Events & Tickets
Special Event
PULSE: WHITE OUT AT NEW WORLD SYMPHONY
New World Center
It's a special WHITE OUT edition of Pulse: Late Night at the New World Symphony!
Back by popular demand, wear all white and embrace the evening's innovative musical experience and aesthetic as the New World Center transforms into a late-night lounge with club-style lighting and video. DJ Le Spam makes his anticipated return, trading sets with Fellows performing jazz by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Shostakovich, Gershwin, and world premieres by NWS alumnus Sam Hyken for DJ and orchestra!
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AFTER PARTY DETAILS
This is one night you won’t want to end! So, keep the party going at Hyde Beach at the SLS Hotel (1701 Collins Ave). Pulse ticketholders will have free admission and drink specials from midnight to 2:00 AM, courtesy of the SLS Hotel!
FRIENDS OF NWS
* Friends of NWS members with tickets to Pulse are invited to the special pre-concert cocktail on the rooftop of the New World Center, with complimentary cocktails and light bites. To join, visit nws.edu/friends.
COMPOSE YOUR OWN SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGE!
Choose this plus two more concerts to customize your own subscription. It’s the ultimate flexibility with all the subscriber benefits, including free exchanges when plans change! Click or call the NWS Box Office at 305.673.3331 to create your own series today.
Program
DJ SET 1: FEATURING DJ LE SPAM
Concluding with an original work by Sam Hyken.
ORCHESTRA SET 1:
JOHN ADAMS Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986)
(b. 1947)
HANS CHRISTIAN LUMBYE Excerpt from Copenhagen Railway Steam Galop (1847)
(1810-1874)
YI YIING CHEN Excerpt from It Ripples (2015)
(b. 1987)
JOHN WILLIAMS Flying Theme from E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982)
(b. 1932)
SERGEI PROKOFIEV March and Scherzo from The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33bis (1919)
(1891-1953)
GIOACHINO ROSSINI Excerpt from Overture to William Tell (1829)
(1792-1868)
JERRY GOLDSMITH/ Excerpt from Star Trek Through the Years
DENNIS MCCARTHY
(1929-2004) / (b. 1945)
Arranged by Calvin Custer
DJ SET 2: FEATURING DJ LE SPAM
Together with NWS Fellows and concluding with an original work by Sam Hyken.
ORCHESTRA SET 2:
LOUIS PRIMA “Sing, Sing, Sing” (1936)
(1910-1978)
Arranged by Teddy Abrams
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Polka from Jazz Suite No. 1 (1934)
(1906-1975)
DUKE ELLINGTON “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (1940)
(1899-1974)
Arranged by Calvin Custer “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (1931)
GEORGE GERSHWIN Excerpt from An American in Paris (1928)
(1898-1937)
SAM HYKEN Einfluss Revisited for DJ, Electric Guitar, Electric Keyboards and Orchestra (2019; world premiere of NWS commission)
(b. 1981)
Aaron Lebos, guitar; Jason Matthews, keyboard
CLOSING SET: FEATURING DJ LE SPAM
PROGRAM NOTES FOR ORCHESTRA SETS
ORCHESTRA SET 1:
JOHN ADAMS
Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986)
John Adams first made his mark writing in a minimalist vein indebted to Steve Reich and Philip Glass, but by the mid-1980s his expanding palette, filled with jazzy rhythms and kaleidoscopic orchestral colors, brought him to a new level of success that has never receded since. Short Ride in a Fast Machine arose from an invitation from NWS Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas to write a fanfare, John Adams explained in a video on his website. “Since I had recently taken a ride in a very fancy Italian sport car,” he recalled, “I had not yet recovered from that rather terrifying experience, and it was somewhat still on my brain when I began to think about what kind of fanfare I would write.” Adams described the piece’s steady pulse as “a rhythmic gauntlet through which the orchestra has to pass,” delineated throughout by the piercing click of a woodblock.
