Rite of Summer: Alarm Will Sound

Sep 18, 2021

Nolan Park - Nolan Park - Lawn

The 10^th Anniver­sary Sea­son of the Rite of Sum­mer Music Fes­ti­val takes place Sum­mer 2021 on Gov­er­nors Island! Rite of Sum­mer will present free out­door con­certs in June and Sep­tem­ber. In a locale The New York Times has called a ​“Play­ground for the Arts,” the aim of the Fes­ti­val is sim­ple: to present the high­est qual­i­ty live per­for­mances, and to bring free con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal music to as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble in a relaxed, fun, out­door setting. 

This season’s spec­tac­u­lar line-up kicks off on Sat­ur­day, June 19^th with The Knights per­form­ing works of Vival­di, Vil­la-Lobos, Rodri­go, arr. Kibbey and The Knights, Rav­el, Boulanger, Mont­gomery, and more. On Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 18^th, Alarm Will Sound will per­form the NYC pre­mière of John Luther Adams’ Ten Thou­sand Birds, based on the songs of birds that are native to, or migrate through the Amer­i­can north­east and mid­west. It explores the con­nec­tions between nature and music, a top­ic that John Luther Adams has pur­sued over the course of his remark­able career. 

Rite of Sum­mer shows will be pre­sent­ed twice the same day, at 1pm and 3pm, for each respec­tive date in Nolan Park. Audi­ences should feel free to walk by, stop and lis­ten, lay down a pic­nic blan­ket and relax, eat lunch, min­gle, and take in these engag­ing live performances. 

See the full Rite of Sum­mer 2021 Sea­son announce­ment here.

The safe­ty, health, and hap­pi­ness of ROS audi­ences, artists, and crew are of pri­ma­ry con­cern. Social dis­tanc­ing will be required for every­one in atten­dance as well as the wear­ing of masks cov­er­ing both noses and mouths.

Pro­gram for Alarm Will Sound on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 18^th at 1pm & 3pm (Rain Date: Sep­tem­ber 19^th):
John Luther Adams, Ten Thou­sand Birds

Ten Thou­sand Birds is based on the songs of birds that are native to, or migrate through the Amer­i­can north­east and mid­west. It explores the con­nec­tions between nature and music, a top­ic that John Luther Adams has pur­sued over the course of his remark­able career. Most recent­ly in Sila: Breath of the World and Become Ocean (for which he won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize and Gram­my) he has por­trayed — in big musi­cal ges­tures — the awe one expe­ri­ences in response to nature’s grandeur. In Ten Thou­sand Birds, on the oth­er hand, the source of inspi­ra­tion is par­tic­u­lar bird­songs, cap­tured in minute detail. Adams writes: ​“In this music, time is not mea­sured. Each page in the score will be its own self-con­tained world that occu­pies its own phys­i­cal space and its own time.” 

Ide­al­ly suit­ed for pan­dem­ic cir­cum­stances, Ten Thou­sand Birds has an open, mod­u­lar struc­ture: each page of music can be com­bined in var­ied ways. Alarm Will Sound’s 70-minute inter­pre­ta­tion, designed by Alan Pier­son, fol­lows the cycle of a day, start­ing with bird songs heard in the morn­ing, then after­noon, evening, night, and return to morn­ing. It also uses space by mov­ing the per­form­ers around the venue as they play, and encour­ag­ing the audi­ence to walk around to expe­ri­ence the music from many perspectives. 

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 John Adams, Steve Reich, David Lang, Michael Gor­don, Aaron Jay Ker­nis, Augus­ta Read Thomas, Derek Bermel, Bene­dict Mason, and Wolf­gang Rihm, 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 has been pre­sent­ed by Carnegie Hall, Lin­coln Cen­ter, (le) Pois­son Rouge, Miller The­atre, Brook­lyn Acad­e­my of Music, the Kitchen, the Bang on a Can Marathon, Dis­ney Hall, Kim­mel Cen­ter, Library of Con­gress, the Walk­er Arts Cen­ter, Cal Per­for­mances, Stan­ford Live­ly Arts, Duke Per­for­mances, and the Warhol Muse­um. Inter­na­tion­al tours include 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 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​.alarmwill​sound​.com

Mem­ber List:
Alan Pier­son, Con­duc­tor and Artis­tic Direc­tor
Erin Less­er, flute
Christa Robin­son, oboe
Bill Kalinkos, clar­inet
Elis­a­beth Stim­pert, clar­inet
Michael Harley, bas­soon
Lau­ra Wein­er, horn
Tim Leopold, trum­pet
Michael Clayville, trom­bone
Matt Small­comb, per­cus­sion
Chris Thomp­son, per­cus­sion
John Orfe, piano
Court­ney Orlan­do, vio­lin
Ste­fan Fre­und, cel­lo
Miles Brown, bass
Daniel Neu­mann, audio engi­neer­ing
Plus Addi­tion­al Musi­cians TBA for Ten Thou­sand Birds

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Gavin Chuck
Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Annie Toth
Pro­duc­tion Man­ag­er, Jason Var­varo
Assis­tant Direc­tor of Artis­tic Plan­ning, Peter Fer­ry
Librar­i­an, Chi­hi­ro Shibayama 

Head­er pho­to by Woj­ciech Wandzel

Rite of Sum­mer Music Fes­ti­val is very grate­ful to the Lau­rie M. Tisch Illu­mi­na­tion Fund for under­writ­ing this concert.