Ensemble ACJW
Ensemble ACJW is an inspirational collective of outstanding young professional musicians
from The Academy that has earned accolades from critics and audiences alike for the quality
of its performances, as well as its fresh and open-minded approach to performance and
programming. In a variety of venues, they have played a wide range of music-from works
written centuries ago to those completed days before-with verve and total commitment to
their art.
The group performs its own series at Carnegie Hall and regularly appears at The Juilliard
School's Paul Hall. As part of a partnership with Skidmore College that began in 2007,
Ensemble ACJW gives master classes to university students and performs for the Saratoga
Springs community both in concert halls and in informal settings around town.
All Ensemble ACJW members are alumni or current fellows of The Academy, a two-year
fellowship program created in 2007 by Carnegie Hall's Executive and Artistic Director Clive
Gillinson and The Juilliard School's President Joseph W. Polisi to support young
professional musicians develop their careers as top-quality performers, innovative
programmers, and dedicated teachers who are fully engaged with the communities in which
they live and work.
Fellows of the two-year Academy program-chosen for their musicianship, but also for their
leadership qualities and commitment to music education-come from some of the best music
schools in the country, including the Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music,
The Juilliard School, Mannes College The New School for Music, New England Conservatory,
and Yale School of Music.
In addition to performance opportunities at the highest level, a robust program of
professional development is an essential part of The Academy. Fellows partner with New York
City public schools to share their artistry with-and become central resources for-music
classrooms in the five boroughs. In their second year, the fellows take part in community
work through the Weill Music Institute's Musical Connections program, in which they perform
at multiple nontraditional music venues across New York City. In past years, they
participated in community-based group projects, including a collaboration with residents of
a Bronx family apartment complex, a pen-pal program that paired young students with
professional musicians, and a performance of George Crumb's Voice of the Whale in
the American Museum of Natural History's Millstein Hall of Ocean Life.
Exemplary performers, dedicated teachers, and advocates for music throughout the
community, the fellows of The Academy that make up Ensemble ACJW are redefining what it
means to be a musician in the 21st century. Visit acjw.org to learn more.
Sleeping Giant
A collective of six emerging Brooklyn-based composers, Sleeping Giant presents music that
prizes vitality over a rigid aesthetic. The group has staged concerts at (Le) Poisson Rouge
and Brooklyn's Littlefield. Upcoming projects include a collaboration with the Deviant
Septet and the annual Sleeping Giant Summer Show at The Stone.
Christopher Cerrone is a composer of dramatic, orchestral, chamber, and
electronic music. He is a founding member and co-artistic director of Red Light New Music.
Cerrone's music has been heard across the US and Europe, with performances and commissions
from New York City Opera, New York Youth Symphony, Carnegie Hall, Bang on a Can Summer
Festival, American Composers Orchestra's SONiC Festival, violinist Hahn-Bin, Deviant
Septet, loadbang, American Lyric Theater, Virginia Arts Festival, and Yale Institute for
Music Theatre. He recently received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters, a 2011 Jerome Fund for New Music commission, a residency at the
Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, 2010 and 2011 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young
Composer awards, as well as two Composer Assistance Program Grants (2009 and 2010) and a
Composer Assistance Program Recording Grant (2010) from the American Music Center. Cerrone
is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Yale University, where he also taught music
composition and electronic music. His works are published by Outburst-Inburst Musics and
Project Schott New York.
Jacob Cooper's bold compositions and multimedia works have garnered
recognition throughout North America and Europe, with performances by the JACK Quartet,
Calder Quartet, and Minnesota Orchestra. His work has been performed on the Wordless Music
concert series at the Miller Theatre, MATA Festival, International Festival of Arts and
Ideas, and Choregie Festival in Slovenia. Cooper was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young
Composers Award, and a Composer Assistance Program Grant from the American Music Center.
His work was shortlisted for the inaugural YouTube and Guggenheim Museum Biennial; most
recently, he was announced as winner of the 2011 Carlsbad Music Festival competition.
Timberbrit, his opera about a fictional reunion between Britney Spears and Justin
Timberlake, has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and in The
Believer's annual music issue. Also dedicated to teaching and scholarship, Cooper
serves on the music faculty at Amherst College and is a doctoral candidate at the Yale
School of Music.
Composer Robert Honstein was born in Syracuse, educated in Texas and
Connecticut, and now lives in Brooklyn. His music has been performed throughout North
America by the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, New York Youth
Symphony, Hunter Symphony, Yale Philharmonia, Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Tosca
String Quartet, and University of Texas New Music Ensemble. He is a co-founder of Fast
Forward Austin, an annual contemporary music and arts festival in Texas. Upcoming projects
include a commission from the Sebastian Chamber Players and countertenor Ryland Angel, as
well as a new work for percussion commissioned by an international consortium of percussion
ensembles. Honstein has received many grants and awards for his work, including a 2011
Aaron Copland Award, multiple ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composers awards, and a
MetLife Creative Connections grant through Meet the Composer. He has held residencies with
the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, I-Park, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary
Music, and Bang on a Can Summer Institute.
Andrew Norman is a composer of chamber and orchestral music. Born in the
Midwest and raised in central California, he studied the piano and viola before attending
the University of Southern California and Yale University. A lifelong enthusiast for all
things architectural, Norman writes music that is often inspired by forms and textures he
encounters in the visual world; his music draws on an eclectic mix of instrumental sounds
and notational practices. His orchestral works have been commissioned by the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra,
and Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra. Norman has been a fellow at the American academies
in Rome and Berlin, and has held residencies with the Des Moines Symphony, Young Concert
Artists, and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Future projects include commissions from the
Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, Calder Quartet, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and
pianist Jeremy Denk. Norman currently lives and works in Brooklyn, and his compositions are
published by Schott Music.