-Year Fellow
Charleston, SC Vanderbilt University, BM Yale University, MM @bridget.conley
TUBA
Jake Darnell 1st-Year Fellow
Emerson, GA
The Juilliard School, BM Boston University, MM Rice University, AD @tubbr.pdf
PERCUSSION
Caleb Breidenbaugh
3rd-Year Fellow
Lancaster, PA
Temple University, BM, MM @cbreidenbaugh
Jennifer Marasti
3rd-Year Fellow
Merced, CA
California State University, Stanislaus, BM, BME
Colburn School, MM
New England Conservatory, GPD
Leo Simon
1st-Year Fellow
Potomac, MD
The Juilliard School, BM
Manhattan School of Music, MM
Abigail Kent
2nd-Year Fellow
Charleston, SC
Curtis Institute, BM
Mannes School, MM
The Juilliard School, DMA @abigailkentharp
Ben Cornavaca
3rd-Year Fellow
East Brunswick, NJ
The Juilliard School, BM
Colburn School, PSC
PIANO
Noah Sonderling
3rd-Year Fellow
La Crescenta, CA
Indiana University, BM, MM University of Texas at Austin, DMA
The Judith Rodin Fellowship for an Outstanding Woman Musician
Molly Turner
2nd-Year Fellow
Tacoma, WA
Rice University, BM
The Juilliard School, MM Colburn School, AD @mollyxiuturner
Claire Oplinger
1st-Year Fellow
Morristown, NJ
Rutgers University, BM
AUDIO / VIDEO
Shih-Man Weng
2nd-Year Fellow
Taipei City, Taiwan
Boston Conservatory, BM, MM
Cleveland Institute of Music, AD University of Miami, DMA @shihmanw
India Hooi
3rd-Year Fellow
Adelaide, Australia
The University of Adelaide, BM
The Royal Danish Academy of Music, MM @indiahooi.music
NEW WORLD SYMPHONY STAFF
EXECUTIVE
Howard Herring** President and Chief Executive Officer
Justin Kang Executive Assistant
David J. Phillips*** Managing Director, Residential Development
Ashley Skinner
Senior Vice President for Institutional Culture and Inclusion
ARTISTIC PROGRAMS
Courtney Amaro
Lighting Director
Ana Maria Estevez*
Artist Services Manager and Assistant to the Artistic Director
Blake Kilgore
Production Technician - Audio Specialist
Toph Lebrun
Production Technician - Audio, Visual and Lighting Specialist
Martha Levine*** Director, Music Library
Michael McEvoy* Production Technician
Alan Miller*
Technical Director
Jason Miller Production Technician
Cassandra Mueller Director of Artistic Planning
Dean Tomlinson*** Assistant Technical Director
Adam Zeichner*** Vice President, Program Operations
FACILITIES
Cesar A. Sepulveda
Senior Vice President of Facilities
Mario Campo
Facilities Maintenance Technician
William Colson
Facilities Maintenance Technician
Tashana Deavens
Security
Walter Delia
Facilities Maintenance Technician
Wayne Ellington
Facilities Maintenance Technician
Prevenu Ermilus* Security
Ricardo Ensenat Security
Dorothy Harrell* Director of Security
George Jones
Security
Eddy Lamothe Maintenance
Hyacinth Lilley*
Facilities Director
Armando Nuñez
Facilities Maintenance Technician
Rolande Pierre Security
Fabian Presbot
Director of Security and Safety
Salvador Reyes
Facilities Maintenance Technician
Rick Serna*
Facilities Director
Ginette Vitelis
Security
Angela Vizzie
Facilities Administrative Coordinator
FINANCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Humberto Ortega
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Paula Cruz* Director of Accounting
Michelle Kucharczyk** Vice President of Business Development
Luis Quintero*
Vice President of Technology
Yuri Rebello
Director of Business Development
Lourdes Rivera**
Senior Accountant Revenue
Andrew Salman*
Technology Manager
Grace Tagliabue*
Senior Accountant
Rosa Vila
Accounts Payable Associate
INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT
Maureen M. O’Brien
Executive Vice President for Institutional Advancement
Siggi Bachmann* Senior Director of Research and Design
Rafael Baldwin
Senior Director of Digital Communications
Christina Bonatakis
Email Marketing Associate
Terrence-Kelly Devonshire
Box Office Associate
Santiago Estrada House Manager
Marci Falvey*
Vice President of Communications
Luc Fondaire
Director of Guest Services
Julisa Fuste*
Vice President of Development
Lietty Garces
