2010/2011 Season:
| Jan 11, 2011 Hannah Tinti Joins Selected Shorts Radio Show |
| Sep 7, 2010 Sonidos: Symphony Space Gears Up for Its Season-Long Celebration of Latino Culture |
Download this press release as a PDF.
Symphony Space’s 31st year of arts programming features an ever-expanding schedule of groundbreaking works by renowned musical artists, authors and performers. Beginning September 18 with a celebration marking composer Joan Tower’s 70th birthday and Salman Rushdie’s presentation of the Best American Short Stories 2008 for Selected Shorts on October 1 through June with the celebrated James Joyce marathon, Bloomsday on Broadway XXVIII, Symphony Space’s 2008/2009 season continues its rich legacy of artistic innovation, presenting a broad spectrum of cultural programming.
Selected Shorts kicks off the 2008/2009 Literature in Performance season with internationally acclaimed author Salman Rushdie, guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2008, discussing two of his most compelling picks for this year’s anthology. One of the highlights of the Thalia Book Club series—intimate readings and discussions with great authors from an array of genres—will be author Tom Wolfe, who will return to his LSD-fueled cross-country trip from the summer of 1964 with the 40th Anniversary Celebration of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test on Dec 10. On June 16, the 28th annual celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses will once again follow selected adventures of Mr. Leopold Bloom with a cast of nearly 100 Broadway and film stars, Selected Shorts regulars and avid Joyceans during Bloomsday on Broadway XXVIII.
The 2008/2009 season will also feature The 1939 Project: American Arts at a Turning Point. A multi-disciplinary presentation of one of the most important years in the 20th century—a time when the Great Depression was ending, American artists were once again finding their voices, and America’s optimism was in strong contrast to the turmoil in Europe—The 1939 Project will feature American masterpieces in music, literature, and film that made their debut in 1939. As part of The 1939 Project, Symphony Space will show The Best Films of 1939 beginning February 1.
For the 2008/2009 season of Music programming, Symphony Space will explore a wide range of genres and styles with its popular Jazz Spectrum series, starting October 24, which will include Creative Music Studio Celebration featuring Anthony Braxton, Graham Haynes and Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra as well as Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, among others. The Adventurers series will feature English singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, who got his start with legendary `80s punk/new wave band the Soft Boys, performing a rare New York concert on November 22. The Adventurers series also welcomes amplified string quartet ETHEL back for the third year with ETHEL Fair 2009 on April 30. The Inside The Masterpieces series finds Symphony Space celebrating the 100th birthday of composer Olivier Messiaen with performances of Visions de l’Amen by award-winning pianists Ursula Oppens and Jerome Lowenthaland Le Merle Noir(“The Blackbird”) and Quartet for the End of Time by the New Millennium Ensemble on November 6. Oppens also performs a program of Beethoven and Corigliano works as part of the series as it continues into 2009. Inside The Masterpieces will mark the 70 birthday of composer Joan Tower with three concerts by the Cassatt Quartet, each featuring a Tower quartet, a repertoire masterpiece that has inspired her and a world premiere by a contemporary composer. Additionally, on January 23 Inside The Masterpieces welcomes Grammy Award-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin in a new collaboration with six-time CMA Musician of the Year Mark O’Connor. This year Symphony Space’s annual free music marathon comes home with Wall to Wall Broadway: “The Street Where We Live” on March 16. The American Symphony Orchestra returns for the second year with ClassicsDeclassified on September 21, February 8, April 19 and April 21, while the World Music Institute brings a variety of traditional and modern music and dance programs from around the globe. During the holidays, the Symphony Space All-Stars, organized by flutist Tara Helen O’Connor and harpsichordist Bradley Brookshire, will continue the New York holiday tradition of presenting Brandenburg Concertos with Basically Brandenburg on December 19. Finally, this season Associate Artistic Director Laura Kaminsky will host a new series of pre-concert talks, Underscore, before select performances.
Symphony Space’s upcoming season of Just Kidding events, beginning October 4, will include performances by the critically acclaimed Caribbean family musician Father Goose, Mermaid Theatre’s black light puppetry presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, punk rock pirates Captain Bogg and Salty and Bubble and Friends’ celebration of Abbey Road’s 40th anniversary. The successful Thalia Kids’ Book Club returns with lively talks between children’s authors and their 9-12 year-old fans, beginning October 19 with Cornelia Funke’s Inkdeath. Additionally, throughout the season Symphony Space will be offering the Best Selections from the New York International Children’s Film Festival.
