Performances & Events

Artis—Naples is pleased to announce its participation in the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot Readings this spring. The Naples Philharmonic joins American Composers Orchestra, the Atlanta and Dallas symphony orchestras, and The Next Festival of Emerging Artists, among this season’s participating ensembles, with reading sessions at Artis—Naples taking place on May 15 and 16, 2023. Tickets are free, but required, for the EarShot Reading on May 16 at 7pm, and available for reservation now. EarShot is the first ongoing, systematic program for developing relationships between composers and orchestras on the national level. Through orchestral readings, CoLABoratory fellowships, consortium commissions and professional development, EarShot ensures a vibrant musical future by investing in creativity today. EarShot Readings include a series of readings of composer’s works, feedback sessions and work with mentor composers. Composers also receive a recording of their work. Feedback sessions with principal players and artistic leaders provide crucial artistic, technical and conceptual assistance. Created by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), these sessions are operated in partnership with the American Composers Forum, New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras, providing composers with professional working experiences with orchestras from every region of the country. Each season, ACO plans one EarShot Reading in New York City with its own musicians and multiple readings around the country. Three young female composers will have their works workshopped and performed at Artis— Naples by the Naples Philharmonic, led by Associate Conductor Radu Paponiu, in May: Mengmeng Wang, whose works have been performed around the world, served as composer-in-residence at Atlantic Center of the Arts in 2018. She has also worked with the Shanghai Opera Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Dal Niente and International Contemporary Ensemble. Her EarShot Reading composition is entitled Onomatopoeia – The Architecture of Sound. Jing Jing Luo is a multifaceted artist whose works span various genres, from classical and film to pop and sound installations. She was a visiting professor in music composition at Oberlin Conservatory and has served on the panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music of America and Ohio Arts Council, as well as taught and lectured throughout the United States and around the world. Her EarShot Reading composition is entitled Hakka. Meilina Tsui writes music that uniquely combines elements of Central and East Asian cultures, and her work has been performed and read across Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East by leading soloists, ensembles and orchestras, garnering many accolades, including the 2022 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Her EarShot Reading composition is entitled Scenes at the Uralsk Fair from Nomadic Trails for Orchestra. The mentors for this reading session with the Naples Philharmonic will be Molly Joyce, a composer and performer whose work focuses on disability as a creative source, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and ACO board member Melinda Wagner. Following the reading session in May, Artis—Naples will commission a new work from one of the three EarShot Readings composers for the Naples Philharmonic to give the world premiere in a subsequent season. This EarShot Readings program at Artis—Naples is made possible by the van Bergen Women Composers Fund, which was a special fund initiated by the Artis—Naples Board of Directors in celebration of CEO and President Kathleen van Bergen’s 10-year anniversary at the organization in September 2021.