BREATH AND PULSE
ABOUT
New World Symphony Fellows perform Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, the 1976 minimalist work that blurs boundaries between pop, classical and world music. A favorite of David Bowie, this piece is cued by different leaders within the ensemble and has meditative psychoacoustic effects throughout its cycles. Accompanied by expansive visuals created by Badie Khaleghian projected on the sails of the Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall, the warm pulsating resonance of this tour de force chamber work is not to be missed.
Inside the Music presentations are NWS BLUE Projects. Standing for Build, Learn, Understand and Experiment, the NWS BLUE program is a combination of leadership and entrepreneurship training and hands-on experimentation that provides Fellows with a comprehensive skill set to complement their musical training.
ARTISTS
Badie Khaleghian, multimedia artist
Ted Atkatz, guest artist and NWS percussion alum
Ted Atkatz is a renowned performer, educator, recording artist and composer. He is the former Principal Percussionist and Assistant Timpanist of the Chicago Symphony. He now resides in Los Angeles, where he is the Director of Percussion Studies at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University at Long Beach. He also is the Director of the Percussion Department at the Colburn School and is the Director of the Colburn Contemporary Ensemble. His non-profit organization, The Ted Atkatz Percussion Seminar (TAPS), has been held around the world, and this past summer hosted the TAPS LA Music Festival with public performances around the Los Angeles area.
His college studies began at Boston University and then New England Conservatory (NEC), where he studied with members of the Boston Symphony. After receiving a master’s degree at NEC, Ted went on to Temple University to study with Alan Abel of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Prior to winning his position in Chicago, he was a Fellow of the New World Symphony in 1997.
As an active studio musician, Ted has performed on over 70 motion picture soundtracks, including Frozen, The Jungle Book and Star Wars Episode IX. He has performed with the Atlanta Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony and Santa Barbara Symphony. He is also an active singer and songwriter. Ted's band NYCO has released three albums: Two (2005), Realize (2008) and Future Imperfect (2012). NYCO performed with the Alabama Symphony in 2018.
Molly Turner, BLUE project leader and piano
Molly Turner is currently the Conducting Fellow at the New World Symphony, where she leads the orchestra in subscription, family, education and holiday concerts. Recently, she has conducted the Orchestre de Paris, San Francisco Symphony, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn, Juilliard Orchestra and Dallas Opera Orchestra. She has served as an assistant conductor for the Berliner Philharmoniker, Orchestre de Paris, National Polish Radio Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Utah Symphony and San Diego Symphony.
Pursuing projects outside of conducting is a core part of her artistic identity. In 2021 Molly performed an open improvisation set on violin alongside Pablo O’Connell, Kebra-Seyoun Charles and Ryan Jung in an Alice Tully Hall window performance. While a Teaching Artist Fellow at Juilliard, she was involved in composing an improvisatory work that used K-8 student “found sound” recordings as source material. From 2017-19 was the artistic director for New Art/New Music at the Moody Center for the Arts, where she worked with composers and visual artists to curate a concert of new works that were site-specific to current exhibitions. In 2017 she played viola in an improvisatory performance alongside visual artist Angelbert Metoyer, poet Saul Williams and other musicians openly improvising.
She completed her master’s degree in conducting at The Juilliard School, where she studied with David Robertson and bachelor’s degree in music composition from Rice University. She also received an artist diploma at the Colburn Conservatory, where she worked with Esa-Pekka Salonen. In her free time, she enjoys biking, Ultimate Frisbee, film photography and reading.
