The New School’s College of Performing Arts (CoPA) announces its fall 2019 season highlights, featuring a series of exciting world premieres and newly commissioned works. Under the leadership of Executive Dean Richard Kessler, the acclaimed performing arts college builds on recent work, including the relocation of The Stone to the school’s Arnhold Hall, productions of works such as Robert Ashley’s Dust and Julius Eastman’s Symphony No. II, and the launch of the Philip Glass Institute. CoPA continues to push the boundaries of the traditional music school environment with new and experimental work.

“The fall 2019 season at the College of Performing Arts dives deep into the kinds of new, experimental, cross-disciplinary, and important work that defines who we are as a school,” said Richard Kessler, Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Dean of Mannes School of Music. “Across Mannes, Jazz, and Drama, our students will be creating and performing new works, world premieres and multi-genre experimental works. They will work side by side with artists and legends of the performing arts, such as members of the Philip Glass Ensemble and International Contemporary Ensemble, composer in residence Jean-Baptiste Barriere, New York-based theater ensemble Elevator Repair Service, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and more. Our upcoming season highlights our environment as a place for both teaching and learning as well as professional presenting.”

This season’s highlights include a posthumous world premiere of an orchestral work by Johanna Beyer, the first-ever live performance/screening of The Fog of War (Glass/Morris), and a newly conceived dramatic work honoring the legacy of Aaron Copland.

MACE (Mannes American Composers Ensemble)
Michael Repper, Conductor – September 16
David Fulmer, Conductor – October 30

Founded in 2012 by composer Lowell liebermann, MACE presents works by iconic American composers such as John Adams, Mason Bates, and Steve Reich, as well as works by young and up-and-coming composers such as David Hertzberg and Nina C. Young. The ensemble aims to embrace a broad view of the vital landscape of contemporary American Music and to bolster that landscape through premieres and commissions.

Program (September 16):

Mari Esabel Valverde – Her First Snow (2008)
Tanner Porter – Canyons (2018)
Eve Beglarian – Early in the Morning (2010)
Jennifer Higdon – Dance Card (2015)
Florence Price – Suite of Dances
Peggy Coolidge – Pioneer Dances

Program (October 30):

Brian Ferneyhough – La Chute d’Icare
Michael Finnissy – Banumbirr
Bahar Royaee – new commission
Unsuk Chin – Fantaisie mécanique

(Un)Silent Film Night: THE FOG OF WAR with Live Orchestra
The Philip Glass Institute at the College of Performing Arts presents the first-ever live showing/performance of The Fog of War by Errol Morris with music by Philip Glass. Under the direction of Michael Riesman, Music Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble, the College of Performing Arts Theater Orchestra composed of students from Mannes School of Music and the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music will perform Philip Glass‘s original score to The Fog of War.

Thursday, October 3, 8:00pm, John L. Tishman Auditorium, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10003

Free, registration via newschool.edu/festival-of-new

John Cage‘s MUSICIRCUS
To commemorate the Centennial of The New School, Mannes School of Music and the College of the Performing Arts present John Cage‘s gloriously anarchic work, MUSICIRCUS. The tenets are simple: performers participate in what will be a non-hierarchical, simultaneous, and happily chaotic chance-determined collage – works chosen by the performers and subsequently arranged by chance procedures that will be performed across three hours. This MUSICIRCUS will involve New School instrumentalists, vocalists, actors, dancers, poets, and more. “You won’t hear anything: you’ll hear everything!” – John Cage

Saturday, October 5, 8:00pm – 11:00pm, 66 West 12th Street, New York, NY, 10011

Free, registration via newschool.edu/festival-of-new

The Mannes Orchestra: Aaron Copland at Alice Tully Hall
David Hayes, Music Director
This special concert, in recognition of The New School’s Centennial and of Aaron Copland as a central figure within the history of The New School, features landmark works by Copland, as well as a newly devised dramatic work that uses the transcript of Copland’s testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, which was chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Program:

Aaron Copland – Lincoln Portrait
Newly devised work conceived by Pippin Parker and Isaac Butler, directed by Isaac Butler
Aaron Copland – Symphony No. 3

Known for their bold and adventurous programming, the Mannes Orchestra has been hailed by The New York Times as an orchestra whose quality is “a revelation”,” and for their “intensity of focus.” The fall 2019 season features many exciting performances, collaborations, and projects, including performances at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, John L. Tishman Auditorium at The New School, and appearances with the Mannes Opera at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College.

Saturday, October 26, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, New York, NY, 10023

Tickets $10 will go sale at lincolncenter.org and the Alice Tully Hall Box Office on 9/23

The Mannes Orchestra: Johanna Beyer’s Cyrnab and other works
World Premiere
David Hayes, Conductor

As a female composer working in the 1930’s, Johanna Beyer was largely overlooked in her own lifetime, and only today is beginning to receive her due as one of the most experimental composers among the ultra-modernists who she associated with. An associate of Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Aaron Copland, and other great composers of the time, Beyer was at the forefront of new music and composed breakthrough works for orchestra, percussion ensemble, and was a pioneer of early music technology.

