Donnacha Dennehy leads workshop for composers in New York with Dawn Upshaw

Next week, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, in partnership with The Bard College Conservatory of Music, will present a Professional Training Workshop led by soprano Dawn Upshaw and composer Donnacha Dennehy. In this intensive seven-day workshop beginning April 11, the duo will mentor four composers and ten singers on the collaboration between composer and performer in creating new vocal music. The participants will preview their new works for voice and ensemble in a Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in Queens on Saturday, April 16, and premiere them in Zankel Hall on Sunday, April 17. The ensemble will be conducted by Alarm Will Sound's artistic director, Alan Pierson.

Carnegie Hall commissioned four young composers—Shawn Jaeger, Aviya Kopelman, Christopher Mayo, and Shen Yiwen—to write new voice and ensemble works for selected singers, three chosen by audition and seven from The Bard College Conservatory of Music graduate program in vocal arts, where Dawn Upshaw is artistic director. She and Dennehy mentored these musicians through the collaborative compositional process, leading up to these premiere performances.

For more information on the workshop's public events, visit www.carnegiehall.org.