The 2008/2009 season’s Thalia Dance series will feature a three-week run by Keigwin Kabaret April 2-18, presenting Larry Keigwin’s elaborate spectacles of contemporary dance and burlesque with a number of special guest stars. Also included in the season’s Dance series is Symphony Space’s signature dance event, The Dance Sampler, featuring 12 of New York’s most distinguished up-and-coming choreographers delivering short pieces on the theme “Blues in the Night.” In addition to Thalia Dance, Symphony Space will present Dancing for Jerry: The d’Amboise Family Remembers, a Jerome Robbins tribute on December 1, celebrating the legendary choreographer’s body of work.
The 2008/2009 Thalia Film Series will see the return of its successful new Opera On Film series, bringing New York audiences operas recorded live from several of the great opera houses of Europe, including Teatro alla Scala, Teatro la Fenice, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Salzburg Festspielhaus and others, in HD Surround Sound format. Also showing at Symphony Space will be Davis & Hepburn: Feisty and Fabulous, running through the beginning of September, which celebrates the extensive careers of Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn, as well as Mel Brooks: Man In Tights, presenting the best films by the master of spoof in December and January. And Jim Jarmusch and Paul Schrader’s Personal Choices, in which the fiercely independent director and writer of some of Scorsese’s best films (as well as director of classic films American Gigolo and Auto Focus), respectively, share with the audience some of their favorite films and personal inspirations. In June, the NY Reel Rhythms World Music Film Festival returns for its 5th edition. A popular series, Reel Rhythms’ special theme will be The Francophones. Finally, Jeanne Moreau: La Reine Moreau will feature a number of works by the French stage-star who worked with such masters as Truffaut, Frankenheimer and Antonioni.
The Thalia Follies returns for its fifth season for three weeks of sharp political humor. In the days preceding the upcoming presidential election the Follies will present At Last—An Election! on October 23-25, reviewing the candidates, issues, and prospects for America in comedy, song and poetry. A month into the new administration in Washington comes America Reborn? trying to figure out how things look and just what exactly has happened, and finally, the springtime Follies will cover the upcoming New York Mayoral election with Go Fight for City Hall, June 4-6.
Symphony Space will also be continuing its arts education programs for the 2008/2009 season. Led by prominent actors, authors and teaching artists, the Curriculum Arts Project (CAP) integrates the arts as part of social studies classes for 6,000 New York City public school children in grades K-12, teaching literacy through creative writing. All Write!, Symphony Space’s adult literacy program, is a spin-off of the popular Selected Shorts performance series. Open to Adult Literacy classes from around the city, All Write! gives students the experience of having their own creative work read aloud on stage.
Composer and Symphony Space Music Curator Laura Kaminsky will assume the new role of Associate Artistic Director beginning with the 2008/2009 Season. Now participating in Symphony Space’s season-wide programming across all genres, Kaminsky continues her commitment at Purchase College/SUNY where she had been dean since 2004 and currently serves as Faculty-at-Large for the School of the Arts and Professor of Music. She has previously served as Artistic Director of Town Hall, Director of Music and Theatre Programs at the New School and Associate Director of Education in the Humanities at the 92nd Street Y in New York; internationally, she has held the positions of Artistic Director of the European Mozart Academy and Visiting Professor at the National Academy of Music of Ghana. She has also received commissions, fellowships and awards as a composer and presenter from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Meet the Composer and Chamber Music America, among others. Kaminsky says, “I am honored and delighted to join the leadership team of Symphony Space, an institution with a noteworthy mission and vision, and one that has, in its short 30 years, made a profound impact on the cultural life of New York City. I look forward to implementing new programs, as well as expanding those that currently exist, to assure that artists are nurtured and audiences challenged in dynamic new ways.” “Laura is a long-time friend and colleague who will be a powerful addition to our programming team,” says Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer.
When Symphony Space opened its doors in 1978 with its first production, Wall to Wall Bach, it gathered together an eclectic group of musicians, professional and amateur, well-known and emerging. What began as a natural outgrowth of the cultural epicenter that is the Upper West Side, traditionally home to many of the great actors, writers, dancers and musicians of our time, remains a unique melding of world-class artistry with the informality and intimacy of a neighborhood salon.
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