Face the Music is the country’s only ensemble for kids, solely devoted to the creation and performance of classical music by living composers. Called a “force in the new music world” by The New York Times, Face the Music has grown, in eight years, from an after-school club of eight kids to a massive group of over 120 students from all over the tri-state area who convene every Sunday to practice and perform together. Under the direction of Dr. Jenny Undercofler , Face the Music performs between 20 and 35 concerts each season in venues around the city ranging from schools, to museums, to concert halls. Highlights from recent seasons include performances on the Bang On A Can Marathon, Ecstatic Music Festival, and the River to River Festival, opening for the Philip Glass Ensemble. Face the Music has collaborated with many professional artists, including most recently, the JACK Quartet, with whom we performed Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Face the Music has been broadcast multiple times on WNYC and WQXR and has been featured on All Things Considered. In 2011, Face the Music was honored with the ASCAP Aaron Copland Award. The 2013-14 season for Face the Music promises to be especially exciting – FTM will be collaborating with Kronos Quartet (the Kronos at Kaufman Program), Gutbucket, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and ThingNY; performing works by Huang Ruo (the world premiere of the chamber orchestra version of Lost Garden), Vijay Iyer, and Gregor Huebner (his violin and cello concerti, with FTM student soloists), and rolling out new works by no less than fourteen Face the Music player/composers.
85 Avenue A
between 5th and 6th St.
New York, NY