HANS CHRISTIAN LUMBYE
Excerpt from Copenhagen Railway Steam Galop (1847)
Taking inspiration from Johann Strauss I, the Danish composer H. C. Lumbye formed his own orchestra that delighted audiences in Copenhagen and beyond with his charming, colorful dances. The “Strauss of the North,” as he was known in his day, commemorated the opening of Denmark’s first railway line in 1847 with the Copenhagen Railway Steam Galop. That particular style of fast dance takes its name from the sound of a horse’s gait, but in this example the whistles, chugging percussion and even a conductor’s announcement evoke the wild ride of that original Odin steam locomotive racing across Denmark at a brisk 30 miles per hour.
YI YIING CHEN
Excerpt from It Ripples (2015)
Born in Taiwan and now based in Boston, the composer and pianist Yi Yiing Chen studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the New England Conservatory. Her time in New York inspired It Ripples, as she explained in a program note: “In the beginning, I tried to capture the sound I had become most familiar with in the first two years of living in the United States, the ‘music’ of the New York City subway. This ‘music’ started a journey for me every day that I have studied in the States since September 2010. This ‘music’ rumbles all through Manhattan and my daily life, yet at the same time my thoughts run along with it, both quietly and loudly, in ripples of the sound.”
JOHN WILLIAMS
Flying Theme from E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982)
It’s impossible to separate the emotion and adventure of Steven Spielberg’s best films—including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan—from the scores composed by his longtime collaborator John Williams, who has amassed (so far) an astonishing 51 Oscar nominations and five wins. What would E.T. be without the iconic Flying Theme?
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
March and Scherzo from The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33bis (1919)
Prokofiev, like so many other Russian artists and intellectuals, left his homeland in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. With World War I raging to the west, he traveled east through Siberia, Tokyo and Honolulu before entering the United States in San Francisco, where he was briefly suspected of being a spy. He struggled to restart his career in New York, but he did have some luck in Chicago, where he secured a commission to compose the opera known in English as The Love for Three Oranges. This offbeat fairy tale transpires in an imaginary kingdom, where a prince, sick from consuming too much tragedy, can only be cured by laughter. When he chuckles at the expense of a witch, she curses him with a “love for three oranges.” The March from Act II precedes an outdoor play intended to make the prince laugh; the Scherzo, from the third act, closes the scene in which the prince treks through the desert, cloaked by a storm, on his way to find the oranges (which actually conceal fairy princesses).
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Excerpt from Overture to William Tell (1829)
Gioachino Rossini, the greatest opera composer of his generation, dashed off an astounding 39 operas in 19 years, culminating in William Tell. The final section of the opera’s Overture, previewing music that appears later in a scene of victorious soldiers, is another example of a galop, that fast dance style based on the rhythmic striking of a horse’s hooves. (Technically the three-beat pattern corresponds to a horse’s canter, not a gallop.) This rousing excerpt vaulted to a new level of popular fame when it served as the theme music for The Lone Ranger.
JERRY GOLDSMITH / DENNIS MCCARTHY
Excerpt from Star Trek Through the Years
Arranged by Calvin Custer
Jerry Goldsmith created some of his most memorable scores for films that depict strange or distant places, including The Planet of the Apes and Alien. He proved incredibly adaptable in his long career, continually altering his compositional techniques, instrumental forces and use of technology to render his evocative sound worlds. His first attempt at the theme for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (a 1979 spinoff from the 1960s TV show) fell flat with the director, so Goldsmith started from scratch to strike just the right note of awe and wonder for music that first appears to accompany a sweeping view of the Starship Enterprise. Other portions of this concert suite come from Goldsmith’s score for the film sequel, Star Trek: Generations, as well as another television series, Star Trek: Voyager, with music written by Dennis McCarthy.
