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The BYCA Commissioning Project
BYCA studies and performs a wide range of music--classical and non-classical--and has established an active commissioning program to develop new works for youth chorus across a variety of genres. Composers are chosen on the basis of their contributions to the field of new music, the suitability of their style for young musicians, and their desire to work with the dynamic and unusual “instrument” of the youth chorus.
David Lang:  evening morning day
(3-part chorus)
"There is no name yet for this kind of music," writes Los Angeles Times music critic Mark
Swed, but David Lang is one of America’s most performed composers and audiences
around the globe are hearing more and more of his work: in performances by such
organizations as the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco
Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet; at Tanglewood, the BBC
Proms, The Munich Biennale, the Settembre Musica Festival, the Sidney 2000 Olympic
Arts Festival and the Almeida, Holland, Berlin, Strasbourg and Huddersfield Festivals; in
theater productions in New York, San Francisco and London; in the choreography of
Twyla Tharp, La La La Human Steps, The Nederlands Dans Theater and the Royal
Ballet; and at Lincoln Center, the South Bank Centre, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center,
the Barbican Centre, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Lang has been honored with the Rome Prize, the BMW Music-Theater Prize (Munich), a
Kennedy Center/Friedheim Award, the Revson Fellowship with the New York
Philharmonic, and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Foundation for
Contemporary Performance Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York
Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999 he
received a Bessie Award for his music for choreographer Susan Marshall's The Most
Dangerous Room in the House, performed live by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at the
Next Wave Festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Carbon Copy Building won
the 2000 Village Voice OBIE Award for Best New American Work. The CD recording of
The Passing Measures was named one of the best CD's of 2001 by The New Yorker
magazine. His most recent CD is ELEVATED (on Cantaloupe), three atmospheric and
meditative pieces plus a DVD of the same three pieces interpreted by noted visual artists
William Wegman, Bill Morrison and Matt Mullican.
Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York's legendary music festival, Bang
on a Can, and Composer-in-Residence at the American Conservatory Theater in San
Francisco. Born in Los Angeles in 1957, Lang holds degrees from Stanford University
and the University of Iowa, receiving his doctorate from the Yale School of Music in 1989.
His
work is recorded on the Sony Classical, Teldec, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca,
Caprice, CRI and Cantaloupe labels. His music is published by Red Poppy (ASCAP) and
is distributed worldwide by G. Schirmer, Inc.
David Lang on evening morning day:
"I wanted to make a piece about the creation story but I didn't want to highlight one religion's or culture's narrative over another. It was important for me to try to find something universal, something present in all stories, or common to all cultures. I hit upon the idea of making a kind of checklist of everything that needed to be created to get the world to this point, without each individual culture's stories or myths or exoticisms. I went back to the first chapter of Genesis, to see what I could get out of my own culture's story, and I stripped away all the descriptions, adjectives, connectors and motivators. All that is left of Genesis in my text are the nouns, leaving a dispassionate list of everything created, in the order in which it is mentioned."
Visit David Lang on the web
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Paul Moravec: Creation Hymn
 (4-part voice, piano)
Paul Moravec has composed over eighty orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and electro-acoustic lyric compositions. His music has been described as “assured, virtuosic” (Wall Street Journal), “tuneful, ebullient and wonderfully energetic” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “riveting and fascinating” (NPR). The New York Times recently praised his quartet, Vince & Jan: 1945, with, “This masterly miniature conveyed warm nostalgia, buoyant swing and wartime unease.”
Highlights for Mr. Moravec’s current season include a New York performance in March of Tempest Fantasy (his 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning work) at Symphony Space by Trio Solisti and clarinetist Alan Kay as part of The Composers Project concert series; a performance of Violin Sonata and Double Action by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo at Merkin Hall; and the world premieres of Marya’s Song at Weill Recital Hall in March and Creation Hymn by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus in May. In addition, as the Mannes School of Music Composer in Residence, Paul Moravec will host the school’s Contemporary Music Festival from April 30 through May 3, featuring the world premiere of his brass quintet, American Activities. For the 2007-2008 academic year, he will be Artist-in-Residence with the Institute for Advanced Study, while continuing his tenure as University Professor at Adelphi University, a position unique in the institution.
On the West Coast, Camerata Pacifica will perform Paul Moravec’s Tempest Fantasy at four locations in California in April 2007 – at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Temple Beth Torah in Ventura, and Huntington Library in San Marino. In addition, Mr. Moravec will be composer-in-residence this summer at three festivals – California Summer Music in Pebble Beach in July; Centrum Music Festival in Port Townsend, Washington in August; and with the Newel Center in Warm Springs, Virginia.
