2020 Season

Artistic engagement amidst a pandemic

Although the COVID pandemic forced PS21 to cancel its Spring 2020 season, our unique open-air Pavilion Theater and 100 acres of rolling hills and meadows permitted us to reopen in mid-July for an abridged summer season in mid-July of live and live-streamed performances for socially distanced audience.

In addition to the New York State premiere of John Luther Adams’s Ten Thousand Birds, the summer’s programs included Modern Music Fest, performances by musicians who also enjoyed short-term artistic residencies to help compensate for the loss of income and exposure to audiences necessitated by pandemic restrictions.

Each Modern Music Fest program comprised a pair of short, stand-alone concerts, featuring works from rich, adventurous repertoires, which bookended the artists’ residencies on our campus. We also succeeded in hosting additional artists’ residencies that were already part of our planned season, including Edisa Weeks and her company, DELIRIOUS Dances, who developed 3 Rites, an interactive theatrical exploration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in America and how these rights are manifested in the body.

Safe programming for children and families included Follow Me Into the Field, adapted from Ten Thousand Birds by director Ashley Tata and performed by Alarm Will Sound’s musicians along PS21’s trails and fields and in adjoining Crellin Park. We were also able to address the isolation of the elderly during this period, by continuing the “Sharing Stories” program for the residents of the Whittier Assisted Living facility in Ghent.

SEASON HIGHLIGHTS: TEN THOUSAND BIRDS; FOLLOW ME INTO THE FIELD

Alarm Will Sound performed the New York State premiere of John Luther Adams’s exploration of the interconnections of nature and music, inspired by the varieties of birdsong over the course of a day. Additionally, Alarm Will Sound’s musicians, directed by Ashley Tata, led a free, socially distanced musical tour of the PS21/Crellin Park landscape. Follow Me Into The Field, as in Ten Thousands Birds, featured instrumental music transmuted into natural sounds, birdsong into music, and fields and meadows into artistic space. Presented as part of PATHWAYS.

Essential Cinema: Two Film Series: Firefighters Select and Artists’ Choice

Firefighters Select In recognition of the contributions and sacrifices of first responders, PS21 invited members of local fire companies and other first responders to select films. The films included Catnip Nation (2019), selected by Chatham Rescue, Ladder 49 (2004), selected by TriVillage Fire Company, World Trade Center (2006), selected by Philmont Fire Company; Wages of Fear (1953), selected by Chatham Fire Department; The Wizard of Oz, selected by East Chatham Fire Company; Deepwater Horizon (2016), selected by West Lebanon Fire Department; and The Firemen’s Ball (1967), selected by PS21.

Artists’ Choice films are works that illustrate how films have inspired the arts. They included I Knew Her Well (1965), selected by Joan Juliet Buck; Diabolique (1955), selected by Francine Prose; Tokyo Story (1953), selected by Ian Buruma; A Hard Day’s Night (1964), selected by Winsome Brown; The Philadelphia Story (1940), selected by Brian Cox; and Do The Right Thing (1989), selected by Nicole Ansari.

The 2020 Season

Summer

JULY 17 Sandbox Percussion
(Modern Music Fest) Leading proponents of contemporary percussion chamber music, the quartet (Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum and Terry Sweeney) performed works by Andy Akiho, Amy Beth Kirsten, Nick DiBerardino, Julia Wolfe, Julius Eastman, and Steve Reich.
JULY 24 Calidore String Quartet
(Modern Music Fest) The winners of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition celebrated their tenth anniversary and the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with concerts of the Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130; Grosse Fugue, Op. 133; String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135; and Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5.
AUGUST 6 Follow Me Into the Field
Alarm Will Sound’s musicians, directed by Ashley Tata, led a free, socially distanced musical tour of the PS21/Crellin Park landscape. As in Ten Thousands Birds, instrumental music was transmuted into natural sounds, birdsong into music, and fields and meadows into artistic space. Part of PATHWAYS.
AUGUST 7 Ten Thousand Birds
Alarm Will Sound performed the New York State premiere of John Luther Adams’s exploration of the interconnections of nature and music, inspired by the varieties of birdsong over the course of a day.
AUGUST 21 Timo Andres
(Modern Music Fest) The multi-faceted composer-pianist perform a daring program of three musical responses to violence and exploitation: Aaron Copland's "Piano Sonata," Frederic Rzewski's "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," and his own "Old Ground."
AUGUST 22 Adam Tendler
(Modern Music Fest) The exuberant champion of new music displayed the range of his musical enthusiasms in a program of works by John Cage, Christopher Cerrone, Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly, John Glover, Darian Donovan Thomas, Frederic Rzewski, and Philip Glass.
AUGUST 28 Miranda Cuckson
(Modern Music Fest) Celebrated for the warmth and humanity she imparts to a vast violin and viola repertory that spans centuries, Cuckson’s solo concert presented J. S. Bach: Sonata No. 2 in A minor, Elliott Carter: Statement - Remembering Aaron, Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 9 for violin and electronic sounds, and Pierre Boulez: Anthèmes.
AUGUST 29 Conor Hanick
(Modern Music Fest) Praised for the technical refinement, color, and crispness of his playing, Hanick performed Galina Ustvolskaya’s Six Piano Sonatas, works that “push the pianist to physical and emotional limits” and impart an “almost mystical experience . . . for both performer and listener.” (Gabrielle Cornish, The New York Times)
SEPTEMBER 4 Conrad Tao
(Modern Music Fest) The virtuoso pianist, recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, performed a mesmerizing rendition of Frederic Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated! thirty-six variations on the Chilean workers' anthem "¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!" written by Sergio Ortega during the presidency of Salvador Allende. The solo piano work requires staggering virtuosity, extended techniques, and unflagging concentration.
SEPTEMBER 6–12 D-CELL
David Michalek’s hybrid of exhibition and performance, an encounter with deceleration in dance and visual art. Premiering at PS21, D-CELL utilized PS21’s architecture, grounds, and trails as a media canvas, with dancers from BodySonnet, Peridance, Gallim, and the Martha Graham Dance Company performing decelerated sequences on sand-covered raised platforms throughout the landscape. The Neave Trio accompanied the performances with works by Morton Feldman, whose compositions “seldom rise above a whisper . . . glacially slow and snowily soft” (Alex Ross, the New Yorker).
SEPTEMBER 18–20 Field Notes: Outdoor Dances for This 21st Century
Choreographer and director Catherine Galasso created the site specific work for four dancers with her frequent collaborators Doug LeCours, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Tara Sheena, and Meg Weeks. Performed in PS21’s apple orchards, Field Notes is Galasso’s fourth chapter in her Of Iron and Diamonds series, inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron.
JULY 16–AUGUST 27 Firefighters Select
Film screenings
AUGUST 17–SEPTEMBER 28 Artists’ Choice
Film screenings