Composer and curator Bryce Dessner is perhaps best known for his role as guitarist in the band The National. Dessner is also composer-in-residence at Muziekgebouw Eindhoven and founder/artistic director of the annual MusicNOW Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. His recent commissions as a composer include Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Audiovisual Institute of Poland, Kronos Quartet, and eighth blackbird.

Recently Dessner wrote “Black Mountain Songs,” which debuts at BAM on November 20th through the 23rd. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform “Black Mountain Songs,” which Dessner also co-curated with Richard Reed Parry. The performance includes work from Dessner and Parry as well as Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Aleksandra Vrebalov, John King, Jherek Bischoff and Tim Hecker. The performance will include both choral and visual elements. Filmmaker Matt Wolf collaborated with the seven contributing composers “to create an expansive choral and visual work that celebrates and rekindles Black Mountain’s utopian spirit.” The college, which was founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, has been a source of inspiration for Dessner. He said, “Black Mountain College has been an inspiration to me for years and I’m excited to see this expansive musical and visual work (with a film by Matt Wolf) that celebrates the collective and creative spirit of the College finally come to the stage.”

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Brooklyn Youth Chorus at BAM: Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Ave, New York, NY 11217

Time: 7:30 PM

All Ages

Tickets: $20