Web Admin and Developer
Emily Greene*
Director of Research and Campaign Stewardship
Gabriel Guglielmina
Marketing Associate
Tylee Hooker Floor Manager
Michael Humphries**
Senior Director of Audience and Ticket Services
Maryna Kachurovska Graphic Designer
Omar Lawand
Development Events Manager
Mario Madriz
Box Office and Audience Services Manager
Franziska Medina
Senior Floor Manager
Jack Mizutani*
Senior Director of Special Events
Lona Palmero**
Development Manager
Liz Platt
Director of Individual Giving
Theo Reyna
Director of Foundation and Government Relations
Alexa Roxelin
Social Media Manager
Ruben Sabando
Assistant Box Office Manager
Sam Sherman Floor Manager
Veronica Sierra-Soderman* Development Database Administrator
Kewan Smith
Senior Director of Individual and Corporate Giving
Tatum Travers
Vice President of Marketing and Audience Engagement
Joelle Vasquez
Senior Floor Manager
Paul Woehrle** Vice President for Capital and Planned Giving
Heydee Zamora Floor Manager
MUSICIAN ADVANCEMENT
Beth Garcia* Interim Senior Vice President for Musician Advancement and Dean
Kristin Baird ◊
Assistant Orchestra and Musician Advancement Manager
Daniel Dardon
Visiting Faculty and Musician Advancement Manager
Felice Doynov
Associate Dean of Visiting Faculty and Orchestra Manager
Thomas Hadley* ◊
Dean of Admissions, Alumni and Fellow Services
Michael Linville** ◊
Dean of Instrumental Performance
Elyse Marrero
Director of Community and Equity Impact
Jarrett McCourt ◊ Admissions and Alumni Manager
Heather Osowiecki Director of Entrepreneurial Leadership
Daniel Rivera College Track Mentorship Program Manager
Rianna Washington
Community Engagement Manager
NWS MEDIA
Clyde Scott**
Vice President and Creative Director of NWS Media
Tamara Benavente
Video Production Specialist
Matthew Ebisuzaki
Video Production Specialist II
Dean Gay
Chief Video Engineer
William C. Hunt* Associate Producer
Michael Matamoros
Video Production Specialist I and Associate Projection Designer
Adolfo Salgueiro
Assistant Video Engineer
Charlotte Schou* Line Producer
Roberto Toledo* Director of Audio Services
Justin Trieger*
Senior Producer and Sound Designer
Shaun Wright*
Senior Video Production Specialist
* Indicates 10+ years of service to NWS
** Indicates 20+ years of service to NWS
*** Indicates 30+ years of service to NWS
◊ Indicates NWS alum
STUDENT TICKETS
$10 student tickets are available at most New World Symphony performances. Visit nws.edu/students to learn more.
GROUP TICKETS
Bring your friends, coworkers or club to New World Symphony. Discounts and perks are available for groups of 20 or more. Visit nws.edu/groups to learn more and plan your group outing today.
STANDBY MEMBERSHIPS
For $55 a month, receive a standby ticket to as many concerts as you'd like at New World Center. Embrace your adventurous side—you never know where you might be seated! Only a handful of spots remain. Visit nws.edu/standby to sign up.
“NEW WORLD SYMPHONY IS THE BEST THING IN MIAMI BEACH.”
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SPONSOR RECOGNITION
THE DR. M. LEE PEARCE FOUNDATION MAXINE AND STUART FRANKEL FOUNDATION
ARTHUR F. AND ALICE E. ADAMS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION THE SAMUEL FREEMAN CHARITABLE TRUST THE ELIZABETH C. LAMBERTSON FOUNDATION
The New World Symphony is a 501(c)(3) organization (Federal Tax #59-2809056). NWS is registered with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (Registration #CH503). A copy of the official registration and financial information may be obtained from the division of consumer services by calling toll-free (800-435-7352) with the state. Registration does not imply endorsement, approval, or recommendation by the state.
The New World Symphony strives to make its performances, events and facilities accessible to all patrons. For more information, please visit nws.edu/access. Children eight years of age or older are welcome at all New World Symphony performances.
