Wahnfried, Aspen, and New Orleans: Fall 2025 Updates
Dear friends, colleagues, and fellow music lovers,
I’ve decided to start a short quarterly newsletter — a way of keeping in touch, sharing news, and announcing upcoming concerts.
First, my new website has launched! There’s still some cleanup to be done, but you’ll already find much better information about my works, performances, and recordings:
Recent Highlights
This summer I was fortunate to attend some extraordinary performances of my music.
In June, my opera Wahnfried was staged in the UK for the first time at the Longborough Festival. It was a joy to return to the piece and to work again with Justin Brown, who commissioned and conducted the world premiere in 2017. Justin and I spent over a year preparing a new piano reduction and improving the performance materials for this production. The result was a powerful staging, directed by Polly Graham with a terrific cast. The reviews were fantastic, including coverage in The Times, The Guardian, and many other publications. On a personal note, I was very glad to share the week with my daughter in the English countryside.
Another highlight was the performance of my double violin concerto, A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance, at the Aspen Music Festival. It was wonderful to finally visit Aspen and to collaborate again with Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony. The conductor and ensemble were excellent, and the whole experience reminded me how special it is to reconnect with long-time collaborators and work with excellent young musicians.
Looking Ahead
This fall will bring the world premiere of New Orleans Mix, performed by Ensemble 4.1 at the Harvard Musical Association in Boston. I’ve had the privilege of working with this ensemble for years — they’ve performed Jerusalem Mix dozens of times — and the new work is a kind of sequel. Writing it meant diving into musical traditions I hadn’t explored much before, which made the process both challenging and inspiring.
Also coming up:
- Trio Colores will tour In Flux (triple percussion concerto) with the Jugendsinfonie Orchester Zürich performing it in four cities in Germany and Switzerland.
- Frozen in Time will be performed by Vivi Vassileva with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie , including concerts at the Konzerthaus in Vienna and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
- Tanyaderas will be featured on two concerts at the Enescu Festival by the Berlin Academy of American Music conducted by Garrett Keast.
Thank you for reading, and for your continued support. I hope to see you at a performance soon.
Warmly,
Avner
www.avnerdormanmusic.com
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Recent Highlights
-
A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance
: Concerto for Two Violins and Strings
(2025)
· Details
- A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance — August 26, 2025 ; Arts Center Concert Hall (Seoul) — Gil Shaham, Adele Anthony and Sejong Soloists · More info
+3 more in last 6 months -
Wahnfried
(2016)
· Details
- Wahnfried — June 14, 2025 ; Longborough Festival Opera (Longborough) — LFO Cast & Orchestra conducted by Justin Brown, directed by Polly Graham
+4 more in last 6 months
Upcoming Performances
- Tanyaderas — September 14, 2025 at 10:30 PM ; Romanian Atheneum (Bucharest) — Berlin Academy of American Music conducted by Garrett Keast at the George Enescu Festival · More info
- Frozen in Time — October 1, 2025 ; Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) — Vivi Vassileva and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky · More info
- New Orleans Mix — October 17, 2025 at 7:00 PM ; Harvard Musical Association (Boston, MA) — Ensemble 4.1: Thomas Hoppe (piano), Jörg Schneider (oboe), Alexander Glücksmann (clarinet), Christoph Knitt (bassoon), Sebastian Posch (horn) · More info
- In Flux — October 21, 2025 at 8:00 PM ; Tonhalle (Zurich) — Trio Colores and the Jugendsinfonie Orchester Zürich conducted by David Bruchez-Lalli
Spotlight Work
New Orleans Mix — Oboe, Clarinet in Bb, Bassoon, Horn in F, Piano
New Orleans Mix is an homage to the spirit, history, and sonic identity of the city. It is not an attempt to replicate or imitate the music of this extraordinary place, but rather a personal response—an act of admiration and reinterpretation from the perspective of an outsider deeply moved by its c…