ORCHESTRA SET 2:
LOUIS PRIMA
“Sing, Sing, Sing” (1936)
Arranged by Teddy Abrams
In New Orleans, where there was a long tradition of music played by bands made up of brass, woodwinds and drums (including the “second line” music within funeral processions), black bandleaders like Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong brought the jagged rhythms and improvisatory flair of ragtime onto the bandstand, and what we know as jazz was born. White musicians soon gravitated to the same practices and capitalized on their greater market access, as was the case with Louis Prima, an Italian-American from New Orleans whose work as a singer, bandleader and composer tracked popular trends decade after decade, from swing band maestro in the 1930s to Las Vegas crooner in the 1960s. He wrote and recorded “Sing, Sing, Sing” in 1936, but it was the instrumental recording made the next year by clarinetist Benny Goodman and his band that most people know as the ultimate anthem of the swing years.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Polka from Jazz Suite No. 1 (1934)
Shostakovich supported himself as a teenaged conservatory student by playing piano for silent films, and he maintained a fun-loving and fruitful connection to popular music even after his concert career took off. He composed the first of his two suites for jazz orchestra in 1934, including this dainty riff on the polka dance with a smattering of “wrong” notes.
DUKE ELLINGTON
“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (1940)
“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (1931)
Arranged by Calvin Custer
From his first long-term gig at a Manhattan dance club in 1923 to his death in 1974, Duke Ellington used his perch as a bandleader and pianist to create a legendary catalog of songs and larger jazz compositions. Most of his tunes began as instrumental numbers to feature his band, with any lyrics added after the fact; such was the case with a 1940 song originally called “Never No Lament,” which became “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” when Bob Russell added lyrics two years later. Both an instrumental recording by Ellington’s band and a vocal cover by The Ink Spots topped the Billboard R&B charts in 1943. The lyrics for the 1931 classic “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” came from Ellington’s manager Irving Mills, a jazz-loving impresario who launched the young bandleader into the national limelight.
GEORGE GERSHWIN
Excerpt from An American in Paris (1928)
An American in Paris was George Gershwin’s first purely orchestral work without a soloist, and it both referenced and flaunted European concert music traditions. He wrote much of the music during several months he spent in Paris in 1928, and he orchestrated the score himself in time for the premiere that December in New York. In this jazzy tone poem, the “American” character is the star and Paris is second fiddle, providing a lively backdrop and context. This is especially true during the sultry trumpet solo in which, according to Gershwin, “our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café and having a couple of drinks, has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness.”
SAM HYKEN
Einfluss Revisited for DJ, Electric Guitar, Electric Keyboards and Orchestra (2016-19; world premiere of NWS commission)
Einfluss Revisted is a work for solo electric guitar, solo synthesizer, DJ and orchestra and was composed in collaboration with Andrew Yeomanson (DJ Le Spam). Einfluss, which is the German word for influence, demonstrates how inspiration and influence can often come from surprising places. This updated version of the 2016 Pulse commission Einfluss, incorporates both new and revised material, and features a synthesizer soloist.
The main motivic idea, which is based on the subject of Bach’s Contrapunctus I (from The Art of the Fugue), is presented fully in the work’s introduction, and appears in multiple variations throughout. The second section is inspired by elements of the music of the German electronic band Kraftwerk, with Bach’s motivic subject present in the melody of the strings, woodwinds and mallets. The third section, which draws influence from contemporary jazz music, begins to feature the guitarist whose melodic lines are doubled with the woodwind section. While still having a distinctly contemporary harmonic sound, the circle-of-fourths bass line progression is very prevalent in music of Bach. The fourth section serves as a showpiece for both the electric guitar and synthesizer, in written and improvised solos over new material and material from the previous section. The final section of the work draws influence from the style of the “Miami Booty Bass” music of the 1990s, which—surprising to some—draws influence from the German electronic sounds of groups like Kraftwerk. The work climaxes with Bach’s subject performed by the electric guitar, soaring over the sounds of “Miami Booty Bass” performed by the orchestra and DJ.
The New World Symphony commissioned this work for Pulse. This performance marks its world premiere.
-- Copyright © 2019 Aaron Grad
Aaron Grad is a composer, guitarist and writer based in Seattle. Besides providing program notes for the New World Symphony, he has been the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s program annotator since 2005 and also contributes notes to the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Seattle Symphony.
