The PRISM Quartet is pleased to offer Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, a new concerto grosso for saxophone quartet and orchestra by the renowned American composer Steven Mackey, commissioned with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Presser Foundation, Meet the Composer and the National Endowment for the Arts. AVM, which represents Mackey’s third concerto grosso and his first work for saxophone quartet, is approximately 25 minutes in length and is available for the 2007-08 season. Engagement inquiries may be directed to Joanne Rile of Rile Artists Management at (215) 885-6400.

This collaboration is particularly unique, as Mackey has created an alternate chamber music version for saxophone quartet alone. PRISM gave the world premiere of this version of AVM in November 2004 at New York City’s Symphony Space, followed by performances in Philadelphia and Ann Arbor (see concerts page).

Steven Mackey’s work demonstrates a fascination with and respect for American vernacular culture and fuses a stunning breadth of musical influences. Mackey’s idiom, a multi-layered world of rhythm and sonority, draws its expanded harmonic palette from western art music, its wit and vivacity from the imaginative transformation of popular music elements.

His many commissions to date—among them works for the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Kronos Quartet, the Borromeo String Quartet, Bill Frisell and Joey Baron, and cellist Fred Sherry—blend classical forms with innovative sonic textures. Mackey’s orchestral works display consummate skill in their handling of instrumental color and texture. Of the world premiere of Tilt by the American Composers Orchestra in 1992, Tim Page of Newsday wrote: “One was reminded of a radio caught between frequencies: timbres bang and shimmer, there are arpeggios and teasing references to musical cliches, and despite some occasional violent fortissimos, the mood throughout is lithe, subtle and more than a little playful. Anything can happen—and most of it does.”

The Mackey commission builds on the PRISM Quartet’s previous success in presenting a concerto grosso by Pulitzer Prize winner William Bolcom. Since the world premiere of Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in October 2000, PRISM has performed the work to critical acclaim and packed houses with 18 orchestras, including the Cleveland and Dallas Symphony Orchestras.

To Participate
Engagements to perform Mackey’s new concerto grosso with the PRISM Quartet, or to present the chamber version of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, can be secured through Joanne Rile Artists Management, 215-885-6400 phone, joanner@rilearts.com.

Because the PRISM Quartet is a roster artist of Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour (PennPAT), orchestras and presenters in the ten-state mid-Atlantic region (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands) are eligible to apply for grants to fund up to 50% of PRISM’s artist fees. For more information, visit www.pennpat.org, or contact Katie West, Director of Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour at 215-496-9424.

Steve Mackey Biography (download full bio)
Steven Mackey (b. 1956) has established himself as one of the most gifted and original American composers to emerge during the 1990s. His early training in performance was as a classical and electric guitarist and Baroque lutenist. His studies culminated in a Ph.D. in composition from Brandeis University. Mackey is now Professor of Music at Princeton University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985.

As a composer, Mackey has been honored by numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, two awards from the Kennedy Center for the performing arts and in 1995 he was given the Stoeger Proze for Chamber Music by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His Indigenous Instruments was selected to represent the U.S. at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1990. Mackey has been the composer in residence at numerous music festivals and will be the featured composer at the 2003 Holland festival in Amsterdam. Among his commissions are works for the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Kronos Quartet, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Fromm Foundation, the Borromeo String Quartet, Bill Frisell and Joey Baron, and cellist Fred Sherry. Mackey’s monodrama, Ravenshead for tenor/actor (Rinde Eckert) and electro-acoustic band/ensemble (the Paul Dresher Ensemble), has been performed nearly one hundred times and is available on CD. In a year-end wrap up of cultural events, USA today crowned the work “Best New Opera of 1998.”

Over the past decade Mackey has increased his performance activities. Since 1998, he has performed Deal for guitar and large chamber ensemble many times throughout Europe and the U.S. In April 2000, he gave the premiere of Tuck and Roll, a concerto for electric for guitar and orchestra, with Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony with subsequent performances in San Francisco at the American Mavericks Festival. In 2002, Mackey will tour Europe with The British ensemble Psappha in an all Mackey program.

In September of 2001, BMG/RCA released Mackey’s first orchestral disc with the New World Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas called Tuck and Roll. The disc includes Tuck and Roll, Eating Greens, and Lost and Found. The Brentano Quartet recorded a CD of Mackey’s string quartet music for Arabesque Records in 2002. His music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

For Steve Mackey's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
concerto grosso orchestral engagements or
quartet-only recital engagements:
Joanne Rile Artists Management
801 Old York Road, Noble Plaza, Suite 212
Jenkintown, PA 19046-1611
215-885-6400 phone
215-885-9929 fax
joanner@rilearts.com