NEXUS announces Zwilich Commission Premiere Date

NEXUS, the internationally acclaimed percussion group based in Toronto, is pleased to announce the premiere of a new commissioned work for percussion and chamber orchestra by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. ‘We are absolutely delighted with this musical collaboration,’ exclaims NEXUS member Bill Cahn. ‘We expect that this will be an important event for the music world – especially to anyone having an interest in contemporary music featuring percussion.’ Commissioned by the IRIS Orchestra, NEXUS, Kathleen Holt & Stephen Lurie, the Pearl Corporation and Adams Musical Instruments, the new work will receive it’s premiere performance at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre in Tennessee, the home of the IRIS Orchestra, on March 6, 2004.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Widely considered to be one of America’s leading composers, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was born in Miami, Florida in 1939. She studied at the Florida State University and The Juilliard School where her major teachers were Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter. Zwilich is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award), the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, the Ernst von Dohnanyi Citation, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and 4 Grammy nominations.

NEXUS & Michael Stern

The artistic association between NEXUS and Michael Stern can be traced back to performances together with the symphony orchestras of Buffalo and Rochester (NY) in the 1970s and 80s. In September 1998 they collaborated in performances of Toru Takemitsu’s ‘From me flows what you call Time’ in Germany and France with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The IRIS Orchestra

The IRIS Orchestra presented its inaugural concert under Michael Stern on September 19, 2000, and right from the start, it dedicated itself to supporting music by American composers, with visionary plans to commission at least one new American work each year.