Dean Whiteside, conductor
Dean Whiteside was born in New York City and trained in Vienna at the University of Music and Performing Arts. He is in his third season as the New World Symphony’s Conducting Fellow, where he leads a variety of performances and serves as assistant to Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Mr. Whiteside is founder and director of the Nashville Sinfonietta, hailed by The Tennessean as “a virtuoso band.” He opened the Blair School of Music’s 2013-14 season directing a multimedia realization of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross called “innovative” by The Tennessean and “deeply meditative and satisfyingly original” by ArtsNash.
Mr. Whiteside’s European debut came in 2011 after winning the Jorma Panula Blue Danube Masterclass and Competition. He has conducted orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, Orlando Philharmonic, Polish Baltic Philharmonic, Sibiu Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Tokyo Philharmonic, Wiener Kammerorchester and Zagreb Philharmonic, as well as the Vanderbilt Orchestra on a five-city tour of China. He has served as Cover Conductor to the Dallas Symphony and San Francisco Symphony.
Mr. Whiteside is the winner of the American Prize in Conducting and received second prize and the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra Award at the Sixth International Competition of Young Conductors Lovro von Matačić. Other awards include the 2017 Mahler Conducting Fellowship, Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Conducting Scholarship, Croatian Composers' Society Award, David Effron Conducting Fellowship, Bayreuth Festival Scholarship and David Rabin Performance Prize. He has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Castleton Festival.
Mr. Whiteside has worked closely with such conductors as Bertrand de Billy, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Jun Märkl, Kurt Masur, Jorma Panula, Leonard Slatkin and Robert Spano. He began his conducting studies with Robin Fountain at Vanderbilt University.
DJ Le Spam
DJ Le Spam, also known as Andrew Yeomanson, was born in Montreal to an English father and Venezuelan mother. In his youth he moved with his family--to London, Tampa, Bogota, Toronto and finally Miami, which he has called home for the last 12 years. Mr. Yeomanson’s international upbringing certainly contributed to his musical career. Beneath it all is a talented musician with a love for exploring all types of music and bringing them together in new ways. He has experienced diverse musical offerings, studied them, and shared them with anyone interested in their history. His passion for music also led to the evolution of DJ Le Spam.
Mr. Yeomanson began his musical career in 1991 playing with a Haitian political roots group--Lavalas Band--with which he recorded one album. In 1993 he formed the Spam Allstars and began recording and gigging. In 1995 he had the opportunity to play guitar with Capitol recording artist Nil Lara and recorded and toured with him for three years.
Upon his return in 1998 Mr. Yeomanson began working with a pirate radio station that broadcast "beach radio" shows. The programs included half-hour improvised sets by the Spam Allstars using samples and live instruments in the studio. These performances segued nicely to the release of the Spam Allstars’ first CD, Pork Scratchings, in 1999.
The momentum had started, and with a grant from Miami Light Project, the Spam Allstars participated in the Here & Now festival. There were residencies at Snowhite's hip hop open-mike night faatland, Brandt's Break and weekly webcasts on eyeqradio.com.
By 2000 it was time to release the Spam Allstars’ follow-up CD, Pigs in Space. Simultaneously DJ Le Spam & the Spam Allstars began a residency at Lola Bar, and DJ Le Spam also had a residency at Pop Life. The audience was growing. They received a second grant from Miami Light Project for the 2000 Here & Now festival. DJ Le Spam worked with Brazilian choreographer Giovanni Luquini on the soundtrack for Flagrante Delicto, performed at the Colony Theater. It was also time to start thinking about expanding to other cities, and the Spam Allstars held a summer residency at Galapagos in Brooklyn.
In 2001 some local promoters approached DJ Le Spam to start a club night in Little Havana. They launched the party as Fuacata at Hoy Como Ayer on Calle Ocho (8th Street) in the heart of Little Havana. It became one of the most talked-about club nights in Miami, attracting a diverse crowd of Latins, Anglos, hip hop kids, artists, young and old. All were brought together by the music and dancing that moved them.