Among Paul Moravec’s numerous awards are the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, a Fellowship in Music Composition from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship, a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, as well as many commissions. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University, he has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hunter College.
Paul Moravec’s discography includes The Time Gallery, performed by eighth blackbird and released by Naxos in February 2006; Songs of Love and War for Chorus and Orchestra on a CD featuring The Dessoff Choirs & Orchestra; Sonata for Violin and Piano performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo for BMG/RCA Red Seal; Spiritdance, an orchestral work on the Vienna Modern Masters label; an album of chamber compositions titled Circular Dreams on CRI; and Vita Brevis on Albany Records with the composer at the piano. In February 2007, the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo will release his Double Action, Evermore, and Ariel Fantasy on a CD entitled “Red Violin” for Endeavor Classics. In March, Tempest Fantasy, performed by Trio Solisti with clarinetist David Krakauer, will be re-released on the Naxos label. The disc was originally issued by Arabesque Recordings (AR 6791) in 2004.
Paul Moravec on Creation Hymn:
"The words of Creation Hymn are adapted from an early 20th century English translation of an excerpt from the tenth and final book of the Hindu Rig Veda, one of the world’s oldest religious texts.
In my setting, I try to project musically this text’s beautiful balance between the heat of conviction and the coolness of eternal mystery."
Visit Paul Moravec on the web
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Nico Muhly: Syllables
 (3-part voice, piano & synthesizer)
Born in Vermont in 1981 and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Nico Muhly graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a degree in English Literature. In 2004 he received a Masters in Music from the Juilliard School, where he studied composition under Christopher Rouse and John Corigliano.
Muhly's orchestral works have been premiered by the American Symphony Orchestra (Fits & Bursts, 2003), the Juilliard Orchestra (So to Speak and 2004 ASCAP winner Out of the Loop), and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Orchestra (2006's It Remains to Be Seen, a commission celebrating their 40th anniversary). In 2004, his small ensemble work By All Means was performed at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and his first set of evensong canticles was sung at Clare and Girton colleges, Cambridge. The Clare College Choir broadcast these canticles live on the BBC3 in 2005 and has since commissioned other works. In New York, also in 2005, Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue commissioned and performed his Bright Mass with Canons, and on the Tiber in Rome, Muhly's music was played as part of a multimedia installation for the summer solstice, 2006.
Performing on piano and celeste, he has appeared with the Juilliard Orchestra, accompanied Lou Reed and Philip Glass on the stage of Carnegie Hall, and played under the baton of John Adams for Carnegie's Zankel Hall opening. He has worked extensively with Glass as editor, keyboardist, and conductor for numerous stage works and film scores, recently conducting excerpts from Einstein on the Beach in collaboration with choreographer Benjamin Millepied at the Opéra de Paris.
He has also collaborated with Björk—handling keyboards and arrangements for her disc Medúlla, and conducting her score for Matthew Barney's film Drawing Restraint 9—and Antony of Antony and the Johnsons. His work with Antony has included arranging and conducting performances in England and Holland, and in 2007, they worked together on a new Shakespeare setting for The Sonnet Project, a program curated by Gavin Bryars for Opera North and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Muhly has worked at M&Co., a graphic design firm, and with designer/illustrator Maira Kalman created a 30-minute song cycle on Strunk & White's The Elements of Style that premiered in the New York Public Library in 2005, landing him on the year's-best list of New York magazine. Speaks Volumes, a disc of new chamber music and electronics created with producer Valgeir Sigurðsson, has already received equally glowing reviews from the international press and arrived in the United States in March 2007.
Nico Muhly on Syllables:
"The text for my piece is culled from an old norse myth and a loose English translation of the same text. The text is never set in anything resembling its entirety, and is instead shattered – the image I had in mind was walking into a deserted space, with torn up bits of paper all over the walls and floor. The piece – called Syllables – is an extended exploration of the fragmented text: a horrible image here, a gentle turn of phrase here."
Visit Nico Muhly on the web
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Learn about previous and ongoing BYCA Commissions
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David Lang conducts the Concert Chorus in rehearsal prior to the SoundScapes concert. (Photo by Zach Desart)
Paul Moravec speaks to choristers about "Creation Hymn." (Photo by Zach Desart)
 Nico Muhly coaches the Concert Chorus in rehearsal of "The Sweets of Evening," a 2006 commission.
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