Percussionist

AMOC* celebrates Latin American poets and the voices of women with its production of John Adams’s El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered, featuring a libretto by Peter Sellars and production conceived by AMOC* soprano Julia Bullock, with a return to The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine for a second year, capping off a tour of cities across the US.

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El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered in NYC

The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist

American Modern Opera Company’s (AMOC) production of contemporary composer John Adams’ El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered with libretto by Peter Sellars and concept by Julia Bullock is a chamber music arrangement created and conducted by Christian Reif and was first performed at The Met Cloisters in 2018 in the beautiful San Martín at Fuentidueña chapel. The New York Times calls it “intimate, affecting and quietly rich with activism.” This rarely performed work celebrates Latin American poets and voices of women. Says Julia Bullock, “one of opera’s fastest-rising stars” (Vanity Fair), who curated the selections being performed and will sing in the performance, “El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered ruminates on the notion that with the promise of new life, there is the equal threat of inexplicable violence and sacrifice.”

El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered

Stanford University

AMOC* celebrates Latin American poets and the voices of women with its production of John Adams’s El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered with a tour across the United States. The piece, with a libretto by Peter Sellars and concept by AMOC* member Julia Bullock, will appear from December 11 to 21, 2023 at Opera Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska, Stanford Live in Stanford, California, and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut before returning to The Cathedral of St. John the Divine for a second year.

El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered on Tour

Hailed by The New York Times as “a lush, brooding celebration of noise,” Andy Akiho’s GRAMMY-nominated Seven Pillars is his most ambitious project to date. The work is structured as a large-scale palindrome and consists of seven ensemble movements and one solo movement for each member of the critically acclaimed ensemble Sandbox Percussion. Michael McQuilken's lighting scheme reinforces the work's form throughout the theatrical live performance. Performed by Sandbox, this evening-length work is the largest-scale chamber music work that Akiho has written and that Sandbox has commissioned. Akiho and Sandbox's ongoing collaboration for Seven Pillars has spanned the past 8 years.

Seven Pillars

Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston

The next stop on the Music Box summer tour is at the Vail Farmers’ Market, as the Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion performs two eclectic sets of music hand-picked (get it?) for the occasion. This fun-for-the-whole-family experience includes audience participation, an instrument petting zoo, and a “big tent” approach to music-making.

Music Box III

Vail Farmer's Market

This chamber music arrangement—specially written for AMOC*—was first performed at The Met Cloisters in 2018 in the beautiful San Martín at Fuentidueña chapel. The New York Times called it “intimate, affecting and quietly rich with activism.” The piece, which celebrates Latin American poets and the voices of women, returns for a one-night-only engagement this holiday season at a different New York City landmark.

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine

This concert brings together improvisatory works by two of the most formidable composers of our time, Roscoe Mitchell and George Lewis. In the composer’s words, Lewis’s Artificial Life “[presents] a model of group improvisation as an emergent phenomenon arising from negotiation and local intelligence.” Mitchell’s “Cards from At 440 Oakwood Drive” are excerpted from an in-progress multi-movement work that is being composed for Emi Ferguson, Ruckus, and the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet as a co-commission with Metropolis Ensemble.  The “Cards” invite the performers into Mitchell’s language through unmeasured melodic and harmonic material, leaving the creation of the musical structure to the performers.

Ojai Dawns: Mitchell & Lewis

Besant Hill School

This program features the first Ojai Festival performance of music by Andrew McIntosh, one of Southern California’s most vital and distinctive musical voices. Pianists Conor Hanick and Matthew Aucoin and percussionists Jonny Allen and Mari Yoshinaga will perform McIntosh’s Little Jimmy, a 30-minute work inspired by a visit the composer made to a backpackers’ camp called Little Jimmy, located on Mt. Islip in the Angeles National Forest.

A cycle of mini-concertos commissioned by the Ojai Festival, Family Dinner aims to capture the raucous, joyful energy of a multi-course dinner with beloved friends. The music ranges from introspective to riotously dancelike; it is also punctuated by spoken “toasts” composed by writers and thinkers who are collaborators of AMOC’s artists.

Jonny Allen

Percussionist

Events

Dec 21, 2023

El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered in NYC · American Modern Opera Company

Dec 13, 2023

El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered · Stanford Live

11 - 16 Dec, 2023

El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered on Tour · American Modern Opera Company

Sep 22, 2023

Seven Pillars · Match

Jul 30, 2023

Music Box III · Bravo! Vail Music Festival

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