American Composers Orchestra
Now entering its 35th year, American Composers Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world
dedicated to the creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation of music by American
composers. ACO makes the creation of new opportunities for American composers and new
American orchestral music its central purpose. Through its concerts at Carnegie Hall and
other venues, recordings, radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings, and
commissions, ACO identifies today's brightest emerging composers; champions prominent
established composers and those lesser-known; and increases regional, national, and
international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting
geographic, stylistic, and temporal diversity. ACO also serves as an incubator of ideas,
research, and talent, as a catalyst for growth and change among orchestras, and as an
advocate for American composers and their music.
To date, ACO has performed music by more than 600 American composers, including 200 world
premieres and newly commissioned works. Among the orchestra's innovative programs have been
Sonidos de las Américas, six annual festivals devoted to Latin American composers and their
music; Coming to America, a program immersing audiences in the ongoing evolution of
American music through the work of immigrant composers; Orchestra Tech, a long-term
initiative to integrate new digital technologies in the symphony orchestra; Improvise!, a
festival devoted to the exploration of improvisation and the orchestra; Playing it Unsafe,
a new laboratory for the research and development of experimental new works for orchestra;
and, of course, Orchestra Underground, ACO's entrepreneurial cutting-edge orchestral
ensemble that embraces new technology, eclectic instruments, influences, and spatial
orientation of the orchestra, new experiments in the concert format, and multimedia and
multi-disciplinary collaborations.
The 2011-2012 season represents one of ACO's boldest yet, with the launch of SONiC:
Sounds of a New Century, a festival devoted to music written in the 21st century by
composers age 40-and-under. SONiC features over 100 composers from six continents,
more than 20 world premieres, and sixteen ensembles jam-packed into nine days in
October.
For 20 years, ACO's New Music Readings have provided career advancement and exposure to a
new generation of emerging composers. Today, ACO's Underwood New Music Readings have become
a right-of-passage for any aspiring orchestra composer. Extending its mission beyond New
York, ACO launched EarShot, the national orchestral composition discovery network in 2008.
EarShot assists orchestras around the country in launching new music readings sessions and
composer development opportunities. Recent EarShot collaborations include programs with the
Nashville Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, New York Youth Symphony, and Colorado Symphony
Orchestra. Visit earshotnetwork.org for more information.
Among the honors ACO has received are special awards from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra's outstanding contribution to American
music. ASCAP has awarded its annual prize for adventurous programming to ACO 31 times,
singling out ACO as "the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the
United States," and most recently awarding ACO the 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Award for
Innovative Programming. ACO received the inaugural METLife Award for Excellence in Audience
Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. ACO recordings are available
on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, Phoenix USA, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Tzadik, New World Records,
and InstantEncore.com. Visit americancomposers.org for more information.
George Manahan
In his second season as music director of the American Composers Orchestra, George Manahan
has had a wide-ranging and esteemed career, embracing everything from opera to the concert
stage, the traditional to the contemporary. In addition to his work with ACO this season,
Manahan maintains his commitment to working with young musicians as director of orchestral
studies at the Manhattan School of Music, as well as guest conductor at the Curtis
Institute of Music.
Manahan has performed as a guest conductor with the Orchestra of St. Luke's; the Jerusalem
Symphony Orchestra; Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; and the Atlanta, San Francisco, and New
Jersey symphonies. He is a regular guest with the Music Academy of the West and the Aspen
Music Festival, and has also appeared with the Seattle, Portland, and Santa Fe opera
companies; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Opera Theatre of St. Louis; Opéra national de Paris;
Teatro Comunale di Bologna; and Minnesota Opera, where he was principal conductor.
Manahan's extensive recording activities include the premiere release of Steve Reich's
Tehillim for ECM, a Grammy-nominated recording of Edward Thomas's Desire Under
the Elms, Joe Jackson's Will Power; and Tobias Picker's Emmeline. He
has conducted numerous operatic world premieres, including Charles Wuorinen's Haroun
and the Sea of Stories, David Lang's Modern Painters, Hans Werner Henze's
The English Cat, and the New York premiere of Richard Danielpour's Margaret
Garner. As music director of the Richmond Symphony for 12 years and music director of
the New York City Opera for 14 seasons, he was honored five times by the American Society
of Composers and Publishers for his commitment to 20th-century music.