Performances
& Events

American Composers Orchestra holds its 31st EarShot Readings (formerly Underwood New Music Readings) in June 2023 in New York City, conducted by Tito Muñoz.In this initial reading session, hear the works of today’s emerging composers in an open rehearsal with American Composers Orchestra members and artistic staff. Audiences get an immersive view into what happens when an ensemble sits down to read a new work for the first time. Featured artists, venue and more details will be announced in early 2023. The rehearsal is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. Capacity is limited.EarShot is a program of the American Composers Orchestra, in partnership with the League of American Orchestras, American Composers Forum, and New Music USA. Over the past 10 years the program has initiated dozens of composer/orchestra/conductor relationships across the country offering opportunities to more than 100 composers. In 2016, ACO launched a composer archive of past EarShot compositions as a resource to the field. Orchestras across the country and around the world rely on EarShot to identify and connect with creative artists, as well as to advise on commissions, competitions, and program design.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra hosts EarShot Readings on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 with four featured composers: Moni (Jasmine) Guo, Diallo Banks, Ricardo Ferro, and Iván Enrique Rodríguez. The composers will work throughout the day with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra musicians and Maurice Cohn, Assistant Conductor of DSO, and receive feedback from mentor composers Quinn Mason, a 27-year old Dallas-based composer and conductor; “expert in orchestration” (The New York Times), Jimmy López Bellido; and Xi Wang, recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. At 2:00 that afternoon, the DSO, and Maurice Cohn, Assistant Conductor of DSO, perform all four works at Meyerson Symphony Hall, after which a recording will be provided to the participants.

Audiences are invited to observe a collaborative session with orchestra, composers, and choreographers/dancers.The Next Festival’s 2023 Choreographer, Composer and Performance Fellows premiere new music and dance works, intermingling the world premiere of ACO EarShot compositions with a works-in-progress dance showing. This is the culmination of a week-long workshop, consisting of rehearsals, collaboration and spontaneous creation. ACO’s EarShot is the nation’s first ongoing program for creating relationships between orchestras and composers, in partnership with American Composers Forum, League of American Orchestras and New Music USA. Composer Mentors, the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis and “strikingly original” (The New York Times) Kamala Sankaram, along with Festival A.D. Peter Askim, will guide ACO’s Earshot Composer Fellows Michael R. Dudley Jr., Emil Ernström, and Akari Komura in the creation of new music. These new pieces will be played by the Festival’s String Performance Fellows.  Choreography Mentor Sidra Bell will lead Choreographer Fellows Flora Ferguson, Jay Beardsley, and Ameeya Singh in the development of new dance work, in collaboration with EarShot Composer Fellows and String Performance Fellows.

Whitney Live and the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) present Composers OutFront!, a performance and discussion featuring creative siblings composer Erin Gee and Whitney Live Artist-in-Residence Colin Gee. The evening includes an excerpt from the film/performance work Dakota with live performances by Colin Gee and music by Erin Gee, as well as a preview of the siblings’ work in progress, Mouthpiece XIII: Mathilde of Loci, Part 1, for electronically processed voice, actor, and orchestra, with film. Mouthpiece XIII will be premiered by ACO’s Orchestra Underground at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall on November 30. 2009, at 7:30 pm