American Composers Orchestra
Now in 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 concerts at Carnegie Hall and other
venues, recordings, internet and radio broadcasts, educational programs, New Music Readings
Sessions, 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. 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 some 750 American composers, including 250 world
premieres and newly commissioned works. Among the orchestra's innovative programs have been
SONiC: Sounds of a New Century, a nine-day citywide festival in New York of music
by more than 100 composers age 40 and under; 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 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.
Composer development has been at the core of ACO's mission since its founding. In addition
to its annual Underwood New Music Readings and Commission, ACO also provides a range of
additional educational and professional development opportunities, including composer
residencies and the Van Lier Emerging Composer Fellowship. In 2008, ACO launched EarShot, a
multi-institutional network that assists orchestras around the country in launching new
music readings sessions. Recent EarShot collaborations have included the San Diego,
Nashville, Memphis, and Colorado symphonies; New York Youth Symphony; and Buffalo
Philharmonic Orchestra.
Among the honors ACO has received are special awards from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters and from BMI in recognition of the orchestra's outstanding contribution to American
music. ASCAP has awarded its annual prize for adventurous programming to ACO 33 times,
singling out ACO as "the orchestra that has done the most for American music in the United
States." 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,
InstantEncore.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes. ACO's must recent digital album Emerging
Composers Series Vol. 1, featuring world premiere recordings by five up-and-coming
composers, was released last month. 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. He served as music director of the New York
City Opera for 14 seasons, and currently is the director of orchestral studies at the
Manhattan School of Music and guest conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music.
During his time at New York City Opera, Manahan helped envision the organization's
groundbreaking VOX program, a series of workshops and readings that provided unique
opportunities for composers to hear their new concepts realized and audiences to discover
exciting new compositional voices. Through VOX, Manahan has introduced works by established
composers such as Mark Adamo, David Del Tredici, Lewis Spratlan, Robert Xavier Rodríguez,
Lou Harrison, Bernard Rands, and Richard Danielpour, as well as composers on the rise,
including Adam Silverman, Elodie Lauten, Mason Bates, and David T. Little.
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 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 four times by the American Society
of Composers and Publishers for his commitment to 20th-century music.