The world premiere of this short work caps off a program of contemporary and experimental works by Rochberg, Cowell, and Penderecki.

Program:

George Rochberg – Black Sounds
Henry Cowell – Symphony No. 2 “Anthropos”
Krzysztof Penderecki – Threnody To The Victims of Hiroshima
Johanna Beyer – Cyrnab

Friday, November 22, 7:30pm, John L. Tishman Auditorium, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10003

Free, RSVP via events.newschool.edu/event/johannabeyer starting September 23.

Mannes Opera Presents
The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten
Directed by Kate Whoriskey, Conducted by Daniela Candillari

Based on Henry James‘s chilling novella, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a governess, desperate to protect her children from evil as they experience strange encounters at a remote country house. As the story unfolds, the exact nature of evil is questioned as the young woman’s fears bring her closer and closer to the uncanny.

Conducted by Daniela Candillari, one of the opera world’s most dynamic up-and-coming artists, Mannes Opera’s The Turn of the Screw features two casts of students in a highly theatrical production that pushes at the boundary between what we know, and what is unseen.

Saturday, December 7, 7:30pm, Sunday, December 8, 2:00pm, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, 524 W 59th Street, New York, NY, 10019

Tickets: $25/$10 Seniors will be available via TicketCentral.com starting November 1

New School Studio Orchestra
Directed by Ryan Truesdell
The Music of Bob Brookmeyer – October 16
The Music of Gil Evans – December 4

This fall the New School Studio Orchestra is led by special guest artist composer/producer Ryan Truesdell, who has extensive experience with both the compositions of Bob Brookmeyer and Gil Evans. Truesdell studied under Bob Brookmeyer and after Brookmeyer’s passing the control of his library was handed over to him. Truesdell is best known for his award-winning Gil Evans Project. He has filled in essential missing pieces of Evans’ rich musical narrative, expanding the legacy of one of Jazz history’s most revered composers and arrangers.

Wednesday, October 16, 7:00 pm and Wednesday, December 4, 7:00 pm

John L. Tishman Auditorium, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10003

Free, RSVP via https://nsso2019.eventbrite.com

School of Drama

MFA Production: Oliver Twist

School of Drama will present an adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ Oliver Twist written by Neil Bartlett as the first MFA Mainstage production of Drama’s 2019-20 season. The production will be directed by Melissa Maxwell, and feature the entire cohort of MFA Third Year Actors.

Thursday, September 26 – Saturday, September 28 and Wednesday, October 2 – Saturday October 5, Theater at Bank Street, 151 Bank St, New York, NY 10014

Free, RSVP via ticketcentral.com starting September 9

MFA Production: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

School of Drama will present The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis as the second MFA Mainstage production of Drama’s 2019-20 season. The production will be directed by Melissa Crespo, and feature the entire cohort of MFA Second Year Actors.

Wednesday, November 20 – Saturday, November 23, Theater at Bank Street, 151 Bank St, New York, NY 10014

Free, RSVP via ticketcentral.com starting October 30

BFA Production: Fuente Ovejuna

School of Drama will present Fuente Ovejuna: A Disloyal Adaptation by Cusi Cram, from the play by Lope De Vega as the first BFA Mainstage production of Drama’s 2019-20 season. The production will be directed by Christina Roussos and feature BFA students from the School of Drama.

Thursday, October 17 – Saturday, October 19, Theater at Bank Street, 151 Bank St, New York, NY 10014

Free, RSVP via ticketcentral.com starting September 26

BFA Production: Everybody

School of Drama will present Everybody by Branden Jacob-Jenkins as the second BFA Mainstage production of Drama’s 2019-20 season. Branden Jacob-Jenkins is an Obie-award winning playwright, who was awarded a McArthur Genius grant in 2016. The production will be directed by Jordana De La Cruz.

Thursday, November 7 – Saturday, November 9, Theater at Bank Street, 151 Bank St, New York, NY 10014

Free, RSVP via ticketcentral.com starting October 17

The Stone at The New School

Formerly located on Avenue C, the storied venue lives on at The New School’s Arnhold Hall. Presenting five shows each week, this fall, The Stone’s programming, led by John Zorn, features week-long residencies by Trevor Dunn, Brian Marsella, Peter Evans, Mary Halvorson, Ikue Mori, and more.

Full schedule and lineups: http://thestonenyc.com/calendar.php

The Glassbox Theater at Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, New York, NY, 10003

$20, no advance ticket sales. Cash only at the door.