The Spam Allstars have appeared on Good Morning America, Mun2's The Roof, CBS This Morning, NPR's All Things Considered, CBS-4's Making of the Latin Grammys, NBC-6's Trendtrackers, and a variety of regional and international radio programs.
Other accomplishments for the Spam Allstars include developing music for the MIAMI HEAT; its selection as an ASCAP “emerging artist”; the Spam Allstars’ Ochimini feature on MTV's Advance Warning Compilation: Volume 5 Miami Edition; its feature in the NALAC/Galan Productions series Visiones: Latino Art & Culture on PBS; DJ Le Spam’s feature in Adidas' Bedroom Rockers book; and DJ Le Spam’s music for Giovanni Luquini's Performance Troupe's A Poem: the battle between fear and desire.
Over the years the band has welcomed several guests to its stage, including inspirational moments with percussionist Sammy Figueroa, Larry Harlow of Fania Allstars, John Medeski of Medeski Martin and Wood, Clarence Reed (also known as Blowfly), Page McConnell of Phish, the late Wildman Steve, various members of AntiBalas, Pee Wee Ellis of the JB Horns, Daddy Yankee, Jose Conde, Brimstone 127, Mr. Haka, Cabas and many other talented musicians.
Sam Hyken, composer
Sam Hyken has had a rich and diverse musical career, which has spanned the globe. Currently residing in Miami, Florida, he is in constant demand as a performer, producer and composer. Along with Jacomo Bairos, he is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Nu Deco Ensemble, Miami's Genre-Bending Orchestra. He also serves as CEO of the organization.
As a composer, Mr. Hyken's music has been commissioned by several symphony orchestras, such as the New World Symphony, National Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony, Asheville Symphony and Miami Symphony. Other ensembles who have performed his work include the San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Charleston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Amarillo Symphony, Phoenix Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolivar of Venezuela. From 2011-15, he was Composer-in-Residence with the Miami Symphony.
As a musical arranger and director, Mr. Hyken has been contracted by various artists, producers and ensembles to adapt and write new music, including Talib Kweli, Ben Folds, Pitbull, Bilal, Kishi Bashi, Monsieur Perine, Dirty Vegas, Magda Giannikou, Danay Suarez, Steven A. Clark, Brika, Tiara Thomas, Rico Love, Raquel Sofia, Leroy Sanchez, Jim Jonsin, Spam Allstars, Res, Afrobeta,Carmen Lundy, Jessie Murphy (of the Brazilian Girls), Glen Matlock (of the Sex Pistols) and the eclectic group ProjectTrio. He has also been commissioned by the Kansas City-based group Quixotic Fusion to write and arrange music for their debut performance of Symphonic Quixotic. Mr. Hyken has served as music director for The White Party 2014, events for Ferrari and FIFA, Art Basel at the W Hotel, New Years Eve at the Setai Hotel, as well many events of the Friends of the New World Symphony. He was also musical director and arranger for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's 1000th Random Act of Culture, featuring over 200 performers of multiple genres and mediums.
Mr. Hyken has been engaged as a trumpet soloist and orchestral musician since 1999. In 2004 he was appointed Associate Principal Trumpet of the Singapore Symphony, a position that he held for two years. From 2006-09, he was a member of the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. He was a member of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra and the UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra for five years touring and performing with such esteemed conductors as James Levine, Loren Maazel, Valerie Gergiev, Kurt Masur, Yuri Temirakanov, Christoph Donyani and Charles Dutoit. Mr. Hyken has also worked and performed with many Grammy Award-winning Artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, Belle and Sebastian, Arturo Sandoval, Jose Feliciano and Jose Carreras. He has also performed with ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Canadian Brass, American Brass Quintet and the London Symphony Orchestra Brass.
Mr. Hyken has been a conductor, teacher, performer, music arranger and scriptwriter for the Miami Music Project, which is a musical organization focusing on using music to promote social change. He has been on faculty at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami where he taught Pop Music Composition, Virtual Orchestration and Ear Training. He holds a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School, a post-graduate diploma with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London and a master's degree in Media Writing and Production from the University of Miami.
