Blank Out: Artist Talk

CONVERSATION SERIES: INTERROGATIONS OF FORM BLANK OUT: ARTIST TALK

Friday, September 22, 2017 at 6:00pm Veterans Room Thompson Arts Center at Park Avenue Armory Featuring:

Michel van der Aa Miah Persson Moderator: Alexandra Gardner

SEASON SPONSORS

PRODUCTION SPONSOR

Blank Out is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Altman Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Achelis and Bodman Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Kaplen Brothers Fund, the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation.

Cover image: Priska Ketterer

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS MICHEL VAN DER AA MIAH PERSSON Michel van der Aa is one of today’s most sought-after composers Miah Persson is an internationally renowned Swedish soprano and stage directors. A pioneer in the realms of new music and technology, his staged works—incorporating film and sampled soundtrack—are a seamless hybrid of musical theater and multimedia. Winner of the 2015 Johannes Vermeer Award and 2013 Grawemeyer Award, van der Aa’s imaginative music theater works have received critical and public acclaim internationally.

His repertoire also includes concert works and chamber music for small ensemble, soloists, and soundtrack. Van der Aa’s music has been featured at many leading international festivals and is performed regularly by orchestras and ensembles worldwide.

Since 2011 van der Aa has been a “house composer” with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This position led to the creation of several major works, including a new violin concerto written for Janine Jansen. He served as composer-in-residence at the 2017 Lucerne Summer Festival, and was featured composer at the 2017 Musica nova Helsinki Festival.

Moderator

ALEXANDRA GARDNER Alexandra Gardner is a composer who creates music for

who has worked all over the world as recitalist and concert artist, as well as on the operatic stage. Throughout her distinguished career, Persson has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Theatre Champs Elysees, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Hamburgische Staatsoper, New National Theatre Tokyo, Bayerische Staatsoper, Dutch National Opera, and at Opera di Roma. In concert she has appeared with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Bayerischer Rundfunk Munich, the Accademia Santa Cecilia, Simon Bolivar Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel in Salzburg and for the Proms in London (televised and broadcast by the BBC), Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, the MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Philharmonia, London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as well as in recitals at Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Schubertiade, and at the Tonhalle Zurich.

varied instrumentations, often mixing acoustic instruments with electronics. Praised as “highly lyrical and provocative of thought” (San Francisco Classical Voice), and “mesmerizing” (The New York Times), her music has been featured at venues worldwide, including the Aspen Music Festival, Centro de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona, Beijing Modern Festival, Warsaw Autumn Festival, and the Kennedy Center. Gardner’s music has been commissioned by acclaimed ensembles and musicians such as Percussions de Barcelona, pianist Jenny Lin, Seattle Chamber Players, SOLI Chamber Ensemble, and cellist Joshua Roman. During spring 2018 she will serve as Composerin-Residence for the Seattle Symphony.

NEXT IN THE SERIES REPONS: ARTIST TALK Saturday, October 7 at 6:00pm

Conductor Matthias Pintscher and Ara Guzelimian (Provost & Dean, The Julliard School) discuss the legacy of composer Pierre Boulez and the realization of his spatial work in a live performance setting.

PERSON PLACE THING Sunday, November 19 at 3:00pm

Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that are important to them to reveal surprising stories. Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Paula Vogel (Indecent, How I Learned to Drive) and playwright and performance artist Daniel Alexander Jones discuss these topics with host Randy Cohen.

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