Orchestral
Full Line-Up of Big Ears Festival Released, Kronos Quartet Serve as Artist-In-Residence, Max Richter to Perform Vivaldi with The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Laurie Anderson, Ben Frost and More
Composer John Luther Adams Wins Columbia's Lifetime Achievement William Schuman Award, Known for Pulitzer Prize-Winning 'Become Ocean' and 2015 Grammy Award Nom
Visionary American composer John Luther Adams has been awarded the coveted Columbia University School of the Arts William Schuman Award.The William Schuman Award is a recognition which has been given over the past three decades. The award is named for the first recipient of the prize and offers a $50,000 unrestricted grant to its recipients. According to Columbia, the goal of the award is to recognize lifetime achievements of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance.“John Luther Adams's work anticipates a complex yet poetic intertwining of music and space. Whether he is writing for nontraditional sites or evoking the expansiveness of outdoor landscapes inside the concert hall, his writing radically redefines the relationship between sound and locality. We are thrilled to honor him with the Schuman Award,” says Carol Becker, dean of the Columbia School of the Arts.Adams is a composer who uses the natural world as inspiration for his life and work. He has won the Heinz Award for his contributions to raising environmental awareness. He also received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for "Become Ocean," an orchestral work that evokes thoughts of melting polar ice and rising sea levels. The piece was performed at Carnegie Hall and recorded by the Seattle Symphony and has been nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. 'Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín' Tells Story of Holocaust Prisoners: Bebe Neuwirth and John Rubinstein Star in Show at Lincoln Center
A live performance of “Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín,” which displays performances of Verdi’s "Requiem" put on by concentration camp prisoners during World War II, will be shown at Lincoln Center. The performance will feature Bebe Neuwirth and John Rubinstein.Defiant Requiem tells the story of 16 performances put on by prisoners at the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II amid starvation, abuse and death. With only one smuggled score, they performed the famed masterpiece 16 times. This story will be commemorated at Avery Fisher Hall, which includes a concert/drama featuring a live performance of Verdi’s "Requiem" interspersed with historic film, testimony from survivors and narration that tells the tale of these courageous men and woman.In addition to Neuwirth and Rubeinstein, soloists soprano Jennifer Check, mezzo-soprano Ann McMahon Quintero, tenor Steven Tharp and bass Wilhelm Schwinghammer will be featured, as well as The Orchestra of Terezín Remembrance and The Collegiate Chorale.
