PROGRAM

John Luther Adams, Ten Thousand Birds*
*written for Alarm Will Sound

Conceived, designed, and directed by Alan Pierson
Peter Ferry, staging and assistant direction

NOTES

John Luther Adams, Ten Thousand Birds

My lifeʼs work began with birds. From songbirdsongs (1974-80), to Inuksuit (2008), to Canticles of the Holy Wind (2013), the songs of birds have engaged my ears and my imagination for more than forty years. Now Iʼve embarked on a new, open-ended series of pieces for a full range of instrumentations—from solos to full orchestra—under the collective title Ten Thousand Birds.

All the sounds in this music are specifically notated. However, the moment-to-moment sequence of events is not fixed. There is no master score. In the tradition of Henry Cowell and Lou Harrisonʼs “performance kits”, this folio of unbound pages is an atlas of musical possibilities for performers to use in creating their own unique realizations of the music.

The sequence of phrases on the page does not necessarily imply the sequence of events in performance. Musicians are free to choose when and for how long to play each phrase and rest, within the broad guidelines provided. There is no rhythmic coordination between instruments, except where otherwise noted.

Each piece in this folio is a self-contained “place” that occupies its own physical space and its own time. The instruments of each piece/place should be relatively near each other, except where otherwise noted. A piece/place may begin as soon as the minimum number of required instruments is present and may continue as long as the minimum number of instruments is present.

Pieces may be combined, simultaneously and sequentially, to create varied performances. A performance should encompass the largest possible physical space. Musicians are encouraged to move around and among the listeners, and listeners should be free to move around and among the Musicians.

The size of the ensemble and the duration of a performance may be tailored to the specific site and occasion. It is not necessary to play all the pieces in this collection. Itʼs not even necessary to play all the musical material within a particular piece. However, symphonic-scale performances with many musicians are encouraged. And even with smaller ensembles, performances are most appropriately staged as complete concert-length events.

—John Luther Adams

Acknowledgements

The creation of John Luther Adams’ Ten Thousand Birds was supported by a New Music USA project grant, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Alarm Will Sound gratefully acknowledges our individual donors and the following foundations for their support: Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Amphion Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, BMI Foundation, Cheswatyr Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Sinquefield Charitable Trust.

Additional Support provided by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Alarm Will Sound

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member band committed to innovative performances and recordings of today’s music. They have established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic skill. Their performances have been described as “equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity” by the Financial Times of London and as “a triumph of ensemble playing” by the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York Times says that Alarm Will Sound is “one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene.”

With classical skill and unlimited curiosity, Alarm Will Sound takes on music from a wide variety of styles. Its repertoire ranges from European to American works, from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced. Alarm Will Sound has been associated since its inception with composers at the forefront of contemporary music, premiering pieces by Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Tyshawn Sorey, David Lang, John Adams, Mary Kouyoumdjian, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, and Augusta Read Thomas among others. The group itself includes many composer-performers, which allows for an unusual degree of insight into the creation and performance of new work.

Alarm Will Sound collaborates with artists who work beyond the bounds of classical music. Alarm System, and the Matt Marks Impact Fund are initiatives that have created cross-genre music with electronica artists Eartheater, Jlin, King Britt, and Rashad Becker; jazz composer-performer Dave Douglas; multimedia artists Mira Calix, Bakudi Scream, and Damon Davis; soundtrack composers Brian Reitzell and JG Thirlwell; producer Valgeir Sigurðsson, and singer-songwriter Alyssa Pyper.

Alarm Will Sound is the resident ensemble at the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Held each July at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the festival features eight world premieres by early-career composers. During the weeklong festival, these composers work closely with Alarm Will Sound and two established guest composers to perform and record their new work.

Alarm Will Sound may be heard on nineteen recordings, including Land of Winter, their most recent release featuring music of Donnacha Dennehy; Omnisphere, with jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood; For George Lewis | Autoshchediasms, one of The New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of 2021 ; and the premiere recording of Steve Reich’s Radio Rewrite. Their genre-bending, critically acclaimed Acoustica features live-performance arrangements of music by electronica guru Aphex Twin. This unique project taps the diverse talents within the group, from the many composers who made arrangements of the original tracks, to the experimental approaches developed by the performers.

