The Orchestra Now Continues 10th Anniversary Season with an All-Ives Program Celebrating the Composer’s Sesquicentennial at Carnegie Hall on November 21
Plus a Free Concert at Symphony Space on Oct. 27 Featuring the New York Premiere of Herman Whitfield III’s Scherzo No. 1
New York, NY, October 21, 2024 — The Orchestra Now (TŌN) performs Charles Ives’ America, an all-Ives program celebrating the iconic American composer’s 150th anniversary at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, November 21 at 7pm. In addition to a pre-concert talk featuring noted cultural historian Joseph Horowitz, Ives scholar J. Peter Burkholder, music director Leon Botstein, renowned baritone William Sharp, and pianist Donald Berman; Mr. Sharp and Mr. Berman will also perform some of the popular tunes Ives’ employed before each work in which they are used in the evening’s program.
This Carnegie Hall performance is the culminating concert in the Charles Ives at 150 festival, a sesquicentennial celebration hosted by Bard College and The Orchestra Now, offering performances, cross-disciplinary talks, and conversations that explore Charles Ives and his place in American history and culture. The festival runs from November 9 – 17 at Bard College.
TŌN will also give a free concert led by TŌN Resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman with a New York premiere by Herman Whitfield III and works by Debussy and Prokofiev at Symphony Space on October 27.
Charles Ives’ America
Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 7 PM
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Pre-concert talk at 6 PM with Leon Botstein, J. Peter Burkholder, Joseph Horowitz, Donald Berman, and William Sharp
Leon Botstein, conductor
William Sharp, baritone
Donald Berman, piano
J. Peter Burkholder, host
All-Ives Program:
The Fourth of July from the Holidays Symphony
Central Park in the Dark
Orchestral Set No. 2
Symphony No. 2
Performances of songs quoted in Ives’ music
Leon Botstein and TŌN celebrate the sesquicentennial of one of the most quintessential American composers, Charles Ives. With Grammy Award-winning baritone William Sharp, currently on the vocal faculty of the Peabody Conservatory; pianist Donald Berman, president of The Charles Ives Society; and preeminent Ives scholar J. Peter Burkholder; this program explores the way the composer created unique works from familiar tunes. Before each piece, Sharp and the Orchestra will highlight these classic songs, including “Bringing in the Sheaves” and “Wake Nicodemus.” The concert is preceded by a 6 PM talk with Botstein, Sharp, Burkholder, Berman, and cultural historian Joseph Horowitz, free for all ticket holders. This concert is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Tickets, priced at $25–$50, are available online at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th & Seventh Avenue.
The Ives concert is also presented at the Fisher Center at Bard on November 16-17, in a program hosted by preeminent Ives scholar J. Peter Burkholder. Click here for all the details and ancillary events at Bard College.
Charles Ives at 150 is one of four Ives sesquicentenary celebrations supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Music Unwound is a consortium of orchestras and educational institutions directed by Joseph Horowitz.
Debussy and Romeo & Juliet
Sunday, October 27, 2024, at 4 PM
Peter Norton Symphony Space
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Herman Whitfield III: Scherzo No. 1 (New York Premiere)
Claude Debussy: Nocturnes
Sergei Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet Suite
TŌN Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman returns with the Orchestra to Symphony Space as part of its 2024-25 Free Concerts Series. The program comprises Debussy’s Nocturnes and selections from Prokofiev’s three Romeo & Juliet suites, plus the New York premiere of Scherzo No. 1 of composer Herman Whitfield III, a Black man who died in April 2022 after he was restrained by the police when his parents called 911 because he was having a mental health crisis.
Tickets: This concert is FREE, no tickets necessary, advance RSVP is requested.
The Orchestra Now
Founded in 2015 by conductor and educator Leon Botstein, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate program of Bard College that trains the next generation of music professionals to become creative ambassadors of classical music. It offers accomplished young musicians a full-tuition fellowship toward a master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies or an advanced certificate in Orchestra Studies. TŌN’s innovative curriculum combines rehearsal, performance, recording, and touring with seminars, masterclasses, professional development workshops, teaching, and more. The members of the Orchestra are graduates of the world’s leading conservatories, and hail from countries across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Many have gone on to careers in the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Vancouver, and National symphony orchestras; Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; the United States military bands; and many others. In the 2024-25 season, the Orchestra welcomes 18 new members, for a total of 67 musicians from 14 countries around the globe.
TŌN performs dozens of concerts a year at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard. Specializing in both familiar and rarely heard repertoire, the Orchestra has given numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres, and performed the work of living composers including Joan Tower and Tania León. In 2023, TŌN appeared with Bradley Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, and was featured on the Deutsche Grammophon soundtrack, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Orchestra has performed with many other distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, Stephanie Blythe, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Peter Serkin, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta.
TŌN has released several albums on the Hyperion, Sorel Classics, and AVIE labels. May 2024’s The Lost Generation includes world-premiere recordings of works by Hugo Kauder, Hans Erich Apostel, and Adolf Busch. Other highlights include rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben and Bristow’s Arcadian Symphony, and the soundtrack to the motion picture Forte. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard regularly on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and the Orchestra has appeared over 100 times on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide.
Visit ton.bard.edu to find out more about TŌN’s academic program, concerts, musicians, albums, and broadcasts; sign up for the email list; and support the orchestra with a donation.
Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein is founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), artistic co-director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO), where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He has been guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Taipei Symphony, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela, among others. In 2018, he assumed artistic directorship of Campus Grafenegg and Grafenegg Academy in Austria.
Recordings include acclaimed recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben with TŌN, Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the ASO, a Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra, and other various recordings with TŌN, ASO, the London Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, and JSO, among others. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and author of numerous articles and books, including The Compleat Brahms (Norton), Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Bölau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). His many honors include Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters award; and Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria, for his contributions to music. Other distinctions include the Bruckner Society’s Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer’s music, the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.
Press Contacts
Pascal Nadon
Pascal Nadon Communications
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Mark Primoff
Associate Vice President of Communications
Bard College
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