Playing It UNsafe: Lab Workshop 5

Playing It UNsafe is the first and only professional research and development lab to support the creation of cutting-edge new American orchestral music through no-holds-barred experimentation, encouraging composers to do anything but “play it safe.”

The composers participating in Playing It UNsafe are Sean Friar, Joan La Barbara, Laura Schwendinger and Henry Threadgill. They were selected from a national search for their willingness to experiment and stretch their own musical sensibilities, along with their ability to test the limits of the orchestra. Playing It UNsafe grew out of ACO’s ongoing mission to commission and perform new music that expands the range of possibilities for – and challenges conventional notions about – orchestral music.

Playing It UNsafe is a season-long initiative that includes a unique incubation process of laboratory workshops, public readings and collaborative feedback. Audiences can hear the composers’ works-in-progress at this opening lab workshop. ACO music director, George Manahan, conducts.

This is the final workshop, so this is the last opportunity for curious listeners to follow the collaborative process as each piece develops. The project culminates in a Playing It UNsafe premiere concert on March 4, 2011 at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall.

For more about Playing It UNsafe: http://www.americancomposers.org/unsafe/