Conductor Scott Stickley (left) and Jay Greenberg (center) in rehearsal with the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York
Greenberg's Skyline
The Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York will debut Jay Greenberg's Skyline Dances — A Terpsichorean Couplet at Carnegie Hall on June 7. Scott Stickley will conduct.
"It consists of two complementary, symphonic-length movements (hence, a 'couplet'), one slow, one fast, for large orchestra," Greenberg writes of his work. "While it has no extramusical or programmatic associations, it is linked in my mind to the city of New York itself and its position as a center for creative works of all kinds."
Though Skyline Dances is absolute music, in his note for the piece Greenberg recounts a police sergeant's description of New York creativity by a "dancer": the tightrope walker Philippe Petit's 45 minutes between the World Trade Center towers in August 1974.
I observed the tightrope 'dancer' — because you couldn't call him a 'walker' — approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire.Next season, the work travels across the country for its regional premieres. Louisville Youth Orchestra, Vermont Youth Orchestra, and Youth Orchestras of San Antonio joined Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York in the commissioning consortium for Skyline Dances.
Greenberg is currently at work on a commission from the New York City Ballet, to be premiered in spring 2010.
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