Three World Premieres and Six New England Premieres

	The Midsummer Marriage Saturday, November 10, 2012 | 7:30pm — Tickets This concert has a total run time of 150 minutes. BMOP opens its 17th season with a concert performance of Michael Tippett’s opera, The Midsummer Marriage.
	Voilà! Viola! Friday, February 15, 2012 | 8:00pm — Tickets  Pre-concert talk hosted by The Score Board | 7:00pm BMOP performs concertos for the viola (including two world premieres*) by Chinary Ung*, George Perle, Donald Crockett*, Chen Yi, and Gail Kubik.
	Olly, All Ye, In Come Free *FREE CONCERT* Sunday, April 14, 2012 | 8:00pm — Tickets  Pre-concert talk hosted by The Score Board | 7:00pm In this free offering, BMOP will premiere the winning works of NEC’s Concerto and Composition Contests, as well as works by Oliver Knussen and Michael Gandolfi.
	Gen OrcXstrated Friday, May 17, 2012 | 8:00pm — Tickets  Pre-concert talk hosted by The Score Board | 7:00pm In its season finale, BMOP presents works by composer-DJ Mason Bates and the innovative Huang Ruo, and celebrates the tenure of composer-in-residence Andrew Norman with a work written especially for this performance.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation’s premier orchestra dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording new orchestral music, today announced the upcoming 2012-13 season of orchestral performances. Commencing Saturday, November 10th, with the highly anticipated New England premiere of Sir Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage, BMOP’s concert series will include three world premieres, six New England premieres, and an abundance of special guest artist appearances.

“BMOP is thrilled to be entering its 17th season on such a high note,” exclaims Gil Rose, artistic director/conductor of BMOP. “The long-awaited performance of The Midsummer Marriage will finally make its local premiere to much anticipation. And, we couldn’t be more excited to share the stage with such fabulous vocalists including Julius Ahn, Sara Heaton, David Kravitz, and Joyce Castle.”

With the 2012-13 season being bookended by a dynamic, 20th-century operatic masterpiece and a “Gen-Xer”-soaked concert of “hot-off-the-presses” music by today’s emerging composers, the orchestra’s versatility and intrepidity will be on full display. For a complete schedule of BMOP special events, Club Café concerts, etc., please visit http://www.bmop.org.

SAT 11.10 @ 7:30PM C The Midsummer Marriage (Concert Performance)
*New England premiere*
Music + Libretto by Sir Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
Premiered: Jan 27, 1955 at London, Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Soloists: Julius Ahn, tenor; Sara Heaton, soprano; David Kravitz, baritone; Deborah Selig, soprano; Matthew DiBattista, tenor; Joyce Castle, mezzo-soprano

Originally scheduled to receive its New England premiere in February 2012 by Opera Boston (of which BMOP’s Gil Rose was formerly the artistic director), The Midsummer Marriage performance never came to fruition since the opera company shuttered its doors in 2011. Thanks to BMOP, Boston audiences now have a chance to hear Tippett’s first and most celebrated opera.

The Midsummer Marriage is a three-act English fantasy inspired by Greek drama, religion, literature, psychology and theatre. The libretto concerns the problems faced by two pairs of lovers: Mark and Jenifer, and Jack and Bella, that must be overcome before they can marry. Tippett draws from elements of The Magic Flute, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eliot’s The Waste Land, the legend of the Fisher King who guards the Holy Grail, and Jungian ideas of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The themes of rebirth and purification of love before marriage are alluded to throughout.

Audiences can hear the frenzied fervor of Tippett’s music specifically in the four Ritual Dances from Acts II and III which was turned into a concert suite and has subsequently become one of Tippett’s best-known works.
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FRI 2.15 @ 8:00PM C Voilà! Viola!
Symphony Concertante (1952) by Gail Kubik (1914-1984) *New England premiere*
Viola Concerto (2012) by Chinary Ung (b. 1942) *world premiere*
Serenade #1 for Viola and Chamber Orchestra (1962) by George Perle (1915-2009)
Viola Concerto (2011) by Donald Crockett (b. 1951) *world premiere*
Xian Shi (1983) by Chen Yi (b. 1953) *New England premiere*
Soloists: Susan Ung (viola), Kate Vincent (viola)

The viola has not enjoyed wide popularity as a solo instrument. BMOP brings the viola to the forefront in five distinct viola concerto pieces, inclusive of two world premieres, for viola and large ensemble. Having an affinity for revealing the dynamic possibilities of an instrument, Donald Crockett writes for violist Kate Vincent while Chinary Ung turns to his wife/violist Susan Ung for inspiration for their respective new viola concertos. Gail Kubik’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Symphony Concertante is based directly on his score for the 1949 film C-Man proving that film music and abstract orchestral music can have much more in common than is considered possible. Those interested in twelve-tone music should listen to Serenade #1 for Viola and Chamber Orchestra by one of America’s greatest compositional voices, George Perle. And Chen Yi’s Xian Shi, premiered in 2012 by the Chicago Composers Orchestra, rounds out the concert.
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SUN 4.14 @ 8:00PM C Olly, All Ye, In Come Free
*FREE concert*
Music for a Puppet Court (1983) by Oliver Knussen (b. 1952)
Symphony #2 (1971) by Oliver Knussen *New England premiere*
Work TBA (2012) by Michael Gandolfi (b. 1956)
Works TBA (2013) by winners of NEC Concerto and Composition Contests

