Sanctuary

ACO returns to Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall for Sanctuary, a concert that explores the places, company, and states of mind in which composers seek inviolable refuge, led by conductor Marin Alsop and featuring violin soloist Jennifer Koh. The program includes the New York premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s (a JFund and MN Orchestra Composer Institute winner and an innova artist) Sanctuary, a concerto written for Koh. Bielawa’s Sanctuary is an extraordinary historical research project around this powerful word, documenting the rhetoric around founding American principles and every important struggle along the way. Anna Clyne’s (a MN Orchestra Composer Institute winner) Restless Oceans from 2018 is inspired by a poem by Audra Lorde; the musicians raise their voices in song and use their feet to stand united in a defiant work that embraces the power of women. Hannah Kendall’s alternately buoyant and serene Tuxedo: Vasco ‘de’ Gama takes its title from Jean-Michel Basquiat’s iconic collection of diagrammatic block pieces. With a nod to the traditional African American spiritual “Wade in the Water,” the work conjures both the majesty and elegance highlighted by the artist as well as Kendall’s own reflective take on the history of globalization and multiculturalism ushered in by the Portuguese explorer. Newly commissioned works by Dai Wei and Paula Matthusen (an innova artist) complete this rich musical odyssey.