American Composers Orchestra Plays 'UNsafe'

American Composers Orchestra launches Playing it UNsafe, the first professional laboratory to support the creation of cutting-edge new American orchestral music. Featuring American Composers Orchestra’s entrepreneurial Orchestra Underground ensemble led by the intrepid conductor Jeffrey Milarsky, Playing it UNsafe will present open rehearsals, discussions and laboratory performances with five composers now at work creating new music specifically for the project. The “UNsafe” composers are Anna Clyne, Jonathan Dawe, Charles Mason, Ned McGowan and Dan Trueman. Playing it Unsafe begins on Wednesday, April 23 with a public rehearsal of the new works, and culminates in New York on Friday, April 25 at 7:30 PM, with a laboratory performance at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. A repeat lab performance will take place at Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center on Sunday, April 27.

The five composers and their new works-in-progress were selected from nearly 200 proposals received in the nation-wide call for ideas to challenge conventional notions about orchestral music. What is the point of Playing it UNsafe? To encourage composers to experiment and stretch their own musical sensibilities; and to test and stretch the possibilities for the Orchestra itself.

The composers’ newly developing works are as diverse as they are innovative: Dan Trueman is composing a piece for an orchestra of instruments and laptop computers; Anna Clyne is creating a multimedia work with laptop musician Jeremy Flower and computer-graphics artist Joshue Ott, deploying theremins and laptops in a new way; Charles Mason re-examines the nature of time and space in the concert experience in his new piece; Ned McGowan explores extremes of register, timbre and texture in a new work for contrabass flute and orchestra; and Jonathan Dawe mixes hip-hop and Middle-Eastern music into a work-in-progress based on the Armide story.

Playing it UNsafe was designed to address the pressures and limitations composers can encounter when composing for orchestra—a situation that can inhibit risk-taking creativity and encourage a play-it-safe approach. Playing it UNsafe is an opportunity to try out new ideas, extend to the orchestra working methods conceived in other musical settings, establish new collaborations with artistic partners, or showcase a new piece in development," says ACO’s artistic director Robert Beaser.

Michael Geller, ACO’s executive director, is "thrilled to be able to put Playing it UNsafe into action. The orchestra’s new long-range strategic plan, approved in 2007, included this laboratory idea, so Playing it UNsafe represents another step in our continuing efforts to imagine the orchestra of the future and create new opportunities for today’s composers."

Playing it UNsafe features Orchestra Underground, American Composers Orchestra’s groundbreaking smaller flexible orchestra that seeks to redefine orchestra music by embracing the gamut of musical styles, unusual instrumentations and spatial orientations of musicians, technological innovations, and multimedia/multidisciplinary collaborations. Since its launch in 2004, ACO’s Orchestra Underground has commissioned and premiered over twenty cutting-edge new works and played to sold-out houses at Zankel Hall.

Playing It UNsafe is dedicated to the memory of American Composers Orchestra 's longtime board member Peter S. Heller. Mr. Heller knew the challenges of being a composer first-hand. He loved new music and cared deeply about creating new opportunities for American composers and their music. -- www.americancomposers.org