As the affiliate orchestra for new music at New England Conservatory, BMOP continues its co-sponsorship of NEC’s annual concerto competition for works written after 1961. The winner of the 15th Annual BMOP/NEC Concerto Competition and the score selected from the 16th Annual Composition Contest will both receive their premieres by BMOP on April 14th. The UK composer/conductor Oliver Knussen has been at the forefront of the British music scene for decades. In Music for a Puppet Court, he arranged two 16th-century puzzle canons by Englishman John Lloyd into four colorful movements. And, in Symphony #2, he fused song-cycle and four-movement symphonic form setting poems by Trakl and Sylvia Plath. And, the Boston-based composer Michael Gandolfi continues his long-time relationship with BMOP with the presentation of a new work to be premiered in 2013.

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FRI 5.17 @ 8:00PM C Gen OrcXestrated
Desert Transport (2010) by Mason Bates (b. 1977) *New England premiere*
Path of Echoes: Symphony #1 (2006) by Huang Ruo (b. 1976) *New England premiere*
Natural Tendencies (2013) by Andrew Norman (b. 1979) *world premiere*

Representing Generation X are three omnivorous composers wowing audiences and critics alike for their virtuosity, risk-averse style and adventurousness. The aesthetic of young composers in their 20s/30s has a post-boundary approach that eschews traditionally categorized classical, jazz, pop, etc. genres and subsequently creates a hybrid version of music. Mason Bates fuses innovative orchestral writing with electronic sounds as evident in Desert Transport. Chinese-born American composer Huang Ruo is an imaginative straddler of East and West as heard in Path of Echoes.
BMOP’s 2011-13 Music Alive Composer-in-Residence Andrew Norman completes his tenure with the commissioned premiere of a large symphonic work. A composer of chamber and orchestral music and a committed educator, Andrew is known for his wit, clarity and vigor. BMOP was one of five orchestras nationwide selected for an extended Music Alive residency, a program of Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

About BMOP: The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is widely recognized as the leading orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to performing new music, and its signature record label, BMOP/sound, is the nation’s foremost label launched by an orchestra and solely devoted to new music recordings. Founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Gil Rose, BMOP affirms its mission to illuminate the connections that exist naturally between contemporary music and contemporary society by reuniting composers and audiences in a shared concert experience. In its first twelve seasons, BMOP established a track record that includes more than 80 performances, over 70 world premieres (including 30 commissioned works), 2 Opera Unlimited festivals with Opera Boston, the inaugural Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music with the ICA/Boston, and 32 commercial recordings, including 12 CDs from BMOP/sound.

In March 2008, BMOP launched its signature record label, BMOP/sound, with the release of John Harbison’s ballet Ulysses. Its composer-centric releases focus on orchestral works that are otherwise unavailable in recorded form. The response to the label was immediate and celebratory; its five inaugural releases appeared on the “Best of 2008” lists of the New York Times, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Downbeat, and American Record Guide, among others. BMOP/sound is the recipient of five Grammy Award nominations: in 2009 for Charles Fussell: Wilde (Best Classical Vocal Performance); in 2010 for Derek Bermel: Voices (Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra); and three nominations in 2011 for its recording of Steven Mackey: Dreamhouse (Best Engineered Classical Album, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance). The New York Times has proclaimed, “BMOP/sound is an example of everything done right.” Additional BMOP recordings are available from Albany, Arsis, Cantaloupe, Centaur, Chandos, ECM, Innova, Naxos, New World, and Oxingale.

In Boston, BMOP performs at Boston’s Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall, and the orchestra has also performed in New York at Miller Theater, the Winter Garden, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and The Lyceum in Brooklyn. A perennial winner of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Orchestral Music and 2006 winner of the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music, BMOP has appeared at the Bank of America Celebrity Series (Boston, MA), Tanglewood, the Boston Cyberarts Festival, the Festival of New American Music (Sacramento, CA), and Music on the Edge (Pittsburgh, PA). In April 2008, BMOP headlined the 10th Annual MATA Festival in New York.

BMOP’s greatest strength is the artistic distinction of its musicians and performances. Each season, Gil Rose, recipient of Columbia University’s prestigious Ditson Conductor’s Award as well as an ASCAP Concert Music award for his extraordinary contribution to new music, gathers together an outstanding orchestra of dynamic and talented young performers, and presents some of the world’s top vocal and instrumental soloists. The Boston Globe claims, “Gil Rose is some kind of genius; his concerts are wildly entertaining, intellectually rigorous, and meaningful.” Of BMOP performances, the New York Times says: “Mr. Rose and his team filled the music with rich, decisive ensemble colors and magnificent solos. These musicians were rapturous—superb instrumentalists at work and play.” www.bmop.org