In 2016, Alarm Will Sound in a co-production with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, presented the world premiere of the staged version of Donnacha Dennehy’s The Hunger at the BAM Next Wave Festival and the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Featuring Iarla O’Lionárd (traditional Irish singer) and Katherine Manley (soprano) with direction by Tom Creed, The Hunger is punctuated by video commentary and profound early recordings of traditional Irish folk ballads mined from various archives including those of Alan Lomax.

In 2013-14, Alarm Will Sound served as artists-in-residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. During that season, the ensemble presented four large ensemble performances at the Met, including two site-specific productions staged in museum galleries (Twinned, a collaboration with Dance Heginbotham and I Was Here I Was I, a new theatrical work by Kate Soper and Nigel Maister), as well as several smaller events in collaboration with the Museum’s educational programs.

In 2011, at Carnegie Hall, the group presented 1969, a multimedia event that uses music, images, text, and staging to tell the compelling story of great musicians—John Lennon, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul McCartney, Luciano Berio, Yoko Ono, and Leonard Bernstein—striving for a new music and a new world amidst the turmoil of the late 1960s. 1969’s unconventional approach combining music, history, and ideas has been critically praised by the New York Times (“…a swirling, heady meditation on the intersection of experimental and commercial spheres, and of social and aesthetic agendas.”)

Alarm Will Sound has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Miller Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, Disney Hall, Kimmel Center, Library of Congress, Annenberg Center, the Clarice, CAP UCLA, Caramoor, and the Warhol Museum. International tours include the Beijing Modern Festival, the Holland Festival, Sacrum Profanum, Moscow’s Art November, St. Petersburg’s Pro Arte Festival, and the Barbican.

The members of the ensemble have also demonstrated our commitment to the education of young performers and composers through residency performances and activities at Princeton University, the University of Michigan, University of Maryland, Shenandoah University, the Community Music School of Webster University, Cleveland State University, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Missouri, Eastman School of Music, Dickinson College, Duke University, the Manhattan School of Music, Harvard University, New York University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For more information and to join the mailing list, visit Alarm Will Sound’s website at www.alarmwillsound.com

Alan Pierson

Alan Pierson has been praised as “a dynamic conductor and musical visionary” by The New York Times, a “conductor of monstrous skill” by Newsday, “gifted and electrifying” by the Boston Globe, and “one of the most exciting figures in new music today” by Fanfare. In addition to his work as artistic director of Alarm Will Sound, he has served as Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and guest conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, L.A. Opera, Nationaltheater Mannheim, the London Sinfonietta, the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New World Symphony, and the Silk Road Project, among others. He is co-director of the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has been a visiting faculty conductor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity.

Passionate about using storytelling to bring listeners inside of contemporary music, he has led the creation of innovative musical experiences, like Alarm Will Sound’s 1969 and Soundbites video series, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s Brooklyn Village project. Mr. Pierson has collaborated with major composers and performers, including Yo Yo Ma, Steve Reich, Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, John Luther Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, David Lang, Michael Gordon, La Monte Young, and choreographers Mark Morris, Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan, and Elliot Feld. Mr. Pierson received bachelor degrees in physics and music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in conducting from the Eastman School of Music. He has recorded for Nonesuch Records, Cantaloupe Music, Sony Classical, Oehms Classics, and Sweetspot DVD.

PERSONNEL

Erin Lesser, flutes
Nave Graham, flutes
Christa Robinson, oboe
Thiago Ancelmo, clarinets
Elisabeth Stimpert, clarinets
Michael Harley, bassoon
Laura Weiner, horn
Tim Leopold, trumpet
Michael Clayville, trombone
Chris P. Thompson, percussion
Matt Smallcomb, percussion
Megan Arns, percussion
John Orfe, piano
Courtney Orlando, violin
Patti Kilroy, violin
Luis Eduardo Bellorín, viola
Stefan Freund, cello
Adam Booker, electric bass
Alan Pierson, conductor and Artistic Director

Gavin Chuck, Executive Director
Peter Ferry, Assistant Director of Artistic Planning
Jason Varvaro, Production Manager
Annie Toth, General Manager
Tracy Mendez, Development Manager
Michael Clayville, Director of Marketing
Bill Kalinkos, Librarian
Uday Singh, Program Coordinator

Authored by Michael Clayville

Trombone

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