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| Ars Nova Workshop | |
|---|---|
| Name | Ars Nova Workshop |
| Type | Nonprofit ensemble |
| Founded | 1985 |
| Founders | George Lewis, Joan Tower, Elliott Carter |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Location | Manhattan |
| Genres | Contemporary classical, experimental |
Ars Nova Workshop is a contemporary music ensemble and laboratory that focuses on commissioning, premiering, and promoting new composition and innovative performance practice. Founded by prominent figures in late-20th-century composition, the organization has been associated with premieres, festivals, and collaborative projects with leading institutions and artists. It operates within a network of ensembles, conservatories, and cultural venues across North America and Europe.
Ars Nova Workshop emerged in the mid-1980s amid renewed interest in postwar composition and experimental music, interacting with institutions such as The Juilliard School, Columbia University, New York University, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Lincoln Center. The founding period included collaborations with composers linked to International Contemporary Ensemble, Bang on a Can, Tanglewood Music Center, Eastman School of Music, and Mannes School of Music. Early seasons featured premieres alongside festivals like the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, Bang on a Can Marathon, and the Hudson Valley Music Festival. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the ensemble expanded relationships with orchestras and presenters including American Composers Orchestra, New World Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony.
The group's stated mission emphasizes commissioning new work, supporting emerging composers, and exploring interdisciplinary performance, partnering with venues and organizations such as Kennedy Center, Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and Paris Philharmonie. Programs have included commissioning series supported by foundations like the Guggenheim Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts. Residency and presentation partners have ranged from Whitney Museum of American Art to Southbank Centre, and through consortium projects with Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Helena Rubinstein Foundation.
Ars Nova Workshop has premiered works by leading composers and artists associated with contemporary music history, including Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Ligeti, Kaija Saariaho, Toru Takemitsu, Helmut Lachenmann, Louis Andriessen, Frederic Rzewski, Michael Nyman, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, György Kurtág, Thomas Adès, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Jennifer Higdon, Caroline Shaw, Missy Mazzoli, Krzysztof Penderecki, Georges Aperghis, Brian Ferneyhough, Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Strauss, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Béla Bartók, Leoš Janáček, Earl Brown, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Paul Hindemith, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Nico Muhly, David Lang, John Cage, Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe, Caroline Mallonée, George Lewis.
Notable commissioned works and premieres attributed to the organization include chamber pieces, electroacoustic works, and staged pieces that entered repertoires at institutions such as New York Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Berlin Philharmonic guest collaborations.
Educational initiatives have included composer workshops, masterclasses, and residency programs in partnership with conservatories and universities like Curtis Institute of Music, Berklee College of Music, Royal College of Music, Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Peabody Institute, Northwestern University, Yale School of Music, Harvard University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley. The ensemble's residency activities connected with festivals and centers such as Tanglewood, Copland House, Miller Theatre, Da Camera of Houston, NadaArt, Serralves Foundation, and Cité de la Musique. Training and mentorship programs linked participants to competitions and prizes including the Pulitzer Prize for Music, Grawemeyer Award, Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, and Prince Pierre Foundation commissions.
Ars Nova Workshop has maintained a concert schedule that includes performances at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, Philharmonie de Paris, and regional series presented by MusicNOW, Prototype Festival, June in Buffalo, Spoleto Festival USA, and Lucerne Festival. Recordings have appeared on labels like Nonesuch Records, ECM Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Tzadik, New Amsterdam Records, Decca Classics, Sony Classical, Bridge Records, Columbia Records, and RCA Victor. Broadcasts and media collaborations involved BBC Radio 3, NPR, WNYC, Arte, and Medici.tv.
The organization has operated as a nonprofit ensemble with a board of directors and artistic leadership drawing on figures from American Composers Orchestra, New Music USA, New Amsterdam Records, Miller Theatre, and university music departments. Funding and patronage included support from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Chamber Music America, ASCAP Foundation, PRS Foundation, private patrons, and corporate sponsors such as collaborations with Ford Motor Company cultural programs and philanthropic arms of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Guggenheim Museum initiatives. Administrative partnerships included coop arrangements with MATA Festival, Bang on a Can, New Music USA, and presenting partners like Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Critical response in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian (London), The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Pitchfork, The Wire, and The Boston Globe highlighted the ensemble's role in championing new music and its influence on programming at institutions including Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, and contemporary series at Royal Opera House. Scholars at institutions like Juilliard, Yale School of Music, Harvard University, and Oxford University have cited the ensemble's premieres in studies of late-20th and early-21st-century composition, and its alumni have gone on to positions at Curtis Institute of Music, Peabody Institute, Royal Academy of Music, and orchestras including New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.